Land Part 3

Part 3...What an awesome day to be living in. God is doing so much in our midst and we are so excited about everything God is placing before us. If you have been keeping up with the story of our land you know we are in some awesome opportunities. So now....on with the story.
As a church we continued to pray about the land. We knew that this was the will of God for us. As we agreed to purchase the land several other factors began to surface. Our first payment for the land would be $40,000. I went to our books and saw that we had $30,000 in the building fund. This left us close, if not a little over, $10,000 short. That next Sunday morning (remember this was also right around Christmas time...the worst time to try and ask for money) I went to our congregation with the plan. I told them that the owner of the land had called and offered us the land. I told them that we were $10,000 short of the goal for our first payment. I knew that this was an awesome deal for us because of all the money we would save on interest. That morning with a little over 75 people in church, I watched as God moved on the hearts of His people and $10,000 was raised to make the first payment complete.
To get $10,000 from any church in one Sunday morning is a tremendous feat...but to get it from a young church like ours with less than 100 people is truly a "God thing."
Once the decision was made to purchase the land I thought the battle was over. Boy, was I wrong. As we celebrated the awesome provision of the Lord we began to hear "things" about the land. The first thing we heard was that there was a lot of trash dumped on that property. Not knowing much I wasn't sure what that meant so I began to ask around to several of our men in the church who knew about issues like this. One man, who works for a reputable construction company, volunteered to become our project manager. He told me that if trash had been dumped that it would cost us a lot of money to pull all the trash out and "repack" the dirt. He said we need to have a machine come in and pack this land. Basically, we needed to have a compaction test done. I asked him to meet with the owner so we could all talk. This way we know exactly what has and what hasn't been done. I asked the church to start praying. He and I went to meet with th owner. The owner told us that everything dumped on that land was good dirt. He said each time he personally had a sheep's foot come in and compact the land. My friend looked at me and said...that's exactly what I was going to do and he's already done that.
As stated last month we were already aware of the "flood plain" issue. As a young pastor I had no idea what having land in the flood plain really meant. We were told that we would not be able to build on the land because of this issue. This was a terrible blow to us because of our excitement. I remember going to church on a Wednesday night to tell the people to start praying. I knew that if we prayed God could work miracles on our behalf conerning this land. We (the church) knew no matter what we heard, God was in control.
We continued to research the issue through a local engineering company. This company had been hired by the previous owner to find out the status of the land. As you can imagine this was a touch and go process but we continued to pray.
After a couple of days our project manager was contacted by the engineering company. After their conversation he called me and said, "Pastor you are not going to believe this." I said, "Try me." They told him that in the 70's the property was placed in the flood plain. Since that time, KMart and Publix built, Clemson Blvd. had been widened, and a movie theater built. All this construction has cause our property to be brought out of the flood plain. As best as they can tell there is only a portion (maybe 50 feet right at the creek) that is still considered flood plain. Right then I began to shout. I know that not everyone believes in shouting; but when you begin to think that God in all His knowledge knew in the 70's that a church would need this piece of property and began the process by which would cause this land to be useable for us. That's enough to make you want to shout. God is so good to us and to all His children. I am sure though the past several years people thought about this property and wondered about it...and all the while God was using businesses to bless His people. Kmart and Publix could have built anywhere but God knew what He was doing. If you are facing a situation today let this encourage you to know that God is in TOTAL CONTROL!