Girdwood Chapel -- ChapelNews

This is the day we flushed the water pipes to clean out the mud. My two little ones were there to see it. This is also the day of our first snowfall of the year on the valley floor. You can also see that Chugach Electric has started clearing trees for the installation of electric power to our church.

Out of the road and into the driveway. A whole lot of pipe was laid. Thought we were going to have problems with the turn in the line, but it all worked. It was beautiful watching the machines do a "ballet" as they filled in the ditch.

The day started around 6 AM.

Thanks to Ed and Steve and Zach for their many hours of work at the connection of our water and the building.

Painting cubbies at Little Bears Playhouse. Painting rooms and scraping a deck at Challenge Alaska. Playing Scrabble with a shut-in. Cutting wood to deliver to a family in need. Handing out 200 bags of cookies -- by our "prodigious, indiscriminate cookie-flingers"

After our special worship service in the new sanctuary, the congregation was invited to write on our unfinished walls -- their names, a prayer, scripture, whatever -- as a way of blessing that new space. This is what was written.

We had our usual 6 people for our 8:30 AM worship for our unusual meeting space -- our new chapel. And then we had about 83 folks at the 2nd service--complete with video and music and a slide show of our construction process. It felt like a church. It was good.

Another couple hours working to get the sanctuary ready for a special worship service on Sunday. It was wonderful having the space take shape before us as we worked.

We're planning to have a "trial" worship service in the sanctuary on Sunday to get people excited about what worship is going to look like in the new space. In order for that to happen, there is a lot of cleaning that needs to be done.

Mike Sahler's team from Raymond, MS left yesterday, after worship. Zeb Manning's team from Ellisville is finishing up work today before heading to Denali. You can see what great strides have been made over this summer as our Work Team Time comes to a close.

We're meeting here for a few weeks as our parking lot is tough to drive on after sewer installation. It's a nice room and, for a sermon on "The Bread of Life" I was able to use the oven and get the whole place smelling like fresh-baked bread. Oh, and it also has a couple of bathrooms!

Lots of sheetrock, mud, & tape. You get the picture.

We were supposed to get sewer and water installed, but plans changed when the water company told us we couldn't tap into the existing "stub-out." Sewer was installed by Ed (our contractor) and a couple other folks. They fought an underground stream and rain and mud. But it was put in.

We were led by the VBS team from Zionsville, IN and it was a great Sunday. About 90 people gathered in the Chapel for a rip-roarin' time of music and a pot-luck afterwards.

Just wanted to show some pics of where we are in construction process at this point.

This was a team from PNW, led by Linda Bauer of Kennewick First UMC. It was a team of 11 persons and they really punched out the siding while they were with us. You can see what a difference it has made on our church. They also began this year's sheetrocking. And, I might add, they were wonderful guests in the homes they stayed in while working in Girdwood.

Pastor Jim's Trip in June of 2009, to visit supporting churches and go to the Indiana Annual Conference.

All he asked for for his birthday was a work session at church. So, this past Sunday we had about 25 people working all afternoon on our construction -- moving logs to fill our planters, putting up siding, putting up sheetrock, and, of course, having some hot dogs together.

Chuck Frost, our former pastor was visiting, so we put him on guitar. The sun was shining, so we went outside. It was a great day to praise God with some old-timey Gospel music.

We're working on siding....

We had a dynamic team from Zionsville UMC in Indiana up here to assist us with Vacation Bible School this year. Kids. Games. Songs. Crafts. Fun. And, at worship on Sunday the 13th we had folks who were first-time attenders. It was a great experience. Thank you to Zionsiville UMC for their heart of mission.

From June 27 through July 7, we were blessed to have 16 members of Annandale UMC (outside of Washington DC) here to work on siding. It was a big job. They were a great team. A lot was accomplished and we are very grateful for their work. The following are some pics from a member of their team.

Just thought we'd let folks see what we look like at this time.

Without heat, not much has been done. Therefore a lot of this will wait until the spring and we can have some work parties.

Abigail and Bethany were baptized Sunday, October 21. In the included picture we have Bishop Ed Paup and Superintendent Rachel Lieder Simeon in the back row. Then, left to right, there is Samuel, Moriah, Julie (holding Bethany), Susannah, Jim, Kris (holding Abigail) and Pete. Kris and Pete are Abigail's Godparents. Samuel, Moriah, and Susannah will be Godparents for Bethany.

Building permit! YEAH!

Our friends from Elkhart came to Alaska full of joy and laughter and ready to get the job done! They spent the week finishing laying the insulation in the ceiling of the sanctuary. They also began sheetrocking. By the end of the week, they had the front classroom completely sheetrocked. Wow! With some sheetrock in place, the building is really beginning to look like it's getting closer to being completed. Thank-you, Elkhart team, for all of your hard work!

There weren't any work teams scheduled to come build this week, so several church members came out to help. It was a great opportunity for us to experience just a lttle bit of what the work teams have experienced all summer - the joy of serving together and the priviledge of working for the Lord!

This team came to Alaska excited about fishing for salmon and very motivated to get to work on the new church building. So much work got done! By the end of the week, most of the ceiling was insulated and the vapor barrier was intact, temporary doors were built and installed, the walls were insulated, AND the electrical work was COMPLETED. Yahoo! (And...they managed to catch a few fish!) Thank-you for all of your hard work!

It may be hot in Arizona but the temperature was just right here in Girdwood for the Arizona team to get a lot of work done! With several returning volunteers and a few new recruits, the team was able to continue laying the insulation in the ceiling; they "rocked", taped, and mudded one of the bathrooms; they continued applying the insulation foam around the new windows; they ran the preliminary wiring throughout the building; and they finished adding trimwork to the outside of the church (just to name a few projects). What makes these feats even more amazing is that this was several of the team members' first construction experience!

After coming to help at the church for the past three summers, the Mississippi team picked back up where they left off last summer. With a few new faces in the crowd, this team was excited about continuing the project. In fact, they were so ready to get started that within the first few hours of their arrival they installed the large window in the front of the sanctuary. For the rest of the week, they continued at that pace.

This group came from all areas of Colorado to work as a team on the Girdwood Chapel. With all age ranges and various building experiences, they were able to get many projects completed around the church. During this week, more windows were installed and window trim was added. They built soffits and they began hanging sheetrock on the bathroom ceilings. The heater opening in the sanctuary was also moved.

These seventeen youth and four leaders touched the lives of many of the Girdwood teens (and vice versa). They spent lots of time hanging out, hiking, playing soccer, and scurfing with the "Girdwoodians". They also ministered to the youth of Girdwood through music and testimonies. As if that wasn't enough, they also made time to lend a hand around the new church building. They helped organize the church grounds and they removed insulation from the attics so that the subcontractors could do their work. If you'd like to read more about the week from the Orange UMC youth's perspective, you can visit their website at www.oumcyouth.com.

The first team of volunteers, from Lost Creek UMC in Oklahoma, got the summer work season off to a great start. Within the first week, they had many of the windows installed, silt fencing in place, and the mechanical attic was completely sheetrocked, mudded, and the concrete pads poured. Several framing projects took place and others volunteered to help get the community garden cleared out.

This is a wide-ranging selection of pictures. We have a Doepken Family Picture, pictures of our kid's Sunday School Class and of our preschool class. There are pictures of our building process as of the beginning of October and some great scenic pictures from Sunday, October 15th -- the first frost.

These were just a few of the really cool pictures I got from Brett to put into a slide show for him at a celebration tonight. Check out the pictures taken from the crane. Really cool!

Here's our progress as our summer winds down.

The interior is almost closed. Several "Work and Wieners" pictures from August 10th. Shingles arrive.

Some pics from 2 August 2006. You can really see the work that has gone on for the roof and it's particularly neat to see the ramp begin to take shape in front. A lot of work has been done, is being done, and is yet to be done.

We had some work team folks from Indiana and Tennesseee, but we also had about 112 local folks -- making up 127 people in one service at church. We had our 2nd service (our big one) out in the new construction. It was a cloudy day, but it didn't rain and there were no bugs. It was awesome to see what God has done and what God is doing in this place. Thank you to all those who have worked on the church to make this worship service during the construction process possible. It will be a wonderful place to be in ministry -- and to be sent from in mission to the world.

These are pictures taken, as stated, on 17 July 2006. You can see from these pictures that all of the trusses are in place, thanks in great part to the teams from Meridian Street UMC and Cottonwood AZ. The present team from Zionsville, Indiana is beginning with the walls. The roofers are supposed to be coming tomorrow. You can see windows beginning to take shape.

These trusses are, according to our estimation, 11 months late. They will be beautiful and are a testimony to our architect, at Z-Architects. But, they have been a pain getting here and we're still having some difficulty making sure that we have all of the connecting pieces. Regardless, it's lookin' great.

We got snow!!!

These are pictures of where we are with the construction project at this time. Note the heating unit and insulation. There are also some scenic pictures of Girdwood on this day. The snow is late this year so the ski area has been making snow. There are some nice pictures from a hike (part-way) up the ski mountain.

It was a long time coming -- but we did install some windows on our newly constructed chapel. It was great to see Pete back. The "usual suspects" were there as well. Phill even came back to see some of his work done. And, Jim closed out the evening with one last "Wednesday Work & Wieners" hot-dog feast.

A beautiful day for our annual blessing. We had fewer animals this year. But, as always, it was a blast. Note the fish -- that's Flipper -- who was blessed for the 2nd year in a row.

Bill Ware, from Brandon, Mississippi, spent 20 days with us in September to work, on his own, at the Chapel. He was able to work with some of our members. He was able to work alone. But, he DID a lot of work. And we are thankful. The following pics are from a recent e-mail from him.

The following are pictures from the week with this Forest Team. It was a matter of roofing this week -- putting up some edging on the roof and doing a whole bunch of shingling. Note the cross made for the top of the chapel construction.

August 14-20 we were without work teams and needed to get a bunch of work done. So, we worked late into the evening (and in the pouring rain a couple of days) to get most of the roof done.

We had members of our Elkhart Trinity UMC team with us as we blessed our new floor and had folks sign their names or write prayers on it. Thanks to Angela Jensen for taking the pictures and getting me some copies. Please note that some of the pictures are a little higher resolution to bring out the detail on what was written on the floor.

Finally giving up on factory made trusses, the lumber arrives for us to proceed on our own.

They are with us from July 31st to August 13. The following are some pictures of their work with us.

There is a lot of love between the folks of Girdwood Chapel and the folks from Elkhart Trinity. They got a lot of site work done and we were truly sorry to see them go.

What a treat to have some hard-working youth around to haul gravel and lay some drainage pipe. It was a real blessing. After working here Pastor Jim and family took them out to a gorge on a little hike. The second Saturday they were here we had two problem... 1) The drainage pipe we wanted them to lay hadn't arrived and 2) It was raining hard enough that it was going to be difficult to do any work outside anyway. So, we went to the Alaska Wildlife Park in Portage and to the Begich Boggs Visitors Center in Portage. Overall it was a good day in Girdwood for them before they headed out into Anchorage.

We had hoped that this team would be putting up trusses. However, due to a delay in the truss production, they did a whole lot of block, concrete, & gravel work -- along with putting a ceiling up so we'll have somewhere to put the air handling unit.

We gathered tonight with our Zionsville Work team for a party on our new floor. After a few people did some pre-dinner work, we gathered for prayer and took our food over to the new floor. Glenn Inis provided some music, we sang songs, and moved into our "sanctuary" for "On Eagle's Wings." We even had a puppy in our circle.

What a great team. Hey look. We got walls! The walls began going up on July 6th. It was great to see. The following are some of the pictures.

It was a small group on a sunny day. But a lot of work was accomplished.

Boy is this a strong team. A lot has been accomplished in the 2 days they've been here. We are very blessed to have them and we'll have to see just how much can be accomplished over the next 10 days.

We had lots of people stay to work, including our VBS team from New Albany, Mississippi. A lot of work was done on the Eco-Block. We had a lot of food as well -- a needed component to the work process. Enjoy the pictures.

Well, not all of these are from the actual "Work & Wieners" portion of the evening. We had quite a few people working on the building and there was a building committee meeting as the work was accomplished.

We had 20 youth and 5 adults come from Chugiak this past week. There were a lot of hands and they did a lot of work.

With the help of a work group from Chugiak United Methodist Church, we've been getting the foundation ready for building. Form work. Hammering. Nailing. Measuring.

OK... So we dug ourselves a big hole to get through the soft peat and dirt onto the solid ground. Now we're adding fill to get it up to the level we want our crawlspace. It's amazing how much dirt can be moved.

Worship for Pentecost Sunday was going to be muddy. We have moved a lot of dirt and we've had a lot of rain. It was going to be messy. So, you see "God bless this mess" signs in people's homes. Why not have a "Mess Blessing," lifting up the construction that is a work in progress. It was messy and we had persons leave their shoes outside for worship. Then we moved outside and "blessed this mess."

We have the hole almost complete, but we've run into a couple of problems. 1) The rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. It's slowed us down, but didn't stop us. 2) We had to dig deeper to get down to good clay in a couple of spots. That's the thrill of digging in peat.

In order to build a church, we need to get down to the solid stuff--the clay under all this peat. Today we started digging the hole. Bob Messing got to ride the dump truck. "Big Jim" got the excavator stuck in the very soft ground for a little bit but managed to get out later. Tomorrow is another day of digging.

A beautiful, sunny, awesome day and a good crowd of people showed up to celebrate the groundbreaking of Girdwood Chapel. The following are pictures along with some of the worship service we used. We still have a whole lot to do before a building rises up from the ground -- but we're on our way. God bless us all.

The following are some pictures from the days leading up to our worship and groundbreaking. The work here was done on May 4 and 5. Note that the whole church has been outlined on the ground so that persons can walk through the "building."

We moved our church to this site in May of 2003. It was a big deal with a whole crowd of people walking behind, including our Bishop. This move was quieter and shorter. We needed to move both of our buildings to the other side of the parking lot so we can get ready to build a new facility. These are some of the pictures.

Rob Hammel using a borrowed bulldozer to begin clearing some of the snow so we can get a pad down. The snow was still 2 feet thick in places.