What I've been doing since the last post...

Wednesday night we had the grand opening of the new youth room at church. Here are some pictures to help you get a feel for what kind of a project this was...

Here are some shots of what the area we were working with looked like before we tore out walls and ceilings:












And here is the attic space that was above the area. This space used to be the youth room (circa 1970-2002?), until the church learned that it was against fire codes for anyone ever to set foot up there:


Here is some wall tearing and ceiling raising, which was done in late May by a really great group of volunteers from Franklinton, Louisiana:








After the volunteers left, the summer was spent with waves of hired workers coming in to do heating and air conditioning, plumbing, wiring, drywall, paint, carpet, etc...






Here is what it looked like last week:




And here's what it looked like this week as we worked straight through Labor Day and meal times to make our deadline:







That last picture is our contractor and his sidekick... they really did work hard, I promise.



And finally, here is last night's grand opening, which was also the premier of our newly revamped Wednesday night youth worship service:












I didn't do my own count, but I'm told that we had 61 kids and 15 adults there for a total of 76. That's more than double what we had been averaging on Wednesdays, which I think is pretty cool. I guess that's to be expected with all the hype surrounding the grand opening, but based on the feedback I got last night I feel pretty confident that our numbers will stay stronger than they were before.



Hooray for a God who continually gives us far more than we deserve, and hooray for an old, traditional, country church that is willing to pour its resources into reaching teenagers with the Gospel.