"The Lilies of the Field" by William E. Barrett

Wow.  I mean, wow.  This book is going to end up on my top favorite new reads of 2023 list.  Many, many thanks to Katie Hanna for recommending it to me!
Homer Smith, a black twenty-four-year-old handyman from South Carolina, stumbles on a group of German nuns living in the middle of the desert in the American Southwest.  He offers to help them fix the roof of the little house they live in and ends up building them a chapel.  Homer teaches them better English; they teach him that permanency and be...