The House on Lewis Avenue
It was about 20 years ago that George and I had a dream from God. We had acquired a house on Lewis Avenue. It looked like a regular house from the lineup of houses on the street but inside, it was much more than you would think from the exterior view! If you count all the floors, some people have estimated the house at 10,000 square feet. The house was originally built in 1915 as a funeral home. We recently learned that in its early days, it also served as a boarding house for people settling in the area from England! Years later, the auditorium was a gathering place for a machinists union and the basement functioned as a private club.
A Crossroads Decision
In 2005, a group of us young adults believed that God could use this house to reach the area for Jesus. George and I were a couple months away from our January wedding and we had planned to get an apartment nearby and to trust God for the provision for the transformation of the house and a neighborhood. However, part of the plan suddenly shifted and we had to decide how dedicated we were to the vision, as the anticipated finances were not in place for us to both live elsewhere and fund the ministry. If we were going to do this, we would have to live in the house.
More Than Meets the Eye
Though people had lived there many dozens of years prior, the house was no longer in a habitable condition. There was not even a working furnace or functional kitchen. Remember, we had an upcoming January wedding and that is a very cold month in Toledo! Much in the natural was unappealing about this house, but God had a big destiny for it. He knew that someday He would use it to be a beacon of light in the darkness. He had a plan to bring restoration to a house, symbolic of the many lives that He would also someday heal and restore who came to it.
