Please remember my parish and our pastor in your prayers during this lenten season. Renovation work has begun on the interior of our future church.
As some of you already know, our parish acquired a 160 y/o Methodist/Episcopal Church and have been working to restore the stained glass windows and masonry for the past 8 years!! That work is now complete and our bishop has given us a grant to complete work on the interior.
Fr. Georges invited me to see the work yesterday. To convert the building into a Catholic Church, we have to make modifications to create a Sanctuary, a Sacristy, create a center aisle, and bring the building up to code. That has necessitated the installation of heat, central air conditioning, rewiring the entire building, installing bathrooms ... you get the picture. As workers ripped up certain elevated sections of the church, they found some old documents. Among these was a card distributed to the Episcopal congregation in 1952, asking them to write to President Truman and their state representatives indicating they did not approve of the US sending an ambassador to the Vatican! Lol!!! Be careful of what you pray for :-)
We are a very small community of less than 100 families, yet the parish has survived for more than 100 years. Father hopes to have us in the church for Holy Week! Should anyone wish to share their Lenten gifts with this work of God, here is a link to our web site (active but not current), where you will find a Donate Now button through PayPal.
St. Ann Catholic Church - Maronite Rite
God bless you all!