Last month at Habitat for Humanity’s national conference in Atlanta, Habitat Wake founder and current VP of Program Ministries, Rick Beech, led one of the day with some devotional thoughts. Rick reflected on the very early days of Habitat Wake, the organization that he helped found in 1985 while a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. At that time, Habitat was a relatively unknown organization and there was a strong sense of relying on God to provide the resources needed to meet the serious housing needs of many Wake County residents who were literally living in wooden shacks. You don’t see many wooden shacks in Wake County these days, but the housing need has exploded along with the overall population. 28,000 families have an identified housing need in the county. A minimum wage worker would have to work 92 hours per week to afford the average two-bedroom rental rate. Rick described God as Habitat Wake’s "X-Factor" in the early days. With an ambitious strategic plan to nearly double the number of families we serve over the next few years, we call on that "X-Factor" now more than ever to stretch the resources of our community in miraculous ways.
