Volunteer Update

Skip, Facilities Manager, has provided an update on work that has been completed at the Creation Museum through the help of volunteers:

On Thursday, August 25, 75 members of a father and son mission team, arranged by ICHE (Illinois Christian Home Educators), arrived at the Creation Museum to volunteer.

They started Thursday evening with a meeting in our Special Effects Theatre. I spoke to them concerning our project and the scope of work they would be involved in. I took them on a tour of the facility, answered questions and gave directions for the upcoming 2 days of work.

We started early Friday morning by dividing the team into 3 groups. The first group helped install our lawn irrigation system, the second group worked on distributing mulch throughout various areas of the property, and the third group worked on the new waterfall features on the nature trails.

We were able to get a lot of work done in each area. The mulch team distributed over 70 yards of mulch throughout the landscaped areas in the morning hours. While this took place, the irrigation team worked adjacent to them placing in sprinkler pipe and filling in the trenches.

The mulch crew worked so well as a team we decided to order another semi-load of mulch for the afternoon. The truck arrived during lunch and began to dump the mulch in the same spot as the previous load. As the dump bed was raised, the mulch did not slide out as expected when the bed was up to its maximum height, it became unbalanced and toppled over onto one of our parking lot islands with a resounding crash. Praise the Lord, no one was hurt and the damage was minimal.

As the surprised group returned from lunch they saw the accident and then all hands pitched in to remove the mulch from the overturned semi bed. In a few short hours, the team distributed all of the mulch into the rest of the landscaped areas, allowing the recovery truck to come and haul the broken trailer away. By supper time 160 yards of mulch had been delivered and placed in the Museum parking lot landscaped areas.

The waterfall team was able to accomplish a lot as well. When they arrived to the work area, they found the basic form for the streams had already been dug into the ground. They started the finish grading of the water feature with shovels along with the help of a back-hoe. The stream bed liner and underlayment were then put into place. This work took most of the day. By the end of the work day, we were ready to begin placing 2,000 pound river boulders and rocks into the stream bed and along the sides.

Some other projects were also done during the day by various volunteers. AiG had a Staff/Family picnic planned for Saturday and some of the items needed for that event were put up on Friday by the team members. They also helped move various left over construction items around the property to storage or loaded onto a vehicle for disposal.

On Friday evening, after dinner, the team had a wonderful challenge presented to them by Ken Ham in the Special Effects Theatre. After Ken spoke, he asked them to assemble in the Museum Lobby and he showed them the newest additions to the Museum, 3 animatronic figures that were installed on the lobby waterfall feature. The team was amazed at how real they looked with their movements.

Saturday morning everyone met for breakfast and we divided up into work teams again. This time we sent one group to work with set up and running the AiG staff picnic, another group went out front to continue working on the irrigation system, and the last group went back to the water feature to install rocks.

At the staff picnic the volunteers helped in every area. They refereed games, distributed food, monitored the trash and filled in wherever needed. The irrigation crew concentrated on working at the main entrance to the property and digging a new irrigation line on the north side of the building. They installed pipe, sprinkler heads, and groomed the soil to finish the landscape planting.

I helped the rock crew all day as we placed huge boulders and other stones along the stream bed. We were really able to accomplish a lot of work on the property, saving AiG thousands of dollars with the help from the volunteers.

Saturday evening after supper, Mike M. spoke to the group in the Special Effects Theatre. The team had a great blessing hearing from Mike about the authority of God’s word. One young man came up after the meeting and shared how he really needed to hear the message and to have this weekend experience with his dad.

The team left on Sunday Morning with many new memories and a renewed appreciation for the Word of God.

I hope to continue to see many more families becoming co-laborers with us as we endeavor to bring the Creation Museum to life.

Thanks again for joining us. We appreciate all of your prayers and support for the museum.