Monday, May 09, 2005

I will give you the house... Reprise!

NOTE: I am not writing this to offend anyone or reveal financial issues from my church... It is totally, and simply to show how awesome God is... And that He DOES still speak to us and encourage us! Read on.

Since I've been "out of it" for a while, I was just backtracking through some of my old posts, and I realized that I've left a few ideas... Uhm... How shall I put it... Unfinished? Unanswered? Either way, I came across the one entitled "I will give you the house."

Well, here's an update to that one. We've been looking at a cathedral (anyone who knows Pastor Curtis and Marney, knows that God gave them the mandate to "Take the cathedrals"... ) just east of Papineau on St Catherine called St Vincent de Paul.

Anyway, this church is just absolutely beautiful. It has gorgeous stained-glass windows; amazing artwork on the walls; marble and granite all over... It's just gorgeous.

The main sanctuary seats from 1000-1500, but that's REALLY comfortable seating. You can definitely fit more. There's a small chapel for 100-150 people. Both have similar sized halls underneath them, and there's a presbytery right beside the main sanctuary with some 30 rooms/offices (may even be bigger than that. It has 4 floors of office space).

Anyway, we've been in negotiations with them for a while. The original price was $1.8 million. We countered with a three year rental option, with the rent going as a downpayment toward a final cost of $750,000 for the whole building. They (The archdiocese!!!) countered with $840,000, with a $350,000 downpayment, we would have ownership, and the rest would be paid over three years.

At that point, we've been getting the church congregation behind this to raise $100,000 as quick as possible to go back with another counter-offer. In less than 2 months, we've raised nearly $70,000!!! So the pastors went out to lunch with the two priests who take care of the place. And here's what they offered $25,000 right now, and (I forgot some of the details) $75,000 by September 1st (I think). Then over the next 10 years, interest free, we would make lump-sum payments of $74,000 each year.

Here's what the priests said, "But you'll take possession and ownership right away, right."

We are now writing up the proposal, so they can officially present it to the archdiocese.

God is so faithful to His promises! Isn't He amazing! Simple steps of faith and obedience to His Word... That's all it takes!

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