On April 11, 2005, on his 19th wedding anniversary, Pastor
John White suffered a heart-attack and was called home
to his Heavenly Father. Sadly, he left behind a broken-hearted
widow and five children who were, basically, homeless.
While John was the pastor at Bluestem Baptist
Church, his family lived in the church parsonage. But, after
his death, his widow and children had to move to make the
parsonage available to the new pastor of the church. The
Church gave them time to do this, but that time ran out.
Members of the community and church rallied
around this family, holding several fundraising events to
help the White’s find a place to live. Their efforts
allowed Danna to purchase two run-down trailers-one singlewide
and one doublewide - and the Pastor’s 50k life insurance
gave her enough money to buy some land. The problem? One
trailer was actually an old modular office and needed to
be converted into a home and they had no way of actually
moving the trailers to their new property. The trailers
also had no heat and no working kitchen, there were no locks
on the doors, no carpet and no power in the doublewide!
It had been so cold in their trailer at night the kids were
sleeping over at friends' houses to stay warm!
Danna was struggling to make ends meet
to try and support her children. In less than a year, the
White’s went from a loving church family to a homeless,
working family without a father. But Danna was determined
to carry on the legacy of her beloved husband and work as
a missionary to help needy families.
In this episode of “Extreme Makeover:
Home Edition”, Simmons Homes and the design team took
on a mission of their own, when they built a dream home
for the pastor’s widow and her children so they could
begin anew as Pastor White would’ve wanted.
