Today we began demolishing the old garage pantry behind Lighthouse Cafe. In the next few days a team of workers will be removing the building, piece by piece, dump-truck by dump-truck. Then, we’ll excavate the foundation area, re-build the foundation towards a new multipurpose, 2 story building!

We need more space, Lighthouse Cafe main buildin is maxed out on both floors. The past few months we’ve witnessed a surge of interested friends and new partners within Ukraine coming alongside our missional community at Lighthouse. These folks come from all kinds of backgrounds and interests, from both within our region and without. I’m enthused to explore together how we can collaborate in providing unique space for touching and forming lives, especially the next generation.

First step today, removal of roof!
Yes, the garage attic was filled with hay. Who knew?
Roof gone. Walls tomorrow.
My unsophisticated conceptual drawing. Bigger, and safer 🙂 Room to facilitate more dreams and gifts among our community. Working on new design now as we collaborate together.

The common theme emerging in our community: a healthy, united, flourishing Ukraine.

I believe our Creator is drawing many talented and creative folks to join with those locally who seek to create culture instead of endlessly fighting systemic issues that prohibit growth. Our family and team are honored to come alongside reflections of Jesus Kingdom and cultivate open non-religious and non-political spaces for experimentation and collaboration. In other words, we are super excited to see how this new space will be used by a multiplicity of souls.

We have yet to finalize the building design, it’s being worked on now and we are thankful for our local building inspector’s help along this often challenging path of stamps and roadblocks. In the next few weeks we hope to show everyone the plans, and in stages reveal our progress. We’d love to have the shell of the building completed by October of this year – but that’s going to take some generous hearts contributing to the cause!

Besides replacing the existing function of our garage pantry which serves as storage for Lighthouse Cafe and our food assembly spot for local widows care program, some of the ideas circulating include:

  • Open hall with kitchen area (larger events, widows gatherings, small concerts.
  • Spaces for cooking lessons, wood working, creative arts, language lessons.
  • First floor tourism center with bicycle rental+ repair, maps and partner info.
  • Second floor prayer/meditation room, much needed office space.
  • Basement multimedia room (photo, video editing), pantry.
We love next generation youth of Ukraine and believe the light that is burning at Lighthouse will continue to grow in new spheres with more space!

We are partnering once again with our sending church in Longview (Grace City) and they’ve agreed to be the conduit for tax-deductible giving on this project.

We are trying to raise $50,000 towards this project. So far, we have raised $5,000 as of July 4th – thus Phase 1 has begun!

Please consider supporting our project! Our team and family truly appreciates your help as we navigate this exciting next chapter in our journey.

US Donations

Grace City Church
Ukraine Building Project
1400 E. Loop 281
Longview, Texas
75605

Online Giving: https://www.gracecitypeople.com/give
*drop down select “Ukraine Building Project”

Canadian Donations:

Great Commission Foundation
FUND #552 (Crowe)
PO Box 14006
Abbotsford, BC
V2T OB4
Canada

Online Giving: https://gcfcanada.com/bruce-and-deborah-crowe/

If you have any questions, ideas, encouragement, please don’t hesitate to reach to me personally! Our hope was initially to host some short-term construction teams as we have in the past. Due to the instability of the world at the moment, that is rather difficult to plan. If you are interested however in joining a team in the near future, handy with a hammer, tiling, plumbing, painting, or generally just enjoy working with a cross-cultural group of believers, let us know! We’d love for you or your church to join us more intentionally, at any level –

Respectfully and behalf of our team,

Bruce & Deb Crowe