Building the Church at Marksville proved to be more difficult than any of the volunteers could have imagined.  About forty volunteers drove from Virginia to Louisiana to do the initial framing of the new church.  Local church members and members from the Hessmer Baptist church welcomed the team with great excitement in spite of departure snow, local rain, mud, and more mud.  The construction team slid out of Virginia and drove into Louisiana believing that they had dealt with the greatest obstacles.  However, the rain on Monday proved them wrong. 

After a day of working under the tent and building walls, the rains subsided and by the end of the second day the walls were going up, but the mud made work very difficult.

Team members slipped and slid through the Louisana mud and erected most of the exterior walls by the end of Tuesday.

Wednesday proved to be another welcomed day of sunshine and some of the mud dried up as the day went on.  All of the interior walls were completed and hauled to the building from the tent where they had been made.

The walls were moved into place and every one of them fit exactly as planned.  The progress on day three put the team on track to get the church under roof by week's end.

By mid morning, the exterior walls were complete and all the interior walls were in place.  It was time to install the trusses.  Progress was slowed by mud once again.  The crane got stuck, requiring a rescue by a track vehicle.  Then the local job supervisor and the team foreman disagreed over the method of putting trusses in to place.  Some time was lost, but the team yielded to local leaders and the work moved ahead. 

 West End Baptist Church team member Randy Davis took a key role in securing trusses.  He worked from a perch at the ridge line to help secure successive structures into place.  From that moment on, we called Randy the "bird man."

As we volunteers moved in and out of the building, mud rode along on our boots.  The building was swept and re-swept hour by hour to make a clean path for placement of walls.  The need for sweeping never seemed to end.

Chad and others sweep it again.  Working below the fork lift that just unloaded interior walls, volunteers never complained at the repetetive cleaning requirements.

At the end of the day on Wednesday, tremendous progress had been made.  Half of the building was covered with trusses.  Volunteers and local church members were really pleased with the progreess, but more bad weather threatened.

Back at the church, everyone enjoyed end-of-day food and fellowship.  Church members and volunteers led the Wednesday evening service and pastor Dennis Hackler brought an encouraging message.  He reminded volunteers that even if weather prohibited driving another nail, they had made a lasting contribution to the future ministry of the church at Marksville.  His words proved to be prophetic.

Team members gathered in the Hessmer Baptist Church sanctuary for a group picture then retired to the fellowship hall for a game time.  The rain began to fall.  It rained all night and by morning a couple of inches of rain had fallen and rain was forecast to continue well into Friday. 

On Thursday morning it was clear that the site was completely unworkable and the team would have to be satisfied with the contribution they had made to that point.  With more bad weather looming back in Virginia, volunteers left Marksville and headed back toward Virginia.  Hopefully the teams will get home before inclement weather makes traveling too difficult.  Keep the team in your prayers.

To see the team's initial report click on the link below:

Mission Team Arrives in Louisiana