In our 180th year as a congregation, God has taken us on quite a journey. The weekend we were set to celebrate our 180th Anniversary, a devastating flood hit our village of Perth-Andover, NB – destroying dozens of homes, businesses and public buildings. Our church building was one of those casualties, as it was badly flooded and deemed structurally unsafe by inspectors.
After much thought and prayer it became clear to us that this was a “blessing in disguise.” We could move ahead with a new building (on higher ground) that would better meet our needs as a growing church. The old building held much history and memories, but was also in some ways impractical for modern ministry.
The old building was demolished on August 22nd, and construction on the new building began the next day. We are excited to announce that the construction has been zooming along and the new building will be ready for our first Sunday service on December 23rd, 2012! Praise the Lord!
As Perth-Andover still struggles to recover from the flood and faces other challenges, we have heard from many people in the community that our new building has become a symbol of hope for our village. We think that’s great.
It’s time like these that we have been reminded of the value of being part of the Convention family. Convention office set up an online donation system which saved us a lot of work. Daryl Mackenzie (Director of Operations) went to bat for us with the insurance company and helped us get a good settlement. Most of all, we’ve been incredibly blessed by several churches and individuals in our Convention who have made donations to help us with the rebuilding project. All of these things really have made our progress possible. Thank you.
We still have a ways to go in our fundraising to complete the project without putting ourselves in an unmanageable financial situation. Unlike most churches with building projects, we haven’t had a few years to fundraise and prepare. We are inviting more interested churches and individuals in our Convention to help if they’re able. Information about the project and how you can give is available here: www.perth-andoverbaptist.com/building/project.html
-Submitted by Rev. Michael Fredericks, Pastor of Perth-Andover Baptist Church
