Bless this house...

As I stood in the sun, listening to Clark and Karen sing “Bless This House”, my mind floated back twenty nine years to the summer of 1980. Our young family had just moved to Asheville. We were living in a wreck of the Hesperus house... three hundred dollars left in our checking account to tide us over until the payment came for the last retreat Michael had led. The house at Vineyard Place had not been touched or changed since the forties. Built in the twenties, it had unpainted chestnut molding and oak floors. Underneath the many layers of wallpaper lay the original stenciled borders on plaster walls. It also had the dirt and the grime that had accumulated with its last owner. It would take three years, blood, sweat and tears to restore the house at 6 Vineyard Place. But, when we drive by there now, I see the home it was for us and give thanks.
Our church home was First Baptist, the largest church I had ever joined. On Wednesday nights, I would take the children to church, walk into the dining room and not see a soul I knew to sit and eat supper with. Slowly that changed. I joined a Sunday School class of young mothers taught by Celeste. She mothered and befriended us, inviting us to her Glory Ridge home for soul food and fun. I began to teach a children’s class on Wednesday nights. Gradually that large anonymous gathering dissolved into single faces of people who knew my name and whose name I knew. First Baptist became my church home.
Now we have Sabbath Rest Farm, home for body and soul. Michael spent eight hours Saturday on the tractor fertilizing pastures for hay. The spreader came from daddy who spent many an hour pulling it across his fields in Georgia. The cows, deer and turkeys who graze on those pastures will have better grass this year. Maybe we will have a better hay crop if we get enough rain. I spent Saturday afternoon combing out the winter coats of Dixie and Junie B as they enjoyed the spring green grass on the hill behind mama’s house. Wild turkeys chattered in the woods. Crows and buzzards flew overhead while blue birds hopped, skipped and jumped around the fence lines. Warm sun, good company, God’s in heaven and all was right with my world for that brief moment.
And last Thursday, I stood at a wall raising for a Habitat Home being built in memory of Ray Rast, Celeste’s husband. We had moved away from Asheville and come back again. Our children are grown and married with children of their own. Glory Ridge has sold to another family who love it as Ray and Celeste did. Ray has died. So Celeste and the children decided to use money from the sale of Glory Ridge to build a house, a home, for others who need it. Ray was an active volunteer with Habitat since its early days, serving God with his building skills. He would have celebrated this decision to build a home in his honor.
In that gathering were some of my home folks from First Baptist, people who remembered me from back when. We visited and caught up on each other’s lives. Clarence and Scarlet live in Spartanburg now, their girls grown up, too. Cathy Butler has let her hair turn a lovely natural grey silver. Betty Jo and Tom look much the same as they did when we would see them at the pediatrician’s office. Sandra, Jim and Richard were there to work on the house for their dad. Lots of hugs, handshakes and “My, don’t you look good” was shared as we raised the wall and remembered Ray.
And in the middle of it all was another young family, not from these mountains, who are beginning to find home here now. Ghenadie, Natalia and their three young children live in the projects where drugs and violence are commonplace. Ghenadie works at a grocery store distribution center and has a bright future with that organization. Their children, two boys and a girl, were pointing out their bedrooms to anyone who would stand still. Racing up and down the pathway to their soon to be new home, their infectious joy spilled over into my heart making me laugh out loud. Home far away from their first home of Moldova, a home filled with gratitude and grace by builders and owners alike, is under construction in the Enka Hills neighborhood and it is already blessed.
Bless this new house, O Lord, I pray. Keep it safe by night and day. Bless all those who are giving the gift of home to all those who need homes. Bless the family that is working and waiting to move in. Thank you for the homes I have been given... my childhood homes and the homes of my adult years. Thank you for Ghenadie and Natalia, their children and their joyful anticipation of home at last. And in that great gettin’ up mornin’, when we leave our homes on earth behind, we will fly home to You, our resting place for body and soul, home at last. Thank you for waiting for us to get there. Amen.

Visit this web site to see a picture of Celeste and the Scerbina family.
http://www.ashevillehabitat.org/where_we_build/enka_rast_2009