Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you back. – Deuteronomy 30:4
It’s been a long journey back from the “exile” the hurricanes forced our beloved church into. From the initial shock of the damage done, to the slow process of clean up and remediation, to the more hopeful reconstruction of our church, there is finally an end in sight.
Since last October, so many things at LCC have been postponed, halted and relocated. Not the least of which has been your pastors’ offices! We temporarily had to hold our Family Worship service in the sanctuary, but thankfully that relocation was short-lived and we rejoiced to return to the Fellowship Hall where the service belongs.
Much has been done to restore and even improve the facility. New carpet, new tile, fresh paint are just a few of the cosmetic restorations that have happened. We’ve also reimagined some of our work and worship space. A new door has been added to link Fellowship Hall with the Youth Room, which will make it so much easier for the children to go and come from Children’s Time during Family Worship.
Another new addition is a sink in the Nursery, a long-time dream that the flood allowed us to finally implement. This will make the nursery much more appealing and useful to our families with little ones.
We have also done some reconfiguring of the front office area, opening up the space to make it more flexible and friendly. This has also allowed us to return our Bookkeeper, Paula Stopa, to the office she’d occupied prior to the pastors’ arrival. In the space she used to occupy since the pastors’ arrival, we will now have much-needed additional meeting and work space.
The office work room has also been updated with more portable work fixtures so we will be better poised to prepare for the inevitable next storm that comes our way.
A huge thank you to all of you who have been so patient during this process. We know many of you have had to be very creative with doing your ministries in new spaces while your usual locations have been restored. We pastors definitely echo your sighs of relief as we anticipate returning to our own offices – our kitchen table was adequate temporarily but was not really ideal, to say the least!
So in the coming weeks, you will see a gradual return of all of the LCC “exiles,” including appliances for the Fellowship Hall kitchen and office kitchen, furniture for the pastors’ offices, youth room and nursery, for example.
Paula and the rest of the staff will be anxious to get out of the Prayer Chapel and into roomier spaces!
One big thing that will pave the way for our return is the Emptying of the Pod, which will happen this Saturday, May 10 starting at 8:30 in the morning. We’d like to have as many willing arms to unload as possible, but if all you can offer is your organizational skills in directing where to put the boxes, or encouragement for our work crew, whatever you can help with will be greatly appreciated.
We are excited to be returning from our seven-month exile, and we’re excited to see where God might be leading us in the future.
