May 27, 2002

Courtney's house: Texas Baptist Men lend a hand
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___HOPEWELL--The staccato pounding of nails and whirring of circular saws ripping lumber echoes through post oaks and pastures outside the East Texas town of Paris. But this is more than the usual commotion surrounding home construction. This is the sound of a mother's dream for her little girl becoming reality.

Jerry Dill of Gladewater Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant serves as lead carpenter on the project.

___Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builders began work May 14 on a home for the family of 11-year-old Courtney Akard. The sixth-grade honor student with a beaming smile has been confined to a wheelchair since a car wreck five years ago injured her spinal cord.
___The Retiree Builders typically build churches or facilities for Baptist camps. Although they spearheaded rebuilding homes in Saragosa after a tornado destroyed that West Texas town in 1987, they seldom build private residences.
___But the volunteers agreed to make an exception for "Courtney's house" after Debbie Drake called the Texas Baptist Men office at the urging of Randall Scott, her pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Paris.
___Drake, a registered nurse, explained that an auto accident had left Courtney unable to walk and with severely limited use of her hands and arms. She lived with her mother and two teenage brothers in a one-bedroom rent house.
___Their home on a busy highway north of Paris lacked insulation, and Courtney could barely maneuver her electronic wheelchair through its narrow hallways. All the countertops and fixtures were beyond her reach.
___Courtney's mother had worked as a home-health-care provider before her daughter's accident. Since then, she has scraped together a living for her family by selling advertising and promotional fund-raising items, painting houses and doing other part-time jobs during school hours.

Courtney Akard, 11, and her mother, Dianne, examine the progress Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builders have made on their home.

___"God is good. He let me have a roof over my head, and I'm not complaining. I'm still proud to have it. It could be worse," Dianne Akard said. ___She managed to buy a 1.3-acre lot in the Hopewell community west of Paris, and she and her sons cleared the heavily wooded property by hand in hopes of building a home for Courtney.
___But Akard soon learned that the government considered any property currently unoccupied to be a financial asset. That meant until the family moved onto the property or sold it, Courtney was ineligible for any more state or federal financial assistance or medical benefits.
___Akard struggled with the decision, but she chose to hold onto the property and give up the government benefits until she could build a house. She saw it as Courtney's security for the future. And she dreamed of a handicapped-accessible home that would provide her daughter the opportunity to regain a degree of independence.
___"I'm getting older. There's going to be a point in my life when I can't pick up Courtney," Akard said. She looked forward to the prospect of a house where her daughter could bathe herself, cook her own meals and learn other independent-living skills.
___Akard contacted Chris Whitaker, a local homebuilder and layman at First Baptist Church of Paris. He worked with an architect at Paris Junior College to draw plans for a house that would be fully handicapped-accessible, and he secured many donated building supplies. But the project could not be completed without volunteer laborers to coordinate it.
___"A lot of people were willing to come out and help us, but it just wasn't enough," Akard said. "We all have to work for a living, and people have to provide for their own families."
___That's where the Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builders filled a need.
___"I think we should step out occasionally and take on tasks that are outside the norm of the church building we usually do," said James Griffin of Seven Oaks Baptist Church in Wills Point. "This could be a powerful witness to the community, showing that we care enough and had enough love for these folks to come up and be a part of building their home."
___Members of churches related to the Baptist General Convention of Texas support the Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builders through their gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions. While the builders live in their own RVs and donate their labor, the missions offering provides them a fully equipped tool trailer, and local churches provide their meals.
___The Retiree Builders agreed to frame the house, put sheeting on the outside and install the ceiling joists. The contractor will install the rafters and decking. Volunteers from Immanuel Baptist Church will roof the house. A local bricklayer already agreed to donate his time.
___"Hopefully, Courtney will be in it by the time school starts in the fall," Griffin said.
___The new house is three times the size of the rent house where the Akards currently live. Akard finds it hard to express the depth of her gratitude for the Retiree Builders' role in building what she always calls "Courtney's house."
___"We're just so happy and grateful that people care. You know how the world gets; sometimes you wonder how things really are. But there's good people still around," she said. "There are no words to express to them just how grateful I am."
___When the Retiree Builders started working on the project, Akard brought Courtney to the building site after school each day. On the builders' second day, after they raised the frames for the interior walls, Courtney squealed with glee as she saw the way her house was taking shape.
___While her mother wheeled her around the concrete slab, Courtney stretched her arms as wide as she could, showing how spacious the hallways would be. "Oh, Mama, I won't be scraping my elbows against the walls," she said.
___Courtney, who turns 12 next month, looks forward to the independence her new handicapped-accessible home will provide.
___"When I had my wreck, all my independence went away. I couldn't reach anything. I couldn't do for myself at our house. I can't reach the shelves. I can't cook. I can't even make myself a sandwich because I can hardly reach the icebox," she said.
___Courtney also looks forward to the view she will enjoy from the oversized window in her bedroom, installed at her mother's request.
___"In the evening time, the horses will run through that pasture right there in back of the house, and I'll be able to watch them," she said. "It's so pretty with the wind blowing through their manes."
___Courtney also has found a home among the people at Immanuel Baptist Church in Paris. She recently made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and she was baptized the Sunday before Mother's Day. Laymen in the church carried her up the steep steps to the baptistry where the pastor lowered her into the water.
___"She told me, 'I feel God's pleasure.' She was just so tickled," her mother reported. "That was the best day of our life."

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