“Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet” is a well-known proverb and all of us are acquainted with it. Nevertheless it is quite easy to say this than to endure the same period. Isn’t so? It may be that you are lucky enough and haven’t gone through any such turbulent period. If you fail to believe, you can ask others. Well, I know some people who have had this terrible situation in their lives, endured it patiently and emerged victorious at the end of the day. They are also human beings and belong to the black community in the city of Indio. Indio is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, located in the Coachella Valley of Southern California’s desert region.
What is the achievement? It has been learnt that the pertinent black community along with its church will begin a new chapter on Sunday. The First African Methodist Episcopal Church, after more than 80 years in a small white building in Indio’s historic black neighborhood, has moved to a new and much larger building near Avenue 44 and Monroe Street. The 100-member congregation in prayer during the first service at 11 a.m. Sunday will be led by Rev. Timothy Coston Jr. The moment is highly emotional since the black community of the locality has been awaiting this moment for years and this became evident as well when Coston Jr. met his congregation last weekend before locking the old gray doors for the last time.
What did he say? He told in a very touching and sublime note, “When you get over to that new church, don’t you forget that God sustained you on John Nobles Avenue.” It ought to be remembered, at this juncture, that Indio’s black community lost greater part of its historic property in the city’s acquisition of the John Nobles area.
This sordid incident took place in 1986 when the city of Indio usurped the historic John Nobles Ranch community for a proposed expansion of the Indio Fashion Mall next to the neighborhood. The community’s struggle and patience or forbearance commenced on that very day.
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