EVERETT — The gleaming new espresso machine, coffee tamper and blender had barely been broken in.
Sometime early Sunday, someone busted out the windows, cut the power and stole a grinder, money and some tools.
But the thief didn’t steal the most important thing: the little coffee house’s spirit.
Jacob’s Well reopened a month ago in a new kiosk, 30 yards from the one destroyed by fire on New Year’s Eve.
“We got it all fixed in 24 hours,” said Brad Sebranke, pastor of Park Ridge Community Church, which operates the stand as one of its outreach ministries.
Sebranke said he arrived at the kiosk at 5 a.m. Monday for his regular shift to find the damage.
“Our alarm system should have gone off, but it apparently had never been wired up. Our electrician fixed that and we put Plexiglas in for the windows. This time, they didn’t get our espresso machine; that was chained down,” he said.
The little coffee house’s latest challenge only made Denice MacKenzie and Beth Irons more determined. MacKenzie is the kiosk manager and Irons is an assistant manager who started working there when the new stand opened in May.
When they learned about the latest attempt to extinguish their coffee ministry, MacKenzie, Irons and volunteers from the small Maltby church mobilized to get the stand back in service, MacKenzie said.
It took six months to get through the permitting process and to rebuild the latest stand after a New Year’s Day fire.
The church’s first stand, a three-sided lean-to was destroyed by fire, too.
Each time, the church has rebuilt its stand, bigger and better than before.
Now the stand that was originally open a few hours each morning is open five days a week from 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. with MacKenzie, a life coach and former business owner. It’s now a nonprofit serving a variety of espresso drinks and treats for sale, too.
It still offers the free drip coffee that drew MacKenzie and Irons to the stand.
“I came for the free coffee after a friend told me about it,” Irons said. “Brad would ask a question of the day. It was always so relevant to the things going on in my life. I was hurting. I didn’t have a hole — I had a vacuum.”
Volunteers from Park Ridge have been pouring coffee, loving and challenging people to a new life from the stand for about seven years.
“We’ve prayed with about 100 people at the stand, about life issues and quite a few have come to church,” Sebranke said.
MacKenzie credits the coffeehouse ministry with helping her rise out of a deep despair that nearly destroyed her life. A widow, she lost her husband, 3-year-old son and a pregnant best friend to a drunk driver nearly two decades ago.
Irons, who struggled with drugs and alcohol, credits the coffee ministry for her salvation, too.
“After a couple of months coming for coffee, I came to church and my first time I was saved,” Irons said.
The free coffee beckoned. A burning question kept them coming back.
Now they work together at the stand where no one leaves without being prayed for.
“I absolutely love it,” MacKenzie said. “I love being able to pray for and to love on those who come to the stand and to be a mentor to the young women who work here.”
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