Wednesday, 14th July, 2010
More inside
I mentioned in my last post that we now have a back door, so here it is in all of its glory. The space to the right of the door going up to the top of the window will eventually be rendered - similar to what is there now but cleaner, and with insulation underneath.
Inside more building work has been going on. These are the walls for the toilets. There is still loads of space left over for the kitchen and a meeting room. It's all fairly bright and airy too. One of the nice things is that in the hot weather we've been having the inside the building has been quite cool. Should make things more bearable in the summer.
This is a trench dug from the road to the building. The electricity company will only lay the wires, they won't dig the holes, at least not on our property. I'm not quite sure why there are poles and tape around the trench. I would imagine that it's to do with health and safety - although the trench can't be more than about 12 inches deep.
Once again, thanks go out to Alain and François for all of their hard work. Last Friday François bought a whole new pallet of blocks and moved them into the building all on his own.
Saturday, 3rd July, 2010
Is this thing on...?
It's been a while since my last update and I have no new pictures to add. Things have been moving on in the building. The walls for the toilets are about half way finished and we now have a back door! This means that the building is officially "fermé" - closed.
We are waiting on one of the builders to come back and finish up a few bits here and there. Once he's done that I can pay his bill which is sitting on my desk. I've learned quite a lot about dealing with this kind of thing - delays and invoices and how the two go together.
July and August are the "quiet season" for the Belgian building trade so I doubt there is going to be much going on for the next month or so. Church people will be working though. Alain is planning on spending time finishing off the walls over the next few weeks. We really wouldn't have got this far without his, and François' help.
After that, once the walls are done, we need to install all the trunking for the electricity in the old building. Pipes for the heating will also need to be put in place. We're still hoping that we'll be in the new building in the first quarter of next year though.
Monday, 7th June, 2010
More walls
Yesterday was such a glorious day that a whole group of people decided to head over to the building. We took a posed photo of everyone who was there but it didn't turn out so well. This one was more informal - i.e. no-one knew I was taking it.
Alain V. has been working really hard at the building the last few weeks and has just finished the walls for the Sunday School and Crèche rooms. They look great. He's done a very professional job. When I talked to him about it the other day he said anyone could do it... my response? Not me! Playing Lego with the kids is about where I'm at with regards to building walls. My non-DIY skills are legendary.
Five of the Sunday School children were there so they got their photo taken in their room. Three of them are mine - Jo and Zac on the left, Oli on the far right. He's holding his leg because he got stung by a stinging nettle in the garden. All of them had to be "encouraged" to stand that close together for the shot.
Finally, one of my favourite features of the garden - The Mound. It's starting to flower and actually looks rather pretty. Shame that it'll eventually have to be flattened out.
One thing I didn't take a picture of was the threatening black clouds overhead. It was warm and sunny when we arrived, just after we left the heavens opened and it poured with rain. But we were back in the car by then.
Thursday, 20th May, 2010
It's a sign!
Visiting the building site on a Thursday, before the prayer meeting, is becoming something of a habit and, maybe, a pleasure. When I went in this evening there was this "thing" on the floor. I knew that it was going to be there, François had told me when I spoke to him earlier, but I hadn't quite cottoned on to what it was exactly...
It's a sign that we have been given by a church in Charleroi that has recently moved and had a clear out. At least I think that's where it comes from, that kind of depends on whether I have understood correctly what François was saying, which may not be the case. Anyway, it says "Eglise Protestante Evangélique" on the front. It could do with some TLC but we may just be able to find a use for it.
Alain and François have been working at the church most of this week. This is a shot of the first wall to be completely finished. The others are about half way done now.
They've also made a start on marking out the walls for what will, eventually, be the toilets. I think the pipe is for a sink, but I can't be totally sure without pulling the plans out and having a look. Actually, even then I may not be able to say conclusively.
A huge thanks to François for giving up the majority of his week off to work at the church and thanks too to Alain for all his hard work in getting that first wall finished off.
Sunday, 16th May, 2010
Internal Walls
We had a few minutes spare before the service this morning so popped over to the building to have a look at what François and his team had been up to earlier in the week. They've made a good start on the internal walls.
When they have finished we'll have two new rooms. One will become the Sunday School room and the other will be for the crèche. Although there are only, at most, two layers of blocks so far you can get a good idea of how big the completed rooms are going to be.
This morning we had Chris and Laura Christensen from the group "EXO" come and lead our service. It was great! If you read French you can find out more about them here.
Saturday, 15th May, 2010
Catch 22
We've reached an interesting point with regards to paying bills and moving on with the work. Before the concrete floor in the new hall can be poured we need to install at least some of the heating system. This came as something of a surprise but isn't too bad.
The only problem is that before we install the heating we need to know whether we have enough money to buy it. The only way we'll know that is when the floor is poured and we have the final bill from the builder. Then we'll know how much money we have left in the bank for the heating.
So we're sort of stuck for the moment. François is going to contact the builder to see whther we can get an idea of the final amount that we'll owe. As yet I've not heard back from him.
Thursday, 6th May, 2010
Floored!
I had a leader's meeting tonight in Libramont so popped by the building to see how things were going. First thing was that it looks as though the cladding is almost finished. Just a small patch to go.
We now have a proper, flat, floor in the old building. Actually, it's not the final floor but a layer of concrete that makes the place look tidy. All the electricty cables will be laid on it and then another 15cm or so of concrete will be poured. Still, looks good.
When I saw that the floor had been done I stepped onto it quite gingerly - I wasn't sure when it had been done or whether it would be solid enough to walk on. As I left I noticed a few footprints. This left me with a dilemma... do I use my "Floored!" title that I've been planning for weeks in anticipation of this event or do I try a riff on "Footprints in the sand", that rather well known Christian poem.
As should be obvious, I went with "Floored!"
Monday, 3rd May, 2010
And then there were two...
Saturday there was another work day at the building. I had a visit to do in Libramont so popped in to see how things were going. François and Françis were working hard when I arrived. Olivier had been there in the morning. One thing I didn't know was that the tall windows at the front open right up and you can go in and out through them. Eventually the Sunday school and crèche rooms will be "behind" those windows so when whoever is in charge wants to send someone out of the room they can do it in style.
This is Françis mixing mortar for the next job to be done. He and François had earlier fixed up a new beam in the entrance hall and the mortar is to fill in the gaps where they had to cut into the wall for the beam. The next picture shows the detail better than I can describe it.
As you can see from this photo the floor is really tidy - Alain and François came in during the week to remove the debris left over from all the other works. This was in anticipation of the new concrete floors being done. Unfortunately the builder who was going to do the job didn't manage to get to us last week.
This is it! The new beam. It was made by the same people who made the other parts for the roof. François simply called them up, gave them the number for the plans and they said "Yup, got some of that left". I never realised how all this kind of stuff worked. That's why it is such a blessing that we have François on the team - his background is in the building trade so he knows what to do.
Seeing as how I'd already been staring at ceilings I noticed this piece of paper stuck to the concrete ceiling in the downstairs of the old building. How it got there and why it is there is anybody's guess. It provides a simple guide to laying floor planks and constructing partition walls. Most useful.
François had hoped to be able to start building some of the internal walls on Saturday. However, as mentioned above, the builder who was due to come in and pour the floors didn't make it during the week so they had to find other things to do. One job was carrying 320 breeze-blocks up to the first floor so that no-one would take them. It took them a while apparently. The blocks are stacked over the pillars that support the floor - smart thinking that.
I'm very grateful to François, Françis and Olivier for all of the work that they did on Saturday. Again and again they prove their dedication to the building project by putting in hours of their time to do hard work on the site. Thank you!
Monday, 26th April, 2010
The day after
We had our church AGM yesterday afternoon. François gave a short presentation on how the project has been going. He had some PowerPoint slides of the progress on the building. The photos were mostly from this blog but we found a few others to put in. It was interesting to see the photos in a pseudo time-lapse format - things change fast.
I then talked about the finances. So far we have spent just over 100,000 euros on the project. If all of the works come in on budget and according to the quotes we were given we'll have spent a total of 190,000 euros. At that point we'll have a shell into which we'll need to add all the things required to make a usable church - internal walls, electricity, gas, water, flooring, kitchen, furniture... and the list goes on.
I worked out that, presuming everything comes in on budget, we'll have 32 euros left in the bank at the end of phase one. Not bad!
We're going to be starting to think about how to raise the money for the next phase of the project. As a church we'll be digging into our own pockets but will also be looking for help from anyone who might be interested.
If you would like to help us financially we have a Donate page that has details of how you can give to the building project.
Sunday, 18th April, 2010
Bardage!
OK, firstly bardage isn't a rude word... it's the French for the boards that have now been put up on the sides of the new hall. As you can see from the photo they're greyish brown in appearance. If you could get closer you would be able to see that they look like wooden planks, except they're not. It's a material called "Eternite", so it should last some time even if the implied "Eternity" is probably something of an overstatement.
This is a view of the other side of the hall. Probably the most remarkable thing is the sunshine. It's been really nice and warm here today.
Although it was hot outside, the inside of the hall was nice and cool. There are quite a number of weeds growing through the current floor. Next week M. Henri should be coming back to pour the concrete floors. Someone suggested that before he comes we hire some rabbits and leave them in the building for a week or so. Apart from the fact that no-one knew where you could hire rabbits there was also some discussion as to what you would do with them afterwards. "Eat them" was the least popular idea.
Finally, a shot from upstairs. There will eventually be a wall from floor to ceiling here. On the other side of the wall will be the heating room with a gas fired boiler for the heating system.
So, the work advances. Next week we have the church's Annual General Meeting. François and Guy are going to be giving an update on the project and I'm going to be talking about the finances - I wonder why they leave that to me?
Up until now everything is on track but we shall have a pause after the next set of bills come in - for the bardage and the floors. We'll take stock of what we have left and see where to go from there. There are still quite a number of things to be paid for, not least the heating and electricity installations followed by materials for the interior walls. After that we'll have to start thinking about things like chairs, tables and other furniture. Still, there is time and we have a God who is both gracious and generous.
A number of people in the church are putting a lot of time and effort into the church building. Without them things would be moving either slowly or not at all. There is always the risk that those people get too overloaded with everything that is to be done - whether they put the pressure on themselves or whether it comes from other people. One of the things that I think we need to keep an eye on, something to care about, is the load on these people. God is not glorified if, at the end of the project, we have a bunch of people who are worn-out and fed-up because it's all been too much. We pray that God will give us the wisdom that we need to balance all the demands that this building project makes. In the end, people are more important than buildings and that is the 'hinge' on which our decisions must rest.