Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Anastasia Thompson plays guitar for her twin sons, Hunter and Alex.

Anastasia and Gary Thompson and their twins Hunter (left) and Alex are living with Gary Thompson's mother while their house in western Roanoke County is being renovated by volunteers organized by the Military Families Support Centers.

Roger Talmadge, the director of the Military Families Support Centers in Salem, coordinated the renovation of the Thompsons' house.

Jim Whisman, a plumber for 45 years, is volunteering his time to help remodel the Thompsons' home in western Roanoke County. Many of the supplies were donated by local businesses.

Gary Thompson waits to perform the song "Let it Be" for residents at the Roanoke Rescue Mission during an afternoon service in late November.

Her husband, Gary, was in Iraq.

Her twins were newborn, one of them still recovering from emergency surgery.

And the little stone house the couple had just purchased in western Roanoke County was uninhabitable, a complete wreck.

Anastasia Thompson was living with her babies in the converted-garage apartment of her mother-in-law's home, several miles away.

The first time she went to the Salem-based Military Family Support Centers, she hoped some of the guys there would volunteer to mow the grass outside the vacant fixer-upper.

Sure, they would. Anastasia could also help herself to the diapers, formula and Wal-Mart gift cards donated for the families of deployed soldiers.

When she saw everything the volunteers boxed up for her, Anastasia cried.

That day they asked her to make two lists: one for necessities such as lawn mowing and baby supplies; the other a so-called "dream list."

"Remodel the house?" Anastasia wrote tentatively.

Weeks passed, and she tucked the pipe dream away, focusing instead on her husband's safe return.

Helping hands

Roger Talmadge is a retired Army colonel who served two tours in Vietnam. When his kids were young and he was overseas, the military took care of everything for his wife.

On the bases where the family lived, if a screen door fell off its hinges or a furnace needed repairing, the Army sent someone to fix it. It has long troubled Talmadge that families of citizen-soldiers can't rely on that same backup.

A layman who coordinates missions at downtown Roanoke's First Baptist Church on Third Street, he works with a volunteer group called Helping Hands, which donates time to local charity projects. When he found himself elected president of the Military Family Support Centers, based at the American Legion Post 03, Talmadge merged his military and missionary passions into one.

The center relies on donations to provide financial aid, home repairs and the like to families of deployed National Guard, Reserve and active-duty troops. Much of the labor is provided by First Baptist's Helping Hands.

When Talmadge saw Anastasia's wish list, he picked up the phone. The house needed a lot of work, but he thought they could knock it out in a few months.

"We're going to renovate your house," he told her.

"How?"

"We don't worry about that," Talmadge said. "The Lord worries about that."

A life on hold

From the U.S. military base inside Baghdad's Green Zone, Gary Thompson worried about his family. He had just finished gutting the little house in May 2007 -- ripping out paneling and sheetrock -- when his Staunton-based National Guard unit was called up.

There was still $1,000 worth of termite damage to be repaired. The electric service wasn't up to code. The water pipes had burst. And that was just the stuff he knew about.

"My plan was to get it livable first," he recalled. But all that would have to wait.

An intelligence analyst for the Army, Gary took a military leave from his job at Advance Auto, where he builds databases and programs computers.

The day he left to join his unit in Iraq, week-old son Hunter was still on a ventilator. He called home every day from his post at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Sometimes Anastasia heard mortar fire in the background.

Gary heard worry in his wife's voice. He knew he had left his family in good hands, in the home of his mother, Susan Thompson.

"But at the same time, I knew how much Anastasia was struggling," Gary said.

When Hunter was still in the hospital but before doctors allowed her to drive, Anastasia begged rides to deliver breast milk for him. By the time he was pronounced healthy, she found herself changing 16 diapers a day. Susan Thompson is "the best mother-in-law" in the world, Anastasia said, but she works full time, and she hated to trouble her for help.

She returned to her fledgling real-estate business when the boys were 3 months old. Sometimes she carted them with her to show property. Day care costs for two infants run about $1,600 a month, and there was no way she could afford that.

'Pray about everything'

The husband's in combat in Iraq. The wife's living with two babies in her mother-in-law's garage. They're broke, and their fixer-upper is a mess.

For Roger Talmadge, it was the easiest sell in the world.

Semi-retired plumber Jim Whisman raised his hand when it came time to install new pipes in the Thompsons' home. CMC Supply came through with a donated tub.

Another church member talked an out-of-state business associate into donating a $3,000 support beam. Ferguson Bath Kitchen & Lighting Gallery sold them an on-demand water heater for half-price.

The family of Wally and Carol Young donated timber and helped install it. Their kids wrote Bible verses on the wall joists. Philippians 4:6-7 -- Worry about nothing. Pray about everything.

"When I saw that, I boo-hooed," Anastasia recalled.

"Most people who are Christian, if they can help, they will," Whisman said one chilly morning last week. He was working on a drain for the kitchen sink. The new heat pump had yet to be turned on.

What supplies weren't donated were purchased with money raised by the Roanoke Valley chapter of the American Red Cross. Instead of giving blood donors free T-shirts in January, the blood-drive unit donated $1 for every donor to the Thompson house project.

When Gary came home in March, he couldn't believe the change: New, bigger windows and skylights to brighten up the place. The wreck of an old hunting cabin was turning into a home.

"Gary's been out here when he could and worked like a horse with the rest of us," Talmadge said. Some 30 people have contributed labor, most of it on weekends.

"We've had a lot of singing and praying as well as a lot of hammering and sawing," he added.

The project isn't finished, though Talmadge is aiming for an early spring move-in date. "We don't know where it's coming from, but like I've said all along: We'll have to trust Father for the results," he said.

Area appliance sellers, be forewarned: Talmadge may be hitting you up for a deal on a good scratch-and-dent stove. He's also romancing a Northern Virginia company about fixing the huge crack in the floor.

And a new backyard playground set for the twins would be very nice.

To donate to the project milfamily.org

For more information on the support centers, call 400-8301.