Oklahoma City church’s project on hold over disagreement about critical race theory

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – All through the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers got here to Ebenezer Baptist Church to serve the needy.

Households got here from throughout Oklahoma without spending a dime meals, home goods and faculty provides.

Ebenezer rallied to serve, and ultimately, the church property turned the headquarters for $2 million in donations.

What many do not find out about Ebenezer is that this can be a congregation of just some hundred individuals.

It is not a mega-church, however a small, rising parish with a mega imaginative and prescient for loving individuals in Oklahoma.

“I am only a man that is making an attempt to assist. I am not making an attempt to harm anyone,” mentioned Pastor Derrick Scobey.

Pastor Scobey has labored tirelessly this pandemic 12 months, securing grants and donations.

Even because the pandemic winds down, many Oklahomans are nonetheless in want.

In current months, Scobey has raised $100,000 to assemble a big metallic constructing with a loading dock and a cooler-freezer combo for storage of perishable meals.

The funds have come from plenty of native and nationwide non-profit organizations, together with Inasmuch Basis, World Imaginative and prescient, Chris Tomlin’s Angels Armies, North Church, Frontline Church, Peoples Church and The Nelson Household Basis.

“We’d like a constructing allow,” Scobey mentioned. “However we won’t get a constructing allow till we obtain a (land) survey.”

Ebenezer plans to construct a distribution facility to expedite their generosity.

Pastor Scobey employed licensed surveyor Bob Manley.

“He agreed to supply us with a survey to ensure that us to submit an utility to the town,” Scobey mentioned.

Manley’s proposal outlines the scope of the undertaking, the timeline and the worth.

In keeping with the signed contract dated Might 14, Manley agreed to supply the survey inside 14 enterprise days.

“We have by no means had a cross phrase. nice communication,” Scobey mentioned.   

Nonetheless, 4 weeks later, on June eleventh, Manley nonetheless had not delivered the service.

In keeping with Scobey, Manley despatched some staff to the property after which promised to have the survey accomplished by Monday, June 14.

Nonetheless, one enterprise day earlier than the deadline, on Friday, June 11…

“He mentioned, ‘I simply wish to let you know we will should withdraw from this settlement,'” Pastor Scobey remembers. “So, I am ready for the punchline as a result of we have had an amazing relationship. So actually, I simply know he is kidding.”

Bob Manley was not joking.

Apparently, the explanation for the sudden, sudden breach of contract was a disagreement over Scobey’s place on HB 1775.

“He mentioned, ‘Effectively, due to your place on the essential race concept,'” mentioned Scobey. “He mentioned, ‘Important race concept is a direct risk and assault on my white grandchildren, and I cannot have something to do with you or Ebenezer since you assist it.”

Certainly, Scobey and plenty of group leaders publicly opposed HB 1775, which prohibited the educating of essential race curriculum in Oklahoma.

“After which he mentioned, ‘Let me ask you this. What’s your place on reparations?’ I mentioned, ‘Bob that may be a very inappropriate query to be asking me. Please don’t ask me my place on something alongside these strains.”

KFOR tried repeatedly to get Bob Manley’s facet of the story.

Ali Meyer referred to as a number of listed telephone numbers on daily basis for greater than every week.

She went to his residence in Cashion and emailed with no response.

In keeping with the Oklahoma State Board of Licensure for Skilled Engineers and Land Surveyors, Bob Manley LLC has an lively state license, however now not has a working web site.

“I consider in Romans 8:28, (which says) ‘For we all know all issues work collectively for the nice to them who love God who’re referred to as in response to his goal,'” mentioned Scobey. “So that is just a bit pace bump, and I do know it’s going to work out. However nonetheless, what he did, what Bob Manley did, it was incorrect; there isn’t any two methods about it.”

The church determined to not sue Manley for breach of contract.

However Pastor Scobey did file a grievance with the state board.

Then, he obtained a name from the Oklahoma Society of Land Surveyors, which helped him choose a brand new licensed surveyor to finish the undertaking.

Smith Roberts Baldischwiler LLC agreed to do the work at value – a $1,300 financial savings for Ebenezer Baptist Church.

“I did not suppose it could finish this manner, so rapidly,” Pastor Scobey mentioned. “I wish to thank (KFOR) and all of the laborious work that you’ve got put into this, little doubt.”

Smith Roberts Baldischwiler is shifting ahead rapidly with the location work to be able to pace up the timeline so Ebenezer Baptist Church can serve extra Oklahomans in want.