Unfinished

In the Zulu township of Sweetwater, near Pietermartizburg, South Africa, lives Edna. Her large family lives in a couple of small cement structures, just one or two rooms each, crudely built right next to each other, with no carpets or running water, and until recently, no electricity. With money made from her quilting, Edna is adding on. Abutting the existing buildings is a half-finished, two-room cinderblock building. She doesn’t have the money to finish it yet.

Just because it’s not finished doesn’t mean it’s not useful. The floors are still dirt and weeds, yet the women cooked a feast there, a native barbecue for dozens of guests. It was a place where people gathered, where food and toys were handed out, where bodies and souls were fed.



I think of myself as an unfinished building, rough and raw and incomplete. My faith and character are built one brick at a time, one experience at a time, one choice at a time.

I am far from complete, yet I am still useful.
I may have mud floors, yet I can give of my self, my means, my service.

My house will not be completed in this life, or in this world.
I don’t have all I need; I can’t do it by myself.

But I can keep working on it, a brick at a time,
and while it’s under construction, it can be useful.


There is no door yet, so it’s always open.

Come on in.

Let’s build together.