Every week, Verina Coward could walk up the eight steps to the sanctuary of Pine Ridge Bible Church. Her husband, Bob, who had brain cancer and was unable to walk, could not.
She resolved no other handicapped church members or visitors should feel the same way, so for the last 20 years before she died last fall, she donated all she could from her Social Security check, like the widow woman who donated her mite, Executive Pastor Rick Nohr said. Her family contributed to the elevator fund, too.
The elevator fund just sat in the church books, growing little by little. At the same time, many older, handicapped visitors struggled up the stairs, were carried up, or remained in the entryway.
“It’s not good for the church body, it sends a bad message to what we think about our brothers and sisters,” pastoral intern Eli West ’17 said. “Church leadership has used it to make a theological point and the importance of church unity.”
After watching one wedding guest grab the handrail and struggle up the stairs for what felt like 10 minutes, Nohr said he reached his breaking point. He realized accessibility needed to be a reality if the church wanted to welcome all visitors and members and show God’s love.
“Sometimes you just go numb to the needs of the people, you become blind, and then you have some sort of revelation, or it captures your heart, and that’s why we’re doing this, why this needs to get done,” Nohr said.
To build an elevator, the church needed to have an up-to-date building it would go in, so three-and-a-half years ago, the elevator fund became “Perfectly One,” a fundraiser that addressed two needs — accommodating the increase in numbers and an elevator bringing handicapped and abled people together — in one. As the name, pulled from John 17:23, suggests, it was also supposed to emphasize church unity.
Nohr said the church elders resolved not to borrow any money and trust in God’s provisions. This meant that the construction could only progress as the money came in. Initially, there was a lot of excitement and several large gifts came in toward the $200,000 needed for the wing’s shell. Over the three-year period of construction, the money would come in just in time to keep going.
In 2017, the church only raised $40,000, and Nohr wasn’t sure if the elevator would ever be completed, because that alone would cost $60,000. He considered borrowing money. Watching people struggle with the stairs, he said, maybe it was more important to take out a loan than to complete the project debt-free.
Then, someone anonymously doanted about $40,000, and the deacons announced on Jan. 21 that they church could purchase the elevator.
“It’s been ironic, that we did this whole wing thing, because the initial need was the need for an elevator, the elevator was the last thing to go in,” West said. “You have to build the building first, you have to finish the classrooms, the building has to be up to code before you put the elevator in.”
West said many members had hoped Coward would be the first to ride the elevator when it was completed, but she died last fall before the church could even begin building it. He recalls taking part in the service.
“It was a moving funeral service, it was obvious to me how much of an impact she made on the church. Part of that was starting the elevator fund,” he said. “She had been a leader at Pine Ridge for a long time.”
West added that he hopes the project will help fulfill Coward’s vision for the church.
“She gave for her passion to see the church united,” he said. “To see it come to culmination in the last month has been exciting for us.”