TRI-LAKES AREA — Running the day-to-day operations of Habitat for Humanity of Garland County is a very satisfying job for John Goodman, even if it is not the second career he had planned.

However, Goodman’s life has never followed a single plan, and every turn has brought him achievement, satisfaction and spiritual enlightenment.

For almost 10 years, the Bismarck native has been the executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Garland County. The work agrees with him.

“I look forward to coming to work every morning,” Goodman said. “Then eight or nine times a year, I get to know a family and watch them sign a mortgage agreement and become homeowners for the first time.”

As the organization’s first full-time employee in Hot Springs, he has been involved in every part of Habitat for Humanity’s efforts, including selecting families to receive homes, selecting sites, raising funds, constructing homes and working with volunteers and government agencies to draw attention to ceremonies that dedicate new homes.

Running the faith-based community-service andcommunity-building venture was not in Goodman’s first career plan, nor his second; it was on down the line.

He attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville as an agriculture major. Goodman graduated but admits he never used the specifics of whathe learned.

“I was active in a church in Fayetteville, and I felt the call to preach,” Goodman said.

So he became a minister of the American Baptist Association. The next move came as he led a congregation outside Little Rock.

“I knew several chaplains, and that sounded like a great adventure,” Goodman said. “It was a way to service my country and God while I traveled all over the world.” Goodman joined the U.S. Air Force and served as a chaplain around the globe for the next 23 years. He called it a marvelous experience.

“The main thing is that it was a growing experience, especially moving from Arkansas to California, which was my first assignment,” he said.

Serving in areas such as the Philippines, Korea and Saudi Arabia and from one coast of America to the other, he said he discovered the world was a realm of many different faiths.

“As my career progressed, it became my job to ensure that all troops could attend the services they needed,” Goodman said. “I think all the chaplains like me went through this experience, and I know I came back with respect and admiration of other religions.

I can now work with pastors of all faiths and feel comfortable.”

During his time in the Air Force, Goodman and his wife, Ruth, raised a family of three sons and a daughter - “Air Force brats,” as he called them.

Some members of the welltraveled family had returned to Arkansas, so it was natural for Goodman and his wife to come back home.

“We had two children living here with some of our grandchildren,” Goodman said.

Goodman and his wife were in the process of buying a home in Bryant when he read an ad in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Habitat for Humanity was looking for an executive director, and his career plans changed again.

“That sounded interesting and I threw my hat in, and then they said they wanted me to live in Hot Springs,” he said.

The Goodmans quickly became part of the story of Hot Springs.

“We rented one of the boyhood homes of Bill Clinton for a couple of years,” Goodman said. “It was the house on Scully Street where he lived during his high school years.”

The local chapter of Habitat had completed 13 homes when Goodman became its first employee.

“I established an office from scratch in a closet and worked closely with the volunteers who had built the chapter,” he said. “Now we have built 83 homes, and we have four paid employees and others in the Restore.”

The Restore is a major resource for Habitat for Humanity in Hot Springs, Goodman said.

“It is a super-sized thrift store that sells donations from clothing to appliances and furniture,” he said. “It is doing fabulously and produced enough income for us to build 16 homes.”

The 24,000-square-foot store is located in a former Ford auto dealership on Central Avenue, where his workers keep the donated items coming in and merchandise moving out.

“We have increased the size of the staff,” Goodman said. “We have two box trucks making the rounds picking up donations. We have six paid workers and six to 10 more paid by AARP. It’s win-win for both organizations. They have the work and get their help.”

Helping around the world

The Garland organization now builds an average of eight homes a year. Over the past several years, most of the homes have been in a new community of Habitat homes called Shaw Village. Goodman said it is thesixth community developed by the local organization, with homes built by volunteers and the selected families who move in once the homes are built.

Goodman said developing the villages has meant more than just putting up houses.

“In most of them, we have had to put in the infrastructureourselves,” he said. “This has included constructing streets, curbs and gutters, as well as the utilities.”

This can be quite expensive, Goodman said, adding that Habitat is aided in Garland County by block grants from the city of Hot Springs and other help.

“They have been very supportive by waiving permit fees and other things of that nature for us,” Goodman said.

The people helped by the Garland County chapter of Habitat of Humanity can be far beyond the suburbs of Hot Springs. For the past three years, the chapter has provided help to the people of Tajikistan, a former soviet republic north of Afghanistan and west of China.

“The Habitat for Humanity organization expects every local chapter to contribute to their international efforts. They call it tithing,” Goodman explained. “Instead of sending it to be used just anywhere, we picked Tajikistan, where we can make a difference.”

Goodman said that for every house Habitat builds in Garland County, the organization sends $4,200 to the international organization. So far, the Hot Springs group has contributed $63,800.

“These funds pay for water purification and to help restore apartments in an old apartment building built when [Tajikistan] was part of the Soviet Union,” Goodman said.

Habitat for Humanity International CEO Jonathan Reckford said the Garland County funds would quickly be put to work.

“Thank you so much not only for your generous donation, but the spirit and commitment behind it as well,” Reckford wrote to Goodman. “Your tithe is a clear measure of your concern for families in other parts of the world who so urgently need a better place to live.”

In addition, the entire international organization is working to aid the citizens of Haiti.

“The next day, after the earthquake, we sent $4,000, and all the net proceeds from the Restore from Feb. 2-6 went to Haiti,” Goodman said. “That was $5,100. It is Habitat forHumanity’s goal to help 50,000 families in Haiti over the next three years.” A long walk

To find support for and raise awareness of his organization’s work, Goodman is in the middle of a trek of amazing scope. He is walking across the country.

Goodman said he is going to start the second phase of his coast-to-coast walk in the spring.

His journey actually began in March 19, 2008, when Goodman and Habitat volunteer Dick Mattson departed from the Pacific beach near San Juan Capistrano, Calif. It was Goodman’s 65th birthday and the day the swallows make their annual return to the mission in the old city.

“We walked 800 miles from California to a spot on U.S. Highway 390 near San Antonio, N.M.,” he said.

The stroll that was to end at the Atlantic on a beach in Georgia was cut short when Goodman began to suffer from what doctors first thought was arthritis. Now doctors say it might have been a virus.

Goodman said he is well and has been in training to continue the long walk. He plans to start at the exact spot in New Mexico where he stopped the first time and travel to Hot Springs this year, then plan phase 3 on to Jekyll Island, Ga.

Reckford called Goodman’s plan to walk across the country inspiring.

“It is a clear measure of John’s commitment to this ministry, to decent housing and to the families all across the country who so urgently need it,” Reckford said when the walk first began in 2008. “His energy is inspiring; it is a real mark of a true servant leader.”

Along the way, Goodman will again visit small towns to talk to officials, schools andchurches, as well as Rotary Clubs, along the way. He is a member of the Hot Spring National Park Rotary Club. He also plans to walk through cities that support local Habitat for Humanity affiliates from Roswell, N.M., to Brunswick, Ga.

Those are Goodman’s plans for his route for now, but he can always make a change.

- wbryan@ arkansasonline.commatter of factBirthplace: Bismarck, March 19, 1943 Family includes: Wife, Ruth; sons, Doug, Ken and Richard; and daughter, Jonna Occupation: Helping low-income families achieve home ownership When I was young I wanted: To be a doctor Most people don’t know I’m: Walking across America The person I admire most is: Billy Graham Favorite quote: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Tri-Lakes, Pages 130 on 02/14/2010