Parishioners attended their first mass at the re-constructed St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Lacombe on Sunday.

The congregation had been meeting in the Father Lacombe Catholic School gym after the aging building was damaged in a 2015 hailstorm.

On Friday, the construction company Scott Builders held an orientation with the church’s maintenance ministry before handing over the keys.

Tom de Forge is chair of the committee overseeing construction. He said when congregations make do in temporary locations, numbers shrink. But not here. He says they’ve grown to 450 families.

“People ask me that. I really don’t know other than the good Lord working His ways with us. I really don’t know,” de Forge says.

Together, he says they’ve raised a third of the $3.1 million construction cost. The rest will be mortgaged.

Several pieces from the original church, built in the 1950s, have been kept. They include a baptismal font located at the front of the sanctuary, the altar table, tabernacle and some chairs. As well, a cross that can be seen from the north window.