THE outgoing minister of a church says she was called by God to oversee the successful completion of a £1.4 million refurbishment of the building.

Reverend Rosalind Selby, who has been at the Wanstead United Reformed Church in Grosvenor Road, Wanstead since November 2007, is leaving to take up a role as principal at the church’s teaching college in Manchester later this month.

But she was on hand to see her congregation move back into the church at the end of June after 13 months of major refurbishment were completed.

She said: “I will miss the church, but God is taking me somewhere new.

“I feel I was called to this church to oversee this work and now it is finished it is time to move on.

“I find it difficult to put into words just how amazing it looks.”

The £1.4 million project was funded from the proceeds of selling two church halls to the Treehouse nursery in 2010.

The congregation shared the Methodist church in Hermon Hill while work was in progress.

Rev Selby said: “We now have a wonderful modern church full of life and light.

“We have even replaced the old disabled toilet which I used to call ‘Moaning Myrtle’ because of the terrible noise it made.”

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