Results of Our Work

Many families and individuals served by A Simple House have survived multiple events which would have shattered an average person. God heals, and we are trying to be his faithful instruments in this process.

The following stories illustrate different types of fruit that our work is bearing.

The Four Brothers
The Neighborhood Gives Back
The Johnsons’ Story
A Story of Conversion

The Four Brothers

Within our neighborhood, there are four brothers who have raised themselves. They are now high school and college age and live in an apartment without a parent or guardian. The apartment does not have electricity, and it has become a center for drug use and a hang out for neighborhood boys. The police have raided the apartment and the brothers have lost close friends to street violence. These brothers are considered one of the ‘neighborhood problems,’ and they receive more attention from the police than from any other organization.

These same brothers have welcomed every interaction with A Simple House. They have facilitated us helping their mother who suffers from drug abuse, and when we arrive unannounced, they organize their friends into a circle for prayer. Our interactions with them have been shot through with grace, and there is a great need for more witnesses to Christ in their lives.

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The Neighborhood Gives Back

There are many examples of individuals we help trying to help us. Love is being returned as fast as we try to give it away.

Two sisters spent nine hours preparing a soul-food banquet for our volunteers. This loving gift was large enough to stuff twenty-five people.

Many people we serve have made materials donations to our ministry. They have great confidence that any item given to us will go to someone in need.

In order to harness the response of charity from the neighborhood, A Simple House has organized two lasagna cooking days. After volunteering for a whole day in our small kitchen, the mothers come with us to deliver food to families in need, and everyone leaves with a lasagna for their own family. These work days are beautiful in many ways. They allow opportunities for spiritual discussion, they feed many people, they foster a special collaboration in Christ’s work, and they are fun. This collaboration and fun is significant evidence of effective evangelization.

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The Johnsons’ Story

When volunteers first met Ms. Johnson, she was living with her ten children in a small townhouse. Her children slept on slats, and there was rarely enough food in her pantry. The greatest physical need of the family was more space, but because of holes in the walls from mice and humans, she could not pass an inspection to transfer her family into a larger home. A Simple House helped Ms. Johnson repair her home, buy mattresses, feed her children, and go to God in prayer. Ms. Johnson remembered the name of every volunteer she ever met (all seven of them).

In January of 2005, Ms. Johnson moved to her new home, and in May, she died. Over the last year, we have visited and prayed with Ms. Johnson and her family over a dozen times. A Simple House spoke with her the day of her death to schedule a home visit for the following morning. That night, she suddenly succumbed to a heart condition. Volunteers visited the home the next morning and prayed with the traumatized family and friends. During this hard time, volunteers cooked for the family, bought diapers for the youngest children, took the oldest children grocery shopping, and much more. A Simple House also assisted in paying for Ms. Johnson’s funeral which was delayed for almost a month due to insufficient funds. At the funeral, it became clear that Simple House volunteers were the only Christian witnesses remaining in Ms. Johnson’s life. Her family included many Christians, but they had grown tired of dealing with her problems. Her spiritual isolation and the shock of the family at the funeral, reiterated the value of this important work.

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A Story of Conversion

Christ has worked an amazing conversion in a woman through the love, prayers, and generosity of our volunteers. When we met her, she was contemplating suicide, intending to abort her unborn child, and her five children were without heat. She had gone through many trials in her childhood and adult life, and her depression was disabling. She had been prescribed many drugs and met with many psychologists, but they could not address her feeling of being unloved and wronged by God.

Her conversion to Christ has been so beautiful that the adjective miraculous is insufficient. The love of God struck her as an amazing surprise and a life-changing event. We delivered a few bags of groceries once a month, and read the Bible with her every Friday. We did not offer anything more except our friendship and faith. As time passed her baby was born, she registered her children for school vouchers, and A Simple House helped her to relocate to a healthier neighborhood. God has transformed her life.

With an impressive amount of study and prayer, She joined the Catholic Church this Easter, and we celebrated the event with a big midnight party.

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