Bethlen Almanac 2000 (Ligonier)
Keleti Egyházmegye - Eastern Classis
MANVILLE, NEW JERSEY Manville Reformed Church Manville, NJ 08835 Pastor: Rev. Steven G.P. Strickler Chief Elder: William Kovács Those who have never suffered through a flood can easily forget that a flood isn’t over when the water recedes. It has been more than a year since things dried out in Central Jersey after Hurricane Flood dropped more than a foot of rain on us in a day and rivers overflowed like never before and yet, the flood isn’t over for us. The destruction was catastrophic. Typically it takes 3-5 years for a community to recover completely after such a disaster. We foresee that we will fall into the IV2 to 2 years category. The work is now coming along beautifully, if slowly. Our Chief Elder, Bill Kovács, has taken leave of his life and dedicated himself to helping us get back on our feet. We found early on that we needed to be good stewards of the insurance settlement. The temptation was to allow the insurance company’s construction people to come in and restore our church building and parsonage to their former condition as quickly as possible. The work would have been done almost a year ago, but we would have missed out on a most unexpected opportunity the flood brought us: the chance to rebuild our facilities to match our church’s program and mission at this time. When the work is finally completed in the early spring of 2001 (God willing!) we will be able to delight in the reality that our facilities will be in better shape after the flood than they were before the flood. It is just like God to use adverse events in our lives to bring about good! In addition we received gifts from individuals and churches (many thanks to Calvin Synod individuals and churches for your loving support, and the Rev. Eva Fabian and the Bethlen Home for facilitating a special gift to us from the McKeesport church—the body of Christ at work!) which we have been carefully and wisely using. Some of that aid flowed through our church out to needy congregational and community members right after the flood to aid them in their personal recovery. Other portions of that support are going directly to the comprehensive recovery of the church facilities so that we may continue to serve God in the coming years. We have been hampered all year in terms of the physical facility of the church, but we have not been idle. The church’s bylaws were 38
