There’s some amazing dirt in Georgia that grows a whole lot more than peanuts and cotton. It grows selfless Christian charity and has been for nearly 80 years.
Koinonia Farm
It all started at Koinonia Farm in Americus, founded in 1942 by Clarence and Florence Jordan and Martin and Mabel England. This was a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God.” For them, this meant an intentional community of believers sharing their lives and resources. Members followed the example of the first Christian communities as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Other families soon joined. And visitors to the farm were invited as well.
Joined Local Churches, Helped Everyone
Koinonians shared not only faith and resources, but also work. They farmed the land for their livelihood. They also sought ways to work in partnership with the land, “to conserve the soil, God’s holy earth,” according to Mr. Jordan. Members of the community preached, taught, and were members of local churches. When the community and its guests and workers prayed or ate a meal, they all sat together at the table. Race was not an issue. Their commitment to racial equality, pacifism, and economic sharing brought bullets, bomb and a boycott in the 1950s as the KKK and others attempted to force them out.
Nonviolent Response and Prayer
The community responded with prayer, nonviolent resistance, and a renewed commitment to live the Gospel. They created a mail-order business, which continues to sustain the community. As threats of violence dwindled, they focused on the poor quality of local housing and began a project to build decent, affordable homes for their neighbors. Clarence Jordan also focused on a passion he held to pen a version of the New Testament from the original Greek to South Georgia vernacular. From his writing shack nestled in one of the Koinonia pecan orchards, he wrote the Cotton Patch Version. prepared for nationwide speaking engagements, and, in 1969 while working on a sermon, it is where he died suddenly.
Habitat for Humanity
The Koinonia community carried on Clarence’s legacy. The housing ministry evolved into Habitat for Humanity International in 1976 under the leadership of Millard and Linda Fuller, who were members of Koinoni. Habitat has helped some 13.2 million build new homes or improve the ones they have so far. When the Fullers left Habitat in 2005, Millard and Linda made certain that the first board meeting of their new organization – The Fuller Center for Housing – took place at Koinonia Farm. They wanted the Fuller Center’s birthplace to be at Koinonia Farm as well.
Jubilee Partners
Koinonia also was instrumental in the founding of Jubilee Partners, a community that since 1979 has welcomed 3,346 refugees from 32 different war-torn countries around the globe. Jubilee occupies some 258 acres of rural land. The founding families lived in tents as they worked on constructing houses. During their first hot, humid months of living and working outdoors without modern conveniences, they got a glimpse of the realities of refugees struggling to survive far worse situations.
Southern Poverty Law Center
As an aside, another charitable effort began in nearby Alabama, when a former Fuller associate, Morris Dees, worked with others to found the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dees’ partners in this endeavor were the late civil rights activist Julian Bond and Dees’ law partner Joseph Levin. Dees and Fuller also had been early law partners, teaming up first at the University of Alabama Law School where they sold everything from Christmas trees to birthday cakes for students. Both were earning about $15,000 a year from their enterprises by the time they graduated. They made it clear they wanted to do whatever they could to become rich, but something happened.
Both after having achieved great wealth gave the money to charity and founded their own causes, Dees’ in nearby Montgomery, AL, where the SPLC has achieved great notoriety defending the voiceless.
Rich Soil Indeed
So this Southern soil in Georgia and, yes, nearby Alabama, has indeed spawned riches that aren’t those we typically consider. But perhaps they are richer than dollars, diamonds and gold.