Another Special Life in Christ:

Millard Fuller:

His Life Before Jesus Came In:

Millard Fuller became a millionaire by the time he was 29 years old! He was raised in Lynette, Alabama, and attended church on a regular basis. He viewed himself as a pretty decent Christian. But Millard left Jesus at home when he went away to college, and he began to follow the decadent lifestyle of many of his college peers. While a senior at the University of Alabama Law School, Millard married his college sweetheart. He seemed to have life by the tail. Anyone that knew him would have agreed!

Millard made money fast! He worked all the time, and soon gained all the possessions anyone might want. But all of this came at a high cost! As Millard continued to drift away from his childhood spiritual moorings, his efforts to succeed caused him to spend less and less time with his wife and two children. It was only a matter of time until he became totally estranged from them.

Then Millard’s wife sat on the edge of their bed one day and told him she had every material possession she could ever want, but she had no husband at all. He was always working and was almost never at home. She had had enough of that life, so she left Millard and moved to New York. He was devastated.
 

His Life Since Jesus Came In:

By leaving him, Millard’s wife had unknowingly created a crisis that
forced him to take a hard look at the priorities and values of his life.
And he didn’t like what those priorities and values had gotten him. As a result, Millard re-surrendered his life to the leadership of Jesus Christ. It was then that his life began to dramatically turn around!

To begin with, his wife took him back! Their marriage and family was restored! And recently, they just celebrated their 44th anniversary! It is amazing what God can do! Then, after spending some time searching for the will of the Lord, Millard and his family followed God’s leadership to ‘divest’ their wealth and give it to the poor! Quite a change from the former days of spending every ounce of energy in an effort to accumulate ‘stuff’!

Their newly-found spiritual pilgrimage led them to the Baptist Christian community of Koinonia Farms (near Americus, Ga.), where they began to build their first house to be given to a poor family. That house became the foundation for founding in 1976 the world-wide ministry of Habitat For Humanity International, of which Millard is both the founder and current CEO. That ministry now builds a house somewhere in the world every six minutes! Over 160,000 homes have currently been built, housing over 1,000,000 people. The ministry exists in 89 countries, with the goal being set to build houses in 100 countries by the year 2005, for a total of 200,000 homes!

Millard has also opened a Global Village, which is a microcosm of the Habitat For Humanity ministry! The Village is set up so that a visitor can walk into a slum replica from Latin America, Africa, Asia, etc. The objective is to expose people to the housing-shortage problem that exists around the world, and also to present Habitat For Humanity’s solution!

Millard and his wife firmly believe that true religion has to have
action. Their vision is to go into every country of the world and build homes. Quite a stretch for the man who formerly focused his entire life and energy on getting gain for himself and his family. Once he determined to re-direct his priorities and values, there was no turning back. And the impact of Millard’s decision to put Jesus Christ at the center of his life goes beyond measure. It is impossible to calculate the effect of one life appropriately focused on God!

By December 2003, Fuller's major concern is that the organization is in danger of morphing into a secular charity as its fame spreads and non-Christian volunteers join in the effort.

What is the Gospel...the "good news" of Jesus?