When I was about five years old my parents helped to pioneer a church plant in West Michigan. At first we met in temporary quarters and had Sunday School classes in the home of one of the members, but one summer the men of the church gathered to build a church building. Working together night after night – into the autumn of the year – they built a modest but attractive colonial building of red brick. My friends and I played in the nearby woods, pelted each other with dirt clods, and tried the keep the construction site tidy. When the men finished they were as proud of their little church as it is legitimate for Christians to be. They trained flood-lights on the steeple so people traveling on the Interstate would see it.
One Saturday night I was with Dad at the church. He was finishing the bulletin. Walking through the fresh, new, building he said, “Do you see this carpet? It was given by a family in the church whose son died in Vietnam.”
Only my dad knew where the money for the carpet had come from. I was not to tell anyone. (Since that was over forty years ago and I have not revealed the family name I have taken the liberty to tell the story now). This farm family had taken insurance money from their son’s death and used it to buy the carpet for the church. Every Sunday I sat in church and I thought of that strapping young man working the farm upon which our house sat. He was 18 and I was five. It seemed to me there was almost nothing he couldn’t do. But he went to fight in Vietnam and no one ever saw him alive again. He died there.
When you pass a church at night on the highway, you have no idea the sacrifices that have been made to make that church possible.
God was sooooooo good to me. I was here in Taylor when the church started their building fund and after a few years of saving I had to move to Ohio. God allowed us to move back just before the opening of our new auditorium.
Isn’t God great?
My father-in-law took his first church when my husband, the eldest, was 10. It was a group of about a dozen people, meeting in a living room. In time they bought a little house in a neighborhood (and the acreage behind it) after the zoning board finally cooperated with their plans. Eventually, it was built into a lovely white church with a steeple. The steel doors in the gym came from the Silverdome in Pontiac when they were remodeling there. Other things came from other strange and interesting places. The men of the church pooled their energies and built a beautiful building. The ladies cooked meals that I have recipes for today… I will say, “Mrs. Hagopian made this cake when all the men built Papa’s church.” Thanks for sharing this story. It brought back many memories.