We have some awesome news! Building Restoration Corporation has finished its months-long work of tuckpointing/repointing our building. From top to bottom, from every side, our building, beginning with the original church building that was built in 1862 and continuing with all of the additions over the years, is repaired, with clean walls, new mortar, and in many areas, new bricks, along with repaired window frames and new mortar around our old doors. We are very pretty! Phil Einspahr, who has overseen this project, will complete the final walk-through and inspection in a couple of days with the BRC supervisor. The fences are down, the trailer and porta-potty are gone, and the windows are washed.

BRC has done a wonderful job, and their crew was a delight to work with and to get to know. The crew has been with us for months now, and the staff has gotten to know many of them by name. It was fun to watch these men use our Oasis Garden Chairs a couple of times every day for their breaks. They arranged the chairs in a semicircle, each man always sitting in the same chair (like Episcopalians sitting in “their” pews) and stretching their legs out, they ate their sandwiches and solved all of the problems in the world. We will miss them, and we will also not miss them! It is wonderful, even in the midst of the ever-increasing construction noise and disruption all around us, to have this project completed. We will reclaim our Oasis Garden (the rabbits are happy now), and Joan Rabe will begin to plan how to restore the grass and areas that were, by necessity, uprooted. Thank you, Phil, thank you, Joan, thank you, staff, thank you to our guests and church members who have navigated this hassle of work for months.

I am on vacation from October 6 – 14, visiting my mother in Atlanta. The Rev. Nathan Black will take services on October 12.

I pray for each of you a great start to the fall. I will see you soon!

With love,