From the Central Oklahoma Habitat Newsletter
Summer-Fall Edition – 2006
Page 2
LUTHERANS DEDICATE NEW
HABITAT HOME
SPECIAL THANKS TO THRIVENT FINANCIAL FOR LUTHERANS FOR PROVIDING $46,200 FOR NEW HOME
Eighteen central Oklahoma Lutheran churches banded together last April to offer a new life as the owner of a basic, quality new home to a responsible, deserving Habitat family. Beatrice Jimenez, a grandmother working two jobs – one as a crew leader for Braum’s, and the other as a cashier at Dollar General – to help raise her two granddaughters, Vanessa, 4, and Alyssa, 2, experienced a very special Easter as she accepted the keys to her new home with a sense of amazement and gratitude.
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is the national underwriter of Habitat for Humanity International’s Thrivent Builds Homes program which began in 2006 and will run for three more years. Through this program, Thrivent is facilitating construction of hundreds of Habitat homes across the country, contributing 70% of the cost of each home. Twenty percent of the cost comes from the Habitat affiliate, and the other 10% is raised by local Lutheran congregations working together to fundraise and build the home.
Thrivent’s gift of $46,200 for a new Central Oklahoma Habitat home this past Spring got things started, and the local Lutheran community had no problem meeting their part of the Thrivent challenge. Many dozens of Lutheran volunteers from Oklahoma County Lutheran churches as well as those in Canadian County and the Wheatbelt Chapter of Thrivent (including Kingfisher, Okarche, and Watonga) raised more than $6,600 and provided all the volunteer manpower to construct a new home.
Central Oklahoma Habitat gratefully thanks Linda Hill, our Lutheran Community Services Specialist from Thrivent’s Mid South Region, for all her guidance and support, as well as Dennis Patterson and Shab Jupiterwala of Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Bethany, Robyn Anderson of Christ’s Lutheran Church in Mustang, and John Friesen of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Kingfisher for their dedication and hard work as coordinators for their Thrivent Chapters’ activities. Many thanks also go to the church coordinators and all the Lutheran parishioners who participated in planning, fundraising, food preparation, and actual construction for this house.
Beatrice Jimenez and her family opened the door to a new life in a stable, secure home of their own this Easter as recipients of the 2006 Thrivent Builds Homes project in southwest Oklahoma City. Their lives were changed forever by the kind generosity of many Lutherans who are strangers no more.
“I would like to thank Thrivent once again,” said Beatrice, “for joining hands with Habitat and helping us build our wonderful house. And, for all the special prayers you put within our walls and the generosity that came along with them, I thank all of our Lutheran friends.”
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is a faith-based membership organization called to improve the quality of life of its members, their families, and their communities by providing unparalleled solutions that focus on financial security, wellness and caring for others.
Many thanks to our Lutheran partners!
