A soul, some stairs and an alarm!

Christmas Family snapshot

Our four children: Jordon, Ashlyn, Trenton & Devon

We enjoyed a great weekend of services, plus another great week of rebuilding progress!

Our Christmas services were held yesterday with our Celebration Service in the morning and our C3 service (Candlelight, Communion & Carols) at night. Good representation at both services!

The sense of expectancy was in the air as we worshipped, prayed and were touched by the power of God's Word. I preached a message entitled, "The Path of Christmas." Simply put, the road to heaven goes directly through Bethlehem. Later Jesus would declare, "I am the way (or the road), the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me!"

At the end of the service during the altar call, a fourteen year-old boy came to the altar with his caretaker friend. He prayed to receive Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. The beauty of another name written down in glory! Later I learned this moment in his life was a very special one. It was real and genuine. Thank you Jesus for providing the road to get to heaven!

Much work is being done in our rebuilding project. Today marks 6 1/2 months since "The Flood of 2008" hit our church square on. We have been working ever since to recover from this horrific event. Since my last post a week ago, we have seen considerable progress on all fronts:

• Heating contractors still working on installing new duct work lines.
• Electricians working to run conduit and wire, install switch boxes and outlet boxes, junction boxes and rearrange existing electric panels.
• Builders erecting walls, building new stairs, constructing bulkheads for several new moveable partitions to open up larger classroom space.
• Plumbers working to install new lines, move others, set up the water heater in it's permanent location and a host of other plumbing projects.
• Mixing concrete to fill footers.
• Installing new steel beams to hold up the concrete floor around our new stairwell, plus getting ready to install another one when the steel is fabricated too.
• Last but not least, today marked the beginning of removing the concrete steps that were the original steps inside to the church basement. Remember, these steps and also the location were not up to code, so we had to make some big changes in the midst of this flood rebuild!
  

This morning I was up much earlier than normal and out to the church by 6 am...yikes, what was I thinking?...I got up and couldn't get back to sleep! I was ready to disarm our new security alarm system when I opened up the door...but things were not working as I had planned. Don't forget, this is a new system with a new code. Finally, I disarmed it and went about my business. It wasn't but about five minutes or so later when the jobsite foreman and two policemen arrived and entered the foyer. Whoah...looks like I didn't disarm the system quick enough!!!!!!

But if you look on the bright side of things...

• The new alarm system had been properly set...and even automatically set the night before.
• The new alarm system is directly linked to the Police Dispatch station.
• AND lastly, the new alarm system really works!!

Enjoy the picture updates.

Much love to all!