FAITH EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCH TO HOLD OPEN HOUSE

The Rev. Fred Burgard knows exactly how many tiles line the floor at the Faith Evangelical Free Church and how many feet of carpet were used in the church basement area.

Burgard, pastor of the 10-year-old congregation, helped lay the nearly 5,000 tiles and the carpets when the church was being built. Now the construction is complete and the congregation is preparing for an open house.

Anyone who helped with the church construction or made donations for supplies and equipment is invited to an open house and dedication service Sunday from 2-4 p.m. at the church, 5303 Old Cape Road in Jackson.

Prior to building its new facility, the congregation had been meeting in an assembly room at Trinity Lutheran School in Cape Girardeau.

"We looked for buildings and nothing worked out," Burgard said. But with a donation of land and the clearing work, the church was able to save several thousand dollars during the construction project.

The building is expected to appraise at nearly $1.5 million and the church only spent about half that amount in construction costs, Burgard said.

As people came out and started to help, they got ownership of the project, he said. "They were able to say 'maybe I stained that board or laid that floor tile, things like that."

While they were working, both young and old side by side, there was lots of discipleship and teaching as well, said Sherri Mehner. "People just give of what they had," she said.

Most of the work involved painting, hanging sheet rock and cleaning up after the general contractors had finished. "There were days that all we did was wipe out water from the floor or shovel snow or dig trenches and pour concrete," Burgard said.

The open house will be like a celebration for all the hard work that church members did, said Millie Turner, a church member in charge of organizing the service.

"We'll be reminiscing about the good things and looking forward to our growth," she said.

The Faith E-Free church was formed in 1986 and joined the international denomination in 1987.