We travel up a couple thousand feet in elevation most every Monday for Beth’s weekly math tutoring with Matthew, the son of the current camp director. We look forward to the drive and the beautiful setting up there. I generally take a book to read and then talk the entire couple hours with Matthew’s dad, Rich. 🙂
This week Rich and I walked over to where he’s overseeing the construction of a multi-purpose building. It will be used primarily as a gymnasium and auditorium able to seat about 300. They’ve had events there larger than that but it should be sufficient for the vast majority of events and all their camps. There is room for only about 120 or so campers in the cabins and grounds.
I took some photos of this beginning phase and also a video which I’ll post here if I can.
I also took some photos of a small 1300 square foot house that is being built for this family and future directors of the camp. It’s located up near the entrance to the property. The Musgrave family have been living in a camper and an RV for the past couple years so will be a great blessing for them to be able to move into this house within a couple months.
The funds for the house have been pledged and it’s just a matter of time before the logistics work out to complete the house.
The multi-purpose building is another matter. The original cost of construction as set by a U.S.-based engineering ministry (a few years ago) was about $300,000. Rich thinks they may be able to do it for half of that or even a little less. Some of the design has been tweaked which should bring down the cost a good bit. Steel prices for the trusses have been at recent lows and there was enough money to get some of that before this month when prices spiked again.
So far he’s been working with about $20,000 or perhaps closer to $15,000, so not a lot of work has been done. The foundational supports are in place and basically the project is about ready for walls and trusses. Some excavation with a Cat might come before that. I don’t recall the exact order.
Obviously, the camp is going to need a lot of help financially. Over the past two years, Rich has been working with the books for the camp and has made it profitable. However, the camp is not a ministry trying to make a profit so this is a limited source of income for the project.
Two churches in Celaya gave the equivalent of about $500 which was a huge deal. Most of the churches here are struggling financially within these challenging economic times. Unemployment in this particular region is among the worst in Mexico since it is highly industrialized and dependent upon U.S. orders.
So, while seeing funds come from the Mexican brethren is a tremendous blessing and exactly the kind of support we’d like to see, it isn’t likely that a large percentage of this project will be funded by the churches here. Only a couple of churches in this region even have pastors and most can’t afford to pay one.
I’ll place the photos of the construction in a new post but I wanted to give you some context of the project first. The camp is open for use by evangelical churches and groups in the region and we’ve been blessed to be able to use it as well for our MK homeschoolers’ spiritual emphasis camp (next one coming in April 2010) and our upcoming MK homeschool science camp (May 2010).
For groups using the camp for overnights, the fee is about $4 a day including meals. Camp Koinonia is a great resource for hundreds of believers to use and is a project we’d love to see supported. If you and/or your church would like information about how to be personally involved through financial gifts and/or construction teams, please let me know. I’ll get you connected.
Thanks!
Knowing Your ABCDs 