Written by MayBell Developments – January 28th, 2025
As we set out on this new beginning of 2025, we like to venture back and reflect on the amazing things that God has done in 2024. Throughout MayBell’s 9 years in existence, we are ever more aware that God does not work on our timeline and that His plans are greater than we ever could have imagined. October 2025 will mark the 10th birthday of MayBell Developments and, God-willing, the completion of the structure of God’s original vision given in 2015. We know this work will never be fully complete as we strive to reach more people with Jesus’ love. We praise God for the accomplishments that have been made so far and for the ability to create a sustainable structure that will serve those who are most desperately needing change.
“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” – 2 Timothy 1:7
In the Fall of 2023, we resigned ourselves to a Spring 2024 start to the Lilium Village Build due to a delay in both funding and permits. We have continued to work steadily on this initiative as it will support 12 single-mom families over a 2-5 year period with housing, programming, and most importantly healthy relationships. We are looking forward to building many strong families over the years!
In January, we secured an increase to the City of Regina funding commitment for a new total of $590,000 and proceeded to work with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation for the remaining amount of $2,000,000 through the Affordable Housing Fund.
Our 3rd annual Knit-a-thon event wrapped up with a total of 221 toques, 134 mittens, and 24 scarves being donated to Soul’s Harbour Rescue Mission, Kinder Connections, and Mackenzie Infant Care Center for distribution.
In anticipation of the build beginning this year, we needed to prepare our policy structure to reflect our upcoming growth. We began working with Gwen Dueck as an independent consultant to identify our gaps while we searched for funding to support a full policy overhaul.
Lin Zhang, our Childcare Director, gave her resignation letter for June when she would be moving due to her husband’s work. We are grateful for the year that she has given to Lilium Village Childcare and all her work in the start-up of the centre (not an easy task!). She agreed to stay on for the hiring and training of her successor.
Lilium Village Childcare successfully hired their new Director, Sumira Noel. Sumira has had Director experience in the past while living in Calgary but is new to running a centre of our size. Lin took on training Sumira as they co-directed for the next 2 months. Sumira has proven to be a humble leader and has grown a strong team through her understanding and knowledge. Her love of Jesus and her staff is clear and shows in her actions every day. We are grateful for the passion she brings to the centre and look forward to having her with us as long as God wills!
We are nearing completion of our CMHC application and looking forward to beginning the Lilium Village Build in July/August with completion scheduled for the summer of 2025.
Lilium Village Childcare celebrates 1 year of operations on May 1st!
Our spring session of Faith & Finances wraps up with 4 graduates. This was a fantastic group of Leaders and Allies (mentors), making for a very enjoyable 12-week session and a fun graduation celebration! Praise God for the relationships built and we pray that they will continue to grow even outside of this program.
MayBell staff and board members gather for a relaxed potluck at one of our board member’s homes. It was a wonderful chance for our board to get to know our Childcare staff.
As we are preparing to sign the funding agreement with CMHC at the end of June, our landlord, Trinity Lutheran Church, gives notice that their church is no longer financially viable and their congregation has made the difficult decision to close their doors. We trust in God’s timeline with this additional delay and pray for a way to move forward.
Prayer and conversations with Trinity’s Council have led to immense peace over the upcoming Trinity sale. We continue to be blessed through our partnership with Trinity as their Council longs to see God’s vision for Regina move forward. Trinity votes to approve the donation of the parking lot subdivision with a value of $300,000 to MayBell, allowing us to continue with our CMHC application now as full owners of the property we will be building on.
MayBell has been approved for the Community Services Recovery Fund through the Canadian Red Cross. The generous grant is to be allocated for a full restructure of our policies as well as education on policy for our board of directors and consulting to build a strategic plan. We begin working with Gwen Dueck on a more in-depth basis beginning with our Governance Manual. By June 2025, we will have a full set of policies and procedures in place as well as a strategic plan.
We welcome a new board member, Leanne Jarocki.
Our subdivision application for the City of Regina is finally completed and submitted. We enter the waiting period as many departments start their review process.
Our Executive Director alongside a board member have been working hard to update our website. The much-needed update provides clarity and a better flow of information for viewers. We encourage you to check out all our pages and let us know if there’s anywhere else we can improve.
Our fall Faith & Finances session began in September with 5 Leaders (participants), however, due to many illnesses and a number of missed weeks by the end of October, we made the difficult decision to postpone the session until spring 2025.
The City of Regina has approved the subdivision application and we begin the tedious process of transferring the land title through ISC.
On November 12th, MayBell officially received the Title of the parcel of land now known as 1945 Ottawa Street!
Our CMHC application is reopened for final updates to be made and then resubmitted.
Planning for our 4th annual Knit-a-thon began and already we are seeing the generosity of Regina businesses through prize donations. We are forever grateful to our event sponsors Nychuck & Company and Yarn Over for their support of this fundraiser!
CMHC application receives pre-approval! Our construction start date is set for January 7th as we strive to meet our permit requirements of having the piles mostly completed by the end of January.
Our board member, Angela Fraser, announces her resignation from our board due to personal reasons. We are grateful for the years she has contributed and for the impact she has had on MayBell through her faith, skills, and time.
MayBell board members gathered to build a strategic plan for 2025. We are hopeful to unveil this at our AGM on March 29th, 2025. Our growth focus includes expanding our board of directors from 6 members to 10 members and expanding our staff to include a Donor Relations Manager and a Case Manager before the end of 2025. These positions will be extremely valuable as we continue to grow our services and will support good stewardship of our donor funds for years to come.
Many people set resolutions at the start of their year, as a business we have tended to do this too and it’s not a bad thing! It is good to have a trajectory, a path to follow, however, it becomes dangerous when we are so tied to that path that we do not allow God to mold our plan to His. In the past, we at MayBell have struggled with God’s plan vs our plan. 2024 has opened our eyes to further see that God’s plan is sufficient above all. Specifically, with Trinity’s decision to sell, we have seen that God’s plan for land ownership was exceedingly better than our plan of flowing funding through our landlord.
In 2025 we resolve to hold our strategic plan loosely and to allow God to mold it as He sees fit.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9
Get Articles, News, and Resources delivered right to your inbox.