Pianist Allen Drege per- forms on a Young Chang grand piano. The piano was the last object to leave the church before the 2011 Souris River flood. While worship services resumed for Easter 2012, the piano didn’t return to the sanctu- ary until months later.
An afternoon concert at Christ Lutheran in central Minot draws more than 100 people to celebrate the return of the church’s grand piano and also acknowledge that life is slowly returning to normal.
decided to build an addition to the main floor. Included in the addition is a large fellowship hall that can be used by community members and space for a day care, a need in a town that is expected to grow fivefold in the next five years.
The congregation invited Mission Builders, an ELCA ministry, to oversee the construction.
“Mission Builders did more than build a structure,” said Diane Molie, the congregation’s president. “They built a faith community.” Mission Builders started men’s and women’s Bible
studies. When Peace members fed the workers on Satur- day evenings, they opened the supper to the entire com- munity and met new neighbors, including construction and oil field workers.
“The flood was bad, but lots of good has come out of it,” said Molie, whose own home was lost and has since been rebuilt.
By mid-November, the number of people worshiping at Peace each Sunday had grown. An active Sunday school met in the gut- ted basement where fabric house wrap divided the rooms. Doors still waiting to be hung were stacked in the sanctu- ary. But there was excitement for the work to come.
Yard signs declaring “I’m Coming Back” are slowly being changed to “I’m Back” as Minot residents rebuild their homes and shed white FEMA trailers.
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Just as strangers from around the country helped them rebuild, Peace is ready to reach out to the strangers next door.
“We used to think the mission field was in South America or Africa,” Molie said. “Now we’re realizing it’s right here.”
Christ Lutheran in central Minot also is in the process of determining how it will serve the mission field out- side its doors. Everything except the church’s altar and balcony is stripped to cement floor and wooden frame. Plastic chairs stand in place of the pews that were lost in the flood and black plastic is wrapped around most of the walls.
One lesson learned from the flood is that a church is more than a building, Maxfield said. Another lesson is that milestones need to be celebrated during the long journey to recovery.
So in mid-November the church marked the return of its grand piano to the sanctuary with a concert. The piano, the last thing to leave the building before the flood, was moved while sirens blasted a warning of coming floodwa- ters that would eventually fill more than 3 feet of the main level.
In honor of its return home, church musicians enter- tained a crowd. At one point, chords from “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” filled the sanctuary. The lyrics— “Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms”—had personal meaning for many of those gathered. And the piano’s return is a sign that things are slowly returning to normal, even as the definition of normal is changing.
“As people of the cross, we’re honest that with life there is death,” Narum said. “But with death there is also new life. We’re getting glimpses of this new life.”
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