Beautiful Things in Akron

Dear LMC’s,

God is doing beautiful things in Akron, Ohio. Mary and I were joined as LMC’s by George
Williams who professed his initial vows on Divine Mercy Sunday weekend. We are now three
professed LMC’s in our Akron group. We are blest to have 350 co-workers working with us as
we minister to the poor of Akron via our ministry called Gennesaret, Inc. (Matthew 14:34-36)
This is the twenty-fourth year of the ministry and Mary and I are blest to have directed it from its
inception.

A couple of years ago the ministry was challenged with being forced to relocate our soup kitchen
due to a change in ownership of our leased building (leased for $1/year for almost 20 years). We
serve meals to about 600 poor residents in Akron – every week. There was much uncertainty
regarding God’s plan for the ministry, requiring much prayer. We were blessed to have had Fr.
Sebastian visit Akron during this same time frame. While in Akron we showed Fr. Sebastian our
current building and another building that we hoped to acquire – even though the owner was not
very interested in selling it to us. Fr. Sebastian placed a miraculous medal into one of the cracks
of the building we hoped to get – and he, Mary and I paused and prayed that the Lord’s will be
done.

Since then the building has been sold to us at $100,000 below market value; a large local
contractor has taken on the rehabilitation of it and the initial estimate of $370,000 for
rehabilitation costs is now looking like it is going to be a total of $50,000. We should be ready
to move to the new building in a matter of weeks – it’s been a true miracle. Praise be to Jesus!

Blessings,
Bob & Mary Dirgo, LMC’s
Akron, Ohio