The House That Love Built: The Story of Millard & Linda Fuller, Founders of Habitat for Humanity and the Fuller Center for Housing - Hardcover

Youngs, Bettie B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1571745467 ISBN 13: 9781571745460

Publisher: Hampton Roads Pub Co Inc, 2007

Synopsis

In the hearts of volunteers who mobilize resources to build houses, “Habitat for Humanity” signifies caring. However, few people know that thirty years ago, successful entrepreneur Millard Fuller and his wife Linda left behind their materialistic lifestyle and crumbling marriage to start over as missionaries in Zaire. Upon returning to Georgia, they started building houses to bring new life to the poverty-stricken as their personal Christian ministry.

Millard recruited Jimmy Carter to work with Habitat when he left the White House. Together they attracted leaders from church and state worldwide. Habitat became an international movement with 1700 affiliates and a Board of Directors comprised of increasingly large corporate donors. As it grew, a new, more secular vision evolved, and eventually Millard and Linda found themselves alone starting over. The Fullers responded with “God is not done with us.”  Within days, they were back raising money and building houses for The Fuller Center for Housing— for Katrina victims and in Nepal, Nigeria, and Romania.

About this title

About the Author

Bettie B.Youngs, PhD, EdD, teacher of the year, university professor and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of 32 books published in 24 languages.

Review

THE HOUSE THAT LOVE BUILT: THE STORY OF MILLARD & LINDA FULLER, FOUNDERS OF HABITAT FOR HUMANITY AND THE FULLER CENTER FOR HOUSING by Bettie B. Youngs (Hampton Roads, 100 b/w photographs, 424 pages, hardcover, $25.95, 978-1-57174-546-0): details how a twenty-nine-year-old millionaire created the national faith-based housing initiative and saving his marriage in the process. --Foreword Online

At the heart of The House That Love Built is the dramatic story of Fuller s fall from grace from the organization he had grown and nurtured. The author, Bettie Youngs, describes how Fuller s world ground to a stop when, in a power struggle, he was fired by Habitat's board of directors in early 2005. But Fuller did not let that keep him from the work he has been called to do. After the shock of being fired from a company they created, the Fullers had a two-day pity party before moving forward in the calling God gave them providing affordable housing for the poor.
We've built in a hundred countries and still have nearly that many to go, Millard said. The housing ministry is what we believe God has called us to do.
The Fullers were eager to get back to their kingdom work, so they have created The Fuller Center for Housing which is rapidly duplicating the success of Habitat. Through blitz builds and ongoing projects in numerous states and in such countries as Nepal, Nigeria and Romania, Millard Fuller continues to work toward his goal to eliminate substandard housing worldwide. --The 700 Club, cbn.com

Christian self-help author Youngs's (Living the Ten Commandments in New Times: A Book for Teens) insightful biography, more of Millard than of Millard and Linda, includes a detailed history of Habitat for Humanity International. Millard became an entrepreneur in his youth, excelling in various sales endeavors; he and Linda were millionaires before they were 30. Youngs relates the spiritual and marital crises that followed and how the Fullers gave away their wealth and shifted their goals to loving God by serving humanity. Eventually, this calling resulted in the formation of the world's largest nonprofit home-building organization with the goal to end the blight of low-income housing and homelessness worldwide. Youngs devotes nearly one-third of the book to the conflicts between the Fullers and Habitat's board and to the firing of Millard in 2005. Spending so much time on these issues may seem biased, but this book is not a mere polemic; it is an informed look at two philanthropists and their revolutionary work. The parts about Millard's faith will resonate with Christian readers. Recommended for spiritual living or philanthropy sections in most public libraries. [The author is a friend of the Fullers. Ed.] Erica L. Foley, Flint P.L., MI --Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Hampton Roads Pub Co Inc
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1571745467
• ISBN 13: 9781571745460
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 359