But now, with the color choices made by our wonderful architect Margaret Westfield, the house begins to develop its very own charm. Of course, what you see is only a first coat. Much more painting is needed. However, already now we have inkling of how beautiful the house will be in the future. And so we thank Tori, Mariel, Christine, Leanna and Maggie for their generous work. We also thank the RUTGERS administration, especially advisor Jennifer Simon, for organizing events like this one. Our New Brunswick community will be the better for it.

And last, but not least, we want to thank Julius Fekete, the senior voice on our Property Committee, who was there to show us which conduits above the panels we could paint, and how to stand a ladder on a slant.

As Easter comes upon us, we have a remarkable coincidence with the dawn of a new period of ministry here at First Reformed Church. The reason is that our historic preservation project comes to an end. This means less reporting, less building issues, and less work for the Finance Committee and the Consistory. The Fundraising Committee even had its last meeting.

So, we are resurrecting from construction and paper files and bank statements. Now is the time to become creative again and to continue to nurture the exciting community that has formed around us during the years of brick-and-mortar. It is also important that we invest more efforts, prayer and thoughts in growing our church. What would our meaning be, if we did not try to reach as many of our neighbors near and far in order to offer them participation in God’s peculiar way of relating with us?

A great beginning was offered with the past Lenten Series that the Episcopal churches in town together with First and Second Reformed organized this year. Please see the accompanying pictures taken during the session that our church hosted on March 18. Raíces Cultural Ensemble provided lively music from Cuba; we watched the documentary “Food Matters”, enjoyed Lolly’s great cookies made in our kitchen, and had an engaging discussion on nutrition and the benefit of vitamins in conquering disease. Ron, Norma, Lolly and Margaret had made fresh soups, and Lauren brought the PowerPoint equipment.

Whether one agreed with the movie or not, the point was to take up an issue that concerns all of us, and to deal with it in a matter that nurtures togetherness among neighbors. I hope that the remainder of this year will bestow us with many more such opportunities, so that we can continue to be a center for Christian awareness building.

How did the Lord say? “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20)

With fond wishes,
Pastor Hartmut

But where was the alien beast? Of course, there was none, only Rob “Smiley” Callahan and his wife, who had busied themselves painting the segments in the ceiling that had suffered mild water damage during the roof replacement of the previous weeks. The cobwebs were soon exposed as mere drop cloths, protecting whatever they covered.

The Callahan’s used long poles to reach the ceiling from the balconies. And, of course, they painted only parts of the ceiling that had suffered from the water, not the entire thing. Their work did not affect parts that will change in the coming reconfiguration.

Other activities related to the end of the current construction phase included

• The setting of fence posts that had been removed to allow access for machinery and material.
• The repair of the hand rails at the north entrance to the church.
• The replacement of damaged tile in the roof of the breezeway.

The only thing remaining now is the installation of the interpretive sign by the main entrance door of the church.

Indeed, the end of Phase I of our Preservation Project has come very near indeed.

Twenty-three Rutgers students and their two student supervisors followed the call and spent several hours with janitorial and other chores in our buildings. Their cheerful work included:

• The washing of doors and moldings in the church and the education building.
• The polishing of furniture in both buildings, including all upstairs and downstairs pews.
• Finishing of painting the breezeway; painting a doorframe in fellowship hall.
• Washing of all chairs and tables in fellowship hall.
• Filling of holes in the front yard.
• The washing of stalls and doors in the bathrooms.

While I busied myself leading the students in their various work stations, several members of the Property Committee had rushed to the scene in order to support all this wonderful work. Jim Hance tested the drainage system for gutters and leaders on both buildings. Julius Fekete remounted a nasty door hinge in the church office, and Gary Bernhofer fixed ceiling tiles in the kitchen and mounted a padlock to one of our supply closets. The men also started the work on a downspout on the Sexton’s House.

We closed the day with a fun tour of the church and plans for another such work day in April. The young people are a true blessing to our church!

Under the direction of Dr. Sheng-Hwa Yu, the chorus sang beautifully and with such joy that the audience clearly caught the spirit, appreciating both the skill of the singers and their emotion. We at First Reformed Church have been privileged to know the YueYue group for a long time and on this occasion were privileged to receive its gift of music. All of the donations made by audience members are designated for the church’s Historic Preservation Fund and will be used to help complete the replacement of the slate roof.

Our thanks go to every member of the chorus, to Dr. Sheng-Hwa Yu, and to Artistic Director Maestro Sharon Yuan. Also, one of our members, Julius Fekete, used the occasion to sell his spectacular woodcarvings and to donate profits to the Preservation Fund as well. The soon-to-be-completed roof of the sanctuary certainly covered and united a throng of talented and generous-spirited people on this hopeful Advent night.

• A Grant with Anderson Windows in the amount of $15,000 was applied for.
• A matching grant with Johnson & Johnson was applied for through their employee’s contribution program. Thanks to Lauren Bernhofer.
• The first part of the loan from the Corporation of Supportive Housing was received.
• The position of Project Director was discussed and a job description and payment plan was approved. A meeting with representatives from FRC is being planned.
• Rutgers University approached the TCCDC about another grant called Rutgers Community – University Research Partnership Grant. An application in the amount of $25,000 was made. If we win the grant, it will go toward hiring two RU graduate students to garner information about our neighborhood and report on how the TCCDC informs the community about the Dina’s Dwellings project.

MPG, our general contractor has been extremely caring regarding warranty and damage issues. Earlier last month, they replaced broken leaded glass in a door in the steeple that most of us do not even know exists (please see the attached picture). In addition, their subcontractor for painting the steeple louvers came right back when we discovered a small paint problem. Due to inclement weather, we are a little bit behind schedule regarding the replacement of the church roof.

However, we still believe the majority of the work to be accomplished before Easter. In addition, Paul Nulton will be back for the Sexton’s House this month. The current white color of the façade is just primer and will soon give way to a reddish brown with the shingles on the second floor dark brown. The amber of the trim will stay. In all this, we follow Margaret Westfield’s specifications. Remediation of groundwater following the removal of the underground oil tank is ongoing. We are currently in a phase of data collecting in order to decide on next steps. I am very happy that Lauren and Gary Bernhofer have accepted the appointment from Consistory to join me in a little Remediation Task Force. Lauren and Gary’s background in science has already provided great help in better understanding not only the reports from our contractor PTS but also the requirements from N DEP. I am also happy to report that we received this past month another reimbursement from the state for the work being done.

Unfortunately, as of now, there is no indication on when we might be able to close the case.

Members of our Property Committee accompanied the students. They replaced light bulbs, removed debris in the cemetery and reinstalled repaired storm windows. But most importantly: They passed on the story of First Reformed Church by talking about the founding of Rutgers University, the great overseas missions of the 19th century, and the meaning of socially involved faith today. The students were grateful for the experience, and we could not thank them enough for the beautiful work they provided for us.

Now, he is tackling the Sexton’s House. He started in September, but when hurricane Irene hit, many churches needed his emergency assistance – and so did our retreat center in Warwick, where Paul has his office. However, Paul keeps coming back faithfully.

This time he is painting the exterior of the Sexton’s House. Our architect, Margaret Westfield, provided the specifications as a gift to the church. Since then, Paul has been applying Victorian colors to the house!

We also want to thank Jaime Johnson, the new chair of our Invitation & Outreach Committee, because he, too, has been diligently involved with scraping and painting the house – besides his volunteering for House of Manna on many days.

Enjoy the picture of Jaime and Paul with Robert Longo, our sexton. They all are part of our family here at First Reformed Church.

At the same time, Gary and I used the opportunity of a lunch break to tell the students the story of Rutgers University being founded by our once Dutch denomination. Since the students reflected an incredible scope of ethnic diversity, our presentation felt like coming to the world. It was met with great interest and a lot of questions.

Here is what we accomplished that day:

• Painting of the annex-entrance to the Randolph Room.
• Scraping of a part of the Sexton’s House to support Paul Nulton’s work there.
• Spraying herbicides around tombstones and covering sprayed areas with mulch.
• Complete painting of the upper parts of the rear stairwell in the education building.
• Hang curtains in much of the education building.
• Repair ceiling tiles in the kitchen.
• Remove two broken storm windows of the education building for repair.
• Prepare the replacement of the broken AC-unit in fellowship hall.

The whole day was a blessing, and I want to thank Gary, Lauren, Rod, Robert and Susan for helping supervise our volunteers. The church is a lot nicer for it.

Following all this construction, there was some understandable damage: Tire grooves in the cemetery, broken tile pavers in the front of the church, and cracked handrails at the main entrance. Not all of this was caused by the construction work, but together with the new damages, it has reached a point where action is required. Fortunately both, MPG and D.D.S. proved to be very cooperative. D.D.S. filled in the tire grooves and organized the replacement of tile pavers, and MPG is producing a proposal for the handrails that takes into account the origin of the old and the new damages.
In September, MPG will continue to work on our premises when its teams will replace the church roof.

We hope very much for this to be completed by Christmas, so that we can celebrate our candlelight service in a newly restored environment.

There were more helpers on June 25th: Elian Titre and Josh Bernhofer, and also Lauren and Gary Bernhofer. Our accomplishments ranged from taking down all curtains in both buildings to stripping the floor in Fellowship Hall and pruning the bushes in front of the church.

Thank you all, you faithful volunteers!

Benefit Concert: A Spiritual Crossroads

Tickets

Child ticket $6.00General ticket $13.50Premium ticket $21.00

Progress may feel slow, but it is steady. And what is more important, it has proven to be sustainable! It is truly remarkable how far we have come.
Meanwhile, we have to thank Paul Nulton from our Regional Synod. He used his skills last month to renovate the little entry foyer to the Randolph Room. This means that, whenever we worship again in the Randolph Room, latecomers will not have to fear that the glass door entrance to the education building might be locked. It may very well be, but now we can enter the Randolph Room directly from the outside.

Finally, a thought regarding the often-asked question whether it is not more important to donate towards one of our ministries and programs instead of the Preservation Fund: In conversation with various potential donors, this question has come up again in recent weeks.

Here is my response: Our preservation project is not luxurious at all. It is neither a beautifying project, nor is it primarily something that satisfies historians or people with special aesthetic interest. From the church’s point of view, the main purpose of the project is to protect us from calamities like leaking roofs or more collapsing walls. The old truism applies in our case especially well: If we did not provide dry and safe space for our programs and ministries, we would not have these programs and ministries much longer.

To prove my point, I’d like to point out the brownstone windowsills that fell off the building on the Bayard Street side. There are currently no plans of putting them back in. Why not? Even though they are unsightly, still they do not pose a safety threat. We have filled the holes behind them. Unfortunately, we cannot afford energy or resources at this time to correct the situation.

Truly, even with this huge preservation project, we are doing only what is absolutely necessary to keep our interior dry and safe. We are at a point where every single donation towards the Preservation Fund benefits almost directly our programs, such as our family feeding “House of Manna”, the rotating homeless men’s shelter, or even our great lunchtime recital series. So that’s why our preservation project is so important!

We have added two new board members: John Keller and Ursula Cargill. John, who lives within the bounds of the city of New Brunswick, and thus meets the board’s requirement of having a of its membership from the city. John is also a great connecter to various other organizations, including Collaborative Arts Group. Ursula’s expertise is with finance and will be our board’s Treasurer. Already she and Stef have been communicating
back and forth regarding which financial program would be best to use. We are thankful to have each of them on the board.

We have received from the IRS our official nonprofit status. This was thrilling because of all the paperwork that the application required. We are thankful and glad that it is finally completed.

We have several applications for funding sent in and are waiting for approval – without this funding we are in a holding pattern for the drafting of the plans for the sanctuary re-design. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or anyone else who is serving on the CDC Board.

- A clean fellowship hall and kitchen.
- A newly poured step outside by the playground.
- Progress in painting the walls of the rear stairwell in the Church House.
- A winter-cleaned cemetery.
- A reorganized Randolph Room after the winter-worship season.
- A leveled ground in the garbage corral.
- Safety plates over several light switches in the Randolph Room.
- Safety lids over electric boxes in the basement and in one of the organ chambers.
- A painted bathroom vanity and a painted closet door.

Do I need to list more? It was just incredible what we accomplished. But more than that: we had a Boy Scout troop led by Mary and Frank Eckert with us, thereby building bridges between the generations. We had the Property Committee work side-by-side with the Women’s Guild, thereby adding a fun competition to into the mix. And we had the feeling that, finally, spring had arrived, at least if judged by the fact that this was a tremendous spring clean-up.

So what was good about it? I guess all of the above. And so I can only say “Thank you” to all of us, who helped to make this happen.

On Dec 12th, our Adult Choir performed at the State Theatre of New Brunswick as part of the Irish Christmas show of Eileen Ivers. This gave us yet another opportunity to make the general public aware of our preservation project — the program had an insert with pictures from the construction site.

On Wednesday, Dec 15th, we had an interesting meeting of the City Council. That night, the Council resolved to use the current opportunity of scaffolding around our steeple to restore the four faces and the corresponding hands of the town clock. As you know, the City owns the clock to this day. The restoration is no easy enterprise! There are four faces, and each is larger than a person. The work entails not only painting, but also carpentry, as parts of the faces are in need of repair or even missing. It was very rewarding for Susan and me to attend the meeting of the City Council. It gave us an opportunity to speak and to have more conversation afterwards. Several of these conversations were continued the following day when we were guests at the Mayor’s Holiday Party at City Hall.

All in all, we can only be grateful for the role our church begins to play in town. Why is that important, you might ask? It is because it creates ties that benefit many. This year, we introduced our friends from Pine Grove Nursery School and from the Turkish Interfaith Dialog Center to the world of City Hall, and we hope that their arrival in town will make our wonderfully diverse community just a bit more complete. That’s what maps are all about — they should not have too many blank spots.