Author Archive

News flash! Cornerstone bought a building! It’s a fixer-upper on Etzel Street where most of our properties are, purchased at auction. We’re hoping to renovate it to include two efficiency apartments for graduates of the Grace and Peace Winter Shelter. There will be a larger apartment in it as well.

We’re needing donations to get the ball rolling, so please remember us!

Our fall newsletter is out. Check it out for news on:

• A prayer request about our next rehab project
• An enduring partnership in the gospel
• A bike trail in our neighborhood?
• New video, new Web site design

http://www.cornerstone-housing-ministry.org/newsletter/2009-fall-newsletter/

One of our neighbors read about us on this Web site. She sent us a donation and is wondering how to pray for us.

Our biggest prayer need right now is for money to get a new project off the ground. We’d like to build or rehab a multi-family building, providing two efficiency apartments for graduates of the Grace and Peace Winter Shelter, and at least two larger apartments, creating a mix of families in the building.

Grace and Peace Fellowship operates a women’s shelter in the winter. Every spring when the shelter closes, there are some women who are ready for their own small, manageable apartments. Cornerstone has been asked to help provide these apartments.

A committee has been working on the project for several months now. We identified a building

near our other buildings that could be a candidate for rehab. Now we’re working on raising $20,000 to purchase the property. Of course, we charge rent and have income. But our rents are set intentionally well below market rate. We need to rely on gifts and grants for new projects.

A church sent us $2,000, and so we have a start for our new project fund. That’s our prayer request! Let’s thank the Lord for the $2,000 plus your gift, neighbor, and pray for more! Amen!

If you can make a year-end, tax-deductible donation toward this project, please make a check payable to Cornerstone Corporation and mail it to Cornerstone at 6030 Etzel Ave., St. Louis, MO 63112.

Phyllis Wheeler, board member

by Matt Kimbrell, October, 2008

Memorial Day weekend 2003 I walked onto Etzel Avenue to start my new job as the latest in a long line of managers for Cornerstone Corporation. I had applied for the position after reading the job description in the “Tucket,” the community newsletter for Grace and Peace Fellowship.

Being a newly-relocated seminarian with a desire to see redemption reach into broken homes and neighborhoods, I signed up for what I thought would be a temporary job, a job that would no doubt give me some valuable ministry exposure and a way to pay for school. But the past six years have given me far more that that. For six years I have been given an exciting front-row seat to the brick and mortar reality of God’s work of restoring that which is broken about our world—both relationally and structurally.

One of the key players in my development as a laborer in the kingdom is Richard Lammers, an eager, energetic example of one who serves without complaining or grumbling—one who labors often without any recognition. For over ten years Richard has faithfully served Cornerstone with his encyclopedic knowledge of property maintenance and his jam-packed van stuffed with tools and as any rehabber knows, the right tool for the job makes all the difference. And there has rarely been a moment where Richard hasn’t said, “I’ve got one of those in my van.”

For six years God has allowed me to be his student not simply in the wily arts of rehabbing old buildings, but more importantly in the compassionate work of caring for families. I am indeed grateful and consider it a great privilege to work with my dear friend Richard. An interesting fun fact: Richard and I are both graduates from Covenant College and Covenant Seminary.

(In November 2008 the Cornerstone Board hosted a dinner in honor of Richard’s many faithful years of service to Cornerstone.)