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A year ago, Yvonne Vanderslice wasn’t sure if her husband, Rick, would still be alive today. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

Rick Vanderslice overcame a terminal cancer diagnosis to enjoy a new home with his wife, Yvonne. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

From left, Yvonne Vanderslice, Rick Vanderslice and Werner Beiersdoerfer visit in the Vanderslices’ kitchen. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

The Vanderslices’ new home replaced a dilapidated house the couple had lived in for decades. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

It took only a few months for volunteers and professionals to design, plan and build a new home for the Vanderslice family. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

Scott Masters, center, helped spearhead the effort to build a new home for Rick Vanderslice, left, and Yvonne Vanderslice when Rick was diagnosed with cancer in 2015. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

Yvonne and Rick Vanderslice relax on the front porch of their newly built home in Alabaster. “We’re out here all the time,” Yvonne says. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)

Beginning a blessing

Scott Masters had become good friends with Rick by the summer of 2015, as the two had worked alongside each other in the construction field for several years. The two often chatted about their personal lives during downtime at jobsites, but this day was different.

“We were taking a break at work, and we started talking about my house,” Rick said, calling Scott his “Brother from another mother.” “He had seen all the mold and mildew, and he offered to help.”

Scott had been to Rick’s home several times, but had never been inside, as Rick always met him outside. But after offering to help repair the Vanderslices’ home, Scott got his first look inside the aging structure.

“As long as I had known Rick, which had been about 12 years, I knew he needed a new roof,” Scott said. “When I went to validate the project, I went up in the attic to see what we were dealing with. It was just too far gone to repair.

“I wouldn’t have wanted a few birds to land on that roof, much less have a couple of 200-pound men working up there.”

The Vanderslices didn’t know it at the time, but Scott had already presented the project to the board of what was then known as the Highway 11 Project, which meets monthly at Alabaster First United Methodist Church. Because the Highway 11 Project had outgrown its original service area, the project is now known as the Jesus Works Ministry.

The project is a partnership between several area churches, and originally set out to help those in need along the city’s Highway 11 corridor. When Scott nominated the Vanderslices for the project, it originally involved renovating the family’s existing home.

“When a project is presented to the committee, someone always has to present the project, the solution and the projected cost,” said Werner Beiersdoerfer, a member of the Sanctuary Trust for Shelby County who serves on the project’s board of directors. “After seeing the state of the house they were living in, it was evident from my perspective that we just needed to build them a new house. I thought it was doable and I thought it made sense to do that.”

The project’s board agreed, and the community’s support soon began pouring in.

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