October 9 Building Update 026
“Dear Noah,”
I think your story is one of the most amazing and remarkable in the Bible! With just hand tools and members of your family as helpers, you were not only able to build a boat large enough to save mankind from a worldwide catastrophe and flood, but you also succeeded in saving one male and one female from every kind of animal and creature. Your story is filled with faith, perseverance and promise and walking faithfully with God. I hope you don’t mind if I use part of the story.
14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
-Genesis 6:14-16
Ashley Ridge Church is building an “ark” as well. It is not to be a boat to float on the water like yours but a building to sit on dry land in Summers Corner. While we will not be taking on animals and creatures (at least that we know of), it will be a place where our families, friends, and neighbors in the Summerville community can take refuge and seek safety from all types of present day storms.
At times, the task has seemed overwhelming and daunting, building a 23K square foot facility during a pandemic, economic crisis, and political upheaval. Maybe you had similar thoughts in your time with the challenges you faced? We have been able to take comfort in the following verse from the Book of Romans.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? -Romans 8:31
We are in Day 24 of a 40-Day Push to Burn the Note and have whittled the pay-off on our land loan down to 132K with a little over two weeks left until October 25th and the end of the big push. As you can see, we still have a ways to go.
What we really need is another flood, not of rain and water this time, but of prayers and contributions of every kind. Like you, we have the opportunity to be a blessing to those that come after us by what we are able to accomplish with our defining building task. With God’s help and your example, we will get ours done, too – TOGETHER!
Derrick Horres, Project Leader