Building On Hope: Detroit Intefaith Group Constructs Habitat for Humanity Home

October 27, 2003

Source: The Associated Press

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?g9214_BC_MI--InterfaithBuilder&&news&newsflash-michigan

On October 27, 2003 The Associated Press reported that "building an interfaith dialogue took on a new twist in Detroit as three dozen Christians, Jews and Muslims teamed up for a Habitat for Humanity project. 'We want to do something significant to improve the Detroit area -- to work together on some of the real challenges that Detroit faces,' the Rev. Dan Appleyard, pastor of Christ Episcopal Church in Dearborn, told the Detroit Free Press for a Monday story. The project -- a half-finished Habitat home -- offered members of the Interfaith Partnership an opportunity to meet outside a place of worship and pool their efforts, as much to build the home as to build closer ties. Their group was set up as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The group is now under the umbrella of the National Conference for Community and Justice in Detroit. While members had long wanted to do more than pray together, conflicting sabbath days delayed that effort for months. 'In an era when the forces of division and decay abound, we as religious communities in the metropolitan Detroit area have dared to come together,' Appleyard said during a brief prayer before work began Sunday."

See also: Interfaith