KTVQ

Posted: Jan 24, 2010 8:13 PM
Updated: Jan 24, 2010 11:00 PM

BILLINGS -  The Perrine family of Billings finally knows what it means to have a house that's a home. On Sunday, they celebrated being homeowners with those closest to them and even with those who helped build their house.

"One of the most encouraging and exciting parts was getting to see a family who needed a house, who could benefit so much from this home and to get to call it home. To get to this day, to get to have a party to celebrate it with them, has been really exciting," Greg McCall of McCall Home said.
    
"We're in a huge place, it's just amazing. And the neighbors that we've met here are great, great people and lots of little guys running all over the place and it's a great place for Maddox to grow up," homeowner Bing Perrine said.

He says the couple didn't know if they'd be able to afford the taxes on the home, but thanks to the help of the community, they found a way. Both Bing and Lane say, this house has continued to pour out blessings on them. 

"It was such a cool thing to hear that the kids from St. Jude had written prayers and whatnot on the foundation of the house because, I mean you can feel the presence of it when you enter the home everyday," Bing said.

The couple believes it was these prayers that led to both Billings Clinic and St. Vincent Healthcare forgiving them of medical debts. But both say, they've learned an even greater lesson on this journey.

"It just made our faith and reliance on him even greater because we can't do this alone and there's no way that we could make this happen. It's totally not us. This has been a huge testament of God's grace," Lane said.

Bing tells Q2 he is curretnly working on a book about his life and this experience. In total, people in Montana and Wyoming helped raised $600,00 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.