To pick up where we left off last month, Armando Enrique and his family live in the run-down house pictured below, along with two of their sons and their families (it’s not uncommon for several generations to live together out of necessity.) They were on our list of people needing house repairs, and Armando’s wife Gloria, who volunteers at the Food Bank, kept asking, “When are you coming to my house? We really need a new roof.”
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| Armando, Gloria, and two of their granddaughters. |
Finally their turn came and we sent one of our building teams to check out the situation. They came back telling us, “Their house is falling apart. We cannot put a new roof on that house because it wouldn’t sustain it.” Ramona, who is in charge of the Food Bank, said, “Okay, I’m going to go see it.” When she went, she couldn’t believe the state of disrepair it was in.
She told me later, “They have been on the list for a long, long time. When I got there, Armando was so excited, saying, ‘I pray every morning before I go to work, and this morning I read on a calendar that we have hanging on the wall, “Today blessing has come to this house.” (Luke 19:9) I felt very happy, knowing that this was a word from the Lord for me. Ten minutes later your men showed up to check out the house.’”
After looking around, Ramona told Armando, “We’re not going to just fix your roof, we are going to build you a new house.” He and his family are thrilled. There are three adjoining rooms and a shared kitchen, so while the workers pull down one room, the families will squeeze into the other two rooms. That way they will still have shelter while the construction is going on. Finally, we will replace the kitchen and add an indoor bathroom.
“Praise God! I can never thank my Father God enough!” Armando told us. “He has made my life new and now He is giving me and my family a new house. Blessed be God!”
And we say “Amen!” to that.