Donors Bless Rural Christian School with $1 Million Donation
by Jim Brown
February 1, 2005
(AgapePress) - A couple who asked to remain anonymous has given one-million dollars to a Christian boarding and day school in Iowa.Since 1951, Cono Christian School has operated as a ministry of Bible Presbyterian Church of Cono Center (PCA). The school, which currently has about 100 students in kindergarten through the twelfth grade, sits on a rural 29-acre campus in the Wapsipinicon River Valley. Facilities on the campus include seven student dormitories, a few houses for staff, classrooms and support buildings -- and soon, compliments of the generous donation, a new gymnasium.
Officials at Cono Christian School, north of Cedar Rapids, say the donation will help build more dormitories as well. Headmaster Andrew Belz says when told the couple was writing his school a check for a million dollars, he started yelling and praising God for His wisdom and provision.
"We don't expect [donations of this magnitude]," the headmaster says, "but we do, in a sense, expect God to do great things. And we believe in a God who can do anything."
Belz says the gift is evidence that nothing is impossible with God. "We're not a 'name it, claim it' Christian group," he says, "but we are believing Christians who know a God who created everything -- so He can do anything when He wants to. We give Him all the credit for this."
And the school administrator says Cono has learned the importance of waiting on God's perfect timing.
"One of our board members said we're a little bit like the people praying for Peter to be released from prison," he says, referring to the twelfth chapter in the Book of Acts. "He's standing at the door, knocking ... and we doubt whether He's really there. And I think Christians suffer from that sometimes."
According to Belz, the couple told him the gift was their way of showing support for the school's mission of reaching out to down-and-out families. He explains that half of the donation will be used for a permanent endowment which will help increase the salaries of workers at the school and provide scholarships for needy children.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
