Progress on the Life Centre Construction & Fundraising
PROGRESS ON THE LIFE CENTRE CONSTRUCTION
Work now progressed to the stage that the foundations and floor of the basement are being laid. This means that a lot of concrete mixers will be visiting the site over the next few months. For the safety of workers, pedestrians on Nathan Road and all those visiting St Andrew’s during the week, we have taken the decision to temporarily remove the garden bed in which the flame tree normally lives, to allow trucks to turn and avoid having to reverse in or out of the site.
The tree, which was a replacement for the original tree that died, was blown down in a typhoon earlier this year, so it makes the decision easier to take this step. At the same time a low stone wall that was to be built next year is being built before Christmas to provide seating lost by the garden bed being removed.
Finally during the week we are restricting pedestrian access to St Andrew’s only via the steps. We do not want anyone to get squashed by a big truck! So please, during construction hours, use the steps to visit the church grounds. But all this inconvenience is for a good cause, with the building beginning to take shape!
PROGRESS ON THE FUNDRAISING
The 2020 Vision fund stands at $94,569,291. This is very exciting, especially given that our annual church budget is also travelling very well at $14,773,132 ($469,390 deficit). For the Life Centre construction, St Andrew’s has enough cash to pay our bills until the end of January 2014. We are looking to God to provide the remainder - $60,430,709 between now and June 2014.
There are THREE important steps the church is taking:
1. SHARE THE BLESSING – How to enlist the financial support of others for the 2020 Vision Life Centre.
Within our church there is a pool of contacts, people who we know who could support this important work St Andrew’s seeks to do in the 2020 Vision. We believe there is great blessing from God upon those believers who give generously to support His work. And we should feel emboldened to seek such financial support as much because of the blessing they will receive, as we feel there is real benefit on the Life Centre being built. We want to bless Hong Kong in and through the 2020 Vision.
But some, or perhaps many of those contacts might not even be Christians as far as we know. But still we want to encourage each other to talk to them about this project. We believe it has a good value to the life of Hong Kong, that many could feel they would support. But we would love to see such people drawn in to visit and even join us, and through their giving, receive the blessings that God has in store for them in Jesus.
To help us to ask our contacts, St Andrew’s is advertising some training from a wonderful fund-raising trainer Ms Susan Madon. Susan is going to take us through some gentle ways to seek support from people we may feel we can ask. There will be opportunity to practice on the day, so we feel more comfortable.
Will you join me and others in the training? Read details here.
2. JOIN THE VICAR’S VISION PRAYER TEAM
There will be many people going forward to talk to others about supporting the 2020 Vision. Let’s uphold them in prayer. All the church should be united in prayer for our God to provide what we need to finish the task. Many decisions need to be made in the next few months about final aspects of the Vision, the Construction and the Life Centre fit out. Let’s pray for these decisions.
I have called it the Vicar’s Prayer Team because I plan to run a series of prayer events particularly to ready us for the final leg of the journey in finishing the Life Centre.
Please signify your readiness to join the team, and commit yourself to pray – especially at certain times I will tell you of, as brothers and sisters speak to others about our grand Vision and project.
3. 2020 VISION LOAN FUND
As time draws near to us running out of funds, some members have asked whether St Andrew’s can use interest free loans to help carry us forward for some time yet, while we continue to raise donations. There will be information available about this, and we ask you to consider if you can support the Vision fund in this way. There is so much more to say, and I will leave some of it until next week. If you have any questions or comments please let me know.
Your servant in Christ,
John Menear
Vicar
