During a recent children’s December 2016 Advent program at Church of the Redeemer (Greensboro, NC) in the Diocese of Christ Our Hope, our children’s ministry performed a song by Rain for Roots called “It’s Hard to Wait.” The slow gently aching song reminds its hearers that waiting is hard, but a time of fulfillment is coming.
After six months of planning, meetings, fundraising, permits and contracts, we began renovating our new church building the first week of 2017. Action has begun. Waiting for construction to start is over. Our general contractor, Wolfe Homes, will be adding three main areas to the former New Garden Nursery facility to prepare our future worship space–a warming kitchen, a lobby area and new bathroom expansion to bring the building up to code. Simultaneously infrastructure work is also underway on a new larger HVAC system, electrical wiring, plumbing and a 6000 square foot modular installation for our youth and children’s ministries. Take a look at the pictures below to see renovation work in progress.
We’ve also been blessed by motivated volunteers from Redeemer and beyond who have come out to paint, build picnic tables, stack brick pavers and unload new sanctuary chairs. We’ve had two work days thus far and are planning a third in February. At our last December volunteer work day, a ministry from Statesville, NC called Grill for God came out and grilled hot dogs and hamburgers to provide all the volunteers a free lunch. Check out the pictures from our last work day below.
While our building renovations are well underway our Park Farm Executive Team, consisting of Nate Peachey, Sally Miller, Alan Hawkins & Elijah Lovejoy, are also in the beginning stages of developing a Park-Farm Master Plan. We hope the plan will lay the groundwork for members of the congregation to take initiative on farm oriented projects. Already we have proposals to use our two hoop house, an aquaponics system, potential bee keeping and other ideas on the horizon.
On both our worship building renovations and our Park-Farm vision, movement is now happening. We hope to start planting in our hoop houses as early as this spring and our move in date for starting worship is June 2017. If you would like to volunteer at an upcoming work day or you are interested in being part of our Park-Farm Team, please contact Elijah Lovejoy or Alan Hawkins. We would be happy to point you in the right direction and give you the information needed to get involved. Thank you for your prayers, generosity and support. May God continue to lead us into his purposes for this place.
