Shaping up

Although we missed our original (quite ambitious) target for getting the shop open, we're getting very close to being ready!

All the carpet is glued down. The water-damaged wall was replaced by mall management, and has been painted. Installation of vinyl baseboard is about 40% done. Most of the doors have been re-hung. Much of the furniture is now in place. We've priced and stocked the displays with the Bibles we'll be selling. Our introductory Bible course (God's Master Plan, developed in South Africa) has been reformatted for US paper size and printed, now awaits folding. T-shirts featuring the Good News of the Kingdom of God logo have been ordered. Some marketing materials have been prepared. A data model and usage scenarios have been provided to those who will develop our student-tracking software.

As you can see, the shop area is just about ready to go!














The classrooms are ready for students to sit down and start studying!
















Jane prices the Bibles. We've included some Bibles in languages other than English. (Extra credit if you can identify all the languages shown!)
















This week, with God's blessing, we will: complete baseboard installation; get 175 signs printed, which will be placed (at no charge!) in all the buses in the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Transit District; get some signs printed for inside & outside the shop; develop a work schedule for the volunteers who will staff the shop. And a bunch more things both in the BEC and on the administrative side, most of them small in themselves, but there's still a lot of them!

Our main thing now is to have everyone back in town! We've had several gone to Bible Schools or on overseas trips. But, with God's blessing, in just over a week we will be open for business!

First two visitors...and we're not even open yet!

This morning we had our second Sunday meeting in the new space. We've had setbacks in our timeline, including damage discovered in one of the walls had to be repaired (which is almost done now – just needs paint). The original, admittedly ambitious, schedule called for us to have our "soft" opening the day after tomorrow. Not going to happen! We have several people heading out of town this week, and with so few to start with, it will definitely be at least a week, more likely two.

But, this morning we had our fist two drop-in visitors, anyway. Both saw our temporary "coming soon" sign in the window, saw that the lights were on and some Bible related materials were in the shop area. So they came in!

One is a Chinese student at the university (doctoral candidate in microbiology). She wants to work on her English, as well as learn something about the Bible. The other is a wheelchair-bound gentleman who was just curious about what we have to offer.

It's exciting that some attention is being attracted, before we do any advertising or any other sort of promotion. We pray that we'll continue to attract interest!

First Sunday in our new home

The Christadelphians of Champaign County had our first Sunday meeting in our new home – the main room in the back of the Bible Education Center we are establishing. CCC is a new ecclesia formed 11 months ago specifically as an outreach of the Bloomington ecclesia. This was a real milestone, and we praise God for His blessings thus far!

Setting up for meeting. The wall to the left isn't quite finished – and it may represent a setback. During painting & removing the old baseboard, moisture was discovered in this wall. The management of the mall will try to find the source of the moisture (roof being most likely). It's possible this wall will have to be replaced, which would be a huge mess, considering we now have most of the refurbishing work done & the furniture in.





The little group present for our inaugural meeting. We had a few members traveling, but even when everyone is there, it's a little group. But we pray that God will grant increase to our planting and watering, and we'll soon be crowded!






After meeting, we had a working lunch/status meeting. And then we got to work! Still quite a bit to do before we're ready to open for business.











Norm Fadelle and Ray Pratt assembled display units obtained from a Christian bookstore that was closing. Meanwhile, Dana Pratt, Jennifer Millay, Deb Fadelle, and Jane Zilmer were mainly involved in cleaning (furniture, windows, tile–which had nail polish all over it, doors–which had a lot of black marks, etc), and Paul Zilmer replaced flourescent tubes, painted, and made a general nuisance of himself.

Making headway

Good progress is being made on getting our space ready! With God's blessing, we will have our Sunday meeting in our new home this coming Sunday. It will be at least another week before we can open to the public. We are behind in getting our advertising and our course offerings set up. Some of that work is going to take longer than a week...so our "soft" opening may be delayed. We still hope for a grand opening the third week of August.


Painting is progressing - thanks to a neighbor of Ray & Dana Pratt, whom we've hired. The orange stripe in the front shop area is still there, but the back wall is now a much more soothing color! The painting should actually be completed this evening, while this writer is home writing this blog. Next up: laying carpet in the classrooms.


The main room (where we'll have Sunday meetings, as well as seminars) is really looking nice. The floor cleaned up far better than we dared to hope, and a coat of paint (or 3) does wonders to remove black and red stripes.





Norm & Deb Fadelle have started moving in and cleaning up the chairs donated by Busey Bank (where Bro Ray works). Temp storage in the small classroom. Unfortunately, the landlord did a botch job on filling in the window that used to connect into the space next door. In spite of efforts at disguise, you can still see the outline. Guess we know where the whiteboard will go!




Our very first shipment of Bibles has arrived! And we hope that on our Saturday work day we'll get the racks moved in and put in position, so they'll have a home.







Besides 5 English versions, we are going to stock 2 Spanish versions, and Bibles in Chinese and Tagalog (shown in the bottom picture). Still to come: the Arabic, French, Farsi, and Portuguese Bibles we've ordered. We don't necessarily expect to sell a lot of the foreign language Bibles (except Spanish), and we'll only have one copy of each. What we want to convey is that we are eager to share the Bible with everyone. And we can obtain Bibles in many languages. There are many foreign students at the University of Illinois, and we hope to attract some of them to study with us.

Fixup is in progress!

Lots of holes & gouges in the walls, which have to be filled & smoothed before painting.











Paul and Jane Zilmer work on patching and cleaning the walls in the green classroom. (Can't wait for this color to go away!)


















Dana Pratt, Jane & Paul Zilmer look over furniture donated by Ray Pratt's employer, Busey Bank.




















Tape marking where the new door will be...














The new door is in!


















And now we have access from the front (where the shop will be) into the meeting room in back.















The landlord is closing in the openings into the adjoining spaces (4 doors and a window). Here the window has been filled in with drywall. You can also see that the nasty carpet has been pulled up (it was glued down), and the wall patching is in progress.



This doorway at the end of our hallway has been closed in. The shop is to the left, and the green classroom is to the right.

Before pix

Thanks to Norm Fadelle, we now have some "before" pictures of our space in the Lincoln Square Mall. Thanks, Norm! (Actually, the first one is from Paul Z, but the rest are Norm's.) Click on the picture to see it larger.


Here's the shop front from inside the mall. Nice orange paint! With stripes, even!

You can see there's a door into the back - there is a hallway with 2 classrooms (offices for the previous tenant). But no access into the space at the rear -- except by going into the adjoining space that we are NOT renting.








The main room in the back has black and red stripes - cool for the former school of cosmetology, I guess. And, it's a mess! You can't see all the old hair dye & other crud on the floor.

There will be a doorway at the far end to provide access into this space from the front - through one of the classrooms.






In this shot you can see one of the doorways into the adjoining space.

This space will be where our ecclesia meets on Sundays, and also where we'll have seminars.










One of the classrooms. Orange again! Plus a nice one-way glass looking into the adjoining space, and a carpet that is beyond hope.

We are committed!

On Monday evening, June 15, 2009, the members of the Christadelphians of Champaign County (CCC) ecclesia met, and unanimously approved going forward with a Bible Education Center in Urbana. The following day, the lease was signed with Lincoln Square Mall – and we were committed!

We have begun patching and cleaning the walls in preparation for painting, removing old carpet, etc. Mall management has committed to closing off the existing doors & window to the adjoining spaces by the end of next week. We are hiring a contractor to put through a new doorway from the front part into the back part of the space.

Lots to do! Very exciting!