The Plans

Here are the plans for the BSM Building. Below in the front view form Amstel Ave. Brick front and finally handicap accessible. This is the door through which 1000's of students will enter in the future. You might want to pause and pray about that.

From the side, the place is twice as long as our previous building. The two door on the bottom left are a separate entrance for the residents upstairs and a rear entrance in to the large space. Stone and brick accents with the majority of the surface being covered by stucco. The bank of four windows that light the stairs make a (unintended by the architect) cross.
First flor view. I described this in an earlier post. It is a big upgrade to our previous facility.

2nd floor. The space is split between a ministry portion in the bottom half and a residential portion in the top half. We will be able to have 2-3 small groups meeting in this space simultaneously. these rooms are perfectly sized for a huddle of 10-14 people. The residential section is pretty nice. The bedrooms are the size as the big rooms in the old house. In addition, we were approved to have up to 2 people per room making the BSM house a 8-person party. Small kitchenette to prepare meals, hall laundry, and comfy baths make this space ideal. We are already full for next year.

Foundation

The clean swept flat earth is gone. Enter the never ending piles of materials, trucks, and a port-o-potty. This finally feels like a build and not like we lost everything to a disaster. With the warm weather the footers and slab were able to be poured before any freezing. This represented a huge deadline completion. Now, the build should go as scheduled regardless of temperature.

From this angle, the site looks small, feeding my worst fears that we are building something that we will outgrow in a few years and not decades. The main meeting room begins just behind the four red support poles. We are to be able to have 130+ in a large group setting. At this point I am not seeing the possibility. I comfort my self believing we made the best possible decision with the information we had at the time. And that some walls might make it look bigger.

Below is the floor plan for the first level. Offices, baths, kitchen and main room. The office is 30% larger than the old office. The bathrooms are not the closet on the 2nd stair. In fact, they each have a shower in them giving us the ability to house mission teams. The kitchen will enable us to make a bunch of food for outreaches. We are thinking about having a meal before Tuesday BSM with some regularity.

The Earth is Flat

Ok not the whole earth is flat, just our little portion.

In just a week all the material was hauled away, the basement hole filled and the property leveled to grade.

The property stood for over almost 80 years and in 8 days it is only a sign.

Destruction

On november 18th the BSM House was torn down. I took these shots from the same prospective over about an hour time span.

The excavator made quick work of the structer. It even divided the mason work from the wood. This feat sometimes involved delicately picking up a single 2x4 to move to the correct pile.

It was so strange to think students were living in those rooms a few months ago.

I watched the house come down with Katie, our associate director, and three students. I was a little sad but mostly exciting for what the future might hold. Buildings are not sacred shrines. Well, at least not this one. It is a tool. This instrument is being refashioned and sharpened for greater impact in the kingdom.