Over the past year, Brian Promersberger shared his gifts with OSLC and has made us 8 processional crosses for children and a new ambo – and they are beautiful! Did you know that the wood used to craft these items for worship also has deep meaning?
Brian writes: When my grandparents retired, they moved to a wooded five-acre lot where they put a mobile home. My grandfather first needed to clear some trees before digging a basement to set their new home on. There were a few oak trees among the pines that he kept the wood for future projects. Yes, the acorn didn’t fall far from the tree. He had the logs milled into boards and stored them in his garage for building items for our family. I don’t know the extent of all the items he produced other than a cradle for my oldest sister’s first child. I do know that he wanted what he made to be significant to the recipient and so the wood sat and waited until such an opportunity came along. As he aged, the stock of wood remained untouched until he needed to move into an apartment close to the VA due to health issues. I was in college at the time, and while helping him move, he asked me if I would do something with the wood that remained. Of course, I obliged and took the oak boards with me back to school. After years of moving from state to state and job to job, taking this pile of wood with me, I couldn’t find a worthy project fitting my grandfather’s wishes. Some thirty years later I met Nancy and one day we talked about a new kitchen table where I could use some of the wood for its construction. I faced some challenges, in addition to my perceived value, it was rough sawn to ¾” meaning that after planing it down to a usable surface, it would be about a half-inch thick. Secondly, there were some odd shapes to a couple of the boards that still retained the shape of the tree that it came from, and one much thicker board that I could imagine being the top of a bookcase. I did, in fact, make a kitchen table but the top cracked during the dry winter months, as I feared may happen due to its lack of thickness. I rebuilt the top with thicker material and set the original top aside to be salvaged for another project. The top was later used to make the crosses for the kids at church to carry into the service. Later when I was approached about the “Ambo” I thought that this might be the project for the odd board I had left and that my grandfather would approve of both the use and construction of it. I could feel him smiling at me for seeing his wishes through even after forty years.
Our Savior Lutheran Church and Campus Ministry 