Sharing -- A Personal Experience

April 14, 2002

OPENING WORDS:

This morning I am very privileged and honored to be giving this service. I am Max Russell, a member of this church since 1984 and before that I was a member of the Andover UU for 20 Years. I am also a member of the church choir, the old tenor who often sings off-key, but they still love me. I am a member of the Sabbatical Committee, that's why I am here -it's nice to invite yourself.

You may know of me as owner and operator of Russell Orchards in Ipswich for the last 23 years. Fortunately for you, I will not be talking about farming, a subject dear to my heart, but an important part of my worship message. This morning I will address my volunteer work at Habitat for Humanity in Americus Georgia, where I have spent my winter months, December though March, for the last eight years. It is good to be together. WELCOME!

PRAYER, MEDITATION AND MUSIC:

Open our hearts and mind to Prayer and silent meditation.
Let us be at peace with our bodies and minds. Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.
Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all and to living things.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion - towards ourselves and towards all living beings.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, and of the sufferings that are going on around us, let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.
Let us have a moment of deep silence to search our hearts and our minds.

READINGS OF JOYS AND CONCERNS:

I have a joy: This church has been very fortunate over the years -- to be exact: 38 years -- to hear and enjoy some wonderful organ preludes, offertories, anthems, postludes, special music, and choral anthems under the direction of Barbara Owen. We have a great organ, but we have an even greater organist. As a member of the choir and the church, I would like to personally thank Barbara for the excellent performances! I will miss you!

READINGS:

For my reading I have selected several excerpts from an address by Millard Fuller, President and founder of Habitat For Humanity International, given at the UN Habitat II conference in Istanbul in 1996. And this is what he had to say:

The task at hand -namely to assure adequate shelter and livable, sustainable communities that nurture and enhance life rather than demeaning and destroying it -- is too big, too daunting to leave any potential ally standing idly on the sidelines. Every such potential ally from whatever realm, governmental or otherwise, should be encouraged to make the maximum contribution possible to help alleviate the suffering of our fellow human beings who are languishing in miserable living conditions. We can ill afford the luxury of leaving any of them on the sidelines of our noble struggle to provide adequate shelter for all.

Habitat for Humanity is certainly not on the sidelines. We are engaged. At work. Driving nails. Putting up walls. Capping off roofs. Developing communities. Building people -- in two thousand locations in more than forty nations around the world. And we are together. Habitat for Humanity feels a kinship with United Nations Habitat. Actually we started together. Our common journey began in 1976. I was returning to the United States with my family from three years of building houses for the needy families in Zaire, Africa. I remember listing to Voice of America broadcasts of the Habitat 1 conference in Vancouver, Canada. The word Habitat was not used much in those days. It was not vogue. But I was intrigued by the word and by its inclusive and full-bodied meaning in regard to human settlements.

We build and renovate houses with volunteer labor and, wherever possible, donated materials. We require that the homeowners work on their own houses. We call this sweat equity. We require homeowners to pay for their houses. We call this self-empowerment and self-help. We keep the houses affordable by not making any profit and not charging interest. The payments we receive are placed in a Fund for Humanity and recycled to pay for building more houses.

We minister to the poor, but also to the rich. We give them hope. We offer the rich a way to share their wealth. To be partners with the poor and to see the tangible, visible results of their generosity and compassion. Habitat for Humanity has built the bridge. The wealthy people of this world can cross this bridge to reach the poor and become partners with them. And the poor can cross the bridge, too, giving back with their house payments, modest donations, ideas, and volunteer work.

MESSAGE: Sharing -- A Personal Experience

I was a little undecided as to how to prepare this message. My first though was to use Biblical references and quotations -for that is what Habitat for Humanity is all about- a Christian Ministry. I would have found it very difficult, since my beliefs are very different, so I decided to tell it in my own words like it is.

But first I want to give you a little personal background as to where I come from spiritually. I was born in the outskirts of Flint, Michigan, fifth of a family of six. We eventually moved to Otisville, a very small farming town, a little north of Flint. My father was the local fixit man and blacksmith as was his father was before him. My father also built several low-income houses in Otisville during my high school and college days. I felt that I was very fortunate and learned a lot of skills as a young boy.

These skills turned out to be of great benefit to me over the years. This winter I read Jimmy Carter's recent book "An Hour Before Daylight," about his childhood in rural Georgia. (I highly recommend it). My childhood years were not unlike Jimmy Carter's. There are a few exceptions: he lived in a segregated world with lots of poverty around him. I was not aware of any race problems or poverty in my community, being a small town we knew everyone. I went to a very small school, with a graduating class of 12 students. Yet I had an opportunity to go to college and yes, like Jimmy Carter I had a teacher (Miss Kimball) who always pushed me on and helped with my college entrance applications. Although it was a junior college, I did well and was able to move on to larger college, and acquired an aeronautical engineering degree and a job in the aerospace industry. After 28 years in this field I retired and purchased a farm in Ipswich.

I feel truly blessed that I had the opportunities, and made use of them. How many people in this world have the opportunities, like I have had, to do what they really want and to live in a decent home. Over half of the world, including many areas in the United States, would love to have had my humble life. We Americans, particularly from the north, are very fortunate; many people in rest of the world live in total despair and extensive poverty with little or no hope to pull themselves out. As Millard Fuller says, "If only they had a decent home to live in it would help." It does make a difference!!! So at the ripe young age of 60, I decided that I had to give back some of the blessings I have had and to help others. The question was where could I best be used? I decided on Habitat For Humanity. I was acquainted with the work that Jimmy Carter was doing, as I am sure all of you are aware. What President Carter could do, I was certain I could do.

My decision to work for Habitat was not a long drawn out affair. In fact I would like to say I had a calling, you know like Noah, YES LORD YOU WANT ME TO GO TO AMERICUS GEORGIA AND BUILD HOUSES, hammer nails, paint walls, dig foundations, poor concrete with other volunteers from around the world who know nothing about building houses "you have got to be kidding me" and "I am a farmer what I need is rest, not more work."

Maybe I did have a calling, who knows. What really happened was that I got stressed out at the farm, coupled with major difficulties with family members; I had to get out of Ipswich quickly. Now, I am not one to go sight seeing, beach bathing or sun worshiping, I like to keep busy. I had to leave quickly, so I called Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Georgia and said I was coming down for 4 months and would be there in one week. They hesitated a little and did not know if they had housing, I said I did not need housing; I would sleep in my van. After a little more conversation with a few other individuals they seemed to want me. So on November 13, 1994 I left for Americus Georgia with a van full of tools, clothes, and a sleeping bag. I have just returned (March 9th) after my eighth wonderful year, doing what I could do to build houses for the less fortunate people.

I would like now to give you a little history of Habitat For Humanity International. First of all I would like to clarify a misconception of who runs Habitat-not Jimmy Carter as a lot of people believe. President Carter is probably the best volunteer and PR person that Habitat has. But he did not found Habitat nor does he have anything to do with the operation. He sponsors a major building project every year since1984, the first being in New York City with himself, Roselynn (his wife) and 48 other volunteers mostly from Americus and Plains, who traveled by bus to NY to help rehab an old tenement in Brooklyn. And I may add, he lived with the volunteers during the rehab. Last year he and Roselynn (who is at the building projects every year, with hammer in her hand) worked with 10,000 volunteers from all over the world, in South Korea, where over lli homes were built in one week, ready to move into. In addition to the Carter Projects, Habitat sponsors two-week work projects all over the world. I plan to go on one this July to Cluj, Romania. I would encourage you to look into these projects in lieu of or in combination with our regular vocation, you will come back rested and inspired. Also look into the local affiliates (Cape Ann, Haverhill and Lawrence) they always need volunteer help. I have left copies of Habitat Global Projects and other information in the church vestibule and Parish Hall.

The real leaders and founders of Habitat For Humanity Ministry are Linda and Millard Fuller. The story of their struggle with their personal life and in building this Christian ministry is extensive and well documented by Millard in many books he has written over the last 25 years. Millard and his college friend Moss Dees ( cofounder of Southern Law Poverty Center), both very successful lawyers, were business partners in a marketing company. They soon became multimillionaires and part of the rat race that that encompassed. In order to save their marriage, Millard and Linda decided to give away all of their money and become Christian missionaries, first at Koinonia, a small Christian integrated community, near Americus Georgia, under the direction of Clarence Jordan, their mentor. Perhaps you have heard of Clarence Jordan's cotton patch bibles (note the quotation in the Order of Service) and the troubles that occurred during the 50's and 60's, where he was shot at, burned out and almost put out of business by the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups. Linda and Millard moved to Zaire Africa for three years where he found that building a decent home made the people very grateful and it changed their lives, giving them a better outlook for the future. They found that, with volunteer help, leaving only the cost of materials for the homeowner to pay for over a long period, interest free, they had a new start on life. With this encouragement he returned to Koinonia and founded Habitat For Humanity. Habitat comes from the UN organization name and Humanity comes from the Funds for Humanity setup by him at Koinonia to help build houses and support farmers. After some time they separated from Koinonia and set up Habitat For Humanity International in Americus, Georgia.

Now what am I doing down there as a volunteer??? First of all I am not a volunteer for the international office. I work for the Sumter County Initiative, an affiliate (now called New Horizons), also located in Americus. During the late eighties Millard made it a goal that there would not be any more shacks in Sumter County by the year 2000. At that point there were around 300 shacks being lived in with no water, indoor plumbing and in some cases dirt floors. As of last year they have been eliminated. Over 350 homes have been built in Sumter County to replace them and more are being built, but at a slower pace to keep up with the demand. I would like to point out that Plains, president Carter's hometown, is also in Sumter County. He has played an active role in the development of decent housing and community affairs for the poor in Plains, as well as in Americus.

My role as a volunteer has encompassed just about every aspect of building a house. Which has included laying out house plots, digging footings, pouring concrete, laying foundation blocks, framing, roofing, electrical wiring, trimming windows and doors, laying flooring, painting, landscaping, and yes even scrubbing floors and cleaning windows. Most of these jobs, by the way, I would not have dreamed of doing at home.

Sometimes we rehab old houses -not a nice job!!!! The work is hard, however the hours are short- 8 to 4, 5 days a week, unlike farming, which could be from 6 to 6,6 to 7 days a week. So to me it is like a vacation and relaxing. I come home every year refreshed and ready to tackle the farm again. My family and friends call me a workaholic, I just like to keep busy. The real benefit is the sharing of my time with homeowners and seeing their expression of joy and happiness in their eyes. It is not just the man or woman (a lot of times a single parent, usually female) that I work with but all members of the family.

Part of the owner's agreement is to put in 500 hours of sweat equity. They then take out a home mortgage for the cost of materials with the local Habitat affiliate, interest free over 20 years which makes the home truly affordable.

Sharing my time with Habitat as been very rewarding to me in many ways. It has taught me tolerance and patience with others. For a Russell, a very hard nut to crack!!!! I remember the first year, you could see in the eyes of the group leaders that this old fossil was going to be a problem, he knew it all. Of course I knew it all and "I was going to be a great asset to their crew." Especially when I showed up with a van full of tools and dressed in my standard "Tan Dickey farm work clothes." Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!!!

As the expression goes "When in Rome do as the Romans Do." I was corrected many times and showed how to do it their way, by much younger and some times very young women crew leaders. After all it has been nearly 40 years since someone has told me what to do. I took a while but it finely sunk in; do it their way, after all they have many years of experience working with all kinds of volunteers. It has been a strong lesson in tolerance and most importantly working with others. I have also sharpened my carpentry skills working with a very good carpenter and group leader.

I do not know if you have spent much time in the south, but they move slow and so do volunteer help. From the aerospace career to farming I never had very much time to move slowly. In the south and I am sure in most volunteer organizations being patient and understanding is very important. I now frequently have to supervise young AmeriCorps workers and first time volunteers both old and young, and male and female. I have developed a real understanding, patience and working relationship with people that is invaluable. I should have done volunteer work years ago!!!

Habitat For Humanity is a basically a very Christian organization as its founders are, as well as most of the south, it is the "Bible Belt." That can be very stressful at times. There are frequently devotions in the morning and prayers at all dedications of new houses, where bibles are given out to homeowners. People with a more liberal religious background may find it exclusive. I consider myself a liberal UU, but can understand the religious beliefs of other people and can tolerate their actions and frequently find myself evolved in devotions and prayer. Since the devotions are often at the headquarters building it also gives me the opportunity to meet other members of Habitat staff and volunteers from around the world not directly associated with the construction end of housing for the poor. Habitat over the years and particularly in other countries has become more liberal and ecumenical in their religious views. You will find Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, (both fundamental and liberal) all working together building houses. In many cases all at one time. This is also true of the political right and left where Bill Clinton was at one end of the house and Newt Gingrich at the other end during a Carter Project in Atlanta.

I feel it is the responsibility of all human beings to share their wealth, not necessarily in dollars (that is always needed), but in being physically involved, or just being there as an expression of support and love. We are not meant to be isolated individuals, but part of a community and a country and a world that must have peace, love and understanding with each other and "no substandard housing." This is what Habitat is all about; their goal is "eliminating poverty housing and homelessness from the face of the earth by constructing and building adequate and basic housing." As Millard Fuller has often said; "We want to show the world that people can make a difference- one life, one family, and one house at a time'. Without love and understanding we are dead. Love is also sharing, and it does help!

So Be It!!

Max Russell