It was getting late. The sun was setting on a warm July Thursday night in South Dakota thirty summers ago, on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. That community was the site of the Jimmy Carter Habitat for Humanity Blitz Build, a yearly mega-building event. Thousands of volunteers from around the world like me arrived in Eagle Butte, to put up more houses than you can imagine, 30(!), all in seven days.
That’s right: one week to construct simple, decent housing for God’s people in need, as Habitat’s mission statement proclaimed. The dream was that from bare foundations on Sunday night, by the next Saturday night folks would be washing their supper dishes in the sink.
I was one of more than 1,500 volunteers, and though I saw President Carter building a home’s front porch and heard him speak and offer prayers at the opening ceremony, my hope to meet him had yet to come true. Until that Thursday night. The house I worked on needed to be fully sheet rocked by midnight, when the crew with tape and spackle would put the final touches on, before painting.
Despite our best efforts, by dusk we still had lots of sheetrock to hang. Then President Carter showed up, called us together and challenged us to get the work done. “We’ll bring in pizza, so you won’t miss dinner, but we need sheet rocking to continue until we’re finished.” He said this with a smile but in a tone that made clear we could not let our future homeowners down. We owed it to them to complete our service.
We hung the last sheet with about fifteen minutes to spare before the finish crew appeared. I went home to my temporary digs and fell into bed exhausted but so happy and excited to have cut all those sheetrock pieces and met President Carter too!
He was my hero then. He is still my hero.
I met him again on the last day of the build when he and his wife Rosalynn stopped at every new house to present homeowners with house keys and a Bible and to pose for a group photo. For a couple who had spent so much time in high powered places with high powered people, they were so down to earth. Kind. Attentive. Patient. Gracious. Humble. And I finally got to shake Carter’s hand that day long ago!
I’m grateful, we as Americans should all be grateful, for this good man and all that he did in service to others. Service to his nation as a nuclear submarine commander and President. Service to humanity in his post-presidential endeavors, everything from building affordable housing to helping wipeout diseases in Africa, like guinea worm, that once blinded tens of thousands.
And this life of service to others was always undergirded by Carter’s deep religious faith. As a pastor and person of faith I think that is why I so admired him. He didn’t speak hollow words from the Bible, or pretend he knew what they meant. He taught Sunday School for thirty years! He never used faith as a cynical ploy to garner votes or to hoodwink or exploit believers.
Carter talked the talk and walked the walk of faith, a rare trait in so public a believer. Yes, history reports Carter was not perfect. He could be arrogant and self-righteous. He was stubborn. He did not get along all that well with his Presidential successors. If Carter saw an injustice, he spoke up, political politeness be damned. Some judge his Presidency a failure, though the truth is he actually got a lot done.
So, Godspeed Jimmy. I’m sure the pearly gates swung wide open when you arrived in heaven. For you took the one life God gave you and used it well and wisely. You lived with compassion and mercy, especially for the folks most of us don’t even see.
Thank you for being a role model. And for the pizza too!
Rest in peace.
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.
In the photo the Carters are in the first row and I am in the back row on the right with the oversized mustache and UMass baseball cap!
