On May 22nd, 2012 life changed for my family. I was voted in as pastor to a church that had gone without a pastor for seven months. After the previous pastor left, the church board discovered that the church was in foreclosure. The District Board was asked to step in by the church’s board to help with the vetting process for a new pastor.
The church is located in the neighborhood of Van Nuys, within the city of Los Angeles. Although the church is in a lower income neighborhood, and the cost of living is high, God always provides. Praise the Lord, in those seven months, the diligent and faithful board of Valley Lighthouse Pentecostal Church was able pull the church out of foreclosure.
The church was built in the 1950's and over the years has required continual maintenance. The previous pastor remodeled the church to a more updated look, however there were still several areas that needed updating and repair.
One such area that required updating was the church loan. Our lender informed us that they did not loan money to churches anymore. Then they added more requirements for our yearly reporting, becoming less and less hospitable to us.
So, we began our search. We found a Christian credit union nearby, but they denied us because we were oneness. We were still praying and looking when a fellow pastor told me about the UPCI Loan Fund. I contacted the Loan Fund and was pleasantly surprised to find that they offered loans that had longer maturation dates than ten years.
Through the UPCI Loan Fund, we were able to refinance our old loan and get additional money for the updates that were needed. With the new financing, we replaced our old galvanized main water line with a new copper line. We removed our old gravel parking lot and installed a brand-new asphalt parking lot, along with a basketball hoop! We also were able to update our sound/media systems and we changed out the aged air conditioning system that could not keep our Kids Ministries rooms cool during the hot southern California summers.
We recently celebrated seven years as pastor. Along with the physical improvements, God is doing a spiritual makeover at Valley Lighthouse Pentecostal Church. People from the neighborhood and throughout the San Fernando Valley are finding a brand-new life at our church. All praises to our God that an Apostolic church continues to thrive in Van Nuys, California. Thank you UPCI Loan Fund!
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