✞ A TESTIMONY OF FAITH
When God Gives a Task, He Provides the Means
The rebuilding of Richmond Town Methodist Church, 1992
By Alex Samuel • RTMC • Member, 1992 Fundraising Committee
The nineties at Richmond Town Methodist Church were, in my memory, a decade of extraordinary congregational life — the Easter Sunrise Services conducted by the youth, the Family Sundays, the Christmas fellowship dinners that filled Stephen’s Hall. But if I am asked which single experience from that decade has stayed with me most deeply, the answer is immediate: the rebuilding of the church in 1992.
It was the greatest challenge of faith I experienced at RTMC. And it became the greatest testimony.
The Building Was Leaking. The Fund Had ₹10,000.
The old church building had served the congregation faithfully for many years, but by the early 1990s it was in serious difficulty. The roof was leaking badly. The structure, beloved as it was, could no longer be what it needed to be.
There were members of the congregation — understandably, and not without good reason — who were reluctant to demolish it. A heritage building is not just a building; it holds memory, it holds identity. The decision to tear it down and build again was not one that anyone took lightly.
But the practical necessity was undeniable. The proposed budget for the new building was ₹28 lakhs. And when the Fundraising Committee assembled and asked the treasurer what was available in the church fund, the answer was ₹10,000.
Humanly speaking, the task was impossible. That is not a phrase I use loosely. It was, by any ordinary financial reckoning, not achievable. We had been entrusted with an instruction — rebuild this church — and the resources to carry it out did not exist.
The Rebuilding of the Church
But we believed that nothing is impossible with our God. And that belief, it turned out, was the only foundation we needed.
Six People, One Month’s Salary, and a Great Deal of Travel
Under the able leadership of Mr. Neegal Noronha, a six-member Fundraising Committee set to work. We went at it from every direction we could think of.
We travelled to other cities to invite choirs to come and perform at fund-raising concerts. We challenged members of the congregation to commit one month’s salary to the building project — a significant ask, and one that required the congregation to decide, in a very concrete way, how much they believed in what was being built. We explored every possible avenue, followed every lead, and left no door unknocked.
The response was extraordinary. Members gave with a generosity that I do not think any of us had anticipated. The concerts drew people. The month’s salary challenge was met by enough members to make a real difference. And alongside the human effort, there was the unmistakable sense that God was providing in ways that went beyond what our committee had planned.
Two Years. A New Building. A Lasting Lesson.
Within two years, the church was rebuilt. The building that stands today — the one in which this magazine will be read, in which another generation is being formed in faith — is the building that came out of that exercise in impossibility.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”
— Zechariah 4:6
We experienced Zech. 4:6 — it was not by might, not by power but by the Spirit of God. It taught me something about the nature of faith in a congregation: that when a community of people genuinely commits to something, and backs that commitment with sacrifice, we see God move.
The ₹10,000 in the church fund was not a problem to be solved by better fundraising techniques. It was an invitation to trust. The congregation accepted the invitation. The rest followed.
To God Be All the Glory
It was truly a great challenge of faith. But it became a great testimony of God’s faithfulness.
The building that stands today is the evidence.
