How We Got Here

Can you see where we’ve been yet? This view of the community hall was taken at the end of the first week of work. What a difference a week makes…

More photos of work during that first week in February. The scaffolding was borrowed from Hope House Church in Barnsley, and those with no fear of heights worked on all those high parts of the community hall the rest of us were too scared to approach! Again, the provision of a van to transport the scaffolding at a reduced price was another example of God’s help!

This is the view of the outside to the church hall. All the external windows have been boarded up to protect against vandalism while the building was empty. We look forward ultimately to having new window frames and windows and to removing the boards!

This is the outside of the community hall. In January 2009, one of our elders preached from Jeremiah 29:11 about the plans God had for the church and talked about seeing the ‘for sale’ sign being changed to ‘sold subject to contract’. In actual fact, this sign was never changed, but we’re pleased it’s now gone!

The outside of the building – this door to the kitchen will ultimately be moved so that there is direct access to the community hall.

Our pastor shows his sign of approval for all the work that’s going on!

That first week of work saw amazing progress. We arrived to look round on the Saturday, to be greeted by the owner of the shop next door who was selling wooden chairs at a bargain price. That kind of offer seemed to follow on and on, as did the visitors. In one week, we had more conversations with local people than ever before, demonstrating, if proof were needed, the benefits of this more central location.

Everyone was curious as to what was going to be happening with the building, empty and unused for so long. People who had helped out at coffee mornings run by the Methodist church, people who had got married in that building, people who just wondered what was happening turned up and were shown round the building. Old friends, new friends, church members and their families… it felt like we could hardly keep pace with the streams of people walking through the building. We kept the local shops in business, it seemed, with all our purchases of tea, coffee, milk and sugar, not to mention DIY purchases!

From Monday to Saturday we had at least 15 adults working in the building. We filled holes, removed wallpaper (and plaster!), re-plastered, painted, scrubbed, emptied rubbish, cleared moss off the roof, tidied the carpark area, weeded and transported more rubbish to the dump-it site than we could ever have imagined. If CRT needed proof of volunteer hours, we were going to provide that proof in spades!!

Willing workers on the stage!

The room to be used for Sunday School work, complete with boiler and out-of-tune organ…

More vivid pink, this time in the corridor that links the two main halls.

The vivid pink seemed to get everywhere: this is the foyer of the main church hall.

Another view of the community hall – where we had to do a lot of filling and plastering before painting could start.

This is what the main church hall looked like after we’d stripped the wallpaper. Mind you, stripping the wallpaper soon turned into a major task, as the plaster came off with it too.