Leaking Roof - What a week!

This past week has been quite the crazy week indeed. We finished up the Way of the Master boot camp and went out to the Clarksville Fairgrounds to put on a concert and do street evangelism before the big Demolition Derby down there. In the process of setting up I hurt my leg so bad that I was having difficulty walking for a while. To tell you the truth it is still hurting a little even now. We announced on Sunday at church that we will be going to two services on the third Sunday of November in order that the church could continue to grow, and then Sunday evening Austin preached his second ever sermon. Then comes Monday, which is supposed to be my day off and be an easy day, and man oh man was it a crazy day.

I stayed home during the day, and that evening went down to Clarksville with my wife to drop her off for women's study and then head with the kids to youth group. Monday had been a dreary day all day because it had finally started raining here, which as you all know we needed very badly. As much as we needed the rain I was dreading getting to the church because in the past we have had some real roof leak problems. We have tried just about everything to fix the roof with no luck, and our last fix action had not had to go through a really big rain yet. Well let me show you what I saw when I walked in the building. I saw a sight that looked like this:

AHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It was leaking, and worse than it had ever leaked before. What's worse it was leaking right on top of our literature table where we keep all the missionary prayer cards - sorry Bernie, Mike, and all the rest - we didn't mean to let you get wet. So the prayer cards are ruined, the wooden table is warped, the ceiling tiles above it are crumbling and when I pull them out the steady drip turns in to a pretty constant stream. I just wanted to pull my hair out. So in my frustration I try to clean up some of the mess. Keep in mind my leg is hurt, so when I try to get up off the floor from cleaning up I have some problems and I fall down. There is nothing more humbling to me than to have a couple of the ladies of the church come drag my sorry behind up off the floor because I can't get up, but thank God for faithful sisters in Christ.

So we put out buckets under the leaks and I leave. Well youth group is going ok, and then towards the end I get a call from Sara and she tells me that one of the ladies went in the hall and said it was getting worse and I needed to bring a pool up there to catch it all. Oh my! Well rather than bringing a pool I go to Lowe's and pick up some tarps and four guys from the church tarp the roof to keep the water out. It got a little soggy doing the work but the leak is stopped for now.

So where do we go from here? Well we know that we need to fix the roof right and the women's group had already started praying for God to provide a solution. To make a long story short many families have called me this week and offered to help financially pay for the roof repair. I am so blessed to Pastor a church full of generous people! People who take an active role in our church and care about our people. You guys are awesome. It would be very easy to let these families pay the whole bill for the roof to get fixed, but Chris Leccese pointed out that the roof keeps the whole church dry, and we should allow the whole church the chance to help out in fixing it. So that is what we are going to do. We have decided that this Sunday we will receive a special offering to repair the roof. But what happens if we take in more money than is needed to fix the roof? Well the answer to that question is pretty simple. We currently owe about $78,000 on our mortgage for the church building. Anything that comes in over and above what it takes to fix the building will be used to reduce the balance on the mortgage. Perhaps this roof leak might just be a blessing in disguise as it gets us ready to expand the building later for all the extra people that we will reach with the gospel.

So what is your part? I want each of you to pray and ask God how he would want you to give towards this project. Sara and I are praying, as are the elders and many other families. I want you to prayerfully consider how we all might work together, and may God get all the glory.