Representatives from that group approached a couple pastors to the north & south of us to see if they would be interested in seeing this dream come to fruition.

Another meeting was held in which the desire to be affiliated with the UPCI was expressed and documented in the minutes of that meeting.

In August 2002, the pastor of one of those churches approached Rev. Michael Trail about the possibility of him starting and pastoring this work/group.

The United Church in our village was so kind to rent us their fellowship hall to hold our services.

Rev. Michael Trail was installed as Pastor September 14, 2002. The group experienced a lot of interest and had some wonderful services in that hall.

Pastor Trail along with three elders took the oversight and responsibility for the group and we started pursuing a permanent place of worship. We looked at the old school house but we did not pursue it because the local people wanted it for a community centre. A local business man offered us five acres of land at a very reasonable price, and later donated the money back to us. He also became one of our members. Plans were drawn up for a building, and we also started to work on a constitution. The constitution was an intense piece of work as we faced opposition from our church organization over our desire to incorporate with our own charter. We broke the sod, October 4, 2002. When the excavator was digging the hole for the basement, a picture was taken in which an Angel of the Lord was visible in the sky. God was letting us know He was with us in this endeavour, no matter what obstacles we may face. The footing, foundation and basement floor were poured within three weeks. Our MP at the time was able to get us some government funding to help with the foundation work.

The floor Joists and rafters were ordered. Pastor Trail and some members worked evenings to construct the main floor and pre- cut materials in preparation for the walls. A group of 55 men from churches around the province of NB came together on November 7 & 8 to erect the framework, assembling the walls, installing the petitions, doing the electrical & plumbing, raising the rafters, and putting on the roof. Pastor’s future son-in-law fell off the back end of the roof, 18 feet to the ground, and striking a ladder on his way down. We thought he was very seriously injured, as he had stiffened out and was motionless. (Literally knocked the wind out of him!). We began to pray and immediately he literally sprang to his feet like a deer, and started walking around. God just performed another miracle for us, rising him up with only minor scratches on his face, glasses, and a sprained thumb. He was ready to go back up on the roof but we restrained him and insisted he go for x-rays. The incident shut down our work for the rest of the day.

Our small group continued to work over the next month with any help we could get, to finish the upstairs in time to hold our first service in our new sanctuary, December 23, 2002.

We completed the upstairs by March of 2003.

We did not stop, but continued to work on finishing the basement. Our goal was realized by the summer of 2003. Our church sanctuary was completely finished upstairs and down, including beautiful kitchen facilities. We raised enough cash to purchase beautiful church pew chairs, that arrived, and were installed just in time for the dedication of our facilities. (November 2003).

Looking back, the Lord endowed us with extraordinary strength to work a full time job, pastor a church full time, and build a church, all at the same time.

A man offered to give us an interest free loan for eight years. Another God send! It helped us to pay off our entire indebtedness within two years. God is so good!

The following year we built the storage shed and chip-sealed the parking lot. We were experiencing revival and growth, filling our facility to 2/3 compacity. We had an evangelist come and 19 people were filled with the Holy Ghost, with 11 of them being baptized in Jesus Name, in the Nashwaak river, at 11 o’clock PM, on the last night of that revival. The evangelist laid his hands on the back wall of our church and prayed that God would move that wall backwards. Shortly afterwards, in the spring of 2004, it was time to add an extention onto the back of our church. The back wall moved backwards 26 feet! The extension was all paid for, when the last nail was driven. To God be the Glory! We cannot explain how, or where the funds came from, other than to say “God did it”!

At the end of the school year 2006, pastor left his full time job at Northeast Christian College, to pastor the church full-time. We needed a place to live so we endeavoured to build the parsonage (summer of 2006), and moved into our new home in September 2006. The church became self supporting within 8 months, and the parsonage was paid off in 13 months. To God be the Glory! Summer of 2007 the church yard was chip-sealed again and we did a proper paving job in 2010. We paid cash for those projects. The Lord has continued to bless our assembly with growth and we are good supporters of missions. We acquired another acre and a half of land behind our church for a fully functioning cemetery. Currently 10 of our precious people have joined the dead in Christ. In 2020 we were granted another 9 acres of land around the perimeter of our property enhancing the value of our assets tremendously.

We have had some power struggles and problems along the way, that decreased our numbers four different times, but we gradually climbed back up again. In the 20 years of our existence we have had approximately 300 persons call this their home church for a period of time. We have basically gone through four congregations. My wife & I and one other elder are the only ones remaining of the original group we started with. We have to continually have new folks coming to continue to exist. We have not celebrated milestone anniversaries along the way, as our present congregation has virtually no understanding of our beginnings or history that has brought us to where we are today.