It took years of praying and months of planning. At the end of it all, it took two days of travel. The former King of Kings Lutheran Church has finally been moved from the corner of St. Albert Trail and Coal Mine Road to its new home in Morinville. The church will be the new spiritual home for parishioners with The Father’s House Christian Fellowship of Morinville.
“They’re extremely excited,” said Jim Sandmaier, the chair of the church’s committee, noting his own sense of satisfaction. “I’ve actually been working on this as chairman for 10 years now.”
In the past, the church went through planning stages with two other builders, both of which failed to materialize before this gift came through. Last year, the vacant 975-square-metre building was donated by Landrex, which bought the land in Erin Ridge North for a retail and residential development. The church needed to be carefully divided into four separate pieces in order for each to fit on the special flatbed trucks equipped for highway travel.
The route took them under power lines and across the Highway 37 overpass then through some fields. The process started just after midnight on Sunday night so as to interfere with traffic as little as possible.
It was slated to reach its new home located on Secondary Highway 642 west of Morinville by Tuesday afternoon.
When the move is over, the work still continues.
“We have a basement poured, which the Christian school will be going into. It’s all prepared. It’s going to take them about 12 days to place the buildings onto the foundation.”
There will be a 75-foot space between two pieces where the sanctuary will go. They will build walls and a roof on top of that to create a new addition.
The total cost of the project is $3.8 million, Sandmeier said, but the church is still working to raise the money. They’ve been working through the full project in stages. Phase 1 involved purchasing the land and building it up. Getting the actual structure on top of the foundation is Phase 2.
“We have enough to move forward as we have so far. That’s the way it’s been through the whole thing. We just go on faith. When we have enough, we do phase 1. We get enough, we do phase 2.”
Phase 3 – still to come – entails preparing the inside of the finished completed building.
