Replanting Churches: Undeposited checks and an excellent trim painter

Pastor John, Pastor Mario and Joel Cordero

Each week, we try to carve out one day to work on the building in West Conshohocken. Our tasks have been pretty much the same for the past four weeks. Some of us roll paint. Some of us paint the trim with brushes. Some of us organize and purge garbage. Some of us patch holes in the walls. And, most importantly, we sweat profusely because the building is ridiculously warm this time of year. But it's a blast and we enjoy it.

It was a sweaty 94 degrees today in the sanctuary

This week, we experienced two surprises. The first surprise came in the form of a visit from Pastor Mario Cordero and his son Joel. Mario is the pastor of a church in Hazleton, PA. They heard of the work we're trying to do and they offered to volunteer for a day to help us make progress. I warned Mario ahead of time that we were still doing a lot of painting, but that didn't seem to intimidate him. Now I know why it didn't intimidate him. He's an excellent painter. When my wife Andrea saw how well he painted, she was thrilled. Mario and Joel worked with us from early morning until mid-afternoon when we needed to leave.

The other surprise came in the form of getting a locked closet opened. My son, Jay, was curious about a closet that had a lock on it. We hadn't tried to open it yet because there was too much other work to do and we mistakenly assumed that it probably just contained more junk that we'd have to sort out. But Jay was curious and he asked permission to see if he could get the door open. I suggested that he use a drill on the lock. While he was getting the tools he needed, Pastor Mario looked at it and realized that it could be opened if we removed the door moulding. So that's what he did and then we sorted through what we found inside.

When we first were given access to the building, Tom Wambach and his daughter Diana from Hatboro Community Church looked inside and found thousands of dollars in money that for some reason the old church never deposited. We all assumed that that was everything, but behind the locked closet door, we found several thousand more dollars in uncashed checks (unfortunately it's too late to deposit them now). We also found $345 in cash and another $95 that was earmarked to be donated to the Pocono Mountain Bible Conference.

Organizing and counting the money that was found locked in the closet

I don't know why the checks and cash had never been deposited, but it seems clear that there must have been a complete breakdown of order during the final months of the old church's life. Sadly, they also left behind thousands in unpaid bills which is odd because the checks that had been given would have been enough to pay for those expenses. But there they were, locked in a closet, waiting to be discovered once it was too late to deposit them.

So that's our most recent update. Our next workday is going to involve some more painting and some additional junk removal, but as each week goes by, we're making steady progress. Thanks for your prayers.