Staff Photo By: Darcie Thom
Over 125 visitors to the Bekevar Church exit the historical building after a service on July 13th.

Staff Photo By: Darcie Thom
People wait anxiously for the spread of desserts and BBQ

By: Darcie Thom

People of the community gathered at the Old Bekevar to celebrate an annual non-denominational church service and BBQ on Sunday, July 13th. The Church service was presented by Pastor Ivy Veysey and organist, Adele Daku. Garnet and Anne Smalley, Brian Bernat, Jerry Bagu and Joe Daku along with a wide range of volunteers, put their time into preparing the historical site for the Sunday service and BBQ to follow.

The Bekevar Church, which can hold approximately 350 people, saw more than 125 people during the church service. “We are very pleased with the number of people that came out to the service, thank you to all who joined us and helped with the food and preparation,” said Anne, “many of them were still there when we were finished and cleaning up.

In most cases, the services available at the Bekevar Church are non-denominational and the church invites people of all religions to use and enjoy the building and surrounding area. However, there are times when the old structure needs donations to keep the building clean, kept and standing. Just recently, the Old Bekevar was hit by lightning and received some undeserved damages, which also caused unnecessary financial burden.

The BBQ proved to be of great success and raised a significant amount of money to help continue with the caretaking of the church and church grounds. “This is one of the best we’ve had, financially, there was a lot of people there,” Garnet says, “we had a lot of support this year.”

There was also plenty of conversations about how the Church was a part of peoples lives. People spoke about what the church meant to them and the past events that took place there. One woman reminisced about the long days of preparation for events saying ‘the women cooked all day and the men ate all day, but everyone always had a great time’.