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The Native American Fellowship Dayspring Church is building a log cabin church. This will be the first building we can call our own. We purchased the kit from Kuhns Brothers Log Homes and are building it with help from volunteers from around the mid west! I will try and keep a running ‘blog’ updated on this page so the volunteers that are still to come can see the progress and the ones that have already given so much can see their work continue to grow. Check back every few days for updates here and under photos!
February 2009: 40 Days of Miracles! We are looking to have an occupancy permit by the first day of spring! We are in need of volunteers and supplies and prayers that the loose ends will get wrapped up. Please let us know if you can help! And thank you still for all those who have helped and are praying for us!
October 2008: Interior walls on the first floor are on not only dry walled but painted! The men's bathroom is on it's way to being dry walled and tiled. (Next is the women's bathroom.) The floors have been scrapped clean and we are hopefully just days away from putting down FLOORING! We still have a lot to do, but things are moving! The gutters and doors should be coming in and we have some outside finish work and landscaping work to wrap up these next two weeks. If you are experienced or talented at finish work we need you now! If you have supplies we could use, let us know! August 2008: Wildlife Prairie State Park Needs Your Letters of Support! Click here for more details. May 26th. Well we had a very successful dedication celebration weekend. I'm uploading pictures now but for a report I'm going to defer to our press secretary Patty Erwin who already has a press release typed up and sent out! May 26, 2008
For Immediate Release
A four day Dedication Celebration was held at the Native American Fellowship Dayspring United Methodist Church over Memorial Day weekend. People from all over the country came to worship, camp, see old friends, walk trail meditation, participate in pipe ceremonies, drum circles, sunrise and sunset prayers, traditional games and crafts, planting, baptisms storytelling, and more.
At the Sunday morning worship service, people came to praise and worship. Pastor Carol Lakota Eastin said it was time to consecrate the room for holy use-to make it a sanctuary. “It will be a house of prayer. We are empowered with the Creator and will sing your praise.” She asked the Creator to send the people out to be His servants and share the blessing of Christ.
Bishop Christopher walked the 43 acres with Pastor Carol many years ago, prayed and made plans for a church. On that morning Bishop Christopher felt the presence of the great cloud of witnesses who were in the room. “We’ve got your back as you move forward. Stand strong.”
Many gifts were given to the church during the weekend. The youth of the church gave a woven tapestry entitled “Coming to Church.” The Anderson family, parents of Joan Resetich, gave a quilt with the following writing: The earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth with the responsibility of being the caretaker. A room where people can remember the church’s history and friends, who have crossed over, was built in honor of Joan. Michelle Lallock of the Chicago American Indian, planted a cedar tree so the people can use it for prayers. Nicholas George, Founder/Director of Second Chance Ministries, unveiled a hand made cross completed from logs used to build the church. It was given the title of “Cross of Nations.” The Lowpoint/Washburn Methodist Church donated many items including a pulpit and a Lord’s Supper table. A beautiful rope made from horse hair another gift. .
Suanne Ware Diaz, of the Commission on Religion and Race, told how connected this place is to her. “Prayers are powerful. I can feel them. Dream big and reach high. The Creator will provide. Now is the time for God to do new things.”
Pastor Kirby Varrett, of the Houma tribe in Louisiana, told the congregation to stand firm. “God is calling you to be a servant. The earth is crying out for help. Native Americans have a connection to the Creator and the earth, which will help lead people.”
In the evening Gifting was done at an Appreciation Ceremony, where all people were presented gifts. Volunteers from churches throughout the state were present. Pastor Carol Lakota Eastin explained that a blanket is one of the highest honor gifts next to an eagle feather to give to someone. “Gifting is a strong tradition with our People.”
Dominic Irrera, the project coordinator, received an honor blanket for his countless hours of work. Pastor Carol told how Dominic had come to the site and prayed daily before the building plans were made. When a church member was ill, Dominic took the plans to his bedside to explain. Dominic felt his dream come alive. “Today when I came and saw all the cars in the parking lot and all the people at the service, I felt the church come alive. I am glad to play a part in this wonderful opportunity. Glory to God, who has made it happen.”
Kent Strietmater, an experienced timber framer and carpenter, worked with the volunteers throughout the summer. He was a witness to others and volunteers felt the presence of Christ in their work. “I love the gift giving and the personalizing of the ceremony. It is wonderful to see the volunteers and strengthen our relationship.” Kent made the heavy timber tresses on the porches’ entry ways from the native white oak trees on the property.
A Dayspring member made crosses from the left over logs and gifted those to volunteers.
A Peorian, Karen Hudelson, who doesn’t have any Native American blood, became a member on Saturday afternoon at Dayspring. She first came with a friend and kept coming because she felt like she was at home. “I have found where I should be. The people accept me for who I am. At my baptism it was amazing. Jesus Christ took over my whole body and warmed my heart.” May 21st: We have been so busy and so much has been happening, I'm not even sure where to start. We got the in floor heat turned on in mid March. That let us start running some power and pluming starting in April. Our roof didn't get started until early April and just got finished last week. Still no gutters but we are at least dry for the most part. Wiring as been ongoing over the last 2 months as well as plumbing and we can actually turn on and off some lights with switches! We are trying to get at least one bathroom running for our dedication celebration this weekend. We have a parking lot as well, only gravel for now but its a real parking lot. The is much much more but you will have to come out to see it all this weekend. Pictures.. well I have been really slacking on this for the spring. I'll see what I can do but it may be after the dedication.
Jan 24th: PROGRESS!!!! I haven't been updating the site as there has not been much to report. We have been holding on power, gas and a roof. Well in the last 2 weeks the local utility company has gotten power and gas run to the building. We have since run a few circuits run on the actual grid power. However, we can not go to much further as the temporary roof has proven to be less than water proof. The roofing material is on site. It was dropped off last week so now we are just waiting on the roofer to get to us on his 'list'. As we have been on the list since October we hope to have a roof soon!! Nov 25th: Well the weather finally caught up with us. The first snow shower of the year came yesterday, but not before we got all the exterior stain on, a second coat of oil on all most of the timber framing, much of the soffit and fascia on, and a huge start on the interior insulation. We are now on hold on CILCO. We are waiting to find out where power and natural gas will be run into the building from. We will not have heat until this work is done. We are also waiting for the contractor to get to us on his “list” for the roof and gutters.  
Nov 10th: The staining is nearly done. I had delayed putting pictures up until we had the north end of the church (the end of the sancuary with all the windows) done. Well its almost done. We put the first coat on it today and got some pictures taken. The rain is moving in however and it may be a while before we get the last coat on the North end. It is protected and sealed but doesn't look as shiny as the rest of the building.
Nov 5th: We have the water and sewer roughed into the church. The elevator shaft is built up to the roof and getting sided. The biggest project that we have checked off our list is the bleaching, buffing, and power washing of the entire outside most of the church. Even better, by the end of the day today we should have 2 coats of stain put on. This has completely changed the appearance of the church and one member said, "Now it looks like the brochure!" HOWEVER, we are still in need of pluming and electrical help to make the building habitable. Oct 17th: Water and sewer are being brought into the building! A few more pictures posted. Oct 16th: Well it rained last night, and for the first time, our sanctuary wasn't wet! Its not our final roof but at least its water proof. Last weekend we moved a huge amount of dirt back around the building putting the final grade on 3 sides of the building and a good part of the 'yard'. The water and sewer will be brought into the building this week allowing us to finish the dirt work and maybe even get some grass up yet this fall. Oct 12th: WE HAVE WINDOWS!! We still need some help with staining, sanding, plumbing and wiring. See below for info on how to help.
Oct 10th: We have been busy. The porches are finally done. They were a much bigger project than we had anticipated but WOW!! The pictures I just posted do not do them justice. I will try and get some better ones up soon. We have the roof sheeting now completely finished and we have tarpaper down and a hard roof scheduled for late in the month. We have put in the minimum of interior walls in the basement for heating, plumbing, and electrical to be run. So we are now starting the home stretch with getting the building dried in and all the infrastructure in place. That being said.. I’ll paste in a email that went out via some other communication channels asking for some help.
Hello Dayspringers!
NAF Dayspring Church is coming along. On Wed Oct 10, we are receiving a delivery of windows and will begin to install them.
We are looking for volunteers!
We need persons to unload windows, put in windows,cover exterior of windows with plasting sheeting, also: sand interior walls bleach and stain exterior walls....and more!
We are ESPECIALLY in need of a plumber!
If you can help us out, please come
Aug 30th: Yesterday all the large and high beams were set for the front entrance and porch. A bunch of pictures of this have been uploaded. Today they are setting up for the back porch and the crane will be back tomorrow to set those beams. Aug 29th: Ok, we are back on track for updates! Timber frame porches are being set today! I ran past the site on the way to work today and they have the end frame assembled and sitting on the porch floor. The crane will be there over lunch to set the frame and then all the rafters. New photos posted. Aug 27th: I am so sorry for the lack up updates. There are new pictures under photos. There has so much going on the last month web site has fallen behind. However, things have slowed down greatly the last 2 weeks due to rain, rain and more rain so you haven't missed as much as you might think. The roof sheeting is on, the 1 porch is poured and the other is ready as soon as it dries out enough to get a truck around that side of the building. The roof sheeting is on and it is currently covered with huge blue tarps. (not really very nice to look at but needed due to the rain) We have finished all the prep work for the timber framed porches and have been waiting for the porches to get poured to actually set the frame, so we can finish the roof. The windows have been framed in and are awaiting their actual delivery next week. The interior loft area has all of the floor joists set. And finally, we actually now have a construction loan. We had been approved though UMDF (United Methodist Development Fund) in March of this year after applying in January. There had been extensive delays in actually getting the loan finalized and at the end of July the NAF board decided to look locally for a loan. On the recommendation of several of our members we went to Morton Community Bank . The same day we contacted them, before we even had an appointment set for the application to be filled out, they had a representative on site to look at the Church. He was so excited by the project that he went back to their corporate headquarters (only 7 miles from the site) and brought the CEO of the bank out to have a look. 20 Days after contacting them we had a loan with an excellent interest rate! Morton went through all the steps to get a loan that had taken UMDF more than 6 months, in just under 3 weeks. We cannot say enough good things about the people at Morton Community Bank!!!
July 26th - Noon: I took a long lunch and went out to the site. The trusses are going up! They had about 10 up when I left but they were hitting their stride now and putting one up about every 10 mins. Pictures are being added right now! July 24th: Now I know what some of you reading this blog feel like. I went over a week without going out to the site. It was WAY to long but it was amazing to walk up to the church and see the progress. Of course I uploaded pictures. We have the gable end for the sanctuary up and completed! We have interior walls up and completed! I just could not believe my eyes.
JULY 26th is the big day however!! The crane will be out and we are setting all the roof rafters!!! If you can, stop by and see this huge event! Below is a current picture, however, I can do one better. For those of you with a high speed internet connection, here is a link to a video walk thorugh of the interior of the building! (Click) 
July 18th: This press release went out today with BIG news. (CLICK) I posted a few pictutes but I plan on going up to the site tomorrow and taking some more. July 13th: I have not been able to spend much time at the chuch stite this week due to other obligations so I don'thave alot of pictures to upload. Here is what I know. The group this week got all the outlet holes carved into the walls. They have worked to get some of the window framing started. The main focus this week has been on the timber framing as the contractor doing it had to be scheduled several months ago. So down in the pavillion they have been working on getting all of the rough sawn logs shaped in workable beams and getting all the special joints cut in them. Also, all of our roof rafters have arrived. Wow they seem big! Sorry, I don't have more of an update. I did just upload a few pictures I took when I dropped by earlier in the week.
July 8th: Our Michigan group left on the 7th. They will be missed. The amount of work they did in 5 days was amazing!! All the walls are 'up to square', meaning the only logs left to lay are for the peak of the roof! Also, the first load of our timber has come back from the saw mill!. There are pictures of it under photos for this week but it doesn't do it justice. The smell of all that fresh cut oak is amazing an wafting through the whole site. Here are 2 panoramic shots of the site taken a few hours ago. The outside view from the backfill pile. The inside view from just inside the main entrance. 
July 5th: Just a few quick pictures added under photos. Look at the view now as you drive up to the site! July 4th: Sorry no pictures uploaded yet but it has been a very busy few days. ALL walls are up to course 13. That means we have the windows fully framed in and are headed up to the last few courses on the long walls. We also had a skid steer loader and a back hoe on the 3rd and 4th and got the entire building backfilled. There will be more dirt to move to get everything to the final grade but all the footings are covered now and when you drive up to the site, you see a log church, not a mountain of dirt!!!! Pictures to come soon. July 2nd: A new week and a new set of volunteers! Our group this week is from Stephenville, Michigan and wow they are moving! Their first day they completed course 5 on all of the 'low' walls and took several of the walls to course TEN! They also continued on the basement stairs. I walked up them to the landing and it looks like they are on the way to completing them tomorrow! Walls going up!
June 28th: Today was the last work day for our SEVENTY volunteers from Cleveland OH. They completed course 4 on the entire building and took some places in the walls to course 9! Many of them worked at 7 Circles Heritage Center as well during the week completing several large construction projects there as well. There are a huge number of pictures added under photos. A HUGE thankyou from everyone at NAF Dayspring Church to the Cleveland OH group! June 27th: 3rd Course of logs started today! Pictures added under Photos! June 25th: Lots of new pictures added under photos! June 22nd : Subfloor is almost done! The basement: Here is a construction photo from the week of June 11th. Setting the beams We have started adding pictures of our Church project under photos. Here is a link to two LARGE panoramic shots of the construction site. Panoramic1
Panoramic2
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