My friend was telling me about his repair man,  Don Vito.

“We were sitting in my RV as he was tinkering with the broken generator,” he said.  “I wanted to get to know this gregarious Italian; what was behind his infectious personality.” 

Dom had lived on the coast in a beautiful home in San Clemente, CA with his family.  But an electrical short led to a fire, and they lost everything.  When news got around that this family was homeless, a stranger who ran two adolescent recovery homes in the area contacted Dom.  He told him that he was going to move all the boys into the one place, so that Dom and his family would be able to live in the now vacant one.  Dom’s family ended up staying 31 days.  During that time, Dom’s life took a turn.  First, he met with the man and asked him why he gave them the place to stay.  He responded,   “Because I’m a Christian, and that’s what we do.  By the way, would you come to church with me this Sunday?”  So, that’s what Dom did, and at some point, gave his whole life to Jesus.

My friend telling me this story explained  he was making an extra effort lately to take an interest in people.   “I would never have known Dom was a believer,” he said.  “But hold on, his story gets even better…”

Dom and his family moved inland to a community called Valley Center, where their family had a parcel of land.  He built a new home on the property, and settled into a church community.  Not long after, Dom was diagnosed with a mass of inoperable cancer just below the rib cage, which by growing was putting pressure on his heart.  The doctors went in to try and relieve the pressure, but punctured an artery, which left Dom in even worse shape.  That’s when his church community sprang into action. They came to the hospital and surrounded his bed, and prayed for God to heal him.  The bleeding stopped, a miracle in itself, but God wasn’t finished.  The doctors decided their only recourse was to do radiation treatment directly on the heart, in hopes of reducing the mass around it.  It was a last ditch effort to save his life.  It worked!  Dom describes it as nothing short of a miracle.

Today, Dom is cancer free.  His infectious  Italian charm is spread far and wide, as he comes to the rescue of people, like my friend, who need a good man to repair something worth saving.

God.

“Repair Man.”  Saving lives worth saving.

That was behind my friend’s motivation to see what was behind the joy of an ordinary guy named Dom, who showed up to fix a generator, and left behind a treasure of God’s faithfulness.