The Rev. Peter de Vries holds a copy of the paid-in-full mortgage of Old Union Presbyterian Church in Adams Township. On Sunday, officials are going to burn the mortgage during a special ceremony.

ADAMS TWP — A “Gideon moment” and a Bible verse, as well as outpouring of generosity, are credited with Old Union Presbyterian Church, 200 Union Church Road, retiring a 20-year mortgage in nine years.

The church will have a mortgage-burning party Sunday to celebrate.

Pastor Peter de Vries, said the event will include an open house worship service from 11 a.m. to noon designed for people who haven’t been to church for a long time or who have never attended. Members of the church team that took a mission trip to Texas this summer will speak.

“At noon we will have the mortgage-burning ceremony in the pavilion, weather permitting,” said de Vries.

“The fellowship hall will be set up for volleyball, there will be door prizes and we will be handing out bookmarks,” said de Vries

The event was a long time coming, said de Vries.

“I’ve been here for 25 years, and we were talking about the addition then,” he said. “In 2002, we got serious about it and made plans.”

The $750,000 project to build an addition to the old church including offices, a lobby and a general purpose room was initially going to be financed with $450,000 in church funds and a $300,000 loan.

“We broke ground in October 2008” he said, just in time for the bottom to fall out of the stock market in the Great Recession of 2008. Old Union’s investments lost $150,000 in value from October to December.

“As we began building, a third of our money vanished. We had a shell of a building,” he said.

Read Thursday’s Butler Eagle to find out how the congregation came together to finish the addition and pay off the mortgage.