It’s been an unusual start to the new year, here at First Baptist Church.
We started off by having to cancel our first services of the year, due to a bitterly cold winter storm being predicted. The Greene County Emergency Management Agency asked that all organizations, including churches, suspend their activities for that Sunday, January 5th. After conferring with one of our Trustees and our Chairman of Deacons, we decided it was probably good citizenship (and submission to a reasonable request from proper authorities; see Romans 13:1)to do as they asked.
So: no church on the first Sunday of the year! My wife said to me that afternoon: “This is kind of a strange parenthesis in our lives.” She was right.
For a couple of days after that, the church building felt like a ghost town. The State Police were still requesting people to limit unnecessary travel, so there were very few folks about. My footprints were the only ones leading up to and away from the church for two days. I normally like being at the church by myself (I can get a lot of things done), but this just felt eerily quiet. Too quiet.
Well, all that changed on Wednesday. The bitter cold had let up a little and the sun was out. I got a call from Jack Jones asking if we were going to have Wednesday evening services, and I told him I didn’t know. Our sidewalks were still covered in most places with a layer of ice that just wouldn’t budge. I decided to wait until the afternoon to see how much the sun might melt our sidewalks. I’m always torn between the compulsion to have services come…well, you know, or high water, versus the real possibility of visiting someone in the hospital with a broken hip.
Just before 11 o’clock, I prayed these words out loud in my study: “Lord, help me to know for sure one way or the other whether we should have services tonight, or not.”
A few minutes later, I heard a strange noise coming from the bathroom just off my study. It sounded like a tea kettle getting ready to boil. I went to see what was causing it, and realized that the sound was coming from the other side of the wall. I walked out into the hallway, and there I saw one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen: water was gushing from a fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling! It looked like a monsoon rain storm or a waterfall, right inside the church! I stood there dumbfounded for a few moments, staring at it, while our custodian, Nadine Keown, stood looking at it from the other end of the hallway. Then we both started running around, looking for the shut-off valve.
Not finding one, I started frantically calling or texting various people, asking where to find the shut-off valve. And they either didn’t answer, or they didn’t know the answer. While we were looking, we discovered a second leak from another burst pipe, in one of the choir room bathrooms. This day was just getting better and better!
A call to the plumbers, and finally a call to the city, and the city workers came and shut off our water out by the road. (Turns out we don’t have a water shut-off valve for the whole building inside. In retrospect, that seems an unfortunate oversight.) Water had gushed from the light for about 40 minutes. And the light never did quit working! It stayed on the whole time.
The plumbers had repairs done and the water back on quicker than I expected. Nadine worked on the hallway with a Shop Vac, and we set up big fans to dry the carpet, including a powerful one loaned by Rodney Trent. The next day Rodney cleaned the carpets, and after a few hours the floor looked pretty good again. Ceiling’s a little worse for wear, though.
But it was on that next day we discovered four inches of water in the tunnel that runs under our sanctuary! Another call to the plumbers, and when they were through, there was only an inch of water left. Several of us swept the rest of the water into the drain, and the big fans were moved downstairs to dry out the tunnel overnight. Another crisis met and handled!
Until the next one: a week later, we had no water to the Alpha classroom and the water fountain right outside their door. So we called the plumbers a third time, wanting to “nip it in the bud”. They came, and while they were working on it…the pipes burst in the hallway again, and for a second time we had “Niagra Falls” pouring from that same light fixture! This time, the plumbers had it shut off in just a few minutes; only about a third as much of the carpet was soaked. And, yes, the light was on the whole time, and it’s still working!
Last night I took our new Trustee Board on a walk-about through the church, to show them where all the problems had occurred. They made a list, and talked about some other things that were needing attention before all this happened. I want to say: we’ve got a good group of Trustees, and we should all be thankful for the work they do behind the scenes. They come to late meetings and stay even later to address the maintenance needs of our buildings. I was grateful (and a little proud, I think) at the efficient way they listed the problems and decided on some initial plans, and who was going to carry them out.
So give our Trustees a pat on the back and a word of encouragement, because they’ve got a lot on their plate. And if you want to see ‘em faint, ask them if there’s something you can do to help!
Back to that prayer I prayed in my study, right before the first leak: someone expressed doubt that God would answer my prayer about whether to have Wednesday services by allowing a pipe to burst! My response was that while it certainly did answer my prayer (don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor!), it was also a mercy: if those pipes had burst while no one was here, the water could have poured out of the ceiling for sixteen hours or more, before someone found it.
So there’s always something to be thankful for. In fact, we’re supposed to be thankful. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
As that great philosopher, Roseann Rosannadanna, said: “It’s always something!”
And there’s always something we can be thankful for.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David