Noah's Archive Story
The Story of God’s Provision
The Need
As our family ministry, Tomorrow’s Forefathers, has been growing, we’ve known that we would need more space for offices, work areas, storage, etc. (Click here to read a brief history of the ministry.) In 2004, the Lord provided a second house for our family. Our old house became our office, and the new one, our home. This was a wonderful blessing, but we knew it was only a temporary solution. We continued to pray that at the right time the Lord would provide more space. We weren’t exactly sure what we were praying for. We just knew that we were outgrowing the house which we were using for our office, and we had a lot of ideas about ways we might be able to expand our outreach if we had more space.
God Provided the Money
God led our family in some personal financial convictions.
1) We were not going into debt. We believe that debt is not God’s best way. We knew that we were not going to consider any purchase until the money was already available.
2) We were not going to fundraise. We believe that the Lord is able to provide without our help. We purposed that we would tell our financial needs only to God, and not to men.
In 2004 our family sold a piece of property which we had inherited. The Lord gave us more than we were expecting from that sale, and we all felt that the Lord had given it to us to use for a ministry center of some kind. That’s when we bought our second house. (Actually, we weren’t sure at first if we should buy the second house, because we believed that eventually we’d need something bigger, and we didn’t know if we’d still have enough money left for anything else.) But of course, we knew we could always sell one of the houses to buy a building if we needed to, and it seemed clear that the second house was the right step for us at that time. It definitely turned out to be a perfect situation for those years.
God Led Us To the Building
After three years with the two houses, we began thinking more seriously about finding some kind of a building (or something—we didn’t know what). Things were getting more crowded, and we were limited in a variety of ways due to close quarters. In December 2007 we contacted a Christian friend who is a commercial realtor and whose daughter used to be in Bright Lights. He located a few possible options, and one of them in particular stood out right away for a number of reasons. We were surprised at the amount of space it had for the price and we thought that the location would be perfect for us. We had enough money from the sale of the property to buy it, so we didn’t have to sell either of our houses. (We wanted to keep our old house in order to use it for housing for young people from other areas who come and volunteer for Bright Lights.) After much prayer and many conversations and advice, we all felt that this was the direction God was leading us. Our offer was accepted and we closed on the building in February, 2008.
The building is right on the main street going through our town of Marion and is less than a block away from the city square. It’s a solid, brick building, that needed cosmetic improvement, but was structurally sound. It is on a busy street that gets lots of traffic, is zoned commercial, and is only one mile from our house—a major plus. We needed something close to home. It has a lot of space upstairs (3700 square feet) as well as a basement. The basement is especially important to us for materials, storage, and a work area.
Remodeling the Inside
Over 60 people came to our building the day after we closed on it. We had a prayer time, dedicating it to the Lord—and then the work began! We tore out the flooring, the paneling, a wall, and filled a 30 ft dumpster to the brim. This began the huge remodeling process. The Lord brought more than 100 different people who volunteered in the months that followed. A friend from church, Tracy Jarmon, was our general contractor. We saw the Lord provide in many, many specific ways. Here are a few examples stories of God’s provision:
The Cubicle Story
Once we had purchased the building, my brother Stephen started looking on Ebay for office furniture. He came across what looked like a great deal in Rockford, Illinois. A real estate office was going out of business and was selling ALL of their furniture for $2,500. Stephen wrote to them asking for more information and pictures, but in the meantime, someone else bought the furniture. We figured that it wasn’t what the Lord had intended for us, but we started praying that if it *was* the right furniture for us then the other deal would fall through. Well, a couple days later, Stephen got an e-mail saying the buyer (who was from Baltimore, Maryland) couldn’t pick up the furniture for about a month and therefore the deal was cancelled. The real estate business offered it to us for the initial starting price of $2500. Otherwise, they said they were going to put it back up on Ebay. We thought and prayed about it, asked for more pictures, and decided that it seemed like a great deal … and that it would really meet our needs. It was a little scary though, since we hadn’t actually seen it.
A few days later, Dad, Stephen, Rick Baskerville, a friend from church, and a crew of young men were off to Rockford, Illinois with two empty trailers. After they got there, Stephen, my dad, and Rick Baskerville each called us (separately) to tell us the good news. “Wow, there is a LOT of great stuff here,” Stephen told us. “We hit a gold mine,” Dad called to say. “It’s just beautiful, Sarah,” Rick said. “All the furniture is high quality stuff and in great condition. All day long I’ve just been thinking about what an awesome God we serve.”
Dad was worried that we wouldn’t be able to fit it all into the two trailers. But Rick said, “Don’t you think God is the One who has provided this incredible deal for you right at the time you needed it? Don’t you think He’s going to take care of the “shipping,” too?”
The guys who went on the trip were talking for weeks about how amazed they were that they actually fit all the stuff into the trailers. They said there wasn’t room for even one more chair. God provided 16 nice office chairs, a conference table and chairs, 22 cubicle work stations with desks and overhead bins (with lights and electricity already built in), 43 file cabinets, lots of partitions, a large receptionist desk, and other accessories! We were amazed.
The Carpet Story
“How are we ever going to pick out carpeting?” we wondered. We knew that whatever we chose, we’d be stuck with it for a long time! A friend from church who lays carpeting said we could get it at his cost, if we ordered through a particular store. We looked through carpeting samples and went to this store several times but nothing stood out to us as quite right. We figured we’d just have to pick something. After all, it’s only carpeting, we thought. But then again, carpeting was expensive, even at these discount prices, and whatever we chose would be there for a long time. We decided to make it a matter of prayer.
“You should go to the Mercy Hospice center and look at their carpeting,” my grandma told us. “It would be a nice kind for your office.” We didn’t take it that seriously, but we decided we’d go take a look, for Grandma’s sake. We were very surprised when we saw it. It wasn’t what we were expecting at all, but we actually liked it a lot. We didn’t think it was very likely that we’d be able to actually find it for sale anywhere, and if we did find it, we didn’t think it would be in our price range, but we figured it was worth trying!
“Try Phelans,” our friend from church said. “They sell specialty carpeting and might be able to order in that kind.” We’d never been to Phelans before. It is a nice furniture store downtown Cedar Rapids—not our idea of a place where we’d be able to get a cheap price. But it was worth a try. Mom, Stephen, and I walked in one Saturday morning. After wandering around for a few minutes, a gentleman said hello to me. He didn’t look like he worked there, but he seemed to know his way around so I asked him where I could find commercial carpeting. “I’m just in here to get a cup of coffee,” he said, “but tell me what you’re looking for.” I noticed that his shirt said youth for Christ, so I figured he was probably a Christian. I explained about Bright Lights, our new location, and our search for carpeting. It turned out that he was “Mr. Phelan”—the owner of the business! His sons are the ones who run it now. He told me to make an appointment with his son the following week. He added, “and make sure you tell him that I said we’d give you a really good deal.” Phelans ended up ordering exactly the carpeting we wanted. They sold it at just a little bit above their cost. They also gave us an interior decorator to help us for free (which usually costs $100.00 an hour).
People who step into Noah’s Archive often compliment our carpeting. We say, “Yes, we like it too! Want to hear how we got it? ” And we tell them the story of God’s provision.
Monetary Gifts
As we were working on remodeling the building, there were some extra expenses, and it was neat to see the Lord provide for us financially in a number of ways. One gift stands out as especially significant and memorable. We had just finished our Strong in the Lord Conference and Radiant Purity conferences in Kansas City in the summer of 2008 when someone handed Mrs. Mally an envelope. Inside was a thank you note and a check. She looked at the number, and looked again—Did she read that right? She gathered the rest of the family together to show it to us. We were all shocked. $10,000. We’d never received a gift of that size before. How fitting it was that it came just as we were remodeling the building! We continue to be amazed at the Lord’s provision and the generosity of His people!
Other Special Provisions
A Couch—As the opening date of our bookstore was approaching, we began looking around for nice comfy furniture, but after looking at a few price tags, we knew that we’d better shop on our “knees” instead! We decided to pray specifically for a couch and/or comfy chairs. At a dinner at church a friend asked Grace how the bookstore was coming. She gave a report and mentioned our need for furniture. A man at the table, Carlos, piped up and said, “I need to talk to your dad.” A few days later we went to his storage unit to pick up a beautiful beige, leather couch. It matches perfectly in the store.
Noah’s Archive—How did we choose Noah’s Archive as the name of our store? We had been thinking and praying for months about the right name. It was actually Abigail Kramer (who was part of our fall 2009 internship) who thought of the name. After making a list of more than 50 possible names, we decided that Noah’s Archive was the right one! Since we have a large emphasis on creation science, it seemed to be fitting. Our theme verse for the store is Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.” More than just selling creation books, our prayer is that this would be a place where families are equipped to stay strong through the many battles raging today. May it truly be for the “saving of many households”. After we had chosen the name, we found a letter someone had written to us a few months back (before we had chosen the name Noah’s Archive). The letter said this: “At the Bright Lights conference at the Creation Museum, viewing the Noah’s Ark exhibit, it occurred to me that the B.L. ministry is like Noah building an ark of safety for our daughters in this crooked, evil generation.”
There were many other provisions. They may have been “little” but they were significant to us because we saw God’s hand in fitting so many details together for us. Other provisions include: used shelving that we were able to get at a good price from a couple stores going out of business in Dubuque, some antiques we inherited years ago and now were able to put to good use, some dividers that were donated from Weber paint next door and that met a need for us, some plants and decorations that were donated by the Mikchs’ – friends from church, Sarah’s desk, the train set for the kids, a couple tables that were on sale/damaged from Slumberland, and many, many other people who helped!