The Lord planted a dream in Lowell Brown’s heart more than ten years ago, a dream to build a church in Esperanza, a small city in the Dominican Republic. Lowell and Lois Brown have been involved in the area for over 15 years, primarily focused on helping children earn an education through child care sponsorship. Their concern for children led to the creation of the Kingsview Child Care Sponsorship Program that now supports more than 200 children.
The location that caught Lowell and Lois’ heart was the Buenos Aires area, a very poor community in Esperanza. Five years ago, just 15 people attended a struggling church plant, along with 7 – 8 children, in a very small building.
In God’s plan, Lowell met building designer, Elias Mancebo, who was from Dominican Republic and worked with Royal Technologies in Vaughn, ON, a company that developed prefabricated building systems using interlocking plastic panels filled with cement. The finished product is virtually hurricane and earthquake proof.
After years of praying and planning, the project began to come together during the last year. It has been an amazing story.
After looking at several possible locations, a large piece of property just a block from the existing church was purchased. The present church and property will be sold to pay for the purchase of the new property. The cost of the building was $60,000, everything is already paid for.
Six churches, including Baptist, Associated Gospel, Harvest Bible and three Free Methodist churches have assisted Kingsview Church. A total of 17 people paid their own way to help with the building project and the work was finished in 12 days.
All electrical work was done according to the Canadian Electrical Code and far exceeds local building codes. The roof is insulated and vented all across the top, making it cool inside. It also has a drop ceiling to add to the insulating qualities.
The prefabricated panels were produced in Mexico, the trusses were supplied by Holden Truss of Haliburton and the steel roof was purchased from Roka building supplies of Pontypool. The Welland Free Methodist Church donated the padded oak pews. The whole building was loaded into two containers, shipped by rail to St. John, NB, sent by container ship to Puerto Plata, and trucked to Esperanza. The rest of the materials were local.
The church will seat about 250, the congregation now has an average attendance of 125 – 150 people. More than 300 people packed the first service. Although it is a beautiful building, inside and out, the greatest benefit is that people of all walks of life can come and find God, and experience peace and joy in their life.
It is a House for the Lord and a beacon of hope for the community.