Assumption Abbey

***Renewing God's House Together***
A Journey through Phases I and II
	The Church Renewal began with a dream. Actually, Vincent Wehrle's dream, more than one hundred years ago. A dream carried on by the monks and the parishioners ever since then, for the church that was built in Richardton is a landmark not only on the prairies of North Dakota, but also a landmark in our souls. A church building, not unlike the temple of our souls, needs maintenance, cleaning, and repairs, and so it came to pass that our church needed a major renewal to lead us into the next millennium. Fr. Thomas Wordekemper was that monk of today, whose vision of renewal bore fruit in the renovations both completed and yet to be undertaken in our "Renewing God's House Together" campaign.

***The Journey Began...***
...with vision, and with a plan. But even before there could be a plan, the vision had to be shared. The plan, if there was to be one, had to be built upon a shared vision, and Fr. Thomas was instrumental in sharing and promoting the vision of a church renewal. To this end, he hired architect Royce Yeater to both evaluate the property, to assess what was needed, and what was wanted, and to sit down with the monks and the parish, and over a period of a year to listen to the dreams, wishes, needs and visions of the people in this varied community. Then he went back to his studio and began crafting these visions into a plan that could be executed. Having a plan is a good thing, and having the estimate of its cost is also a good thing. But everybody knew that the costs would be steep. For this part of the project Jackson + Associates, a consulting firm, was brought in to study the feasibility of fund raising, and then to engage in a year long period of raising the money needed through the "Renewing God's House Together" campaign, which so far has received pledges of over two million dollars. This would be enough to start the project.