Church stays positive after flooding damages cost $100,000

The Michiana Meltdownhas givenone South Bend Church abig problem - a $100,000 dollar problem to be more precise.

Lead Pastor Andy Lauer says The First Church of the Nazarene saw a tiny bit of water coming from the ceiling last week. Now, there's water everywhere, and part of the ceiling is coming down.

"Once it started melting this week, all the ice damming on the roof, and with the rain today... it's just been more than we can handle," says Lauer.

Not only is the water a lot to handle, so is the price tag. Lauer says, "Over $100,000 in damage. If we have to do some roof work and all that... it could be that much." The last 48 hours, Pastor Lauer has traded in his snow boots for rain boots, which he says is a bit ironic, saying, "Funny enough, this past Sunday I actually preached on Noah and the flood."

The congregation is made up of 175 people, and about a third of those people been flowing in to help. One of those volunteers is Jay Thornburg who says, "It's my church. It's my family. I'm between jobs in construction right now with the weather and what it is, so I feel like I should help now while I can give the time."

The church is doing all it can to keep the water out. They've set up a sump pump outside the walls where the most of the water is seeping through, placed buckets underneath wet ceiling tiles, and Thornburg says he's done more vacuuming in the past 24-hours than he has in his entire lifetime.

Lauer says although this is devastating to the church, they're determined to remain upbeat and keep in good faith. "We talked about having a walk through baptismal where people could walk underneath the drips and be baptized that way," he said."We've had some fun with it so it's not all negative. People have a good spirit about it."

The Church says they're looking for more volunteers to help keep the water out. By the way, the church isn't canceling any worship services.

For more information on The First Church of Nazarene, click here.

The rest is here:
Church stays positive after flooding damages cost $100,000