As most of you have already seen, St James' church was struck by a devastating fire on Sunday. The fire ran through the roof of the side entrance/kitchen, Memorial Hall, and church Sanctuary. Despite the best efforts of the Hudson Fire Department and 8 other neighbouring fire departments, the entire roof needed to be removed to stop the fire. If you have seen pictures or driven by you might think that the whole church is destroyed but that is not the case.

St James' has good bones! The fire was mostly in the roof so that the walls and the stonework is mostly intact. The stained glass also survived the fire. There is significant water and smoke damage but we are working with our insurance provider to mitigate and restore the damaged items. The pictures, paintings and plaques from the Memorial Hall were removed by the firefighters and most will be able to be saved and restored. The church silver is safe and the chancel guild has taken much of the linens and hangings to be protected and restored. Some items will be lost beyond repair but I am confident that many of the church's most prized possessions will continue to grace our sacred space. 

The large hall and the office spaces in the basement were largely untouched by the fire but there is some water damage. That being said, we are expecting to be able to use those spaces before the entire church is rebuilt. And we have every intention to rebuild. We are working closely with our insurance provider, the clean-up crew and various engineers and other professionals to assess the damage, protect and restore what is possible, and then, eventually, rebuild what we had.

This will likely take a significant amount of time. 

In the meantime we will worship on Sundays at St Mary's. The service times will remain the same at 8:30 and 10:30. 

Many people have asked me in the last few days for ways that they can help in the coming days, weeks and months. There will be undoubtedly many ways to help but most concretely we will be setting up a go-fund me campaign. Please look for that campaign and share it as widely as you can with all of your social networks and consider giving generously. 

Within the obvious losses that are inevitable in cases such as this, there are truly opportunities to be thankful. We can be thankful for the fire fighters who risked their safety to put out the fire, the outpouring of love from the community, the work of the clean-up crew, the insurance policy that will allow us to rebuild, and the members of the corporation and other church members who stepped up and will continue to step up through this process. I want to particularly thank Marcus who has been on site almost constantly since the fire started and has been so diligent in his dedication to the church buildings. This morning he forwarded a picture taken by Alain Michel Laferrière (attached here) from within the church that shows not only the current destruction but also foreshadows the resurrection of the church building with the help of the entire church which is us.

He is Risen. He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!