A single mother whose house was destroyed when Hurricane Rita struck Mauriceville, Texas last year has been given the keys to a new home ? thanks to the generosity of a local church.

Robert Prouse, the Music and Youth Minister at the First Baptist Church in Devonshire, said members of the church were so moved when they heard of the thousands of families displaced by Hurricane?s Katrina and Rita that they decided to ?adopt a family? and help them get back on their feet.

?Rita caused $10 billion damage in the Houston area and my little sister?s home was devastated. This gave us somebody to adopt as a family,? he explained.

The 125-member strong church agreed to donate $38,000 of its surplus funds towards financing the new home and raised a further $15,000 through various fundraising efforts.

Three weeks ago Belinda Lopez and her two young sons were given the gift of a new home.

Mr. Prouse added: ?My sister Belinda was overwhelmed. She couldn?t imagine that there was someone who was willing to do this for her and her children.?

His 11-year-old nephew, Dallas, told him: ?I can?t thank your church enough for how much you have made my mom happy and we love all of you for that.?

Church Pastor Rev. Charlie Franklin said: ?Most people don?t have a concept of what it was like to live in the Texas Gulf Coast area once Rita went through.

?Life has been really hard for the residents there. In many cases their lives are still as broken as they were right after the storm and we wanted to do something as a church to respond to the crisis.?

He added added: ?It has been an amazing process. We wanted to be a part of the healing process and we wanted to see a family from disaster to recovery and we feel we have done that.?

Mauriceville, Texas has a population of 15,000 and Mr. Prouse said the residents were ?really amazed? at all that had been done to help his sister and her sons.

He said: ?A large percentage of the community had a lot of damage done to their homes by Hurricane Rita. What we did had a huge impact on the community.?