Sunday 5th December 2010

The roof of the church is so impressive.
The tilers have been working all weekend and the roof is nearing completion. Here it is -


Meanwhile the rest of the building is moving along, the verandah roof has started, the aluminium doors and windows are now almost all fitted and the carpenter has been fitting the wooden door-frames.


The 'link' roof between the church and the kitchen has not yet been resolved, but Peter B has a plan!


The builders' holiday starts at the end of this next week, which will not really affect us as far as the labour goes - they will work on to Christmas Eve, and start again on the 3rd January - but the suppliers will be closing, which means that we will have to make sure that we have all the necessary materials on site by Friday to get us through to January.

Saturday 27th November 2010

At last the main roof is underway!
This is a great relief as it has been hanging over our heads (excuse the terrible pun!) for too long. Now, the roof is designed and has been accepted by all those who know about these things; it has been fabricated and delivered, and on Tuesday the crane arrived to lift the trusses up onto the wall-plates.
Slowly, slowly the bracing is being put in place and, hopefully, by the end on this next week the tiles will be in place and the roof completed.



The next roof that has to be worked on is the link roof over the toilets. It has to be especially built on site as it has some crazy angles and pitches.

Inside the kitchen/coffee shop/entrance/office part of the building the ceilings have been put in place and the carpenter is now installing the tongue-and-groove ceiling in the entrance. The door frames have been delivered and will be fitted this coming week.
Work has also started on the veranda posts - watch for the next set of photos!

11th November 2010

Last Sunday (7th) we celebrated our first service in the new (roofless) church!
It was a wonderful occasion filled with expectation and excitement.
The first of us arrived at 5.30am and started sweeping and cleaning the floor, moving sound equipment, chairs, tables, all the stuff for the kitchen (tea, coffee etc.) pew leaflets, etc, etc from the church office to the church. The music group arrived at 6.00 and set up before Johnny P. arrived to connect up the electricity from the main box. He had already wired and tested all the plug points that we would need, but it was with great joy that we turned on the urn in the kitchen and the little red light came on! How Anglican - that the first thing to draw power through the new system was the urn for tea!
The music group was soon in action and practising the music for the service.
Next came the welcomers and then little by little the congregation arrived, each carrying their chairs. Cindy Jarnig watching from the front of the church with the music group, told me how wonderful it was to see the expectation on the happy faces of the people as they arrived.
The altar and lectern (a music stand) were set up at the front and by 8.00 we were ready.
Just before we started I asked the congregation of 165 to give me a wave - here they are!



What an amazing service!
Singing with joy and celebration
Sharing the Word and the Peace
Sharing in the Eucharist

And then we went through to the coffee shop for tea - the ladies had provided masses of egg sandwiches and cakes - and I think that everyone stayed! Denis Fortune did a roaring business at his veggie table, selling freshly picked (that morning!)vegetables. People stood and chatted or wandered around having a look at the buildings and the entrance.
They loved it all!

Here are a few pictures taken by Ann Duane

27th October 2010 - The floors are poured!

Today was a very big day for us in the building of the church.
The concrete pump arrived at 7.30am, followed by truck after truck of ready-mix.


It was a truly amazing sight as the pump operator swung the boom by remote control. The men at the working end connected extra pipes and finally a flexible tube, which 'glooped' out the concrete at an amazing rate.


Starting at the far end of the building they poured the floor in the rector's office and then the office block, before pouring the entrance and verandah. This is the view down the verandah from the church end.


This is the view from the office end.


And here is the entrance after the floor was poured.


This picture shows the new church 'mid-pour'. To get an idea of the depth of the concrete, look at the man standing in the concrete.


We need your prayers for the roof of the church - getting the design right has not been easy and we are now getting a tad frustrated! It must be ordered soon!

Monday 10th October 2010

I cannot understand why this blog gets so far behind!

The pictures speak for themselves, but I will add a bit of narrative!

This first picture shows you where we were on Sunday (10th). The roof trusses over the kitchen/ coffee shop and offices are complete. Today (Monday) the two beams connecting the roof over the entrance were put in place and the trusses will be fitted accross the space. The plan is that by Friday the entire roof from the kitchen to the offices will be tiled.


This next picture shows the back of the buildings from the car park.
From the left - offices, entrance, coffee shop/ kitchen. At the far end you can see the church gables.


I have included this picture as it is a prayer-need.
The picture is the new church and it stands starkly Alamo-like against the sky. We need lots of prayer here because we have not yet ordered the roof. The reason for that is that we are just not feeling comfortable about the design. We tweak it and change it, but don't get the feeling that it is right. We have said that the roof must be ordered by the end of the week - please pray for our direction.


This picture was taken from near the rectory fence looking up towards the offices (on the left) and the new church (on the right). Down the centre of the picture is the sewer line which comes all the way down the hill, round the rectory fence and across and into the rectory septic tank.
That might seem a bit extreme - why not place a tank close to the church? Well, we have now heard that the Municipality is going to lay a new sewer line down the N2 at the bottom of the property to service the new Tiffany shopping complex. When they do that we will run our line down the northern edge of the property. So we are looking ahead!


Finally, here is a story which we have not told, really because it was a bit embarrasing. The original design for the foundations of the church called for steel reinforcing. However, just before we placed the order for the steel, the concrete supplier asked whether we would not like to use a new product which has chopped strands mixed in the concrete, and which does away with the need for steel. Ever interested in saving money sensibly, we checked out the product and got a very favourable report on it. So no steel was ordered, the concrete was poured and in due course the columns were built. One member of the team woke up in the middle of one night realising that we had made a terrible mistake - although we did not need steel in the foundations, we DID need steel in the columns! And we had omitted to include the steel in the columns. We went straight to Mike J., our engineer, and he suggested that we build buttresses against the columns, and include steel reinforcing. This we have now done, starting with a foundation block, in which the steel is included, and then a hollow box into which concrete was poured. These butresses will be plastered aand so merge into the overall design.


As I end, I would like to ask for your prayers for protection over both 'old' and 'new' All Souls. Last week the sound desk and CD player were stolen from 'old' All Souls and this last weekend a labourer walked off the site of 'new' All Souls with an angle grinder and an electric saw. Petty, but annoying!

Bless you all, and thank you for your prayers -
"Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder labours in vain."

Monday 27th September 2010

Last night we had massive winds - you guessed it - the trusses were blown down!
A couple of pictures follow -
Please pray for Guy and Peter B as they sort out the mess.

Sunday 26th September 2010

I have to admit that I am feeling really bad - I set out with all the right motives to do something I knew others would value and then .... somehow other things have become more important and the days have flown past.
The nett result is that those of you who have been following the blog have missed out on much of the excitng stuff that has been happening over the past four weeks.
My task now is to help you catch up!

I have to say that the building team have been amazing. Under PC's direction they have dug, built, mixed concrete, plastered and kept the project well ahead of schedule. Last week the roof trusses for the kitchen/coffee shop/entrance/office block arrived and Guy's team started hauling them up onto the wall plates - here's a picture of the office block.



(That is the new rector's office at the right-hand end)

On the public holiday Johnnie P. had the place all to himself and so got the electrical circuits wired. He has done a great job. I have to show you what the DB looks like.



The roof of the hall/church has been causing us some worries which I think are now on the way to resolution, thanks to a engineering friend in the roofing business.

I think the saddest news is that we have drilled a dry borehole, tried again, and come up with 1400 litres an hour. We were hoping for 8000 litres (which they managed to find over at the new Spar site). We need something like that to water the 5.5 hectares.
That has meant that Peter M has not been able to plant the grass on the rolling hills. We are planning a 'water' meeting to discuss the way forward - this will involve all those needing water for their various project.

Please keep praying for Peter B. as he runs the project - it is quite a task keeping all the balls in the air!