Faith Lutheran Church Builds Habitat for Humanity Home

On Saturday, June 25, Faith Lutheran Church began a four-week journey on its property that will give a family a new Habitat for Humanity Home. The Thrivent Builds/Habitat for Humanity building project began with a few simple hammers and nails. The outer and inner walls and electrical will be done on site in Oakville, and then on July 23, the house will be transported to Crystal City, where the basement and subfloor are being worked on, for onsite completion.

 A “Raising the Walls” ceremony and blessing started off the project last Saturday, and Patch will be monitoring the progress weekly until transportation day.

“The whole premise is to invite the community in to help,” said Kay Bach, life groups, mission manager at Faith Lutheran. “We have volunteers for HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and two trucks and trailers (have been donated).”

Bach said that about 5 years ago, the church had a dream to build a house on its parking lot and the Jefferson County affiliate of Habitat and Thrivent Builds, a faith based financial services organization, agreed last fall to partner and make it happen. 

“This is a labor of love, a home, it’s not just sheetrock and concrete,” said Dave Krump, president of the Jefferson County Habitat for Humanity. “This project has impressed me so much.”

The family benefitting from the labor of love consists of Crystal and Ed Schwab and their three children, Ashlea (16), Stephanie (13) and Ethan (9), in addition to Ed’s father, Ralph (71). They currently live in a mobile home in Festus, which is too small and need of lots of repairs.  Ed suffered a work-related back accident in 2003 and has gone through just about every possible procedure and therapy to heal his condition, but it continues to deteriorate. Crystal works at the local Wal-Mart store.

Thrivent Builds will pay for 55 percent of the cost of the four bedroom, 1 ½ bath home; Habitat will cover 35 percent and Faith is responsible for 10 percent. The homeowner purchases the home at 0 percent interest and has two mortgages— the 2nd mortgage is forgiven as the first one is paid off to prevent selling for profit. The Schwab’s are responsible for 375 “sweat equity hours” with at least half provided directly by the family.

If you or your company would like to make a donation toward Faith’s portion of the build, send your check to Faith Lutheran Church, 6101 Telegraph Road, St. Louis, MO 63129 and mark it “Thrivent/Habitat for Humanity Home” attn: Kay Bach. For questions contact kay.bach@faithstl.org or call 314.375.1106.  

To sign up for specific volunteer dates and times, visit www.faithstl.org. If you have building materials to donate (new or used) they can be used for the build or sold to the Habitat Restore for credit toward the build. Contact Sue at sue.wanninger@faithstl.org or call 314.375.1112.