Suddenly as another sign of God’s timing (and the fellowship being nearer to being ready!), after years of delays, we were sold the land – and it is very near Cabin Lane Road, the Community Centre and the School! The money was available, because years before a ‘Building Fund Account’ had been started. Small amounts were put in there, sometimes as a result of donations or as a result of ‘surplus’ after we had met all the church expenses, including a tithe towards missionary work. In addition we had two ‘gift days’ when the church were specifically asked to think and pray about what the Lord would have them give. These gift days were both exciting and faith building times for the church.

Interestingly the Community Centre also undertook a building programme and that in turn has released more rooms which have been invaluable for the Sunday school as it was beginning to struggle in the rooms which had been available.

Eventually the decision was made to advertise for a new Pastor. Initially, this was not encouraging! The original group of candidates were all dear men of God who obviously loved the Lord, but did not seem to have a burden for running an expanding church which had a belief that God wanted them to build a church building! Subsequently David Morris applied and he was invited for an exploratory chat, and then to ‘preach with a view,’ followed by a fairly vigorous question and answer session. David was subsequently appointed as Pastor and started in Spring 2006. Interestingly we were able to combine the commissioning service for David with a service of Dedication for the land.

This was yet another leap of faith. How could we provide a home for a family of six and put up a church building? Yet again our Lord is faithful in His provision, which is just as well because we have a time restriction placed on the building process by the Local Authoprity that requires the build to be completed by October 2009. We have also spent the last year developing many areas of church life and have a vision cast and a direction under God to head for the future. However, in order to do that we have to be “ready” and available as a group of God’s people.

Even when we have felt quite daunted by the decisions we had to make, each time when we have really got down on our knees and sought the Lord He has given us the courage to move forward and, once we have moved forward, he has then provided us with what we needed to do so!