A seemingly random discovery on an airplane changed Ron Fisher’s life forever
(Photo: Fuller Center of Central Indiana Executive Director Ron Fisher holds the sleeping child of a homeowner partner in Indianapolis’ Fountain Square neighborhood in 2011.)
SPEEDWAY, Indiana — The year was 1987. Ron Fisher was entering his 40s as a successful businessman and home builder. Life was good. It was about to get a whole lot better — and even more meaningful.
It’s not something he would have thought at the moment, though, as he took his ordinary seat on an ordinary plane for an ordinary trip. Yet, when he reached his hand into the pocket of reading material in front of him, an extraordinary thing happened.
It was not the safety material or an airline company magazine that caught his attention. It was a book that someone left in the pocket. The title was “No More Shacks!” by a man named Millard Fuller.
By the time the plane touched down, a new chapter of Ron Fisher’s life had taken flight.
“It changed my life … drastically,” said Fisher, who soon after reading the book would help launch a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in the Indianapolis area.
He would serve on the board for a decade and work for Habitat a couple more. When that young Habitat chapter was getting started, they were given a house in Indianapolis’ Haughville neighborhood on Michigan Street to serve as their office. That house had once belonged to a doctor. The doctor who had owned it was the same doctor who delivered Fisher and his twin brother in 1946. He was also the same doctor who delivered Fisher’s daughters in 1972.
It seemed that picking up that book on the airplane had set in motion years of providential confluences and common threads.
Fisher would go on to work and help lead countless local and international builds, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Projects and Fuller Center for Housing projects. He estimates that he has had a hand in about 700 houses through the years.
However, he believes another hand has been at work.
“I’m just a person that the Lord’s had His hands on for a long time — and when the Lord keeps His hand on you, He’s gonna keep you from going wrong,” Fisher said. ““The Lord’s done it, not me.”
In giving that credit to a higher power, Fisher cited Proverbs 3:4-6: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding In the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.
“I had no idea the Lord had tattooed that on my heart years ago,” Fisher said. “He’s been directing my paths, even when I didn’t know it.”
While Fisher’s home-building excursions have taken him from Sri Lanka to Shreveport and from Hungary to Hollywood — where fellow volunteers included such stars as Dustin Hoffman, Bo Derek and Robin Williams at a build 25 years ago — the next stop on Fisher’s path is much closer to his Speedway, Indiana, home. The Fuller Center of Central Indiana will build a new home in September for a mother of three in the Haughville neighborhood, the same area where they built a home last year and where they plan to build again next year and beyond. The build is being sponsored by Rolls-Royce and D.R. Horton with the primary church partner being Chapel Rock Christian Church. The build is expected to take three weeks with dedication scheduled for September 27 at 3 p.m. EDT.
While the location is conveniently close to his home in Speedway, it’s even closer to the place Fisher first knew as home. It’s two blocks from the house where he and his brother grew up and just down the street from where he attended grade school in the 1950s. Nearby is a trail that was converted from former railroad tracks that his father once followed on his walks to work in Speedway.
“The Lord’s got His hands on this build,” Fisher said. “It’s a comeback area with good people. It’s a well-mixed neighborhood, and it’s a good place for us to be building houses.”
He has seen The Fuller Center play a role in a “comeback area” before — specifically in 2010 when the Millard Fuller Legacy Build brought hundreds of volunteers to the Fountain Square area of Indianapolis. While scoping out the neighborhood as a possible site for seven new home builds and several restoration projects with Jeff Cardwell, the late Chuck Vogt and others before the build, he was not sure they could pull off a transformation. But, again, something moved him to act on faith — especially when he saw a couple of the street names, Saint Paul and Saint Peter.
“I’m going to see Saint Paul quicker than anybody else,” Fisher joked, “so I better be able to say, ‘Hey, we built a house on your street!’”
Today, Fountain Square stands as an example that no neighborhood is beyond hope, and its success story continues. The 2010 project is fondly remembered as “The Miracle on St. Paul Street.”
Fisher knows that the affordable housing crisis is not something that can be fixed by nonprofits alone, nor by the government. Yet, he also knows that his mission is to keep building a better world, one house at a time.
“The poor will always be with you,” he said. “But our job is to help those who are willing to help themselves.”
Extending that hand-up through the affordable housing ministry has taken Fisher far beyond his hometown neighborhood of Haughville, and he is grateful for being able to see the world and know people in ways he once never thought possible.
“Who would have ever thought I’d go to Hungary and Africa, the Philippines and Korea and make friends that I’ve had forever?” he asked. “For a kid from Haughville to have those kinds of experiences, that would have never happened. That’s why I tell people to get involved. You’d be surprised what’s gonna happen. That road is not short — it’s long. But it’s a great road, and it’s been a great road for Ron Fisher.”
Fuller Center for Housing President David Snell has often spoken of fortuitous happenings in the affordable housing ministry that are far too coincidental to be random occurrences. He added that Ron Fisher’s story is another testament to that.
“The Fuller Center is continually blessed by intersections that clearly show the hand of God in the work we do, what we call Providential Confluences,” Snell said. “There is no better example of this than Ron Fisher. From the accidental reading of Millard’s book, abandoned on a plane, to the construction of the Fuller Center’s latest house just a block from where he grew up,
“Ron’s years with the Fuller Center have been a story of the work being nudged by the Divine. It’s not an accident. Ron brings that most important asset — faith — to everything he does, and that faith is consistently rewarded. His is an example we should all strive to follow.”
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