We praise God for his provision and we thank all the people at Bethany for your participation in Worth the Sacrifice. On Sunday we met as a congregation to update our status for financing the building of our Community Life Center. The congregation has Worth the Sacrifice commitments and cash on hand to bring us within $1.5M of the cost of our Community Life Center. In order to take advantage of construction costs and to make use of the facilities soon, we will go to Thrivent Financial for a loan. The terms of this loan will include refinancing our current note with a fixed interest rate of 5.75%, a short term note of $1.8 million to provide interim financing until all Worth the Sacrifice commitments are collected and, if additional pledges are not received, an increase in our long term debt of $1.5 M to $2.0M to complete construction. Our cash flow analysis demonstrates that this level of debt places us very nearly in the position we have been immediately prior to our property sale in 2009. Our mortgage payments will actually be slightly lower and our interest rate will be fixed. We expect to close on this loan in late April or early May after meeting property appraisal and loan documentation requirements. Construction can begin once the loan closing is complete.
We also approved a motion to allow the Council to sign contracts in support of the construction project. This motion will make it unnecessary to hold a voter’s meeting each time a contract requires approval.
