God Story about the Halfway House

A major hole in our social work ministry has been the "post-rehab" reality. We send our homeless friends to rehab, but when it's all said and done, they have no where to go for their new start. So we started dreaming of opening a halfway house - the first place to stand on your own two feet, but with the support to enable success.

We have written a lot about the houses we found (three two bedroom units standing side by side), and how ideal they are for this ministry. Ali keeps insisting that if these houses are to be ours, then it should be through a "God story"... I am just looking for any story that ends with us getting these houses! Then as Ali wrote, this week I was shocked to meet with a friend of my Portuguese teacher who offered to buy two of these three houses for us!

Today our new found friend came to have lunch with our homeless friends and us here at the house before going to see the houses for the first time. Want some irony? Only two of our homeless guys came! That hasn't happened in two years, and it happens on the day this new partner is coming to see what we do! I'm thinking - 'boy do we look bogus!'

From our house we went to meet the home owner and see the houses. In the walk through we see that some more roof tiles have been broken. Our doner takes in the shattered windows, water infiltration, stolen wiring and... falls silent with concerned expression. I'm dying to read his mind. We look bogus, the house looks like a liability...

With the walk through done, I'm feeling pretty uncertain about what might or might not happen next. Then our friend looks to me and says, "Well Mark... do we proceed?"
My understatement response - "If you're ready, I'm ready,"
To the home owner - "Okay. I'd like to close on these two units."

Gah!

While they trade info I think, God gave us two of these three units, we can come through on this third one! So I tell the owner, we've started a campaign to buy this third unit through partners in our church and community, can we draw up a "intention to buy" agreement and get started rehabbing it too? He liked that idea, so my obvious follow up question - And can I put guys to live in it, for security purposes? He gave us another go, so all doors are open!

God has shown He is in this by doing the heavy lifting for us, now we get to join in what He is already doing! I am blown away by His goodness, and excited about our challenge - joining our church community and friends up to complete this purchase and carry out this new embodiment of the Kingdom!