Had a curve ball thrown at us!

We have been meeting in a hotel for the last 3.5 years and just recently rented a warehouse space to turn into a worship center/church but we're still waiting to get the plans so we can submit them to get the building permits. We were hoping to be in by Easter but that ain't happening!

WELL, we get a call today at 3 pm that the hotel manager wants to talk to us (she called church and hubby was home). There is a problem. We finally get in touch with her and it seems the old events manager booked a large chess tournament at the hotel and they just were notified that it will be 3x as many people as they thought so it means that they have no place for us to meet. Hmmm - interesting. Thank heavens we have our warehouse! So this Sunday, we will be having church in a bare warehouse. There is a small office (we'll use for the kids' Sunday school) and two single seater bathrooms (sufficient for us but UGLY) in addition to the wide open warehouse space. The acoustics are great so we'll skip the sound system. Hubby wants to just cut the ties with the hotel now but we can't yet because once we start construction, it just won't be safe to meet there but man, I can't believe our first real church service will be on folding metal chairs, on a cement floor with concrete walls. This is going to be GREAT!!!!

 

Oh absolutely!! As I said, hubby has been wanting to just make the jump now and meet in an unfinished space and each week make sure it is safe to meet on Sunday despite the construction but we don't think that's quite prudent. But just when we've decided that's not a good idea, we get kicked out for a week. Hey, we can roll with it!! So today will be spent cleaning, moving over folding chairs (remember that chair thread I started? Hopefully people don't mind metal folding chairs for now! ).

I LOVE the idea of singing A Mighty Fortress! I'll have to mention that!

 

OK - We've been out ALL day (left the house at 8 am and just got home a bit ago - it's 5 pm) but we're as set as we can be. Here we are, our sanctuary:



Can't go without coffee!! I donated a spare coffee maker when we first got in there and now another woman donated another so we're all set. The blue pot on the right is for hot water. The hotel only gives us one pot of regular.

 

Our children's area (we have about 10 kids so a few will need to bring their chairs with them from the sanctuary). That's a folding table and a card table - hence the different heights. LOL



Finally, we usually have a small table with the offering plates and Bibles that we will hand out to those who need it but we didn't have a spare table so this is what we used. LOL



I can't wait until tomorrow!!!

 

What we need more than anything else is prayer. We had thought we'd be in the building by now but we JUST got all of the building plans done by the architects and will be submitting the plans on Monday to apply for the building permit. Now we need prayer that the building permit is granted quickly (we hear it is normally about 8 weeks) so that we can get started on building this place for a more permanent home for our church. Also pray for the new believers that we have that they will grow in the Lord and stand strong. So many are coming from places of addiction and hurt but we've seen God's mighty hand in their lives!!

This has been an awesome, exciting, frustrating and humbling time and I know that will continue!! God is just so incredible. Absolutely jaw dropping incredible.

 

We had a GREAT service today!! A few little kinks but nothing much at all. 63 people attended and 5 became new members.

 

I will post more later once this all goes down but I may have an incredible update on the building permit later today. Let's just say that God sometimes leaves you speechless when you least expect it.