Home
Covenanter Plays Key Role in Habitat's Worldwide Ministry
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (August 2, 2002) - Habitat for Humanity has gained additional
worldwide exposure, thanks in part to a Covenanter living thousands of
miles from the organization's home base in Americus, Georgia.
Doug Dahlgren of Winnetka Covenant Church in Wilmette, Illinois, is heading
up the Europe/Central Asia Habitat for Humanity office, working out of
Budapest as head of volunteer development for his region. In recent years,
he has been involved in projects in Germany, Slovenia, Romania, Slovakia
and Armenia. Sweden and Norway are two other countries where Dahlgren hopes
to establish viable Habitat projects.
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian
housing ministry that has built more than 100,000 houses around the world.
It was founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller and gained prominence after former
President Jimmy Carter became a leader within the organization. Over the
years, Habitat has grown to more than 1,900 affiliates in 83 countries.
Dahlgren said that he originally got involved in Habitat while he was a
student at North Park University (then College). The school was just
beginning its Habitat program under the leadership of Jim Lundeen and Jim
Queen. "I remember Jim Lundeen saying, 'I started this thing called Habitat
for Humanity and you are the only guy I know who knows anything about
construction,'" Dahlgren said about his initiation to the program.
In 1993, Dahlgren came to Hungary as a consultant to a Chicago
architectural firm and volunteered for Habitat on Saturdays. Eventually, he
was asked to assist with the start-up of a full-fledged program in Hungary
(which began its work there in 1994), becoming the
first person in Europe hired by Habitat for Humanity International. In
1996, he helped with a Jimmy Carter Work Project that built 10 houses in
one week.
As director of construction for special events, Dahlgren helped organize
another building project in 1999 that enlisted 275 volunteers to complete
10 houses in eight days in Romania. After organizing a similar project in
Portugal, he served as construction director for a 2001 project in Korea
that was the main site for another Jimmy Carter Work Project. That effort -
136 housing units and two community centers - was completed in five days
with 3,000 volunteers.
In South Africa recently, Dahlgren had the privilege of being the only male
on a "Women Build" house project. "I saw, again, the uncontrollable tears
of joy in the eyes of a single mother of four boys as she received the keys
to her new home with all of us joining in the watershed," Dahlgren said.
"It was something very special for me, coming out of the world of business
and construction."
For Dahlgren, projects like these help show others that "Christ's love has
hands and feet." A fourth generation Covenanter, Dahlgren believes that the
denomination's pietistic movement fits closely with what Habitat is all
about. The words of I John 3:16-19, " . . . let us not love with words or
tongue, but with actions and in truth" have become integral
to his personal life statement.
"A good Habitat construction friend . . . tells of a wonderful Christian
lady from his church who made an issue of not using the word "devil" in
deviled eggs," Dahlgren said. "There are no deviled egg issues at Habitat.
Habitat hits right where it hurts. It is a 'shut-up' witness. It does not
pick up on the interpretation of theological issues. It is not a doctrine.
But it is, for me, an opening where the depth of human relationships is
delivered by grace, where the fog of today's psychological overload is
lifted, where I 'may have eyes to see' more than the devil in deviled
eggs."
To find out more about Dahlgren's work in Europe and Central Asia, email
him at Douglas_Dahlgren@hotmail.com. For more about Habitat for Humanity in
the United States, call 229-924-6935 or check the organization's web site
at www.habitat.org.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
