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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY -- Last year, Ralph and Socorro Martinez and their five children owned little more than the clothes on their backs. Today they are talking about their life-changing "miracle.'' "You don't know how exciting it is. We can't even explain it in words,'' says Ralph Martinez. "Miracle'' may be the right one, though. Just two months ago, the Martinez family was on a list of candidates to obtain a home through Habitat for Humanity. But the Salt Lake chapter had simply run out of money and the family's prospects were bleak. "We had nothing but our prayers,'' said Yasamina Roque, the chapter's director. Then, without typical Hollywood fanfare, "Promised Land,'' a television show about a family crisscrossing the country in a mobile home doing good deeds, did one for the Martinez family. The program donated $65,000 to Habitat for Humanity and volunteered to work on the home. In exchange, the home and the organization will be featured in a two-part, season finale on CBS May 7 and 14 at 8 p.m. EST. "I tell you, there is a God up there, and this is proof,'' said Roque, standing in front of the frame and foundation of the future Martinez home. "It's a great organization and I figured what show besides `Promised Land' . . . could do it?'' said Bill Schwartz, supervising producer of the "Touched by an Angel'' spinoff. "Our whole purpose on the air is to be an example.'' "This is the biggest break in our life,'' said Socorro Martinez. It means her children won't have to worry about moving or changing schools. "Now when we get older, we can come home to the same place,'' said Corrine Martinez, 13, who has done her share of moving in recent years. The family came to Salt Lake from California in 1996 after a short stay in Denver. Shortly after Christmas that year, their Salt Lake landlord, without warning, refused to renew their lease, giving the family a week to move. The couple's 6-month-old son, Ralph II, had been out of the hospital for only three months, being diagnosed with kidney failure. "My son was in such a fragile state at the time,'' Socorro said. "That basically left us nowhere. Basically we had nothing except the clothes on our back and some money for food.'' They stayed in the overflow homeless shelter for two nights, sharing a room with two other families, before finding housing through the Salt Lake Interfaith Hospitality Network. Three weeks later they found an apartment where they have lived since. Since moving to Utah, Ralph Martinez has been doing volunteer work on several homes for Habitat for Humanity, hoping that someday one might be his own. Habitat requires prospective homeowners to put in 500 hours of "sweat equity'' working on homes for themselves or others, so they can qualify for the no-interest home loans. "Even my oldest daughter who's 13 has been doing volunteer work,'' said Socorro Martinez. "She's put in the sod for the front yard. We've painted, put on siding and done a lot of cleanup.'' "I'm just trying to put as much time into my own house as I can,'' said Ralph Martinez. "It's the chance of a lifetime and God blessed me with the opportunity to do it.'' Since Habitat for Humanity was founded by Linda and Millard Fuller in 1976, volunteers have built more than 60,000 homes sheltering some 300,000 people in 50 countries.
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