This is us...

A friend of ours in Memphis is involved most of the time in Christian street ministry, but to support his family he works as a carpenter. Because we, too, have been involved in street ministry, and he knew how hard it is to operate without a solid home base, he told us that if we ever got a piece of property and the materials with which to build, he would build us a house.

In 2003, Karen received an inheritance when her mother sold her house and moved in with one of her other daughters. Karen wanted to buy a piece of land, so we went looking. We ended up paying cash for 2.3 acres adjoining the Bankhead National Forest, in northwest Alabama. Another piece of the inheritance came our way a few months later, and we called our friend Patrick. He was planning to travel to Key West, to minister at a big event there, toward the end of October. He said he could give us a week. Karen drew up simple house plans on a piece of notebook paper -- a 24 X 40-foot cabin with a loft, a full-length front porch, and a full-length, screened-in back porch. It would have a steep-pitched roof to minimize leaks, and eaves all around to keep water off the house. We priced the materials at about $7,500, but when we re-checked the list 2 weeks later, the prices had DOUBLED! The cause? Hurricane Isabel had swept up the east coast, causing a run on plywood, and the federal government had bought up lumber to ship to Iraq. We almost gave up, but instead we went back to the drawing board, reducing the building to 30 feet in length, leaving the porches until later, and using untreated lumber in every area not exposed to the elements.

We got a load of free telephone poles from the power company, cut them in sections and set them in concrete for a foundation. In 8 1/2 days, we framed in our house, for under $10,000!