Leading by example

Late in the afternoon on the last day of building, Bill Metzger and his fellow volunteers were exhausted. A week of lifting heavy blocks in the tropical heat of the Philippines had taken a toll, and though the house they were working on wasn’t completely finished, they felt they’d reached their limits.

“But here comes the president walking down the road,” Metzger recalls. “And he stopped at my place with his entourage, and he looks at me, and he says, ‘Do you have your toilet in?’”

Metzger said no, and Carter offered to show him how.

“So he goes into the house, says, ‘Mix up some mortar,’ and I mixed up the mortar. He takes the toilet, he sits it on the mortar, takes the level and levels it both ways. He knew my son was working next door, so he said, ‘That’s the way you do it; now have your son do the same thing.’ And he walks out.”

Bill pauses. “Seventy-five years old, on his hands and knees, setting that toilet. That’s why I’m here.”

President Carter possessed carpentry skills and certainly put in his fair share of hours on the build site. Generally speaking, however, the enormous groundswell of admiration and respect he inspired in Habitat volunteers stemmed from something more elemental: He was one of them.

By eschewing the separation of celebrity to build with volunteers in the hot, messy, frustrating glory of the build site, Carter was able to inspire, nudge and instruct.

He and Mrs. Carter went where the need was greatest: the hidden hollows of Appalachia, earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a quiet street in South Korea where families wrestled with high costs, an empty spot in South Africa unwanted by the “haves” but eagerly adopted by the “have nots.”

The Carters illustrated, with joy and dedication, the idea that everyone can play a part in creating a world where everyone has a decent place to live.

Each Habitat volunteer creates a legacy — with every nail pounded, every letter written, every dollar donated. Carter’s legacy lives not only in the houses he helped build, but in the volunteers he inspired to follow his example.