The Life Impact Centre, one of various church buildings in Anguilla seriously damaged by Hurricane Irma on September 6, 2017, has been repaired and rededicated. Furthermore, it has become a new shelter for the 2018 hurricane season and onwards.
Apostle Lucien McDonna, Founder and Pastor, spoke to The Anguillian on the matter.
“We were happy to have rededicated and reopened the Life Impact Centre to the community on Sunday, February 18. We are thankful to God for His grace in allowing us to rebuild and reopen in such a short space of time,” he told the newspaper. The hurricane did some very serious damage to the building in a range of over 160,000 US dollars and we were able to rebuild stronger and better – not only the facility but the people as well. We are hoping to give a better service to the Anguillian community.
“We have been serving this community since in 1989. I think that at this point in time Anguilla really needs a very strong ministry – something that can really reach out at different levels to help to rebuild the community. Anguilla is still broken and there are a lot of people who need the help of a church – and we have repositioned ourselves to be that voice in the nation.
“The reopening was very nice. There were a lot of people who were encouraged to be part of this rebuilding process in Anguilla – like Nehemiah when he had the desire to rebuild the walls of Jericho. When he saw the walls broken down, he had great compassion and worked vigorously and the Bible says the people had a mind to work. The people of the Life Impact Centre also had a mind to work. They worked day and night, and we are thankful for the persons who have assisted in whatever way in helping us to rebuild. The funds for the rebuilding came from within the church circle. We did not get much help from anyone except some materials donated by a couple folks. The donation went a long way but the people of the church came forward to help with the funding.”
Apostle McDonna explained that a concrete roof was originally part of the design plans for the Life Impact Centre, but the plans were changed as it was thought that a galvanize roof would look better. “However, in 1995, when Hurricane Luis came, it blew it off and in 1999, when Lenny came, it blew it off again; and when Irma came in 2017, the galvanize roof was again blown off,” he said. “After that, we thought that galvanize would not be the best thing so we used concrete this time which we think would be much stronger.”
He added: “We hope to use the facility as a hurricane shelter in years to come. We are now preparing a number of rooms downstairs and will open them before the hurricane season comes. We still have about four bedrooms, a conference room and offices that we also hope to use as shelters during the next hurricane season.
“We closed our preschool as it had issues where people were not paying their bills, and I don’t believe in taking monies from one thing to subsidise something also so we thought it was best to close it down. The areas which the preschool occupied can now be used for housing people during the hurricane season.”
