After Hurricane Rita blitzed her Texas home a year ago, a single mom's faith in God was strengthened when the First Baptist Church in Bermuda bought her a new home on the same parcel of land.
While the country was still gaping at Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, falling trees blown about by category three Rita's fierce winds sweeping in from the Gulf of Mexico and causing $10 billion in damage in the Houston area were smashing Belinda (B) Lopez's Mauriceville house and furniture.
Stunned, she remembers thinking: "How am I going to afford to buy a new house?"
She didn't know how much the insurance was going to give back to purchase a new home for her and sons Austin, 11, and Dallas, 10.
"Being a single mom with two kids how do you do this?" she agonized.
In the humidity of southeast Texas it was the mould that completed the home's ruination.
She and the boys moved in with her mother.
The mould content was so high she could spend only a couple of hours at a time cleaning it up before she'd start coughing and have to leave.
"When we were first working in the house," she recounted, "I had to go in, open all the windows and the house had to stay open for about 24 hours to let everything air out."
Meanwhile, in Bermuda, Pastor Charly Franks and his congregation were anxious to help with the Katrina relief beyond the $5,000 already given.
That's when he learned of B's plight through her local connection - her brother, Robert Prouse, the church's music minister.
"There's our contact," he realized. "They'd been over here to visit with family. God dropped that contact right in our lap. In a real, tangible way we got to do something for Jesus."
After Fabian most of Bermuda was back on its feet six months to a year later, he noted.
"There, a year later, people's lives are still as broken and as raw as they were right after the storm."
Robert went to help B, the church putting in up to $7,500 to clear broken trees from the property to prepare for a new house.
He also spent a lot of time looking around at modular (pre-fab) homes.
"They went through about seven before they reached Luv Homes," the pastor said.
"People weren't real keen. They wanted to sell damaged homes and not for any significant discount. They kind of sucked their teeth."
Luv Homes was a different story and general manager Michael Redman was excited about the project from the start, selling a home at no increase while boosting its quality.
"He basically gave us the home for its base price of $70,000," said the pastor. "He upgraded the carpet and the finishing work in the kitchen and upgraded the appliances but still gave us the base price."
Mr. Redman also arranged with another company to furnish the home completely at a cut rate while maintaining top quality.
"He basically gave us about $15,000 worth of upgrades for nothing," Pastor Franks said. "The home looks like a demo home."
It looked so good with some of its interior walls in red - B's favourite colour - that she fell right in love with it.
"It was wonderful," B said. "You hear about stuff on TV and in the news about people helping people but it doesn't happen to actual people like me. It doesn't happen to someone you know."
The whole event awed her at how God moves: "It's so easy for people to say you've got to leave it to God but leaving it to Him is a bigger step than what you think. Once I left it to Him things were jumping."
When B officially received her house from Luv Homes, the local media were on hand and Bermuda got a lot of PR for helping.
"They were quick to say 'The people of Bermuda did something through this church' and made a big deal out of it," Pastor Franks said.
"Thank all the people in Bermuda who helped me and the boys," B added. "Without them we wouldn't have this new house.
"We wouldn't have a connection; we wouldn't have a bigger family. I consider them my family now."
The church has paid the cost in full, to spare B a mortgage, but had to dig into a surplus fund and are out of pocket $38,000.
How you can help: Public help would be welcome and gifts can be sent to the church at 134 Middle Road, Devonshire DV 06. Pastor Franks can be reached at 236-6231 or 236-7414.
