Rebuilding the Walls

Nehemiah was a Jewish prophet who was living in a foreign land. He held an important place among the King's servants. Then he received news from Jeruselem. The walls of the city, it's protection and stability, were in shambles. The people were scattered about and had no leader to rally them. Nehemiah was troubled to the point that the King noticed. Once Nehemiah explained his auguish over his beloved city, the King granted him anything he needed to go back to Jeruselem and rebuild the walls.

It wasn't an easy process. There were those who mocked and made plans against Israel to attack them and tear down what they accomplished. Yet Nehemiah rallied the people and set everyone to work. In one hand they held tools, and in the other they held weapons. They rebuilt the walls of Jeruselem together.

At the beginning of the year Pastor Cruz taught a series called "Rebuilding the Walls". We took the life of Nehemiah and extracted the valuable wisdom in his story, because we, too, are rebuilding walls in a city where they have been broken down. On the outside we are literally constructing and fixing actual walls with drywall, caulk, and paint, but we're rebuilding walls in a spiritual way too.

The church is not the building; it's the people. We want to build a stable foundation in prayer, the Bible, and in community. These are things that have been missing for a while and as the church we're rebuilding them so that we can offer a place of hope to others.

One of the first things we had to do was tear out the old fixtures, walls, pipes, etc. in order to prepare for the remodeling. The men especially enjoyed this process. Tearing out the bathrooms was dirty, exhausting work, but they worked tirelessly at it. They had to haul all of the debris out to the 40 yard dumpster in the back of the church. We filled it up pretty quick! It was the first of many too!