NORWAY — A local family has both faith and hope that they will be able to return home soon.

Melyca and Scott Waterman, parents of Faith, 7, and Hope, 5, say their goal is to be home on Alpine Street by the beginning of the new year or even as early as Thanksgiving. But surgery for Faith to try to relieve a life-threatening medical disorder, and a house that must be made livable have to be addressed first.

“We’re practically living in a barn. Our daughter can’t have that,” Melyca Waterman said of the uninsulated house they bought in 2003.

Faith has an extremely rare disorder called CHAOS, or congenital high airway obstruction syndrome, which means her airway from the nose to bronchi is almost completely blocked and prevents her from breathing. The first-grade student at the Rowe Elementary School must wear a trachea tube to breathe.

“Nothing’s insulated,” Scott Waterman said. That means frozen and burst pipes in the first-floor bathroom where Faith must have her tracheal tube cleaned daily to allow her to breathe. The plaster in the walls also makes it difficult for Faith to breathe.

The family has been temporarily living at Scotts parent’s home on Allen Hill Road in Oxford since January while repairs are being made to the Norway home and his parents are away traveling.

Watching Faith and her sister jump off the bus with their heavy backpacks and big smiles as they run toward their dad, Scott, it’s impossible to see their burdens.

Then Scott opens the side door of the house as the girls run upstairs to play.

The rooms are stripped down to the century-old wide, uninsulated pine board subfloor. The walls have horse-hair plaster used years ago to finish interior walls and keep drafts out.

“We have to close the foundation of the bathroom,” Scott said, because it has allowed cold air to seep through the uninsulated walls to the water pipes, freezing them numerous times.

“It happens pretty much every winter,” Melyca said.

On Wednesday, Melyca and Faith left to drive to Philadelphia’s Children Hospital for pre-surgery meetings with doctors. Faith will undergo a procedure in October to remove part of the trachea in hopes of helping her tube stay open.

While there, Melyca will stay at the Ronald McDonald House in New Jersey as she did during previous hospital trips.

“It’s like our second home,” said Melyca, who works at a pre-school in Lewiston. “But it’s hard.”

She and Faith will be away from home for four months during the surgery.

Meanwhile, the Oxford Advent Christian Church on Route 26, which the Watermans attend, has already raised more than $4,600 through a benefit concert, barbecue and other donations, including manual labor, that will help with a number of needs at the house.

New plumbing pipes for the kitchen and bathroom, duct work and registers to fix the heating problems, wiring for the downstairs, insulation for around the foundation, insulation and Sheetrock for the kitchen and bedroom walls are some of those needs. They also need a new kitchen sink, cabinets, new insulated front door, flooring for the kitchen and bathroom and more.

Scott, an out-of work carpenter, is also being helped by fellow parishioners and family and friends to rebuild the house.

While the family could have just packed their bags and moved from Norway, Melyca said they did not want to. “I couldn’t stop making the payments. You don’t want to ruin the credit.”

Although they applied for help through Community Concepts and even ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” several times, Melyca said they were turned down. So instead, they decided to do it on their own.

“We thought this will be our own little makeover,” she said.

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