WEEK IN REVIEW: Catching up and gearing up
By Chris Johnson,
Director of Communications
I returned to the office on Monday after a week off to find a pile of great stories about the Fuller Center floating around out there in cyberspace, including several about the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure. That’s the kind of thing I like to return to.
The Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure has done an outstanding job of spreading the word out there, and the media is helping others learn about what The Fuller Center for Housing does. It’s great to see so many stories in so many places. The more we grow, the more people find out about us. And the more people find out about us, the more we grow. It’s a pretty nice circle we’ve got going on out there. The bigger that circle gets, the more families move out of poverty housing and into decent homes. That’s what it’s all about.
When it comes to gearing up, Mercer University’s women’s basketball team certainly is doing just that with their Fuller Center Global Builders trip to Ghana coming in just over a week from now. They got extra fired up about it last Saturday when they got a visit from Fuller Center Director of International Field Operations Ryan Iafigliola, who visited Ghana in the spring and talked to the team about what they can expect during their three-week trip to play basketball and then build houses with us.
Then, on Sunday, they came to Plains for President Carter’s Sunday School class and were treated to a private meeting with the former president and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. The former president spent a long time with the team as he told them about his several trips to Ghana. President Carter also is a Mercer trustee, and they were delighted that he knew so much about the team and its recent success. Afterward, the team visited Fuller Center headquarters in Americus, the Global Village and Koinonia Farm, where our founder Millard Fuller developed the concept of Partnership Housing with inspiration and mentoring from Christian theologian Clarence Jordan.
Personally, I’m gearing up for the same trip myself. Well, kinda. I won’t be there for the first part of the trip which is primarily about basketball. I’m Chris Johnson, not Magic Johnson, and I wouldn’t be of much help on that leg of the trip. But I will be there for the end of the journey, documenting their final week of building with us.
My foreign travel has been pretty limited — to Canada, a couple of trips to The Bahamas and Hatchechubbee, Alabama. Fortunately, I’ve got Global Builders coordinator Hailey Dady sitting about 30 feet from me, and she’s been advising me on what to wear, what to pack, what to eat and how to speak the Ghanaians’ official language, English.
I’m starting to get the hang of it.
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