FORT WORTH -- As director of the Baptist Rescue Mission, Trinidad Hurtado is a fixture around the city's homeless district, offering people a hot meal and helping them find a job, a home and perhaps a new start.
Yet the small house that Hurtado shared with his wife and four children was falling apart. The front porch was collapsing. Leaks and mold covered walls and ceilings. Door screens were torn, windows broken. Tiles on the bathroom floor had gone missing, and the house had little insulation.On Saturday, the Hurtado family moved into a new home rent free, thanks to a couple of area churches, scores of volunteers and home builders."I don't know what I can say that will be sufficient. There are no words," Hurtado said. "When I joined the ministry, I never imagined anything like this."Touring the new home, Hurtado wept as his children exclaimed over the colors of the walls, framed family photos and new bedrooms. Volunteers cried and hugged, sang Amazing Grace and thanked the Hurtados for their service."Trinidad does so much for others in the community," said Randy Miller, a pastor at Saginaw's Eagles View Church, which provided donations and volunteers. "We are thrilled to give back to someone who gives so much."The idea for a new home arose a couple of years ago when Lisa Fielding, a member of Northeast Baptist Church of Southlake, visited Hurtado's 40-year-old home near John Peter Smith Hospital. Hurtado lived in the home with his wife, Keilani, and their children, who are 8, 11, 14 and 15."It was in horrible shape," Fielding said. "No one should have been living there."Fielding approached her friend, Peter Paulsen, co-owner of Royal Crest Custom Homes in Fort Worth, about renovating the home, but it was beyond repair.Paulsen donated a vacant property on Annie Street near JPS to Eagles View, and the church helped lead the effort to renovate it for the Hurtados' use."God blessed us with the ability and knowledge to build houses, so that's what we do to help," Paulsen said.More than 150 volunteers spent the past three weeks installing new hardwood floors, granite countertops and appliances, replacing windows and tile in the kitchen and bathroom, painting walls, building a new fence and adding new furniture.Bruce Engelman, senior minister of Baptist Temple in Fort Worth, which oversees the mission, said the Hurtados worked long hours for modest wages to serve their community."They have made sacrifice after sacrifice," Engelman said. "And what a difference they have made in so many lives."Sarah Bahari, 817-390-7056Twitter: @sarahbfwHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
