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ELKINS -- The Ambassador Baptist Church is seeking funds to build a new facility at its current location in Highland Park.
Since 2007, when the church started Ambassador Ministries, a nonprofit, it has continued to grow and the ministry has found it necessary to construct a new facility in order to meet its needs, officials said.
Beyond offering the traditional church services, the Ambassador Baptist Church has expanded to an international outreach, a K-12 private school, and a counseling agency, Pastor Mike House said.
“We are going to take down the current building, the house that is there that we have been meeting in,” House said. “And we want to replace that with a 40×80 steel structure that matches our warehouse.
“It will look like a church, though, opposed to a warehouse. The new building is going to be a multipurpose building. It will have our church, our school, and a portion of it will be used for our counseling center. It will also have a kitchen for social purposes and for the school.”
House said the building currently being used for the warehouse was originally purchased for the sanctuary.
“Our homeless ministry and shipping overseas grew, the building became necessary to use as a warehouse,” House said. “We currently ship around 25,000 pounds of clothes and household items to third-world countries every month. So now we are in a position where we really need a building for everything else.”
House said the Ambassador Baptist Church needs to raise a $50,000 capital fund to make it possible to secure a bank loan. The church has already raised $10,000 toward that goal.
“We need to have some capital funds available so we can approach the bank about loans to complete the project,” House said. “If we just had 40 more people who would donate $1,000 we would hit our target and be able to approach the bank. That’s kind of the way we have been approaching it, it’s hard to find someone who will give you $50,000, but if a few people donated $1,000 it would be a little more feasible for us to accomplish our goals.”
House said that once the sanctuary is complete, the church’s next project will be a residential rehabilitation facility.
“We are not done building after we get the church complete,” House said. “We are going to be going into residential facilities, because our ministry is trying to be as holistic as we can. We currently meet the physical and immediate needs, such as tents, clothes and counseling that homeless folks need. We feel like the last step will be residential treatment.”
For more information on the church or to make a donation, contact House at 304-704-7498.