The flood at St. John's - Rector's Rambling for February 10, 2019

By now we are usually into the “gesima” Sundays, those weeks of Pre-Lent, where things start to change towards a more somber tone: purple vestments, loss of the “Glory be to God on High” at the end of Mass, etc.  But with Easter being so late this year (April 21), we get a reprieve for a bit longer to celebrate Epiphanytide. But this past Sunday we got a shocker when Tristan Williams opened the church and found an upstairs radiator had burst from the freeze/thaw cycle, and water had been pouring into the undercroft for an undetermined amount of time.  Thanks to the quick work of Tristan, being guided by phone by Pat Walter, the heating system water pump was shut off, and by 8:00 AM our plumber was on the scene and soon afterwards the carpet care folks were here to start vacuuming the standing water out of the church. On Monday, by instruction of the Church Insurance Company, we hired a mitigation company to begin drying out the wallboards, remove the damaged carpet, clean up the women’s bathroom which sustained ceiling damage from the water coming from above, and assess additional damage. Thank you to the many parishioners who pitched in last Sunday to get things off the floor so the water could begin to be drawn off the carpets, to Chris Golembiewski and Denise Yee who improvised a coffee hour in the chapel narthex, and to Dave Schafer for the follow up during the week with contractors (which he is also regularly doing with the ministry center renovation as well). It had been hoped that the ministry center renovation would be done before we moved out of the undercroft for its renovation, but now things are changing.  I want to thank you in advance for your flexibility and understanding as we shift around coffee hour, Sunday School, nursery, meetings and gatherings.  Thankfully, worship will go on, since it is the primary thing we do as members of the Body of Christ.