"This was God's mysterious plan."

Located off a one-lane highway in what was then rural Oro Valley, Walter believed this land would matter someday.

On Sundays after church, the Wong family would make the long drive from the south side of Tucson, heading from Miracle Mile up Highway 77—now Oracle Road—a quiet two-lane road into the desert, where they’d stop in the middle of the desert and Walter would step out, full of pride.

“Look at the property, kids.”

“And my memory of that drive was that it took forever—and when we finally got there, it was nothing but desert in every direction,” their son Peter recalls. “I was completely flabbergasted and exasperated… words I didn’t know back then, but they perfectly describe how I felt.”

To them, it looked like nothing—just empty desert. But to Walter, it was a legacy in the making.

Walter and Jane were devout Christians who built a life marked by faith, hard work, and generosity. They raised five children, served faithfully, and quietly invested in something they believed would outlast them.

When Walter passed in 1999, the family began selling the properties—one by one. All except this one.

“It should have sold,” Peter recalls. “But every deal fell through.”

Years later, Peter wondered, “what if the greatest value of this land wasn’t in selling it… but in giving it?”

Three years ago, the Wong family chose to donate the property to Gospel Rescue Mission, which sold late last year.

Nearly 60 years after it was first purchased, that gift is now helping fuel rescue and transformation. What began as a financial investment became something far more meaningful.