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| LINGK: What is Habitat's 21st Century Housing Challenge? RAINEY: This challenge is an effort to help our affiliates raise the issue of housing in their communities, that will eventually lead to the elimination of sub-standard housing. We provide them with the necessary materials to help them put a coalition together with other housing cooperative agencies in their communities as well as other agencies that support housing, which may be everything from legal services, to the Salvation Army, to whomever else actually touches housing, or the need for housing in their daily work. Our objective is to bring devastated sub-standard housing back up in the community and to bring properties back on to the tax roles so that they can help support the schools, that's what the Habitat's 21st Century Housing Challenge is about. Giving people something to take pride in. LINGK: How has your faith prepared and sustained you throughout your years of service? RAINEY: I was being prepared and I wasn’t even aware of it. When I taught school over in Hindsville, Georgia, before I joined Habitat, I was teaching little African-American kids from Liberty County, Georgia, whose ancestors were slaves. They were brought from Zaire, what we now called the Congo. At that time - I had little idea that two years later, I would be in Zaire building houses for Habitat for Humanity. In some ways I was being prepared even as I was studying the traditions that I taught these kids about Africa in social studies. My faith has sustained me in part, because Habitat for Humanity started in a place called Koinonia Farm (the Greek word for fellowship). Koinonia Farm was a group of people who had come together to practice first century Christianity in the 20th Century, Koinonia became my substitute church. I grew up in Southern Baptist churches and unfortunately at that time, racism had been an issue in these churches. After leaving the army, I was no longer prepared to deal with the traditions of this part of the country so, Koinonia became my faith home. When I discovered them, they were very involved in the Civil Rights Movement. It was a great way to become prepared to see the scriptures through living eyes and to see the challenge to culture in our times. It was an amazing experience. That's where I learned to be prophetic. I also think that Habitat for Humanity is prophetic and to have had a role in this organization for thirty-years makes me feel at times that I am in the prophetic tradition. My faith has sustained me through lots of challenges. We still face people who don't want us to build housing for people in need. We get a lot of people we call NIMBY (not in my backyard). I have learned through years of practicing my faith through Habitat to deal with the world... knowing how to move forward, without letting those kinds of debates put an end to what we're trying to do. Continues on page 3 |
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