Miracles do happen to those who have faith in him. One Minnesota man is living proof of that… (Video Below)
At age 57, Greg Thomas was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer head and neck cancer and given only a few months to live. Just like his mother and daughter battled cancer together, doctors told his family to start planning his funeral. Although he was growing weak, he coped with his stress by walking his loyal dog through the countryside.
On one fateful day, he took a different path, which led him to an old, abandoned church.
Thomas hoped that walking would help him cope with his trauma, and taking his dog along made him feel a little less alone. During one of these walks, he came across an old church building, which immediately caught his attention.
The church was abandoned and dilapidated, with a weak foundation and chipped-off paint. Thomas felt the urge to enter the chapel, but it was locked. Instead of leaving, he sat on the steps for some time.
Later, he discovered that Catholic Czech settlers had built the chapel in 1868. After they moved to a larger parish, the church had not had a congregation in over 100 years.
One day, Thomas decided to reach out to the small neighborhood surrounding the church. He was out of work and thought fixing up the church would give him a sort of sanctuary.
“He went to a neighbor and said he wanted to paint the church, and who does he talk to, so the neighbor sent him to talk to me,” Don Rynda, treasurer of the foundation that keeps up the church cemetery, remembered about his first meeting with Thomas.
Rynda could barely believe it. Before Thomas approached him, he was afraid that the church was on its last leg.
“It was a godsend, yes,” says Rynda.
Thomas offered the association a deal: He would completely restore the church, if they supplied the materials, with one condition, he wanted his own key to the establishment.
Despite the fact that radiation and chemotherapy had robbed him of his energy, his saliva glands, and even his teeth, Thomas went to work peeling away 150 years and 15 layers of paint from the old church.
Little by little, he restored the church and gave the exterior a fresh coat of paint.
Now, three years later, his cancer is in remission. Thomas plans to continue his work on the church, moving on to the roof and the interior of the church next.
No matter your religion, we can all agree this is a beautifully touching story about the power of faith and miracles.
Watch Thomas’ story below and how it changes his life forever:
Sources: OpposingViews, LittleThings, WAVY/YouTube
