The land is cleared, all the trees, stumps and brush are burned and all the firewood is gone. All that's left is the trees in the 25' setback and on the hillside. Gary Haris worked on that, thanks Gary.  Stop and look, now you can really see the size of the lot and some of the view that we will have. Its a beautiful lot.

About two weeks ago, thanks to John Katcus, most of our committee got to go tour the Wasilla Bible Church with Chuck Morris of Arctic Fox Metal Buildings.  Chuck supplied the metal building for the Wasilla Bible Church and is a member of their congregation. It's a really nice building and he seemed like a nice guy. We came away excited with the information and ideas we gathered.

After the Wasilla Bible Church sold their building, they spent one year meeting on Sundays at the Wasilla Middle School while the basement shell and a finished main floor auditorium and offices were built and then continued to bus their kids to the middle school for classes for another year while the basement classrooms were finished. Since then they have been finishing up the parking and landscaping.

As we look at our phased construction, the information we gathered from Arctic Fox gives us hope that we may be able to get everything under roof and at least the auditorium and classrooms finished at around the 2 million dollar level, which would really be exciting.

We've talked to some banks about borrowing 1 million dollars. We are in excellent financial shape so some banks are interested. Interest for this type of commercial loan generally runs around 7% with a 15 year term, which is what we were thinking when we included the $11,000 per month in our budget 2 years ago.

As we get closer to building, we as a congregation through lots of prayer will have to ask our Lord to guide us as we decide if we as members can give more so that the group will need to borrow less, even if that means that as individuals we have to borrow money to do so, especially since as individuals we can usually borrow money cheaper than 7%.

We, in the committee are actively working on two main areas, along with trying to educate ourselves about getting the best value in a church building.

First, we are working on the floor plans, just trying to make sure that we have all of our congregational needs accounted for while realizing that many spaces can be used for multiple activities at different times. We will have a congregational workshop, hopefully in December, to share our ideas and get your input for the floor plan. I'm excited to see the possibilities and I know that together we can design and build a facility that will greatly enhance the Lord's work here in the Valley.

Second, we are trying to find a builder that we can work with. It turns out that there is a lot involved in the interview process, learning to ask the right questions, learning what kind of help we need in relation to the design and construction process and what the costs are.

Finally, please, please pray for the growth of our congregation, for those of us charged with the building part of our expansion plans and for me personally. We face challenges as we go forward, but we know that with the Lord on our side, we can do all things.

Thank you