January 31, 2009
Twelve days ago I asked the JECA mailing list to pray for an opportunity that had been presented to our school, and I started with this great hymn stanza John Newton had written that provoked me to great optimism about what God had in store:
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such
None can ever ask too much.
Line upon line, this has been proven to me in full and beautiful reality. God has worked as I have never experienced, and I am fully aware that the book has just been opened as to how He will continue to invoke His favor and grace upon
JECA has just acquired the right, and has been given the ability, to take ownership of 25 acres of land and a beautiful 33,000 square-foot school building full of all the “stuff” we need to run school. It is in the best possible location—right where we spent months last winter scouring for a church to allow us to rent space. In addition, the building also gives us the potential to help cover expenses by renting out several portions of the building.
I am a man of big vision and aspiration. I moved my family because of our dreams to build a school. But if three weeks ago you had asked where I would have expected to see JECA in September, I would have had to reply frankly with some certainty that we would be renting two or three rooms in a small church with hopefully 15 students…and I probably would have quoted Newton to show how much faith I had that we could do that.
That was then. And since then, the valleys and peaks in my heart have been dizzying and furious. But let’s go backwards.
On Monday, January 5th, Dr. Tim Eidson called me around
Saturday, January 10th, was JECA’s first official-feeling board meeting. It was the first meeting since we had asked Sydney Jordan to join us several weeks earlier. Mr.
Previously, Pastor Gage and I had our board meetings on the couches at the Dunkin Donuts in Pleasant View, sitting right next to the motor oil and candy aisles inside the gas station convenience center. Syd’s dining room table was a significant upgrade that day.
After a round of sandwiches, I opened the meeting with the first order of business: a proposal to acquire Pioneer. I explained to them the conversation that I had with Dr. Eidson—that Pioneer needed funds immediately to help pay their current year’s expenses. They also needed other funds to pay off a debt to the bank. Pioneer wasn’t seeking to make a profit—they were simply trying to finish well and with integrity. The price that Pioneer asked was immense (an amount that allowed them pay off their bank loans and be able to finish the current school year entirely), and this offer was extended to several other non-profits (6-9 others, perhaps). While there was a price attached, the deal was much more like a gift because the worth of the property was several more times than our price, and we were overwhelmed with the possibility.
We realized together that this is the sort of offer that every organization hopes to get at one point in their existence and many never get it. The ability to have that property, appraised at several times the amount being asked for, would have been beyond what we would have hoped to have accumulated in 15 years of school operations. Later in the meeting, I notified the men that JECA’s checking account balance was currently $75.39.
Still, we left that meeting with a hopeful step, wanting more information, and curious to see what God would do. We considered this a yellow-light project from God. We were going to proceed steadily and with caution.
On Tuesday, the 13th, I received an email stating that haste was necessary. The Pioneer board had met on the 12th and was going to meet again on January 26th to make a decision. At this point, the deal was becoming very consuming. We were meeting daily and had a good number of conference calls. Many of the other aspects of life had been put on hold.
That Saturday (January 17th) we walked into Pioneer for the first time. We got a full tour and were able to sit with three of Pioneer’s board members. Our whole strategy was to plead for more time. We knew that there was another interested group that had made a cash offer. Our offer had to be at least a full-cash offer. We had nine days to find a significant amount of money. Our countdown began.
That night Syd sent us an email that read, “I detect a faint glimmer, but obviously divine intervention and direction is the only way it could happen.”
Syd immediately wanted to see numbers from Pioneer. To work a deal, he wanted to see what was owed and when it was owed, and all the sorts of foundation documents should that be “crucial documents” or “foundational documents” that make lawyers salivate. We all started making bold phone calls to contacts all over the country, trying to get advice and direction about how to get that sort of money in that sort of time frame. It’s funny that no one had any great ideas.
We began accumulating the names of potential renters and had a good list. But there wasn’t time to do much more than be very general nonspecific about what was available. We were being greatly hindered from doing what we needed to do because of the limited timeframe available. We also determined that there was no good reason not to fully pursue a daycare/preschool meeting in the facility, especially since Pioneer already had a license to run one.
Our options were becoming more limited each day. Out of sheer necessity and nobleness of our cause, we started writing a proposal to present that did not include full, immediate funding.
On Thursday the 22nd, we sat down with Pioneer’s banker. We were hoping he would just take us back to the vault and tell us how much a school like ours would improve our generation. But no, he told us that we could start to think about financing if we had leases (for renters), applications from students in hand and if we signed away our future children. We didn’t have the forms and couldn’t commit the kids. I wouldn’t say that we were frantic, but we were definitely not getting the impression that traditional financing was going to be an option. We also had no way of getting those sorts of commitments in that space of time, especially since the name of the school we were trying to acquire was still private (their faculty and students didn’t know).
On Monday, January 26th, we met at a Subway restaurant to finish the wording of the proposal. Afterwards, I went home, made the changes, and then drove to hand deliver our proposal to Dr. Eidson around
Just before the
That proposal was fully genuine, and we had a strong hope that it would be accepted. The basic format of it was: 1) We will give you a little bit of money, if you will let us spend the next 45 days trying to get the significant balance. 2) Please don’t negotiate with anyone else. 3) Please.
We left them to deliberate the three (or more) offers we knew, or thought we knew, that they had on the table. We didn’t hear from them that night. The next day, we received notice that the PCA board had decided to put off their decision until they had prayed and fasted through Tuesday. They would decide Tuesday night.
They didn’t call that night.
I had the day off on Wednesday. Pastor Gage called me just after
That call was a big blow to the gut. It was becoming increasingly clear that we would not get the deal on Thursday if we didn’t walk in the door with full funding. We had 32 hours.
I took my phone, a book, and a pile of distractions out the door. I was going to go sit by the river and call everyone I could think of to pray for us and to plead with God to help.
On the way, I stopped at my local bank branch where I decided to go inside instead of depositing at the ATM. I walked in and decided to speak to the manager. Emmanuel Loreant is a good man, and talking with him gave me some hope that there might be someone locally that could help us. He wasn’t able to get anything to happen, but he got me thinking about who I knew in town. The problem is that I just moved here and don’t know anyone in town…well, maybe one man.
I’ll be general, since I haven’t received permission to use his name, but I went to visit another local businessman. I had been in his store just 3-4 times in the eight months we have lived here. I had always remembered to speak about JECA to him, and he was always very kind to ask. The last time I was in the store, he offered to give us a $100 donation when we got settled.
I waited about 40 minutes, and since he was busy with some customers, I gave him my contact info. and told him I would like to speak to him when he had a little time. He called me about 15-20 minutes later, and I was back in his store within minutes.
He started by asking about the school, and I laid out the scoop. Within 15 minutes, he and his business partner (he phoned him), had verbally agreed to a tentative deal to personally finance the school. We arranged a meeting two hours later with his partner and the rest of my board.
I went to the van and conference-called Syd and Pastor Gage. I told them I had a deal in hand with some angel investors and that I thought we would be happy with the terms. I won’t say they totally rebuffed me, but they kept talking about the other plans they were working on. I was already envisioning JECA’s sign being screwed onto the building.
Pastor Gage is one of the most thoughtful and careful men I know. I fully understand why he didn’t think much of my claim of finality. He probably didn’t notice that my voice was starting to creak and wouldn’t stop until the next morning. He is our silver tongue, Syd is our silver hair, and I provide the one-liners if life gets too somber. God has given us each other as gifts, and even as we are getting to know each other we can see that we work well together, each wholly unable to do what the next man can do with ease. I am immensely grateful to them both for their continual laboring over the past weeks to see this wonderful thing come to pass. I know they are as amazed as I am.
We five men all met together on Wednesday at
The next morning we met at Pioneer and walked our investors through the school building. They were totally satisfied and very quickly provided us with a financing commitment backed up by a letter from their bank.
Later that day, Pastor Gage withdrew a portion of earnest money that we were going to take, along with our shiny, new, full-cash offer to Pioneer’s board meeting that night. The teller, whom he had never met, typed Pioneer’s name onto the cashier’s check and asked him if he was going to buy Pioneer. The question took him aback (this deal with Pioneer was a very quiet transaction). When he asked for clarification, the woman stated that she hoped that he was buying Pioneer because she has a student there—she wanted her child to have a good place to go to school next year.
That night, Thursday, January 29th, was a happy time where we were able to plainly tell the Pioneer board that God was moving mightily and obviously to help our little school start well. It was a sweet time and the PCA board was kind and encouraging. They expressed an earnest desire to see the work of Christian education continue in their building.
We left the building to let them vote. At
PCA currently has 160 students. We are genuinely grieved that the school has needed to make this decision to close. We can appreciate the difficulty that it must be for their faculty and families. On several occasions, we have conveyed to the PCA board our appreciation with the work that has been accomplished by the school through its generations of students. We are thankful for their faithful work to students in the
When I was a freshman or sophomore in college, I woke up one Saturday morning knowing that I was going to be in trouble if I didn’t get my laundry washed that very day. I had been putting it off for too many days–not because I couldn’t get to the machines, but because I didn’t have $1.50. I had a very earnest discussion with God in the quiet before my roommates woke up. I remember saying, “Amen” and then literally rolling out of bed. I had my hand on the bedpost, my knees stretching upward, and my eye caught site of a little, dark-yellow envelope that had been pushed under my door in the night. It was from Snack Services; they were returning the six quarters I had lost in two different machines at least 2-3 weeks previously. That day was the day I learned that my God was attentive and careful with all the aspects of my life. And since then, Christie and I have been amazed at how He has made much out of our little and allowed us to enjoy such a wonderful bounty…far greater than we deserve.
This miracle this month, in such a magnanimous and wide-sweeping gesture, is simply God continuing what we in our house have been still needing to learn—that God is good, He is faithful and He can be trusted to the end.
But this is no way just a private blessing. JECA is a school for the community of believers in
This is just the start for JECA. We need God to perform many more miracles. We now need operating expenses and gifts to pay off this debt, we need students committed to earnest and thoughtful learning, we need renters to come to our doors, we need parents to learn about and love our vision, we need donors to continue to fund the many needs we have as a school. We will see many more miracles. We are profoundly convinced.
The transition between the two schools we expect will be fairly seamless. We expect it may take place the last week of May. JECA will begin accepting applications on Monday, February 9th and open the doors for school on
The Puritan prayer that has long endeared me is found in The Valley of Vision. In part it reads,
Here is how you can continue to pray:
If you click here, you can see a bird’s eye picture of the school.
Still stunned by God’s way,
Ryan Boomershine,
