Today was an incredible day. It was the 4th stop on the Jesus Loves
You tour. We were in Detroit for the Free House Sunday giveaway that
corresponds with the "Jesus Loves The Disconnected" chapter in the
book. We have been working with Citadel of Faith Covenant Church since
May to pull off this great day. Because of the crazy economy and the
even harder times the city of Detroit is facing we decided to give away
a house at church today. Over the past several weeks 113 people have
filled out an entry on
www.freehousesunday.com.
We worked with Citadel and Lisa Johanon from the Central Detroit
Christian Community Development Corporation to select the family for
this house and to restore the house.
Hundreds of volunteers have
helped make this happen. The house was initially given to the house by
someone who had passed away. We pitched in $2,000 to start the work on
the house and countless number of other people have given money and
hours of hard work to pull this off.
At the church service today,
it was standing room only in the service. It looked like it was at
least 1,000 people that were in the auditorium for the noon service as
the winner was selected.
The winner of the house was Thereatha Baker. Here is part of her story.
Do
to the lose of her husband, which was the primary income of the house
whole. She can not afford the rent where she is now, and the landlord
is selling the house and she has to move at any giving day with no
money for first and last months rent. It been a trying time since her
husband passing and all bills that do, there's no money to live off of
nor to put food in the house. If she pays her rent she has no money
left to pay bills or buy food with that being all the money she has for
the month to live off of. It been by the grace of god she as made it
this far.
There is still some more work to be done on the
house they should be able to move into the house in the next few weeks.
New appliances, heater, cabinets, carpet, tile, bathroom fixtures,
sinks, bath, paint, walkway are just a few things that were done to
this house.
At church 30 people committed to following Jesus as
Pastor Carey shared a dynamic message. He talked out of Genesis about
the word "Covenant". He assured people that Jesus would always hold
through on his part of the agreement. He mentioned that "Jesus loves you before you do what you do because he did what he did."
At
the close of the service Pastor Carey asked for people to consider
joining Citadel of Faith Covenant Church if they did not have a home
church and wanted to get plugged in. About 55 people came forward to
join the church after the service.
Around 3pm, we took a tour
of the house. We were able to pray over the house and for the moving in
of the Baker family. Pastor Carey, Lisa Johanon, Jason Harper and I
took a photo of the house on our way out.