When Mike Freeman was browsing through the classifieds on craigslist, he wasn’t expecting to see God work a miracle.
Freeman, a member of Union Hill Baptist Church, Bessemer, was just trying to help meet a need. After all, that’s what his pastor, Mickey Bell, had been encouraging his church to do for weeks.
“He saw an ad from a guy who needed a cherry picker to fix the motor on his car, and the ad said ‘please call this number at this time because we are homeless,’” Bell said.
Freeman called the guy — Scott Bean — at the Salvation Army, where he was staying with his wife and three children.
“I don’t know you or your situation, but God told me to give you a cherry picker,” Freeman said.
Bean was stunned. Evidently there is a God, he said, because he didn’t think there was one. Soon Bean, his wife Jill and his children were all at Union Hill Baptist with Freeman, and the next thing you knew Bean had jumped up and come down to the altar, followed by his whole family.
They all accepted Christ.
And then something else happened.
A lady in the church offered a mobile home for them to live in, and before you knew it, church members had furnished it and filled it with food, clothes in their sizes and Christmas decorations. Someone even provided a van for Jill Bean to use to get to work.
“It’s a miracle,” she said through tears when she first saw the furnished home and learned of the generosity of church members. “Thank you so much.”
The Beans are just one example of people helped by Union Hill members in a recent emphasis on helping the poor and “looking through the eyes of compassion,” Bell said. “The church is out looking for ways to minister, and our attitude has changed because of all of this. Seeing that family go in that house made Christmas for our church.”
To watch a video of the Beans seeing their new home for the first time, visit the video section of www.thealabamabaptist.org.
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