River valley parish finally begins construction
by Ana Watts
It takes faith and determination to persevere when stumbling blocks keep springing up on the road to an important goal. Clearly the people 
of the Parish of the Nerepis and St. John have that kind of faith and determination, because they are going ahead with construction of a new church despite yet another large stumbling block in their way.
In February the Town of Grand Bay-Westfield informed the church that in addition to building its own access road, it must also pay 30 per cent of the cost of reconfiguring a problematic nearby intersection. The access road is included in the church’s construction plans and budget; the $51,000 share of the intersection configuration is in neither the plans nor the budget.
“We are tapped-out,” says Andrew Logan, church warden and chair of the building committee. “Construction delays have already drastically increased costs for our original plans, so we had to scale back to an absolutely bare-bones facility. Our people have been generous to the point of sacrifice, we have accessed as many grants and low-interest loans as possible. If we have to give the town another $51,000 we will have to ask parishioners to bring lawn-chairs to the service, because we won’t have any furnishings. As it happens, our furnishings budget is about $50,000.”
Whether the church remains empty of furniture for a while or not, it will be built. In late April Mr. Logan delivered the performance bond to the town to cover the $51,000 amount and in return was given the go-ahead that enabled construction to begin. Work on the intersection is not scheduled until 2009; the church hopes by then a new council might have a new opinion on the matter.
“We’re not like regular developers. We can’t sell an extra couple of lots to raise more money,” said Logan.
He also argues that the impact of church traffic on the intersection in questions is very different from that of a new subdivision or retail development. “Our heaviest traffic is on Sunday, when other traffic is light.” The town’s engineering consultants conducted a traffic study on a busy Thursday in February when commuter traffic is heavy.”
He also says the church offered the town a compromise. “I wrote to council and said the congregation would give them $27,000 we have set aside as a contingency fund. It would be our contribution to the intersection project. To be honest, we offered them everything we have, but we got no reply.”
The road to construction of a new church is long and difficult at the best of times, but the road to a new church in Grand Bay-Westfield is exponentially longer than most. In 2003, after several years of prayer and community building, the people in the struggling parishes of Ketepec, Grand Bay, Westfield and Greenwich agreed to divest themselves of their many expensive to heat and maintain buildings and become one parish. In essence, they put a legal stamp on the community relationship they had already built, and began to work toward the construction of one efficient and useful building.
It took time to procure land, develop plans and raise money – long enough to have to go back to the drawing board to reduce the scale of the church in order to cope with inflated construction prices.
Over the years there have been a few false starts, mirrored by enthusiastic headlines and photos in the New Brunswick Anglican, but a building permit in hand makes this start look like the real thing. In the absence of any other major stumbling blocks, the congregation hopes to worship in the new Church of the Resurrection by Christmas.
Only time will tell when the intersection will be reconfigured and how much financial input the church will have on that project.
Diocesan Communications
06 May 2008
