MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house, free and clear, to a couple who said they were left homeless by the storm. But the couple turned around and sold the place without ever moving in, and went back to New Orleans.

“Take it up with God,” an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had flipped the home for $88,000.
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Delores Thompson, who did most of the talking for her family, told the committee that she had lost her job as a nurse and that her husband had lost an import-export business in New Orleans, committee member Joy Covington said.
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After the church settled on Thompson, real estate agent Phillips helped her pick out the house she wanted, and it was bought in Thompson’s name. She took possession in February and sold it in September. Property transfer records for the resale list her as unmarried; the papers from the original sale list her as married.
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Thompson claimed she and her family were living in an apartment supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but did not invite Phillips over during the house search.

“She didn’t want me coming over there,” Phillips said. “She’d say, `I’ll meet you.’”

Covington’s husband, Edward, said the family had been listed by FEMA as displaced. But he said the church took Thompson’s word for it that their house was destroyed.

1) Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.

2) And a certain man lame from his mother?s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple;

3) who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms.

4) And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, ?Look at us.?

5) So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.

6 Then Peter said, ?Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.?

7) And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them?walking, leaping, and praising God.

9) And all the people saw him walking and praising God.

10) Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.