Progress Update - September

Interior of the chapel without the roof

You thought we gave up? Absolutely not! We have had two very intense long working weekends, one at the end of August (before classes started) and one the second weekend of September. Each day is so precious we work into the night, hammering by headlamp as the sun sets over the trees. So many people from around Rayland are helping, even when us students can’t be there. Everyone is pitching in to get this project done. A big thank you to Brad’s friend from Pittsburg who designed, cut, and installed the cross at the back of the church, it looks great.

The roof framed out at the end of weekend 1

The weather was just perfect

Since we are no longer staying at Meadowbrook Jenifer and Gary have been nice enough to let us pitch tents in their “backyard,” it’s really more of a meadow and boy, that sunrise over the hill is just spectacular. The first weekend we started with basically just the upright column corners, we framed each wall on the deck and raised it up into place, a real barn raising! We then tied the walls to the columns and collar tied the whole thing together temporarily with ropes until we get the roof framed out. That took most of two days. Then we stared framing out the roof over the contemplation space (the little room in front) and started putting up cladding. As we stared working up in the rafters it became apparent that you just can’t ever have enough ladders, at one point there were about 12 on the site. We’ve also had a bit of excitement with massive bee stings and scrapes, everyone is a little worse for wear but still determined.

Spectacular sunrise at Jenifer and Gary's house

The second weekend it was all roof and cladding. We decided to go with a red roof because it reflects the color of the old building. Remember way back when there was a totally different church on this site? We are getting close enough to finishing that other folks are starting to think of landscaping. We removed all the wood not being used so the site looks much cleaner, almost presentable. Also, a local boy scout undertook re-building the cemetery sign as his Eagle project, the sign looks great and we hear that the scouts have taken over cutting the grass. Everything is looking Ship-shape.

Roof framing before cladding

Under the eave

New sign for the cemetery done by a local Eagle Scout

End of weekend 2, almost there!