EURE – The food and desserts spread across three tables reminded one of an old-fashioned family reunion.

It was indeed a reunion, but one consisting of a church family who joined together here recently in celebration of a financial accomplishment.

In less than three years, members of Eure Baptist Church were able to settle up with the bank on a loan they used to build a new fellowship hall. The celebration, held May 22, was highlighted by a trio of Eure Baptist Church Trustees shredding that financial document.

“It took a lot of sacrifice,” said Eure Baptist Minister, the Rev. Wayne Proctor. “We were able to borrow as little as possible and then pay it off as quickly as possible. I tell people all the time that it’s not about the money, rather it’s about the people here in our ministry. We have been faithful to God and have done what God has asked us to do with the ministry here.

“I’m very proud of our church members,” Proctor continued. “We reached a point of needing this fellowship hall to continue our ministry and we made the decision to build. This is a small sacrifice of what God can do. You have all worked very hard to make this happen.”

To help pay off the loan, the church conducted several “food” fundraisers, to include their famous BBQ chicken. Tickets were sold in four counties for those meals.

Eure Baptist Deacon Bryan Buck was asked several years ago to head up the fellowship hall project, which came on the heels of an expensive renovation to the original church building, constructed in 1913.

“I had been to a lot of people asking them to give to the renovation project, and then we were looking to do it all again, get that fund-raising energy back up to build this multi-purpose building,” Buck recalled. “We formed a committee and then went out looking at other buildings like this at other churches.”

After a series of meetings, Buck said the Lord led the church to make another major financial commitment with the building of its fellowship hall.

“The committee put the building plans together….there were a few hurdles to overcome, but we did it,” Buck said. “Things fell into place; people saw this coming together and they wanted to be a part of this construction train, a train led by Mr. Perry (Eure). He got this done, along with the help of a lot of people.”

Buck thanked God for giving the Eure Baptist members a vision.

“It was up to us to move forward with that vision or remain stagnant,” he stressed. “One of the saddest things I see is a church with a lot of money, but no vision. That’s a dead church. Eure Baptist is a growing church, one that is giving back to its community. What we have here are just buildings; the real church is the people.”

The new fellowship hall construction project began in January of 2013 and was built for less than $350,000.