Dear Parishioners,

Normally, you would see my column in this spot. However, with the tornado that hit the parish on May 7th, it seems more important to post a tornado update from this weekend:

1) Three buildings were damaged by the tornado: Maintenace garage, rectory garage, and the rectory itself. The church building only suffered minor damage and no damage at all on the Stanley Centre. We did lose a lot of the trees that surrounded the grounds and in the front yard of the church building.

2) Fr Jacob and I sheltered in the rectory basement and some staff that were still working on Tuesday night sheltered in the church building. All of us were safe and there were no injuries.

3) The garages are a total loss. The insurance adjustor thought that the rectory might be able to be rebuilt. I hired a disaster recovery team last week, and they are working on the rectory building and will determine how much actual damage has occurred and if repairs can be made.

4) Due to the roof damage, collapsed ceilings, broken windows and other things that happened to the rectory and the garage, the City of Portage Red tagged our building. This means no one can occupy it. Fr. Jacob and I have found housing elsewhere and are commuting back and forth to St. Catherine. At this time, we have no timeline about how soon everything can be worked on.

5) Bishop Lohse will be joining us for Mass next weekend on Pentecost (May 19) to be with the parish and to pray with us.

6) Thank you to all the volunteers who helped with the two cleanup days that we had last week!

7) Please keep everyone in our community in your prayers as we recover from this natural disaster.