In the meantime, while I was praying I was also researching. I wrote letters, reaching out for advice, guidance, anything. Just trying to find that next door. Where was God leading me? From the earliest moments of this calling I had a special spot in my heart for relics, and I started to learn more about relics and really loved the idea of having something physical present to drive home the reality of the Saints – more on that to come – and so an early “version” or stepping stone to All Saints Museum was “Triumphant Tours”. As I began to receive some relics, I wanted to try to make these accessible to people in hospitals and prisons – people who couldn’t come to a Church to see them. This lead me to meeting a few people. It also lead to some doors being closed. And, like I said, some other doors being opened. I found Treasures of the Church, and we were able to host this at our local parish. I wrote the Knights of Columbus. I wrote the founder of Domino’s Pizza and Ave Maria University (Thomas Monaghan). I wrote Dario Sattui who had built a veritable castle in California (Castello di Amorosa – highly recommend a tour of this amazing work) . I wrote numerous Bishops. And I wrote several people about how to start a business – needing a business plan, having a feasibility study done, etc. I gathered as much information as I could.
In my research, I found that it is a good idea to gather as much intel about competing or similar businesses. Therefore, I tried to find other museums, and other theme parks, that I could compare and learn from. I found that there are a few very successful religious museums with a similar flavor – Creation Museum is one, and the other is the Museum of the Bible. Both demonstrate the interest people have in learning their faith. They also demonstrate that such businesses can be successful. I also learned that there were religious theme parks that had seen some success. One such theme park was The Holy Land Experience, which was massively successful until the founder essentially fell in love with the money (you know what they say about the love of money – sadly). But this validates that there is a market for such family enjoyment – there simply needs to be someone at the helm who truly is interested in the benefit of the guests.
During this time of research, I also wrote to Ms. Christina Cox, Foundress and president of The National Museum of Catholic Art and Library (NMCAL). Ms. Cox took an interest in me right away, taking me under her wing as it were. She was the one who encouraged me to make a leap of faith and incorporate my Museum. She told me that if I do this, it will be a concrete step forward to making this dream a reality. And she was right. I went on to incorporate and establish my Museum as a tax-exempt non-profit. She also advised me to consider re-naming the Museum “All Saints”, since my focus was the Saints – and she felt like “The Dark Night Museum” was… well… too dark. I had to pray about this because I really wanted to honor St. John of the Cross. However, as I went to pray about this, God gave me a miraculous sign that she was right again. One miracle among many that have given me faith in this project.