Greetings again from Union Center Christian School. So how does everyone like this dry summer so far? It has been good for working, I guess. Although it seems like summer is just starting, the guys on the committee to get the school finished by August are feeling the pressure. I think many of them will look back on this as the “lost summer of 2023.” But that’s how it goes sometimes. A short time of sacrifice pays off over the long haul. Can’t imagine what they will find to do next year!
This post will be a few short updates on progress in various parts of the work. We are deep into the job of getting the cabinets installed in the classrooms. The teachers will be very happy to have all the storage space, I think, and they still have that new smell!
The work of installing the heat/AC units continues. That seems to be about the most time consuming part right now, as not only do the inside units have to be installed, but there are fluid lines and wiring to be run, as well as install the outside units. We did get the cement pad poured outside for those.
There has been a funny smell lingering in a few places. We now have epoxy poured in the entrances, the restroom behind the stage, and in the kitchen.
Since we have the gym space to use for events, we also needed a way to protect the wood floor from dirt, shoes, and chair legs. Someone who has connections to Christian Aid Ministries was able to get several used billboards from them to use as floor covers. I learned a couple things about billboards. They are very thick and tough. Hopefully they will last a long time, if we are vigilant about keeping feet on the chairs and tables. Another surprise was just how huge these things are. From the highway, you just don’t get a sense of how big they are, but one sign goes the whole width of the gym, and it only took 4 to cover the long dimension.
We put down the tarps for the Union Grove Church fish fry a couple weeks ago. At first they put them down with the pictures showing, which I thought was a great idea, but wiser(?) heads prevailed and they turned them over. We didn’t want people to get distracted by the giant baby face on one of them and take a fall!
Several workdays ago, we had a stomach plague run through many people who were there that day, along with other family members. It was not fun, but everyone is better now.
One need that has been slowly moving up on our list is more chairs. It won’t be long until we are having events at the school. We did have one church give us 85, which was very nice, but we will need several hundred. Just the other week, someone who knows of our need became aware of a huge lot of chairs being sold for a very good price, so we were able to get 325 padded folding chairs. God supplied that need in time, like he has so many others.
God also recently supplied some equipment we didn’t even have on our list. Several years ago, our son bought a house, and the previous owner, who had been involved in selling Amazon returns, left a big pile of large screens behind, the type you use with a video projector. They are good quality screens. Our son had listed them for sale as a group, but no one wanted them. Suddenly it occurred to me that the school would very likely want them for the classrooms! Until now, it had never crossed my mind, and when I contacted others, no one else had thought of it either. So now, it seems we will probably have a screen for most of the rooms in the school.
I guess this post is getting kind of long, but there is one more development I need to address. We had patched the roof earlier, and thought it would be OK for a couple years, until we can get it replaced with steel. But we discovered after a rain that it is leaking again. So at least part of the roof project has to be moved up, because we don’t want to ruin all the new the materials we are putting in! We are planning to do just the north wing and part of the gym for now. Even this small area will cost about $30,000+, so if you can help with this, or know someone who would donate funds or even the roof itself, please contact us right away.
If you would like to help us with our roof purchase, or would just like to donate your time, please contact us. You can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information. If you would like to make a totally anonymous donation, there is a button on our website to go through the Anabaptist Financial group. You can direct them to send your money to us, and your identity remains private.
