Ministry Update 1
Ministry updates are probably not a topic that will bring a lot of traffic to our family blog. There’s a pretty small audience for this information, and that’s okay. I’ll continue to post them anyway in the hopes that some other ministry of missionary family might find encouragement as they go through some things that we are experiencing. And you really never know when a reader might want to know more details about how to get a pilots license, how to buy a church building, or the general scope of being a missionary family!
Church Planting
Since this is my first post on ministry updates, I’ll have to fill in some information. Our family arrived in Sioux Falls, SD on September 1, 2021. In November of that year, we started a Bible study in our home that sometimes had 30 or more people gathered in our living room. We started to meet in a conference room at a local community center, and by February 2022 we had rented a small building.
In that small building, our congregation grew to more than 50 people in regular attendance! We had the thought in our minds to seek a larger building soon, but the market in Sioux Falls is very difficult for a small church. Most leases would have cost us more than $4,000 per month AND renovation costs over $30,000 to get up to code for a gathering place. In May 2024, our region experienced catastrophic flooding. The church building was flooded with over 6 inches of water.
As soon as the flood waters receded, we got to work with carpet cleaners and dehumidifiers. But after a couple weeks of drying out the carpet and cleaning extensively, we discovered both new and old black mold in the walls. The landlord refused to remediate the mold and we could not afford to treat it properly to make the building safe. We moved out of the building. We have been meeting at various locations, including a local event hall that charges $100 per hour, a community center, and our 4 car garage that we painted and installed AC units in. Thankfully we own all of our chairs, sounds systems, pulpit, and digital piano so we were able to set up a respectable meeting space in our garage.
That brings up to fate on the building situation. Currently we are in the market to buy or lease a building that is already used as a church or gathering place.
Aviation Ministry
Scott is so close to receiving his private pilot license. He has enough hours and only needs a few more required flights before he can take the test. The issue right now is that the wintry weather prohibits him from flying. Hopefully he will finish that soon and move on to higher level training.
We need to purchase a plane before he does any more of his training. Owning a plane will give us many advantages- training on the actual aircraft he plans to fly, saving $160 per hour over a required 500+ hours, and an investment that holds its value long term. We need about $250,000 for a bare minimum, 1960s model air plane. Currently we have around $8,000 raised!
