Purchased with Sapphires
This is the story of how the Emerald Company church chairs were paid for (or how God supplied our need before we realised what it was).
In 1979, my family and I were asked to move from Rockhampton church to Emerald. A group of people wanted to see a church planted in this rural Queensland centre. Huge sunflower seed farms were being created and with good water sources, a cotton farming industry was developing. Emerald is also in the middle of open cut coal and sapphire gemstone mining fields. Land for a church was purchased on the southern side of the railway station. A toilet block and a pastor’s house had been built.
Dennis and Gloria May purchased and moved a school classroom to use as the church building. Everyone was enthusiastic with the place’s potential. But the first church business meeting revealed a problem. The church had already purchased a nice set of chairs for the people to enjoy the worship and fellowship, except there was now a bill that needed to be paid. We’d exhausted all sources of donations from the conference. What were we going to do?
“Pastor John, we’d like to give a mining lease to the church,” said Dale Shepherd. He and his wife Marilyn worked on the mine. They'd found an odd-shaped plot that looked like it had never been mined before. The discussion then became, how can we afford that expense? Head elder, Lindsey Tutt said, “Thank you. This could either be a valuable resource or it may have already been mined and then returned to grazing land. I suggest we dig a shaft in the middle and find out.”
“I’ll help,” I offered.
“Let’s start the project by having a church picnic out there on Sunday and we can start digging the shaft,” said Dennis May.
The church went out. The kids played, the men started digging and everyone enjoyed the picnic. Taking turns, we slowly extended the shaft, driving straight down to test if the area was worth exploring. As the shaft got deeper a ladder became the access point and we used a bucket and rope to remove the soil. The soil had not been disturbed over the years and we found the “river wash”. This was where the sapphires would be. Lindsey dug through the wash and expanded the hole around it to confirm if there was colour in it. Lindsey took a bucket load and washed it to confirm: there were sapphires.
We called the church together and showed them the stones we’d found. “Praise the Lord”—everyone was excited. But what were we going to do? We couldn’t dig it out. What if this was the only bit of colour in the entire site? Again, Dale and Marilyn had a suggestion. The miner they worked for was happy to dig the site out and to put it through his sifting belts to isolate any gems that would be found. Dale was happy to drive the tractor and Marilyn was happy to oversee gathering the stones. The miner said he would only take his expenses from the stones sold. The church could have whatever was left. The church committed the project to God in prayer.
The outcome? God’s name was honoured by those church members. The miner got his expenses paid and the church received the amount of money needed, plus tithe, to pay for the chairs. The church still exists in this central western town with a new church building now—a living testament to the glory of God.
Verse of the Day
“I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers” Isaiah 65:24 (NLT).
