Couple find good karma helps them heal | Video

An elderly couple who ran a pair of nonprofit faith-based ministries had a garage fire that severely damaged their Orlando house and everything in it. But they did have a lot of good karma stored up, which paid off.

When a fire struck the small Orlando home of Jeaney and Wayne Brooks, destroying their cars and leaving a sooty, acrid stench on everything they owned, they had no insurance to pay for repairs.

The couple both volunteer pastors at Discovery Church had only one thing going for them: karma.

The fire in late April was largely limited to the garage, but it was so hot it melted their vehicles and much of the wiring in the attic. Smoke blackened the attic and permeated every room.

"Both of us are seniors," Jeaney Brooks says. "We can't walk very well, and we both have breathing issues. We had let our homeowner's insurance lapse a couple of years earlier because we couldn't afford the premiums, so we couldn't fix anything."

At 69 and 71, the Brookses both have health issues. He suffers emphysema; she has apnea. The latter requires her to use a breathing machine each night so her oxygen levels don't drop to dangerous levels.

Despite those problems, they figured they had no choice but to continue living in a burned-out home with no functioning air conditioning. They had no idea there was a small army of volunteers about to come to their rescue.

In their years of working for a prison ministry and providing Christian counseling to women battling addiction, they had built up a reserve of good will. So, too, had Jeaney Brooks' son, Sam Burton, 40, who runs a tree-trimming service and has worked a gamut of construction jobs. Three years ago, he had joined the church's Discovery in Motion team to do community-service work. He'd help clear lots, shape landscaping, remove dead trees. He was a leader on a Holden Heights neighborhood-revitalization project.

"Sam is a standout," says Bill Schneider, 55, who spearheads the Discovery in Motion team. "He just shows up and works hard, and he's always volunteering his company's services."

At first, Burton tried to fix his mother and stepfather's home himself. But it quickly became obvious the project was too big for one person. Then Schneider and his wife, Liz Wenta, learned of the fire and reached out to a small community of contractors known for their generous hearts.

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Couple find good karma helps them heal | Video