Dear Annunciation family,
Some of you may have noticed, recently, that we now have an organ in the church. Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Donna Clavijo generously donated the organ to our church right after Christmas. Donna is the organist at St. George's Episcopal Church.
I thought I would share with you how we came into this generous donation. Donna was the organist, for many years, at the baptist church in Metairie that I attended as a child and youth. I had not seen Donna since I graduated high school. Then last year, she contacted me. As the organist at St. George's Episcopal, she now needed training in the Safeguarding God's Children Program. When the diocese provided her with a list of names, she saw I was a trainer and decided to ring me up. Not long after, she came to the church for the training session. I gave her a tour of our building, and, naturally, she noted that we did not have an organ.
A few months later, she called me to say that she was selling an organ she owned and offered the church a very generous purchase price. Cam Davis did some research on the organ and found that it was perfect for our church. Unfortunately, we were unable to purchase it because of the expenses related to the repairs of Vail Hall. I told Donna a couple of months ago that I was not sure when the church would get the bank loan money and that she should go ahead and try to sell it to someone else. I thought that was the end of the church owning an organ.
About a week before Christmas, Donna contacted me after reading the Annunciation Mission's appeal to help one of the teacher's at CDP whose almost rebuilt home was vandalized by cooper thieves, destroying some of her electrical. Donna said she wanted to donate the organ and asked the Vestry to make a donation to the teacher's rebuilding efforts instead of purchasing the organ!
And that is the long story of how Annunciation was able to get an organ again.
In Christ,
Duane
