MAXWELL — Location, location, location.
Plans to build a barn housing a local furniture ministry remain active, but the church where the ministry operates is exploring a third option as it pinpoints an exact site on its property for the structure.
For years, a local furniture ministry has partnered with Love In the Name of Christ to offer furniture and appliances to people who need them. Volunteers make the rounds with trucks, picking up donated furniture and delivering requested items.
But the ministry went on hiatus in 2019 when the church partnering with Love INC lost access to the facility where it had stored furniture and appliances.
Faith Baptist Church north of Maxwell then offered to house the ministry. It planned to build a barn somewhere on its eight-acre site at 1489 E. County Road 600N to hold the donated furnishings. A November 2019 estimate of that cost was $6,000.
Contributors gave money to build it. Hancock County Community Foundation offered a $1 to $1 match up to $3,000.
But amid the quest to finalize a site and members having to quarantine, the barn is still in process even though money was raised.
“We are back in the swing of things,” said the Rev. Larry Hof, “expecting God to work out the logistics as we remain faithful.”
Hof said the first place the church considered for the barn wouldn’t meet county standards regarding outbuildings and road frontage. The church hasn’t brought a petition before Hancock County’s planning commission or board of zoning appeals, but Hof said planning staff were helpful with information when he talked to them about the project.
Hof said the church learned another possible site, between the church building and the church’s own barn, wouldn’t be approved by Homeland Security because it would place the furniture barn too close to the church and would be a fire hazard.
That leaves the church looking to a third option, he said: Building the barn farther west from the church, on farmland the church leases. Construction there would require also building a driveway to the structure.
Meanwhile, volunteers continue operating the furniture ministry. A self storage business about half a mile south of the church donated space for a time, then offered it at a discount. The church is renting two more lockers.
“We’re filling it up pretty quick,” said Justin Painter, youth pastor at the church and a regular on the Saturday furniture pickups and dropoffs. Sometimes there are nine to 10 people going in smaller groups to several sites, and sometimes there are two people on one truck making a single run, he said; it just varies.
They seem to deliver washers the most, Painter said. Appliances and beds are in demand. Hof said couches are welcome, as are clothes dryers and mattresses of queen size or smaller, but the ministry doesn’t need any more kitchen tables and chairs at the moment.
Debra Weber, executive director of Love INC of Greater Hancock County, had similar observations about what’s most often needed.
“The number one request we have is for beds,” she wrote in an email to the Daily Reporter. “After that, it would be for washers and dryers.
“Working washers and dryers are the hardest to come by, and when they are donated, they usually go right back out.”
Even as the church seeks the right site, and even as Hof expects building costs to rise in a post-COVID construction climate, he remains confident the barn will be built.
“God is a master planner,” he said. “We sometimes have to take things on faith.”
HOW TO GIVE OR RECEIVE HELP
Anyone interested in volunteering with or making a donation to Faith Baptist for the furniture ministry can contact Hof at (317) 371-7213. Those looking to donate a furniture item or who is in need of furniture may contact Love INC at (317) 468-6300.
