moving church

While Bryan and I have still not been affected by Saturday's earthquake in regards to our own home, our church is a different story. We met in the auditorium as usual on Sunday, but as chunks of plaster began falling off the walls we grew concerned about safety and decided to move this weekend's service to our smaller (and much rattier) youth hall. The wisdom of this decision was confirmed by a structural engineer who issued us with one of the yellow certificates that we've seen around the city, meaning that the building is to be entered with caution and only by those people who have legitimate business being there. We were thankful that the damage extended only to the auditorium, which is technically a separate building from our office area though they have a long wall in common. This morning, after a series of particularly strong aftershocks, as Bryan was in the office particularly early on a phone call to the U.S., he heard the familiar sound of a collapsing building and rushed to the door in time to see the ceiling open over our senior pastor's office and a load of bricks and debris landing solidly on his (very expensive) desk. So much for the office area being safer.

And so this is why, on our cherished and much-too-rare days off, we will be moving everything from both the auditorium and the offices over to the youth hall. This complicates everything, but as it could be months before we have a usable auditorium and office area again, we have to plan for it being a fairly long-term solution. We've already spent the morning cleaning out the youth hall, moving furniture, trying to spruce up the grungy upstairs area that was just recently vacated by a Korean church, and brainstorming to identify the most efficient and effective solutions to our new problems. It's an irritating job, but it's all necessary and there's a sense of community about it as well. Hopefully at the end of this process we'll emerge with more creativity, commitment, and momentum than ever before - if not, I don't know how we'll handle the next few months. More later.

-Rachel