President's Blog

Back to Mbandaka
 I’m on the road again, this time back to Congo with a United Church of Christ Global Builders team.  The UCC collaborates with the Disciples of Christ in it mission work, and it was the Disciples that sent Millard and Linda to Zaire almost 40 years ago.  So this is a trip of historical import, a return to the place where Millard’s house building vision turned from a notion into reality.

We’ll spend a little time in Mbandaka on our way from Kinshasa to Bolomba.  It was in Mbandaka that the first partnership houses were built overseas.  The story of this effort is told in Millard’s first book, Bokotola, and a great tale it is.  Our friend Don Mosley, who is working so hard on our North Korean initiative, did the survey work for that first community.  This is a place rich in history.

The first houses were built on a parcel of vacant land in the heart of the city, a place called Bokotola.  The area was barren because it marked the separation between where the white settlers and the black Congolese lived.  On July 4, 1976, the day America was celebrating its bicentennial, the housing project was dedicated.  162 houses had been completed—and the waiting list had grown to over 5,000.  At the dedication service Pastor Boyaka Inkomo, regional bishop of the Disciples, spoke.  In his concluding remarks he said “We now propose to the authorities of the Sub-Region to change the name of Bokotola, which signifies “the person who does not like others,” to Losanganya, which means ‘reconciler, reunifier, everyone together”.

Read More >>
Dateline Burley Idaho
I'm sharing my blog space with Ryan Iagifliola today.  Ryan is the Fuller Center's Director of International Field Operations, but he's also the founder of the Bicycle Adventure-- something that's just too much fun to get away from.  He's traveling with some of the riders on the way to Seattle for the beginning of this year's ride.  Just outside of Burley, Idaho, the van blew a tire and rolled.  All eight passengers came through without serious injury, but it was a hard way to start the ride.  This is Ryan's accounting- - - 
Read More >>
Dateline: Birmingham
 I went over to Birmingham last week and visited a neighborhood called McDonald Chapel, which was hit by the same tornadoes that did so much damage to Tuscaloosa, and pretty much destroyed places like Smithville, Heckleburg, and Ringgold.  As I write this the flood waters are being diverted into the Atchafalaya Basin to save Baton Rouge from being swept away.  We are watching tragedies on an epic scale play out in our own back yard.

There is no more important structure than a house.  Houses form the core of every community, and are the base from which the fundamental building block of society, the family, operates.  It is in their houses that families are nurtured and grow, and are protected against weather and wickedness.  When houses are destroyed families are disrupted and communities are broken.  What we are watching across the south, and saw earlier in Haiti, and Japan, and around the world, is the destruction of this vital piece of our societal infrastructure.

Read More >>
An Easter Message

 It was a long, cold winter in most parts of the country this year—record breaking in many places.  It reminded me of the winters we had when I was little, and of the stories my parents told of days gone by, like the one of my grandfather digging a tunnel through the snow to get from the house to the barn.  Those memories and stories might have grown some through the years, but the fact is that many of us are happy to see this particular winter turn, ever so slowly, into spring.

Spring is the most symbolic of the seasons for Christians.  Each daffodil that raises its head through the cold earth, each dogwood tree that blooms, each lawn that turns from brown to green, tells its own small resurrection story – what appeared to be dead is alive!  It is fitting that Easter comes in springtime.

Read More >>
Dateline Colorado

 I’m writing from high in the Colorado Rockies.  It’s spring break here in Dillon and Sheilla and I are here to be with the grandkids.  The only problem we have with our move to Americus is being so far away from family, so we thought this would be a good time for a quick reunion.

It’s been cold up here, by south Georgia standards anyway.  We got a couple of inches of new snow this week.  Today the temperatures were in the 30’s, but there was a stiff wind to remind us that springtime in the Rockies is a mixed bag.  This is an amazing planet we live on.  Earth Day is coming up next week, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it than to get out of town and experience the earth.
 

Read More >>