A Midland church reborn following a baptism of fire
Is it a resurrection?
"Yes, yes -- definitely," said the Rev.
On Sunday, the reborn church at
The first fire was in
At a service after that fire, Sandu prayed for his parishioners to forgive the man.
A second fire in
A year before the fire, the congregation had bought the building it had occupied since 2000 and paid
After the fire, parishioners held services at neighboring
On Wednesday, Sandu, alone at the just-finished church, stood in the empty nave, surveying gleaming rows of new pews and the pulpit where he will preach. Insurance covered a big share of the rebuilding cost, but not all. He marveled at what so many volunteers and parishioners had accomplished.
A new kitchen and social hall will provide a place for weddings. Three fresh classrooms, tailored for different ages, will open. A chapel -- a new feature -- will allow quiet contemplation for the bereaved.
"Eight months," he said. "We build a building in eight months."
The building came after the planning, the permits and the design. The old church was a hodgepodge: originally four buildings, merged and remodeled over the years.
The new church is just that.
"Everything was new for us," said Sandu, 42. "The rules, law, everything. We hired professional people, to do it the goodest way -- the right way."
Sandu was born in
Many of the 300 Golgotha parishioners have roots in the two countries and speak three languages -- but Sandu preaches in English, and pushes the congregation to embrace the adopted country. Older parishioners are sentimental about their roots, but many of their children and grandchildren are American-born.
The fires left parishioners bereft and grieving, including Sandu. The rooms for Sunday school classes were gone. The services --assistance for low-income parents, training for immigrants studying for citizenship tests -- were gone. Everything was gone, burned.
Sandu remembers an excavator knocking down the last wall of the old building. A small flurry of papers fluttered toward him like dry leaves. One charred sheet was a picture of his two sons.
He recalls sitting down outside the wreckage, not knowing what would happen next, lost in his thoughts. A man Sandu didn't know spoke to him.
"May I sit?" the man asked. Sandu nodded.
It was a pastor from a neighboring church, who said nothing at all, but sat next to Sandu for hours in silent solidarity, as he remembers it.
"I could feel him," Sandu said.
Something strange happened after that, through two years of services held away from home. The Golgotha congregation didn't shrink -- it grew by 30 percent.
As rebuilding began, benefactors appeared. A contractor Sandu didn't know brought granite countertops for the new kitchen, and refused to accept payment. The pews, a costly and essential part of reconstruction, were offered at low rates, with no markup for profit.
A
"You can't imagine all the paint," Sandu said. "So much paint."
The pastor took a job himself, working construction in
A month ago, on
The next day was
"Everybody enjoying, everybody's happy," Sandu said. "The kids -- they can't explain their joy. They just jump, they are just smiling."
He's looking forward to Sunday's opening, and expects a crowd. The nave will hold 375 people.
The choirs will sing again; the church has three of them. The piano and the sound systems are ready.
Many will speak at the dedication ceremony, and others will sing, some in Romanian, an old song to bless the building.
Sandu will take his lead role at the new pulpit. He plans to rely on a few biblical verses from Second Chronicles: old
"I will adjust this prayer," Sandu said, smiling. "I am trying to take this prayer to our situation. It's six or seven verses that I will read, and every community will say, 'Amen.'"
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