|
Virginia Mission Update March 22, 2010 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Greetings from your brethren, who are earnestly contending for the faith, in the commonwealth of Virginia. Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. It is with great hope and excitement that I am writing this letter to provide an update of the historical land purchase in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. For those of you who are not aware of the history, I will provide a brief summary of our efforts to obtain this land. In July, 2009, the Upper Spotsylvania Missionary Baptist Mission entered into a contract to buy a 5 acre lot, which we believed at the time, surrounded the actual spot where the first Baptist Church, South of the Rappahannock river, was constituted in Virginia. This is also the place where the first arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Baptist Ministers occurred in the, then, Virginia Colony. Lewis Craig, John Waller, and hundreds of others were eventually persecuted, beaten, threatened, and jailed for preaching the Gospel without a license from the Church of England. The original purchase price of this land was $150,000. With the rich history and educational value, and having felt the Lord’s leadership to purchase this land for a future Church, we entered into a Lease to Purchase contract for this property (parcel 9) in July of 2009. After visiting the County Land Records office to obtain the plat, we discovered that the property was adjacent to the historical site, and did encompass a grave site of the original Church, but was not the actual lot that surrounded the historical marker and foundation. It also had an easement running through the middle of the property that we would have to contend with. We did however obtain the contact information for the owners of the lot (parcel 8) that actually did join up to the historical site. Moving by faith, we contacted the land owners of parcel 8 (see diagram below) to discover that they were interested in selling. They responded quickly with an asking price of $70,000. Words cannot describe the joy and excitement that we experienced on that day. On December, 15, 2009 we entered into a purchase contract for $70,000 with a closing to be scheduled by April 15, 2010. The bank we had been dealing with indicated we would need 35% down to obtain a loan. At the time we only had about $13,000. After a couple of months passed the bank quit communicating with us forcing a restart and search for a new bank. A new bank was found and everything appeared to be in order. This past week we learned that the bank underwriters have denied us the loan stating we do not have enough financial history. In this current climate, we also have learned that it is much harder to obtain a loan for land only. Not to mention, that we had just opened our first bank account in late 2007. Thanks to the donations of our Sister Churches and many individuals we have had an influx into our Treasury. We currently have $45,000 in our building fund which is 2/3 of the total needed. We have reached out to the land owners to see if they are interested in proceeding with owner financing but have not received a final response yet. We are on the brink of obtaining one of the most significant pieces of our American Baptist History. The educational value alone cannot be easily measured. More importantly, the truth once again is being heralded in Virginia. We are prayerfully asking the Lord to open a door for us once again. There may be a Church or individual who would consider a possible loan for the remaining portion needed to obtain the property. We would much rather apply to our own people for help before we engage the world’s resources anyway. We project that 25,000 to 27,000 will be needed after closing costs and other associated costs are discovered. On an average monthly basis our building fund is receiving $1,550. In addition, we have received many onetime donations so that over the last 6 months we have received approximately $30,000 into our building fund. We never expected it to grow this quickly. In fact, we are great hopes that we will not have to borrow anything at all. Within another year we could possibly have the funds to purchase the land outright…the problem is that time is not on our side. The current land owners are now very eager to sell the property and are pressing us to close on the purchase contract by April 15 th, 2010. We are not too concerned given the current economic climate, but they were not looking to sell the property to begin with and we don’t want to take any unusual risks.There is not enough room or time to convey in a letter all of the details surrounding our work here but please continue to pray for us and most of all that Our Lord Jesus Christ will receive all the honor and glory. If you would like more information my contact information is below. Thank you and God Bless, Elder Brad - The Upper Spotsylvania Missionary Baptist Mission Elder Brad Foster, Brother Justin Farris
|
