2000 years ago, Jesus Christ walked on earth. He taught us how to live well, abundantly and appropriately, in love and mercy. In one of his teaching sessions (later published in Matthew 25) Jesus said this:
“I was a stranger, and you took me in.”
In these times, that principle was actualized when Christians worked together to build a new home, in the aftermath of a very destructive fire, for a family in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.
Back in the ancient times, when Jesus’ followers expressed confusion about his “you took me in”statement, Jesus replied: “Whatsoever you’ve done to the least of these, my brethren. . . (it’s as if) you’ve done it unto me.”
Today, June 29, I attended a celebratory event in which a newly-built home was being presented to its new owner, a lady named Carol whose home had been destroyed in the great Lahaina fire of 2023. Let me explain.
In the natural world, from time to time, disasters happen. The fire at Lahaina, Maui, in the Hawaiian archipelago, was a devastating event for that community. But in the wake of that disastrous fire, Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse stepped up to the task of constructing a new home for Carol. Local and distant volunteers labored together. In that constructive follow-up, Christian organizers and volunteers from near and far stepped in to rebuild Carol’s new home. Today, June 29, 2025, the house which was presented to her.
Thus did we celebrate, today, the dedication of Carol’s new home, as it was given to her and her children, with a scriptural explanation of the salvatory labor by which Jesus reconstructs broken homes and broken lives through the efforts of His people.
So Carol took possession of her home in the presence of Samaritan’s Purse staffers and Christian volunteers from near and far. Her new home was presented with an explantation that Jesus had established in his teachings, as in Matthew 25 and in the parable of the good Samaritan. . . through which the generosity and labor of Christian volunteers worked together to construct the house, two years after the Lahaina disaster.
Those volunteers were laboring on behalf of the new homeowner, but also to express the generosity of Christian volunteers from all over the world who had contributed to the effort, thus manifesting the power of Jesus’ legacy as actualized among his people when they set their minds and hands to the reconstruction of homes for disaster victims. But that’s not all. Broken lives, as well as burnt house, can be reconstructed for proper use. You just gotta believe. For more information, consult with your local Christian friends and neighbors.