Simple and decent can be simply beautiful

By Chris Johnson
Director of communications

I’ve finally counted all of the photos available for you to peruse and download from The Fuller Center’s photo collection and — using the brilliant math skills I acquired while taking Algebra II twice in high school — have come up with the total there are to see.

You count the number of galleries, multiply by the subtotal of subcategories, exponentially quintupled proportionally to the power of seven, divide by pi, and you get the official total of Fuller Center photos: A LOT.

Having gone through this official total of “a lot” of Fuller Center photos, there are a few that stand out to me. The ones of cute kids smiling always make me pause. The scenery from places like Nepal and Peru makes me stare for a moment and wish I could go there soon. And there are even a few photos of myself that make me stop and say, “Gee whiz, I know I’ve got more hair than that!”

One of the more striking photos I’ve seen recently is the one accompanying this blog post. I received it earlier this week from the group One Small House, which built a duplex last week with the Grace Fuller Center in Haiti during a trip through our Global Builders program.

I’ve seen many photos from Haiti in recent years. I’ve seen crying children. I’ve seen earthquake destruction. I’ve seen trash in the streets. And, of course, I’ve seen the crowded tent cities and rows of pitiful shacks.

I’ve also seen photos of our work there. Smiling children. Green spaces and fertile hills outside the dirty city. A growing, self-sustaining community. Simple, decent duplexes. But this photo stopped me, and many others here, in my tracks for its striking colors and stunning beauty.

The duplexes are simple, decent homes — as we always strive to help people build for their families. But with a dash of color in their paint schemes, they’ve turned simple and decent into simply beautiful. One thing we’ve been told is that people appreciate that the homes we’re building in Haiti have front and back porches and aren’t just square-looking boxes. They have a homey feel. They show that you can address the problem of poverty housing in beautiful ways.

Of course, it’s not only in Haiti where that’s the case. Peruse our photos from Peru and see their simple beauty against the mountainous backdrop. Check out the Fuller Center homes of Armenia as sturdy as its country’s rich Christian heritage. See the El Salvadoran community made even more beautiful by the smiling children playing outside the homes.

One look through our galleries and you’ll see that we are on a beautiful journey in this crusade to eliminate substandard housing. Help us spread this beauty around the world.

See more 2012 photos from our Grace Fuller Center project in Haiti.

Browse ALL of The Fuller Center for Housing’s photo categories.