Christine and her boys, Jerry (19) and Khalil (14) have been working hard toward their goal and hope to become homeowners this summer. Its been a long road for this family and one met with so many challenges that most people would have given up. Not Christine - she is a true testament to the power of faith and perseverance.

Until five years ago, Christine was raising her boys in Philadelphia. When Jerry, the oldest, was born she lived in Germantown in a house so poisoned with lead paint that Jerry became very sick as a baby. "Some of the highest levels in the city," Christine says, "the Dr. said that he was never going to mentally progress like normal." Christine and her partner moved Jerry out of that house, but her troubles weren't over.

Christine worked as an LPN for years in Philly, but over the course of time, she began to feel weaker and less able to do her job. Finally, after several respiratory issues, she decided to see a Dr. and was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis, a disease that causes inflammation most commonly found in major organs like the lungs. Christine also has severe eye damage from the disease as well. The disease takes its toll with boughts of pneumonia several times per year, and chronic, severe asthma, but she "never gives up" and has not given in to her condition.

Jerry and Khalil's Dad "had trouble with his hands - laying them on me and on the boys." When he attacked her, she put up with is because "I was sick so much, I felt stuck - like I had no place else to go." When she learned that he was hurting her boys, she said that God gave her the courage and strength to leave. One day, after a particularly scary incident where a bullet whizzed past Khalil's little head and through their living room window, Christine took her children and left.

She went to Laurel House, a safe haven for women needing a hand up. There, she and children worked hard for 30 days, trying to get their lives in order. "I didn't want to stay more than a month - I was determined I was going to make a life for my sons."

The next few years passed in a blur of several rented apartments in different communities, but Christine never let go of the dream that one day she would have a place to call her own. Jerry defied the odds and did well in school, telling his Mom that someday he was going to go to college and learn to "build her a house."

In 2004, Christine learned about the affordable housing program through the Montgomery County Housing Authority. Because of some of the hard choices she had to make along the way, her credit was not the best and she didn't immediately qualify, so she began working hard to improve it. She told her counselor there "any challenge you put before me, I will take it." After a time, Christine cleaned up her credit but her income was too low to qualify for a home through their program. The counselor was aware of Habitat and put Christine in touch with our office. Christine felt like God had a hand in finding out about Habitat. "We can't do nothin' without God," she says.

Now, Christine lives in a rented apartment that has skunks under the crawl space and mice everywhere, but she is happy, because she knows that soon she will not have to live there any longer. Jerry comes to the Habitat site almost every day to work. He just applied to the Williamson School - a free trade school that is very well-respected. In fact, he just had his second interview! Khalil goes to the neighborhood where their new home is located and picks up trash on the street with his Mom. This family is more than ready to become Habitat homeowners.

Christine tells everyone here at Habitat that she "feels like she has died and gone to heaven four times, but God keeps sending me back, reminding me that it's real." She "can't believe that a group of people would get together to do something for someone else." Ironically, we feel like it is Christine who has given us a gift of faith, hope and inspiration at a time when we need it most.

When she moves in to her new home, the first thing she and her boys are going to do is plant lavender and rose bushes in honor of her mother who never gave up believing that Christine would not only survive, but thrive.