The Excitement<br >Is Building<br >On July 24， 1989， there was a mortgage-burning ceremony for<br >Bo and Emma Johnson s house.<br > But this was no ordinary mortgage-burning. This was<br >the mortgage on the very first home built by Koinonia s<br >Partnership Housing Program， the forerunner of Habitat for<br >Humanity.<br > In 1969 when Bo and Emma Johnson moved their chil-<br >dren-Junior， Sally， Cookie， Queenie， and Baby Sister--from<br >their unpainted， uninsulated shack without plumbing into a<br >simple， concrete block house with a modern kitchen， an indoor<br >bathroom， a good heating system， and a large， beautifully land-<br >scaped yard， the sale price was $6，000 for the thousand-square-<br >foot house， to be repaid at $25 a month for twenty years， with<br >no interest.<br > Every month over the next twenty years Bo and Emma<br >made their monthly payments until， finally， they paid that last<br >one--six months ahead of schedule. It was the very first house<br >of the Koinonia program to be paid off by its owners.<br > We were part of Koinonia Farm in 1969. Millard was the<br >director of this Christian community， located in southwest Geor-<br >gia near Americus. On that November day when Millard helped<br >carry Bo and Emma s furniture across Georgia Highway 49 to<br >their new house and a new life， the idea for hundreds of more<br >such houses for other needy families was only a distant and dim<br >possibility. But by that mortgage-burning day in 1989 there were<br >457 Habitat projects in twenty-nine nations. Over 5，000 houses<br >Q<br >3<br ><br >