. . . and the Ultimate Edition!

by James E. Smith II

I am “staked out.” It’s shortly before 6:30 on a cool morning in May as I sit in my car on a side street near its intersection with a busy county road. Directly across the county road is the house I am watching. County police squad cars cruise past every two or three minutes, often passing each other as they pass the house. In my rearview mirror I note that the local police are barricading the other end of the street where I sit. At 7:45 I have to leave, but we have someone else staked out in a parking lot just down the street. At 8:03 I receive a phone call: “It’s happening!” I thank the caller, share the news with my wife, Carol, and prepare to share it with other “persons of interest,” those whose “interest” generated this whole life-changing scenario that has just begun to unfold!

Seven days later I am back at the site, this time in a VIP area. I have been here several times in the intervening days, but now thousands of people are staked out here. As we wait, we are directed to practice chanting, “Move that bus! Move that bus!” This is the day the Llanes (pronounced Lee-yah-nes) family will receive, from Extreme Makeover—Home Edition, the house that Pinnacle Companies calls “The Z Home—beyond extreme, as far as you can go” in technology. Brian Stolar, CEO of Pinnacle, said, “Because of the special needs of this family, our team has used every conceivable contact to assemble the most cutting edge technology—probably more than has ever been assembled in one domicile.”

The Llanes Family
Vic Llanes, husband and father of the family, has been blind since the age of twenty-one. His mother, Isabel, went blind after retiring as a schoolteacher in the Philippines. Guen and Carrie, teenage daughters, are going blind. All four suffer from Aniridia, an inherited degenerative condition in which a person is born without irises in his or her eyes. Teen son, Zeb, was born deaf after his mother, Maria, contracted German measles during pregnancy. And Maria has recently undergone surgery for cancer.

In 1997 the Llanes family left the Philippines for the United States in hopes of accessing better medical care. Originally settling in Westchester County, New York, they relocated to Bergenfield, New Jersey, in 2002, where Zeb’s school class for the deaf was taught by a lady, Caroline, from our church. It did not take long for teacher and student to “connect” over the family’s search for a fundamental Baptist church. As Caroline discovered, “I must put more Scripture and Biblical references into my signing than I am aware of,” and Zeb soon signed to her, “I think we believe the same things.” Looking for a fundamental Baptist church, the Llaneses were introduced to ours and settled into our multinational membership quickly and comfortably.

Since joining First Baptist Church of Hackensack, the entire family, including guide dog Romney (not a member but regular in attendance) has been a continual blessing to us. Various combinations of family members provide special music. Vic even plays the piano. Guen teaches Sunday School and has a special ministry to others with handicaps; Maria does much of the signing for Zeb; and the family regularly attends Sunday morning and evening services and Wednesday night prayer meeting.

A Novel Idea
Our church family consists of people from over twenty nations, including a substantial number of Filipino families. Late in the summer of 2005 I was approached separately by a member of our Leadership Team and almost simultaneously by several of our Filipino families about the possibility of recommending the Llanes family for Extreme Makeover—Home Edition. Here were deeply concerned Christians who knew that even all of us combined did not have the resources to do what needed to be done for Vic and his family. But together we could access those resources and try to provide a functional house.

When Vic was first approached, his initial response was negative: “There are many people with greater needs than we have,” he replied. But a combination of serious structural problems with the family’s house and then Maria’s diagnosis with cancer convinced Vic that they did need additional help of a truly substantial nature, especially since their house was manifestly unsuited for their disabilities. Only its nearness to basic shopping and services was advantageous to them.

A Shining Testimony
A video of the family and their house was submitted to Extreme Makeover, then redone and resubmitted at the request of the show’s producers, who at that time were receiving about one thousand applications each week. Vic and his family thought nothing would ever come of it. But then the phone calls came, setting up interviews with the family. And with the interviews came an interesting mind-set transformation on the parts of the interviewers. “We thought we would find a defeated, downcast, depressed family,” they said to the Llaneses, “but we have found an upbeat, joyful family instead! How can you be so positive with all these hardships?” And with those comments came golden opportunities to bear testimony to the grace of God! Diane Korman, coordinating producer of the program, observed that “the Llanes kids have adjusted to their disabilities in such an inspiring way that they would be wonderful mentors for other children with special needs.” Guen, now in college, hopes to establish her own business to help other disabled people. All three of the Llanes children regularly reach out to others, not only out of concern for their physical needs, but also to share with them their faith in Christ, following the good example set by their parents. And Pinnacle Companies, the general contractor for the project, has established and will manage The Llanes Family Foundation to raise funds for other families with similar disabilities.

At 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 6, demolition of the then-existing Llanes house began, and in less than twenty-four hours shingles were already being nailed onto the roof of the new house. Actual construction of the house was completed in about seventy-two hours, and then work inside began in earnest, with a special room for Grandma Isabel; a master suite for Vic and Maria; a sunset theme for Guen; a high-tech room for Zeb, complete with a computerized surveillance system; and Carrie’s origami room. Even Romney, Vic’s guide dog, got special treatment—a four-poster bed of his very own!
Vic produces books for blind children, first by scanning them into a computer and then, for many years, transcribing them into Braille by a hand printer. A new mechanical Braille printer is one of the special pieces of technology in Vic’s new office, a soundproof basement room in the new house where he can work undisturbed by the sounds of cars and trucks on the heavily traveled county road out front. Previously his acutely compensatory sense of hearing limited his working time to the quieter nighttime hours. Painted on one wall of that office is a large calligraphed text of Hebrews 11:1—“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”—a tribute to the faith of this family, made so evident to the Extreme Home Design Team!

The “Z” Home
Entering the house just a few days after the family has moved in, Carol and I are immediately attracted to the three-sectioned water feature just inside the front door, providing sound or sight orientation for each member of the family. Frosted windows with faux-etched patterns make window treatments unnecessary by blocking sight and glare but allowing light for Guen and Carrie. Furniture is textured so Vic and Isabel can appreciate its beauty. The hardwood floors keep Zeb’s allergies to carpet fibers dormant, and those hardwood floors are interlaid with tile, signaling that a flight of steps is eighteen inches ahead.

“Rosie,” a computerized servant of sorts, turns lights on and off both inside and outside the house, adjusts temperature controls, reports on the outside weather, checks security, and does myriad other duties on command, reporting on each as she completes it. And if you thank her, she will say, “You’re welcome!” Other features that are part of the $100,000 worth of technology in the house include computer screen readers that speak the words of small print or dimly lit text; others that enlarge text many times over; keyboards and printers that write and print Braille; and a computer sign language translator that converts speech to sign language, text to voice or sign language, and more in real time, allowing the blind and sight-limited family members to communicate much more easily with Zeb. Pinnacle CEO Brian Stolar stated, “This house [has] every piece of technology in it that we know of on planet Earth to help a family with disabilities.”

New Opportunities
Viewing a brief segment of videotape for the then-upcoming TV show, supplied to them for their annual shareholders’ meeting, executives of Microsoft were reportedly brought to tears by what they saw and determined to have the Llanes family appear at that meeting in July. There Vic was privileged to address approximately fifteen thousand people, and response to the family was enthusiastic. Other opportunities have also opened up to the family as a result of the “makeover.” Microsoft flew Vic, Maria, and Zeb to Redmond, Washington, to expose Zeb to opportunities for future employment with the company. And Guen and Carrie have been put in contact with an ophthalmologist who believes he can surgically stop the progress of their blindness and perhaps even reverse some of their sight limitations.

The Best Makeover
The stories go on . . . and probably will for years. But Vic and his family have all experienced an even greater and more important “makeover” than that given them by a wonderful group of media, corporate, and individual volunteers, all initiated by some of their brothers and sisters at First Baptist Church. Their greatest and most wonderful “makeovers” were individual ones, initiated by the God Who loves them and wanted them to be part of His family. While the organizers of Extreme Makeover enlisted almost three thousand volunteers, God sent just one. The greatest Volunteer of all, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, stepped forward and “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2), that joy being the redemption of Isabel, Vic, Maria, Guen, Zeb, and Carrie Llanes . . . and of all who will come to Him by faith. The Llaneses—deeply grateful for their Extreme Makeover home but knowing that their Ultimate Makeover is even better, a home in God’s Heaven—would certainly want me to ask you on their behalf, Have you had the ultimate, the greatest, “makeover” of all?

Epilogue
On Sunday evening, September 17, about two hundred people, executives of Pinnacle Companies, contractors, volunteers, and their families—some of the almost three thousand people who gave of their time, talents, and energy to work on “the Z home”—joined us at First Baptist for a light supper, an opportunity to meet the Llanes family (yes, Romney was there too—on the platform with his family), and then a viewing of the special two-hour telecast of Extreme Makeover—Home Edition projected on a life-size screen in our auditorium. We shared with these wonderful people a brief presentation of “What we believe as a Bible-believing Baptist church” and distributed the tract Makeover Mania. Pray with us for fruit from the seed sown that night!

James Smith is pastor of First Baptist Church, Hackensack, New Jersey.