By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch The Lord worked in much-appreciated ways for a church construction project in the virtual shadow of Mount Rainier. Sixteen volunteers from as far away as the midwestern U.S. spent two weeks this summer building a fellowship hall for Christ's Church at Elbe. The elbow grease was provided through Volunteer Christian Builders, an organization whose members spend their vacations or retirement years traveling around the U.S. to provide free labor on church projects. The non-profit group, now based in Arlington, Texas, got its start in 1963 when a small church in Colorado asked a group of friends to help build a church building. Like an old-fashioned barn raising in pioneer days, that project and dozens since then have been the mission of a volunteer workforce that numbers more than 800 families. Volunteer Christian Builders prides itself on having members fro all walks of life GÇô from college professors to retired postal workers Tammy Vinson is just grateful for their kindness. "It's wonderful the way people have come together to help us,GÇ¥ said Vinson, the wife of Dan Vinson, the pastor of Christ's Church at Elbe and its approximately 50 members since 2003. The new fellowship hall, which will be available for community events in addition to church activities, stretches 2,000 square feet. It rose on church property formerly occupied by a garage that was torn down to make way. The volunteers started the framing and other tasks on July 25 and continued until Aug. 5. They traveled to Elbe from Texas, Kansas and Oregon. They parked their RVs and trailers in the church parking lot. "It looked like an RV show or sales lot,GÇ¥ Tammy Vinson quipped. "You couldn't miss it. People in the community kept asking what was going on." That community, including the congregation of Alder Church, has donated materials and equipment for the project. The Vinsons can be reached at 360-569-0556 by anyone else who wants to make contributions or get involved. After Elbe, projects in Prudenville, Mich. and Salina, Okla. were on the docket for the rest of August for Volunteer Christian Builders (VCB). The crew members can use their own tools and must pay their own way to and from the project locations. Their reward, according to VCB, is knowing they've been of service and the friends they make along the way.
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