Progress was amazingly rapid. Volunteers were wonderfully faithful. Donations were miraculously given. God truly has been present in our time of need. Isaiah 43:1-3
Flood Pictures Day 1 - December 4, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 2 - December 5, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 3 - December 6, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 4 - December 7, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 5 - December 8, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 6 - December 9, 2007
Flood Pictures Days 7&8 - December 10-11, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 9 - December 12, 2007
Flood Pictures Days 10&11 - December 13-14, 2007
Flood Pictures Days 12&13&14 - December 15-17, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 17 - December 20, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 19 - December 22, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 24 - December 27, 2007
Flood Pictures Days 25&26 - December 28-29, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 28 - December 31, 2007
Flood Pictures Day 29 - January 1, 2008
Flood Pictures Day 30 - January 2, 2008
Daily Log:
1/4/08 -Attention generous volunteers!
Now that the “dust” has settled a little we notice that we have quite a collection of brooms, floors scrapers, box fans,
gloves, knee pads and some small hand tools that were not at school before the great flood. We would like to return them to their rightful owners if possible. Please stop by Mr. Taylor’s office anytime and claim your equipment or ask us if you are missing something and believe you left it here. We will be glad to look for it and return it.
Once again we thank you for being such willing servants when we really needed the manpower. The task really was mammoth – like restoring twenty 2,000 square foot homes (in 30 days) because our facility is 40,000 square feet. We simply could not have opened our school up again without your dedicated efforts. Thank you!!
1/3/08 -Dear CCS Families:
Each morning at 7:50 our teaching staff gather for devotions in the library. This morning Miss Roberts (7th/8th grade) shared a thought from Psalm 46 about the Lord being a very present help in time of need - how applicable and true! She also shared an observation about the number 8. We all know that in God's grand design there is meaning to everything - even numbers. Those who study numbers tell us that 3 represents the Trinity, six is man's number, seven is God's perfect number (days of creation) and eight is the number for new beginnings (8 people in the ark which survived the big flood to begin again...male children were to be circumcised on the 8th day, etc.) Well, that just seems to fit 2008 perfectly for CCS - the year of new beginnings. We all feel like it is a new start for CCS with new (to us) carpeting, new sheetrock (2' and down), new paint, some new books and more coming. A month was a long time to be away from our students and it really felt good to be reunited today. Thank you for all the sacrifices you made to help 2007 end in victory and this new year to begin with so much hope. We pray that God will abundantly supply all your needs - small and great - as you trust Him.
In our next family newsletter (Jan. 9th) I will explain in detail how we have amended our school calendar to make up the 12 days of school we missed during the Great Flood of Dec. 2007. God bless you,
In His Service,
Denny
12/18/07 -Announcement from LOVE INC.
The Lewis County Ministerial Assoc. is putting on a dinner on Christmas Day at 5 PM at Lewis & Clark Hotel in Centralia for the flood victims, AND anyone else who is needful for the day! Local churches are honoring God's glory by working together to put on a really fine meal in a loving atmosphere to fill the need this Christmas time.
12/17/07 -Monday -Thank you, Lord, for a new week today! Progress is exciting even when it is restoration to get back to where we were
several weeks ago! The foaming insulation for the exterior walls is complete in the lunchroom and around the rooms to
3rd grade. Sheetrock and taping is about 50% complete thanks to the crew from Maple Valley. They will be returning
today to continue their good work. Northwest Christian High School sent about a dozen youth from their outreach team
to CCS on Friday to help scrape floors, move furniture and whatever was needed - thank you NWCHS!.
Our teachers/staff and spouses will be having their annual Christmas party tonight at 6 pm at the First Christian Church
in Chehalis and it will be a welcome break from the push to get the school back in shape. The outpouring of prayers,
donations and support continues and is overwhelming - God is so gracious.
Marv Jamerson is doing a champion's job at coordinating all the subcontractors and volunteers and giving direction for the
overall project. He will be covering for me while Connie and I take a quick break in Wyoming for Christmas.
Because of all the work taking place in hallways and classrooms we must continue our restriction on children 16 years and
younger. Lord willing that will be joyfully lifted the morning of Jan. 2nd which remains our target date for reopening and new
and improved CCS facility!
Thank you, everyone, for your heartfelt prayers, beyond generous donations of money, food and
elbow grease to keep CCS going. You are a blessing!
In His Service,
Denny Taylor/Principal
12/14/07 -Friday - Day 11 of the Great Flood of 2007
Just a special note of thanks to two people keeping all of us informed with info. and helping us to visualize the progress of CCS restoration - that would be Jeff Dobyns our faithful webmaster whose pronto postings are fabulous and Kim Roberts our 7th/8th teacher whose photo documentation is absolutely awesome!
Thank you both from everyone who is blessed by your work.
In His Service,
Denny at CCS
12/12/07 -To all CCS families and friends - Wednesday afternoon
We had a wonderful CCS family reunion last night at the Centralia Church of God with about 85% of our families and students present – even our families who had suffered much loss and damage themselves. What a blessing to see our students again and hear their laughter and the chatter as they connected once again with their classmates and parents got caught up with other parents whom they had not seen for over a week – since the Great Flood of 2007 began on the afternoon of Dec. 3rd.
We were able to worship the Christ of Christmas all together and collectively rejoice in the goodness and faithfulness of our God. The students were dismissed by class to meet with their teachers to give some closure to our hasty exit on the 3rd and to wish each other a blessed Christmas. While teachers and students met the parents and Mr. Taylor, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Jamerson met in the sanctuary to get an update on the school restoration project and ask questions.
I would ask those of you who have access to our school website to please share these updates with CCS friends who cannot get to our website – thank you.
Gym floor – Tonight at midnight will be the end of the 5th day for Munter’s drying out the underneath of our gym floor. The humps are coming down more each day and we are praying it will soon flatten out completely. It may never be a perfect gym floor but it is an investment worth trying to save.
Insulation – We are hoping to spray in closed-cell rigid insulation in all exterior walls soon. The batt insulation has been installed in the interior walls.
Sheetrock – We have a very generous offer from a company willing to sheetrock the entire flood damaged portion of CCS!
Floors – Teacher and an army of volunteers have scraped and used power buffers to grind off the old carpet glue. Future flooring decisions are in the works.
Library Books – Lamplighter Publishing offered to sell us an entire set of their published classics (over 100 titles) for 50% off and they will pay shipping. We believe we have a group which will accept that challenge and raise the needed $650.
Teachers – They are weary but carrying on. They are such wonderful troopers and are working so very hard. I admire and applaud them with all my heart. We meet for prayer and updates every morning at 11.
Lunch – Just a special thank you to Holley Gedney, her Mom and Rochester United Methodist Church and Country Cousin for providing wonderful lunches every day at noon. We are blessed and well fed!
Miss Roberts is putting an absolutely heart-warming story on this website about a CCS preschooler who wanted to do something to help her school and so she…..well, you need to read the story.
We closed the evening singing JOY TO THE WORLD and having several parents and a student close in prayer. What a special evening together – thank you for coming and being a part.
The Lord is sending so many blessings and provisions our way it is hard to keep up with them! If you are reading this and have helped at the school, prayed for this school or believed in what we are doing to any degree then we thank you and ask God to return your generosity ten fold! He is faithful!
In His Service,
Denny Taylor
12/11/07 -A BIG thank you to Breanna Weeks from CCS!!!
This Christmas ornament was given to CCS along with a donation of $258.00 from Breanna & Mary Weeks who hand decorated ornaments and is selling them for $5 each then giving the money to the school. The tag on the ornament reads: "for the relief efforts of Centralia Christian School after the flood in December 2007. Thank you for your support." This sweet preschooler sold the ornaments at her church and they even have some orders online and said that there will be more money when those are sold.
CCS -12/10/07
ATTENTION ALL AWESOME VOLUNTEERS AT CCS
We simply cannot express enough gratitude for the hundreds of willing hands who have helped us progress this far.
Sunday, Cornerstone Church has worked hard on the chapel area and pressure washing and sanitizing. Also, the gym floor looks like it is responding to the heat treatment and laying flatter by the day.
Please read this whole notice because it contains very important information:
NUMBER ONE: The City of Centralia has put a RESTRICTED USE NOTICE on our facility. In response to this we have made the following decisions based on SAFETY, SANITATION AND SECURITY CONCERNS:
1) No children under 16 in the school until further notice. This includes staff children. Of course the irony is that our volunteer student army has already been exposed to a lot of contamination but our concern now is for their safety as we near (we hope) rebuilding the exterior walls and sheetrocking the interior.
* Parents are encouraged to take turns watching children for one another if they wish to volunteer at the school.
2) Hours of restoration are set at 9:00 am to 9:00 pm and we ask everyone to honor this. Our faithful people are such hard workers it is hard to get them to leave sometimes. It takes us about an hour to shut down all the heaters, close windows and secure the school each night.
3) Marv Jamerson and myself will be taking overlapping shifts so please continue to sign in and out each time you come and check in with us for work assignments.
________________________Other Info__________________
The CCS school board will be meeting Dec. 10th and 17th at the school, 7:00 pm in the library
If you are reading this notice and know of a CCS family without access to internet please call them to give them this info.
I understand the dump is no charge through Dec. 31st.
Remember our all school meeting at the Centralia Church of God on Borst at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, Dec. 11th for all CCS families. We will all meet in the sanctuary together at first.
I will close with a little trivia:
CCS lost 1,711 library books in the Great Flood of ’07 but we still have thousands of others!!
Cash donations thus far total $2,950
Thank you for standing by your school with your prayers, dedicated volunteer work and encouraging words, calls, e-mails and notes. You are the best. Please pray for five CCS families (that we know of thus far) who were severely impacted by the flood and lost so much.
God bless and hope to see you Tuesday night!
Denny Taylor
12/8/07
All-school reconnect night!
Please join us Tuesday night, Dec. 11th, at the Church of God at 3320 Borst Ave. 6:30-8 pm, for an all CCS gathering of parents and students.
Please meet in the sanctuary for a brief worship time and then teachers will meet in the gym with their students while Mr. Taylor meets with the parents for an informational meeting.
We will all join together again for a closing prayer.
This will be a great time to celebrate the goodness of God and refocus on the reason for Christmas – Jesus’ birth!
Thank you for praying and see you there!
In His Service,
Denny Taylor
12/6/07 -To our CCS Families and Friends!
Our teachers and staff are doubly overwhelmed – first with the magnitude of the task before us to restore CCS. But, secondly with the incredible volunteer “army” which shows up for duty each day – some for a few hours, some for 12 hours shifts – but all with a heart to work. What a thrill to have one CCS mom say this morning that she could run an errand if needed and the phone rang with a CCS friend who had a check for $1,000 if someone could come by to pick it up! Bingo – the Lord is so good!
After meeting with our teachers and the board we agreed that our first goal is to return to school with a “normal” school schedule on January 2nd. We will not have carpet or the bottom two feet of sheetrock in most areas. I know there are many questions and we hope to address those at an all-school meeting next week. Our teachers would like to meet with their students one more time before Christmas and I will meet with parents then we will all come together to celebrate the goodness of the Lord.
Please check the website this weekend for details of time and place.
Two of the most frequent questions are:
1) Did the school have flood insurance? Answer is no – our insurance company (Church Mutual) does not offer that option on their policies. They are sending an adjuster next week just to survey the damage – no promises. We do have a FEMA claim started in case there is money available. Other grant money is being pursued as well.
2) What about the 12 days of missed school? In January we will work over the school year calendar in regards to staff days, professional days, built-in snow days, etc. to minimize extending the year. We are required to have a certain number of instructional hours by the State of Washington and we will figure out a school end date that will satisfy that requirement. We really appreciate everyone remembering that your tuition is for an entire school year (not just for particular months). Otherwise Nov. and Dec. would not be good bargains! If this schedule change will impact your family in a significant way and you need assistance with child care, tuition, etc. please contact the office and explain your need. We obviously do not have unlimited resources but we will do whatever we can.
I know there are many other questions and I hope to tackle some of those in the next few days and at our meeting. Thank you for your prayers and just plain hard work, long hours, servant heart and willing hands that have amazed all who hear how we are rising above this with the Lord’s help. Cornerstone Community Church (who meet in our school) is having a prayer meeting and work party this Sunday not only to clean their equipment, etc. but also to help us however they can. Please pray for some of our school families who have lost much in the flood.
In His Service,
Denny Taylor |
