Have you ever been handed a cup of coffee or a fresh from the oven pizza and been told “Be careful, it’s hot”, then you take a drink or a bite anyhow and quickly regret it? I did that last weekend and burned the roof of my mouth on some hot, melted cheese.
Patience is a virtue, they say, but one that I think many of us, myself especially, can struggle with. Since we provided our last regular services in September and have been waiting for our new space to be remodeled, I have struggled a lot. Nothing seemed to be happening quite fast enough for me and based on the number of people who drop in when they see us in the building, reach out on Facebook, call, or email to learn about our progress, I would guess that this process isn’t happening fast enough for our volunteers, neighbors, and partners in the community either.
We have great news to share, but it comes in small increments. The first week in December our building permit was finally issued, and work began in earnest on the space. For this, we are extremely grateful. We still do not have a firm date on when construction will be complete, and we know that there is a lot that needs to happen afterwards in order for us to re-open our doors.
I wanted to give a little update on that process and ask that you lend a hand where you can. Once all construction is completed our building needs to be inspected first by the city to give us permission to move in. Once we are allowed to occupy the building, we will schedule a moving date. It will likely be a lot colder moving into our new home than it was moving out of John Knox Presbyterian Church. We hope that as many people answer our call for help on moving day this time around. Many hands make lighter work. Once everything is moved in and items are on the shelf more inspections must be scheduled. In order to operate a food pantry there are regulations to be followed and several regulating agencies must come in and certify that we are set up to follow those regulations. We have reached out to these agencies and have learned it could take as long as three weeks for them to get us on their schedule once everything is moved in. If they sign off on our new space, we will be ready to open our doors and begin serving our neighbors once again.
Aside from help with moving day we ask that you continue to pray. Pray for our neighbors who are in need. Pray for our partnering pantries, Streams of Hope, Family Network of Wyoming, and UCOM, that they have the resources to provide for the additional neighbors they see. Pray for our contractors, that work is completed safely. Pray for this process to be completed in as little time as possible so we can get back to working on our mission of feeding mind, body, and soul in our community.
In Romans chapter 12, Paul says “Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times.” We ask you pray for success for our project, as we patiently await our re-opening along with the rest of you.
Yours in service,
Karrie Brown
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