Yesterday was a journey to begin to understand some of the history behind the Fuller Center for Housing, Millard and Linda Fuller and their interaction with the community farm at Koinonia a few miles southwest of Americus in Georgia.
Having been picked up by Dan and Cindy Hepp from Mark’s House in Atlanta, we all travelled south towards Americus to the headquarters of the Fuller Center for Housing. Having started my involvement with this charity in 2019, it was good to finally make it to their offices and help with the setting up of the van and trailer in preparation for the East Coast ride.
Tiffany Ellis, our ride leader, was there along with other friends from previous rides. I was also finally reunited with my American bike’ as we loaded “Uncle Sam”, my Trek Domane, along with other bikes into the brand new trailer.
I had a chance to take a short tour of the housing charity’s offices and started to read one of Millard Fuller’s books, ‘ The Theology of the Hammer, which was enlightening about the start of Habitat for Humanity, the original housing charity Millard and Linda founded, before the Fuller Center for Housing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millard_Fuller )
Habitat for Humanity is massive here in America and since its creation in 1976 has helped some 46 million people to build or improve the place they call home all around the world. Habitat has gained massive popularity and due to it global impact has been supported by a number of US presidents, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
However in 2005, Millard and Linda Fuller were voted off the board of the charity they founded, as the charity wanted to move away from the overt Christian base and, regrettably, there is now little reference to the church outreach nature of the charity.
Therefore in 2006, the Fuller Center for Housing was created by Linda and Millard, to return to all of the founding principles with a Christian ethos and interest free loans, etc. This also aligned with the impact of the people at Koinonia Farm and, particularly, the input from Clarence Jordan (https://fullercenter.org/history/ )
We were able to visit and learn about the history of the farm and see the house where Millard and Linda lived, along with some of the facilities including the bakery for the pecan pie production.
This is me being warned not to stand on a fire ants nest!!
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