Hallelujah and Amen! F

Five years ago, Garden of Gethsemane Ministries bought a dilapidated church in the Tangletown area of north Minneapolis.

By early last year, little progress had been made toward a renovation of the century-old brick-and-shingle building. Many in the congregation were fed up, and nearly a year ago, a major portion splintered off.

"In their minds, this was not a doable thing," said Pastor Randolph Cooper.

Enter developer Stuart Ackerberg, who has been working nearby on buildings along W. Broadway. By last June, financing had been arranged. By September, sawdust was flying. And by Christmas Eve, the Liberian-dominated congregation was able to hold a service in its nearly completed building on James Avenue N.

Ackerberg's involvement with the church a block off Broadway didn't happen until Liberian-born city housing official Elfric Porte introduced him to Cooper.

The nondenominational church had been turned down for a rehab loan by banks all over town. That changed when Ackerberg, who is Jewish, personally guaranteed financing of nearly $1 million for the Christian congregation.

"It is like a miracle from God," Cooper said. Ackerberg Group donated its professional services, as did some of the other partners in the rehab project done under Ackerberg's nonprofit wing.

But it took the unwavering optimism of a pastor like Cooper to see the potential in the building back in 2003. There were holes in the roof. The big stained-glass windows had been stolen while the church sat empty. A stairway to the balcony was listing precariously.

Still, when Cooper first looked at the church, "We saw a double rainbow between the trees," and took that as a sign.

Calvin Littlejohn, an Ackerberg project manager, recalls pigeons flying around inside the former Forest Heights Congregational Church as the project began. There was also a raccoon in residence.

The building got a retrofit from its basement footings to the grand chandelier paid for by the Pohlad family's foundation. In between, workers gutted walls, doubled up the studs, tore out the few remaining organ pipes of cheap metal painted to resemble brass, and reconfigured the ceiling for an airier look. The sanctuary was painted in warm pear and gold tones. The original carved wooden pews were reinstalled.

"This isn't a halfway job," said S.J. Morgan, Ackerberg's top manager for the project. "We restructured the whole building. We made it plumb."

What makes all concerned proud is that the job was accomplished with minority workers making up roughly half of the workforce.

The refurbishing spilled outside the building. Brick was tuck-pointed and shingles were painstaking cut to fit around roof beams. New brackets and trusses were installed where needed. The effort even spilled across the street to Cottage Park, a pocket park most notoriously known as the site of the 2000 shooting of 11-year-old Kevin Brewer, unsolved despite dozens of witnesses. Church members and Ackerberg employees worked to re-landscape the park, with new playground equipment added.

"It's kind of a beacon for us," Jerry Moore, the Jordan Area Community Council's staff chief, said of the church.

The investment by the church is all the more impressive when the tenuous status of many in Gethsemane's congregation is considered. As Liberians, many are in the United States on temporary protected status, which allows them to stay only as long as the situation in their home country remains precarious.

That status expires in March unless it is renewed, and Cooper said Liberians are praying to be granted permanent status.

Cooper said the church will broaden its community involvement, listing a variety of crisis services that Gethsemane plans. Ackerberg and its Catalyst Community Partners nonprofit also have built two single-family homes as the city's designated developer for the park area.

The church celebrated its new home with a service last Sunday, its first since the Christmas Eve service in the almost-completed space.

"The congregation radiated gratitude and joy," said Council Member Don Samuels, who lives a block way and attended the earlier Christmas Eve service.

He praised their sense of hope.

"Hope is that crucial catalytic ingredient that will inspire the risk of investment and fuel the metamorphosis of our city's collective consciousness about north Minneapolis."

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438