You can see generosity in a singular act: volunteering to help a friend, funding a mission trip, or opening your home to others. But Charles and Minnie Buffington know true biblical generosity is made up of thousands of these generous acts over a lifetime. For them, it isn’t just the acts themselves; it’s creating a lifestyle that allows generosity to flow everywhere they go – from Miami, Florida, to Pretoria, South Africa.
And that’s what they’ve done for 60 years.
Global reach
There was no watershed moment that led Charles and Minnie to a lifestyle of giving. It was the continuation of a lifelong calling that was shaped in childhood, lived out together, and is now being carried forward through the faith and generosity of their grandchildren. Although Charles and Minnie see their approach to generosity as nothing out of the ordinary, more than six decades of their “ordinary” has left an extraordinary impact.
In 1995, less than 10 percent of households in South Africa had a telephone line (compared to 95 percent in the United States). Charles and Minnie had just stepped into this new South Africa as empty nesters with their corporate, 9-to-5 workdays behind them, but they weren’t there for a vacation; they were there to help rebuild.
Both had recently retired from long careers with BellSouth. They came with decades of the kind of expertise necessary for establishing this type of large-scale infrastructure. But they also brought something else: a lifelong instinct to meet needs far beyond what any job description required, giving all they could to neighbors, ministries, and local churches.
“We moved into a normal mode of helping and being generous,” Charles says. “It’s just how we operate.”
Generous roots
Their “normal mode” was formed in Charles and Minnie individually long before they met.
Minnie was one of nine children and grew up in Miami’s Liberty City housing projects. Her mother, a stay-at-home mom with limited resources, always found a way to feed neighborhood kids who might not get another meal that day.
“She always said, ‘You’re blessed to be a blessing,’” Minnie remembers. “That’s always been in my head.”
Charles’ mother, a domestic worker, brought home gifts and donations from her employers and quietly shared them throughout their community, making a point of talking with him about the importance of preserving the dignity of those she helped.
“You can’t condescend and be truly generous,” Charles says. “You want to enable and empower people.”
By the time they started dating in 1965, both Charles and Minnie had a deep instinct to help those in their communities every chance they had. They married in West Germany in 1969, where Charles was stationed with the U.S. Air Force. That Christmas, they joined other GIs as “Soul Santas,” buying and delivering gifts to a German orphanage.
It was their first act of generosity as a married couple – but far from the last. Throughout their 60-year-long relationship, God has given the Buffingtons countless opportunities, relocating them to many communities in need.
In 1978, while living in Miami, Charles and Minnie met Pastor (now Bishop) Billy Baskin, whose teaching and personal investment in their lives reshaped their faith and understanding of generosity – moving it from a family tradition to a deeply biblical calling.
You can’t condescend and be truly generous. You want to enable and empower people.
Faithful service
As young professionals, Charles and Minnie built their careers while raising their only son. Frequent moves – Miami, Atlanta, New Jersey, Birmingham – never kept them from serving. In Birmingham, they spent one Saturday a month at “The Firehouse,” a converted fire station turned homeless shelter, cooking and serving meals as a family.
By 1995, Minnie had taken early retirement to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity’s initiative to build 100 homes in Atlanta in time for the 1996 Olympics. That same year, Charles was downsized from BellSouth, and the unexpected invitation to South Africa arrived.
A longtime friend of Charles’, who’d become the CEO of Telkom South Africa, asked Charles to come evaluate the company as it was navigating the country’s transition out of apartheid. When Charles returned to the U.S., his friend asked him to come back, this time with Minnie and their combined decades of BellSouth experience, to help address the country’s infrastructure needs.
“We thought retirement would be quiet,” Minnie says. “God had other plans.”
In Pretoria, South Africa, after forming a small consulting business, they worked for three years to expand the nation’s phone network. But outside the office, their generosity flowed through their community.
They funded small, newly planted local churches. They backed South African startups, helping their neighbors find stability. Minnie packed suitcases with her best clothes from America and distributed them to women and families who were struggling to emerge from decades of systemic deprivation.
In Pretoria, like in Birmingham, Charles and Minnie settled into their early instilled “normal mode.” For the Buffingtons, generosity was never an add-on to work; it was the work.
“You don’t wait until you have everything to be generous,” Charles says. “It has to be in you. The Holy Spirit inspires you to sacrifice for others with whatever you have.”
“You don’t wait until you have everything to be generous.”
Growing impact
When the Buffingtons returned to the U.S. in 1998, their generosity didn’t slow, and soon, their connection with the National Christian Foundation (NCF) became a catalyst for even greater impact.
Charles first learned about NCF in the early 2000s, but his involvement deepened when he met Boyd Bailey from NCF Georgia. It was through an NCF Georgia gathering that Charles first learned about Peace Preparatory Academy, a Christ-centered, trauma-informed school in one of Atlanta’s high-crime, high-poverty communities. The Buffingtons began supporting the school before it was even ready for large grants, helping it grow into a thriving ministry.
NCF also introduced Charles to The Shepherd’s Fund, which provides confidential financial assistance to retired and disabled pastors. Knowing the lack of resources in many churches led by Black pastors and noticing their underrepresentation in fund recipients, Charles and Minnie traveled across the Southeast telling pastors about the fund and establishing portals for outreach through theological seminaries.
“From an African American pastor perspective, hundreds have been blessed,” Charles says. “And my only stipulation was, ‘You can’t pay me.’ This is our Romans 12:1 duty.”
Minnie’s knowledge of NCF contributed to One Hundred Shares Atlanta, a Christian giving foundation she co-founded to fund Christian ministries in the Atlanta area. When the group first formed, they needed to decide what the best way was to collect and distribute partner contributions. They landed on a Giving Fund with NCF as the ideal tool for organizing and stewarding those funds. From 12 founding board members, 100 Shares has grown to more than 230 Atlanta partners who have granted millions to gospel-centered work.
In 2021, Minnie also launched Your Cherokee County Neighbors in response to pandemic food shortages, mobilizing her community to support local food pantries, a domestic violence center, and even an international food packing organization, using a Giving Fund with NCF to receive donations.
Enduring legacy
Today, their son carries on the Buffingtons’ deeply rooted generosity, involving his own children in church and community service. Their four granddaughters – ages 12 to 18 – have grown up seeing generosity in action.
Their youngest granddaughter recently gave away a bag of toys, including unopened ones, to kids from low-income families in her community.
“She said, ‘They want some new things too,’” Minnie says. “That touched my heart so much.”
No matter where God has taken them, the Buffingtons have made an impact living by a simple pattern: See a need, step into it, and bring others along. The same heart that led them across an ocean to serve in South Africa still guides them today – ready to go, to do, to make an impact for God wherever he calls.
“If you truly believe the gospel, you can’t help but be generous,” Charles says. “The ultimate generosity was our Savior giving himself for us. What are these temporal things we have compared to his life?”
For Charles and Minnie, that truth has no borders.
