Just down the road from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia,where a thousand white supremacists congregated around a statue ofRobert E. Lee this weekend, is another historical landmark. Its alarge, two-story brick building called the Jefferson School, which firstunderwent construction in 1924the same year that the Confederatemonument went upat the insistence of the local black community, whosechildren were barred from the citys high schools because ofsegregation. Now the school is on the National Register of HistoricPlaces.

On Monday night, a few hundred Charlottesville residents gathered at theJefferson School, in an auditorium on the second floor, for a communitymeeting. Two days before, three people died and nineteen were injuredwhen violent demonstrators from across the country came toCharlottesville with guns, shields, weapons, and flaming tikitorches for a Unite the Right rally. Well fucking kill these people if wehave to, one of themtold ViceNews. A twenty-year-old neo-Nazi from Ohio ran over counter-protestersin his car, in an act that Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, latercalled domestic terrorism. (The President initially condemned violenceon many sides, then followed up on Tuesday afternoon by saying thatthere were very fine people on both sides.) But, almost as soon asthey had arrived, the agitators were gone, and community members wereleft to try to make sense of what had just happened.

One of the local leaders at the school was instantly recognizable toeverybody: a sixty-five-year-old reverend named Alvin Edwards. WhenTerry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, came to town on Sunday, hewent directly to a service at the Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church,which is Edwardss congregation. Hes been there for the past thirty-sixyears, and during that time hes also served as the citys mayor and asa member of its school board. His years in politics have only seemed tostrengthen his ties to his parishioners, and he likes to joke, withfolksy charm, about his B.C. daysbefore Christwhen he lived inIllinois, where he grew up with plans to make money and to be anindustrial engineer. Edwards marched with the counter-protesters overthe weekend, but these days hes best known for founding a broadcoalition of local faith leaders called the Charlottesville ClergyCollective.

For the past month, the Collective has met weekly to prepare for theincursion that took place this weekend. The violence outstripped evenEdwardss expectations, and he and others in the Collective are tryingto balance spiritual and pragmatic imperatives in the aftermath of thetragedy. The local debate over what to do with the citys Confederatemonuments, which was fractious but never violent, will flare again atthe end of the month, with another public hearing on the issue. Youcant let others have the last word, but we have to move to the highground, Edwards said. If they come back, we have to shout louder andmore often.

In 2015, after a white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina,murdered eight church members and their pastor, Edwards wondered what would havehappened if a similar attack had taken place at his own congregation.Would he have called any of his fellow-clergy in Charlottesville fortheir support? The answer was no, he told me, when we met in hisoffice Monday afternoon. We didnt have the kind of relationship thatwould warrant a call like that. Why would I call you when I barely knowyou? The clergy community herethe faith communityhas been dividedsince desegregation. It was almost like they were nonexistent. They wereover there; we were over here. Youd almost think they didnt want tocome over, because they were afraid of the projects! It was adisturbing realization that Edwards vowed to correct immediately, sothat summer he started calling other pastors to float the idea of acollective.

The initial proposition was simple: once a month, a small group of whiteand black pastors, from different denominations, would meet forbreakfast and discuss activities that they could do together, such as takinga day trip to Monticello. We talked about how we didnt know eachother, he said. We had a bunch of ideas. But we werent prepared forwhat happened with the K.K.K. coming here. We didnt know that was goingto happen when we formed this. In May, two permit applications camebefore the City Councilthe first was for a Ku Klux Klan rally, to beheld in July, and the second was for Unite the Right. Attendance atthe Collective went from about five or six regulars per session to closeto fifty.

We talked about the safety of those demonstrating close to the front,and about whether or not we wanted to march down there, or go pray,Edwards said, of the meetings. He has the slightly more conservativeoutlook of an elder statesman, and hed sooner lead a prayer vigil thanrush into the fray. My thought was that we should completely ignore theKlansmen, he told me. Their numbers were smallthis wasnt the Klan ofold, he arguedand theyd clearly come from out of town. The worstthing you can do to a person is to not listen to him. I hate whensomeone does that to me, he said. But in the Collective you had theones who wanted to confront them, and I respect that, he told me.

Ultimately, the group decided to stage a counter-protest against theKlansmen, who in July flocked to another Confederate monument in town, astatue of Stonewall Jackson, in Justice Park. Elaine Thomas, a priest atSt. Pauls Memorial Church, a mostly white Episcopalian congregationacross the street from the University of Virginia, had joined theCollective at its inception and marched with the other members at theK.K.K. counter-protest. Were not activists, but we are people whowanted to make our presence known, Thomas told me. Young racial-justiceactivists whod shown up to stand in opposition to the Klansmen ralliedaround the pastors when they arrived. As we rounded the corner toJustice Park, they rushed toward us, she said. They kept saying, Theclergy are here! The clergy are here!

There are a number of historically influential churches inCharlottesville, but Mt. Zion and St. Pauls are especially emblematic.One is mostly black, the other mostly white. Mt. Zion sits at the bottomof a hill, in a quiet neighborhood called Fifeville, on the outskirts ofdowntown. St. Pauls is on University Avenue, within feet of theschools iconic statue of Thomas Jefferson; its classical portico andbrick building are an extension of the campuss architectural style. OnFriday night, close to a thousand people were packed into St. Pauls fora prayer service when a throng of torch-wielding demonstrators startedmassing across the street. Several police cars sped to the church justbefore the service let out, after reports that one of the demonstratorshad brandished a rifle.

I visited St. Pauls earlier this week to talk with its rector, theReverend William Peyton, a native Virginian whose great-great-grandfather lost his arm at the First Battle of Manassas. He has onlyrecently returned to the state, after serving as the associate rector atSt. James Church, in New York City, for the past seven years; he andEdwards are still only loose acquaintances. Peyton marched with a largegroup on Saturday that started at the Jefferson School and continued tothe First United Methodist Church, which is directly across the streetfrom Emancipation Park. As armed demonstrators moved along the fringesof the park beating counter-protesters, Peyton and others stood in thechurch parking lot to make sure that the property wasnt overrun.

There are all kinds of deep and intertwining historical ironies here,Peyton told me, as we walked through St. Pauls on Monday. We had sevenhundred people in the church the other night. There were Nazi torchesoutside. Some of the pews in the chapel bear the names of Confederatesoldiers. This church also had a proud history of leadership during thecivil-rights era. Thomas Jefferson was a white supremacist, he said,adding to the litany. How far was Robert E. Lee from Jefferson in termsof world view? But we deify Jefferson in this town.

Even the liberal politics of Charlottesville were complex and tangled,he told me. On one side was what Peyton called Old Virginia, acontingent of residents with a more conservative, nostalgist bent, whonever quite defended the Confederate monuments but still saw the CityCouncils vote to remove them, in February, as a needless provocation.On the other was a progressive group anchored by students and faculty atthe university, some of whom would leave town when their time at schoolwas up. Its a big university and a small city, he said. People whocome here from elsewhere dont always appreciate the depth of thehistoric ties to the Confederacy.

Peyton, like Edwards, wants his church to be a source of moral clarityand purpose, without overt activism becoming its sole function duringtrying times. Im trying to lead a church whose Christian identityleads my members to their politics, and not to have their politics leadthem to the church, he said. On Saturday morning, while protestersgathered downtown, Edwards invited congregants to Mt. Zion to pray fromsix until noon. To hear him describe it, the worshippers were a criticalpart of the resistance, too. We were trying to be prayerful, and Imgrateful for that, because I believe it would have been worse if peoplehadnt prayed, he told me.

The Collective is now at a crossroads. Some of its participants,especially younger pastors, grew restless in the weeks before thisweekends confrontation. They wanted the group to prepare for nonviolentdirect action and to hold the line against the white supremacists whowere coming to town by the van-load. You cant wish this away, SethWispelwey, a recently ordained minister, told me at the JeffersonSchool, on Monday. He helped a colleague, Brittany Caine-Conley, put outa nationalcall for pastors to come to Charlottesville to join the counter-protesters onthe front lines. The move wasnt exactly a consensus position amongmembers of the Collective, but its defenders saw it as necessary giventhe circumstances.

On Monday night, one sentiment seemed to elicit broad and unqualifiedagreement. There is a specific and demonstrable connection betweensymbols of racism and acts of racism, Lisa Woolfork, a University ofVirginia professor and member of Black Lives Matter, said. They keepcoming because we keep inviting them, she said, of the whitesupremacists from out of town. To rescind the invitation, you have toremove the Confederate monuments. Her statement drew the biggestapplause of the night.

See the article here:
How Church Leaders in Charlottesville Prepared for White Supremacists - The New Yorker

Instead, the items completely transformed and repurposed, creating an elaborate, full-sized gingerbread house set for the lessons taught at Vacation Bible School.

The woman behind the intricate set design, church secretary and former art teacher Shirley Johnson, has been working at the church since 1989. Now on Highway 29 in Alexandria, the church was originally housed in a smaller building. Because of space issues, decor for VBS was not always as detailed as it is now.

"We didn't do much then," she said. "We had a character, a tie-dyed sheet, stuffed animals and a paper palm tree. It's come a long way."

Now, the set building process takes months. The planning process for summer VBS begins in January, when the theme is established.

"We don't use anybody else's themes," Johnson said. "We write our own script, come up with the (Bible) verses, all the lessons. Pretty much before the meeting is over I can see it (the set) in my head."

From there, Johnson sketches out the set and begins brainstorming what materials the staff will need to construct it. In late May, the materials are brought to the church and construction of the set begins, typically taking about three months to complete. Assisting Johnson with construction are church members Don Kuelbs and Gene Ward.

Nothing from the set is ordered online or elsewhere. Each item involved is constructed by the church staff. For example, the multitude of M&Ms decorating the set this year are each cut from styrofoam and hand painted. The gingerbread frosting is fashioned from caulking, which was then spray painted white and glittered. The counters in the set's store were built from scratch.

This year, since the set involved a store, certain items were brought in by church members. Johnson even managed to track down the exact cash register she was envisioning.

"I have to give a shout out to ACE Hardware for that," she said. "I walked in one day and there sat that beautiful cash register, exactly what I wanted. I asked about it and they said it had been in the family a long time and they let us borrow it for the week. It would not have been the same without it."

Johnson says this year's set is by far the most colorful and animated, but sets from past years were special in their own way.

"One of my absolute favorites was Jesus University," she said. "We built bookshelves to the top of the cross (in the sanctuary). That was probably the most challenging because there were so many pieces to it."

Another challenging but rewarding set involved building a lighthouse.

"I think building-wise that was the hardest," Johnson said. "It touched the ceiling and was made of wood and styrofoam. You can do amazing things with styrofoam."

In some cases, materials from past sets are saved and reused for future sets. This year, the last of the styrofoam from a previous safari-themed set was used.

"The jungle is very precious to me," Johnson said. "I hated painting over it."

Johnson says one of the highlights each year is seeing the children's reactions when they come for the first day of Vacation Bible School, which runs in the evenings at the church.

"We're doing it for the children, sharing God's word in a proper way," Johnson said. "The kids do appreciate it. They have a lot of fun."

Go here to read the rest:
Vacation transformation at Good Shepherd Church - Alexandria Echo Press

McDONOUGH Turner Church Road is just one many dirt roads in Henry County that will soon be transformed to asphalt.

On Tuesday, the Henry County Board of Commissioners approved a $987,278 bid to pave the road. McLeRoy Inc., of Zebulon submitted the lowest bid for the project, which was approved by commissioners unanimously.

SPLOST Transportation Project Director Roque Romero expects a notice to proceed for construction to be issued by the end of August. The project is expected to be complete within 300 days, he said.

The project, which consists of paving east of the bridge to Ga. Highway 20, will be funded using District 3 SPLOST IV funds. Turner Church Road is the last of District 3 dirt roads to be paved under SPLOST IV collections.

During the Tuesday meeting, the BOC received an update on SPLOST IV projects, which included other dirt road projects that are remaining:

Two of five roads have been completed. Construction for Lester Mill Road is in progress, while the design for Peeksville Road from the bridge to Old Jackson Road is in progress. Right of way acquisition is in progress for Peeksville Road from New Hope Road to the bridge.

Six of 10 dirt roads have been paved under SPLOST IV. Right of way acquisition is underway for Amah Lee Road, from Old Highway 3, and Thoroughbred Drive, from Greenwood Road.

Preliminary design is in progress for Selfridge Road, from Speedway Boulevard to the Atlanta Speedway Airports entrance, and South Cleveland Church Road, from New Morn Drive to Stone Road.

One of two dirt road projects is in progress. Commissioners are expected to approve a construction bid for Elliott Road, from East Lake Road to Crumbley Road, in the coming months.

There were no SPLOST IV dirt road updates listed for District 5.

Continue reading here:
Turner Church Road approved for paving construction, others on list - Henry Herald

CONNELLY SPRINGS The North Carolina Department of Transportation will begin a project to replace two bridges that date to the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential administration by Monday.

On Thursday, NCDOT announced the start date for the project that will replace a pair of 60-year-old bridges on Interstate 40 that cross over Berea Church Road in Connelly Springs. The department says tens of millions of cars have passed over the bridges, which were constructed in 1956 (eastbound) and 1958 (westbound).

The $8.56 million contract for work on the bridges was awarded to NHM Constructors of Asheville. By Monday, NHM will close Berea Church Road to begin what is expected to be a two-year process to replace the bridges. The department previously announced that aside from planting, reforestation and permanent vegetation establishment, all work on the project will be completed by Sept. 1, 2019.

According to information from NCDOT, NHM will construct an onsite detour to allow I-40 traffic to flow in all four lanes. A local detour has been established for Berea Church Road to help accelerate construction, the department said. The Berea Church Road detour will direct westbound traffic to Burke Boulevard, then to U.S. Highway 70, then to Knobs Landing Road, then back to Berea Church Road. The opposite applies to eastbound vehicles on Berea Church Road, according to a release.

NCDOT requests that motorists follow detour signs, obey all posted speed limits and slow down in construction zones.

The project to replace the bridges is part of a 10-year plan for Burke County. Many of the projects slated for the first five years of the plan already are funded, according to information from NCDOT.

Other NCDOT projects that are part of its 10-year plan include:

I-40 paving Pave 23.8 miles of road from mile marker 95.2 to mile marker 119 at a cost of $23.5 million. Construction will start in 2018.

Exit 100 (Jamestown Road) Upgrade the interchange at a cost of $2.42 million, plus an additional $250,000 for preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2018 and construction will start in 2020.

Exit 107 (Drexel Road) Upgrade the interchange at a cost of $16.1 million, plus another $400,000 that already has been spent on preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2019 and construction will start in 2020.

U.S. Highway 64/Burkemont Road Improve the interchange at a cost of $1.41 million, plus another $250,000 that already has been spent to do preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2019 and construction should start in 2021.

Exit 111 (Carolina Street, Valdese) Revise the interchange at a cost of $3.61 million, plus an additional $250,000 for preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2019 and construction will start in 2021.

N.C. Highway 181 road widening Widen less than a mile from St. Marys Church Road to Clay Street at a cost of $10.9 million. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2020 and construction will start in 2022.

Exit 116 (Old N.C. Highway 10) Upgrade the interchange and remove two-way traffic at a cost of $14.8 million. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2022 and construction will start in 2024.

Exit 112 (Mineral Springs Mountain Road, Eldred Street) Construct interchange improvements at a cost of $16 million. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2022 and construction will start in 2024.

N.C. Highway 181/Bost Road widening Widen 2.8 miles to three lanes at a cost of $18.4 million. Planning and design is in progress and the right-of-ways will be secured in 2023 and construction will start in 2025.

Excerpt from:
Road construction project on I-40, Berea Church Road to begin Monday - Morganton News Herald

Houston Business Journal

Photos: Churches expand with population boom northwest of Houston Houston Business Journal In April 2016, Houston's First Baptist Church broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot church on 32 acres off the Grand Parkway in Bridgeland. After a little more than a year of construction, the church opened the doors to its new Cypress campus on June 11.

The rest is here:
Photos: Churches expand with population boom northwest of Houston - Houston Business Journal

Lebanon The white steeple that once adorned the First Baptist Church, rising above the roofs of School Street, soon could be revived under recently unveiled plans for a new church building.

A large steeple isnt the only feature architects working to design the new building borrowed from its predecessor, the remains of which were razed in the wake of an arson that destroyed the structure in December.

Renderings for the new church depict a Gothic Revival-style exterior and large windows to draw natural light, features congregants will find familiar.

But those plans are dependent on approval from the Lebanon Planning Board, which is scheduled to review the design during its Aug. 14 meeting. Planning Board approval is the final stage of city review needed before construction can begin.

There also is concern from parishioners that the church might not have enough money to construct the steeple, which is why the building is designed to stand without the feature, according to Jack Althouse of the Pennsylvania-based Althouse, Jaffe & Associates architectural firm.

My goal was to design a church that fit into the community architecturally, Althouse said of the proposed building.

Althouse, who is nationally known for designing churches, said he drew inspiration from churches throughout New England.

The new church will be built on the same downtown Lebanon site as the previous church, which dated to 1870. With the steeple in place, it would stand at a little more than 83 feet tall and would occupy more than an estimated 12,000 square feet of the roughly quarter-acre lot.

Thats roughly the same square footage as the former building, Althouse said, but it wont be a carbon copy.

The buildings footprint is more square than its rectangular-shaped predecessor, meaning Althouse was able to add several modern features.

Inside, a large lobby will greet visitors and churchgoers. The space is a growing trend among churches, Althouse said, giving congregations a place to meet and a space where people can participate in services without actually being in the sanctuary.

Often people have to excuse themselves during worship, Althouse said, adding that the lobby allows such people to remain in the building.

There are plans to do away with church pews in favor of chairs installed in a semicircle, he said. A balcony will be built in the sanctuary, and the worship platform will have enough space to accommodate live music.

It should be a really inspiring place to worship in, Althouse said.

The congregation also asked that the building include classrooms physically separated by walls and a kitchen, according to Althouse. In the old building, members were forced to use dividers to separate educational programs, he said.

Although church moderator Keith Davio hasnt yet seen the plans submitted to the city, hes been pleased with renderings brought to the congregation, which has been meeting weekly at the Lebanon Middle School since the fire.

(Althouse) seems to have incorporated the majority of what were looking for, Davio said in a phone interview on Thursday. Our building committee has put a lot of time and effort into that. Theyve got a good product.

Davio declined to say how much the building is expected to cost or how much money the church was able to collect from its insurance company after the fire. He said completion of the classrooms also might be dependent on funding.

Aside from large windows and a new exterior, there also are plans for minor landscaping and a patio on the property, according to Rod Finley of Pathways Consulting. One American elm and six crabapple trees are proposed for the site, he said.

Because the building is grandfathered, it will not be required to meet current parking standards or conform to maximum height requirements in the citys Residential 2 zoning district, Lebanon Zoning Administrator Tim Corwin said.

The proposal garnered city Zoning Board approval in June, when the church requested a special exception for its new footprint.

If all goes well, construction could begin in September and the building could be ready for use as early as next summer, Althouse said earlier this spring.

For Lebanon resident Linda Armstrong, construction would be a welcome site. Armstrongs house on Green Street sits across from the former church site, which now is fenced off.

I want to see the church put back there. I dont like looking at the hole, she said, looking out from her porch on Thursday. Its totally weird not having the church there.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.

Read the original:
First Baptist Shares Plans - Valley News

This 114-unit building is under construction on the site of the former Charity Neighborhood Baptist Church building on Bedford Avenue and Lincoln Place. View Full Caption

DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith

CROWN HEIGHTS A church group that sold their former worship space to a Crown Heights developer says they're being cheated out of space promised to them in the new building going up where the old church once stood.

The Charity Neighborhood Baptist Church had operated at the historic Savoy Theater building at 1515 Bedford Ave. since 1975, members of the church said outside the lot on Tuesday, but moved out after a 2012 sale of the building for $575,000 to 1515 Bedford Avenue Realty LLC.

The church agreed to sell after signing a contract with the company stipulating Charity Neighborhood would receive approximately 5,000 square feet of ground floor space for use as a religious sanctuary, the document reads, and another 2,000 square feet in the basement for a community facility.

But the churchs leader, Bishop Kareem Evans, said the developers representative Yosi Cohen told him several months ago the church would receive space in the basement only not on the ground floor, as promised.

Now, the church community is calling out the developer publicly to right the wrong and will go to court over the issue if necessary, Evans said.

This was our building from the beginning, he said.

Calls for comment to the developers office and Yosi Cohen were not returned Tuesday.

The church has support from high-profile attorney Sanford Rubenstein, who spoke on their behalf Tuesday, members of Black Lives Matter and Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner and aunt to Evans, who has attended the church since 2009. She took issue with the developers trying to force her congregation into a basement.

Nobody would build a church in the basement, she said. We dont want them to disgrace us to dishonor us. They would have never done this in other certain neighborhoods.

Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome, left, stands with Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who is a member of the Charity Neighborhood Baptist Church, slated to take space in the newly constructed building at 1515 Bedford Ave. in Crown Heights. (DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith)

BLM activist Hawk Newsome stood with Carr outside the construction site at Bedford Avenue and Lincoln Place with a sign reading, A man robs god when he doesnt honor an agreement with a church.

It takes a special kind of evil to cheat a church, he said.

Construction has been ongoing at the site since the Savoy Theater building was torn down in early 2014. The building going up on the site will be 10 stories tall and include 114 residential units when complete, building records show.

Read this article:
Developer of Church Lot Cheating Congregation Out of Space, Group Says - DNAinfo

Over the week of July 16 21, the Central Texas Conference Youth in Mission group will gather at the First United Methodist Church to stay inside the church as they set out and volunteer in construction-based mission work. This group is one of many that travel across Texas to provide community service, with groups also gathering in Crowley, Granbury, and Temple.

The CTCYM serving in Corsicana consists of individual youths and adults from five different United Methodist churches; this includes groups from China Spring, Grapevine, Weatherford, and two from Arlington.

Christina Norris, Junior High Youth Director explained to The Daily Sun what her volunteers will be going through.

Our students and adults give up a week of their summer to work hard, sweat, and sleep on the floor because they want to follow the teaching of Christ, she said. They want to be a tangible example of Christs love We eat, sleep, play, and worship together as one family.

During the day, 10 different work teams of youth and adults will head out to do construction-based mission work in the community. Projects normally worked on may be building a wheelchair ramp for someone who is unable to easily get in and out of their home.

It is difficult to adequately describe the feeling you get when you see a wheelchair-bound home owner use their new wheelchair ramp for the first time, knowing that you and your team have truly had a difference in their life, Norris said. It is always amazing to see what a group of junior high students and adults can accomplish in one week when they work together towards a common goal. We hope to inspire others to come together and share the love of Christ to those in need.

The Daily Sun will be following the CTCYM during their stay in Corsicana and provide updates and pictures of the groups' work. To learn more about the mission group, be sure to visit the trinity student ministries website found below.

psparks@corsicanadailysun.com

OntheNet:

http://www.trinitystudentministries.org

View original post here:
Church youth mission group to provide service to community - Corsicana Daily Sun

Before the construction of Hamere Noh Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in southwest Las Vegas, Demelash Assefas congregation held services in a rented space on University Road and South Maryland Parkway.

Before and after every service, church members would set up and take down their religious objects so the next congregation could use the space. And although Ethiopian Orthodox services are traditionally on Sundays, the churchs 500 members attended on Thursdays because the space was already claimed by another congregation during their normal time.

Now the congregation has its own space closer to where members live. The Ethiopian church was completed about two years ago and is just one of many places of worship recently constructed in the rapidly growing Southwest.

Now everything is settled; we just vacuum and go on to the next service, Assefa said.

Las Vegas growth, especially in the southwest, has made church construction the bread and butter of general contractors such as George Boghos. On a Monday morning at a construction site on West Post Road, Boghos walked through the open entry of what will soon be St. Michaels Antiochian Orthodox Church, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.

I designed this and Im building it from the ground up, he said. Boghos, an architect, said he does a lot of research before embarking on each project. For St. Michaels Antiochian, he worked with the congregations priest, Father John Nicholas, to create a design faithful to the churchs ancient roots in the Middle East.

St Michaels parish was established in Las Vegas in 1965 and was originally in northeast Las Vegas, and when Father John arrived in 2001, its congregation had no more than 60 families.

Now he has 195 families.

No one lived around the church (in the northeast), Father John said. The new location is absolutely centrally located. Its very convenient for everybody, including the northwest people, Green Valley, Henderson and all that.

Boghos likely will return to the site of the Ethiopian church in the next few years to build a banquet hall and community center on an adjacent vacant lot. Assefa said his congregation is still growing; with about 500 members, the building already is at capacity. On holy days, between 800 and 1,000 people of Ethiopian descent show up for services and celebrations, he said.

Most Ethiopians live in south and southwest Las Vegas, Assefa said. We still need more space. We have a large community.

Every Sunday, more than 200 children show up for Bible study and Ethiopian-language classes, he said. An average of two baptisms are held in the church every week, Assefa said, adding to his constantly growing congregation.

From the parking lot of St. Michaels, the red roof of St. Geragos Armenian Apostolic Church is visible in the distance. The 5,800-square-foot church, which Boghos also built, sits next to an accompanying 8,000-square-foot banquet hall and community center. The church took about seven months to build and was blessed in May 2016.

The churches he has built have become part of Boghos life, too. When his eldest daughter married her husband, a Lebanese man, the couple chose St. Sharbel Catholic Church on Rancho Destino Road in southeast Las Vegas (St. Sharbel was a monk and priest from Lebano in the mid-19th century).

St. Sharbel was one of the first churches Boghos built in Las Vegas; it was completed in 2008.

Boghos has a few other projects in the works, including Govindas Sanctuary, a Hindu temple in the southeast valley that will include a worship area, a reference library with Vedic literature, living quarters, gardens and meditation sites, and rooms for yoga classes. And directly next door to St. Michaels Antiochian is the future site of Korean Areumdawoon Church, a member of the Christian Reformed Denomination.

Boghos is Armenian Catholic and added hes happy to help build houses of worship for any faith.

I believe in the good book, Boghos said. The good book says be nice to people So if youre Orthodox, if youre a Protestant, youre a Catholic. It doesnt matter.

Contact Madelyn Reese at mreese@viewnews.com or 702-383-0497. Follow @MadelynGReese on Twitter.

By the numbers

According to the UNLV Center for Democratic Culture, Nevada ranked fourth in 2015 with the greatest number of immigrants as a total share of the population after California, New York and New Jersey.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, foreign-born residents made up more than 20 percent of Clark Countys population, compared with 13 percent of the rest of the U.S. population.

Further Clark County Census data show that of Las Vegass foreign-born residents, 58 percent were from Latin America, 27.6 percent from Asia, 8.6 percent from Europe, 3.3 percent from Africa, 1.8 percent from Northern America and 0.6 percent from Oceania.

Read this article:
As southwest Las Vegas grows, so does number of churches - Las Vegas Review-Journal

PLATTSBURGH Road crews are busy again around Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties with many projects as the season gears up.

General maintenance operations are ongoing on roads throughout the region, including maintenance, ditching and guiderail repair. Traffic is controlled by flaggers when needed.

Fines are doubled for speeding in work zones, and officials urge drivers to be cautious.

Take a look at some of the projects happening now:

CITY OF PLATTSBURGH

Lorraine Street: Water-line and street reconstruction underway.

Oklahoma Avenue: Slope reconstruction at Old Base Marina area.

Bridge Street: Demolition of Highway Oil building continuing with small city park planned.

Maine Road: Getting ready for water-main pipe replacement.

Saranac River Trail: Phase 2, which will include the two bridges at Saranac Street and Durkee Street Extension, will be starting this year. Will continue through 2018.

CLINTON COUNTY

Arthur Road, Chasm Road, Town of AuSable: Paving work continuing on Chasm and Arthur roads. Anticipate some delays.

Prospect Street, Town of Champlain; Chapman, Church streets, Rouses Point: Contractor is nearing completion of work on both streets as part of construction of the Northern Tier Multi-Use Path. Next, the work will shift to Church Street in the Village of Rouses Point. The project also includes the Town of Champlain over the course of the project. Estimated completion date is Dec. 1.

Lamberton Road, Town of Mooers: Replacement of the Lamberton Road Bridge is underway, and detour routes are in place and will be maintained through the construction period. Estimated completion is Oct. 31.

Jarvis Road, Town of Peru: Replacement of the Jarvis Road Bridge underway. Detour routes will be in place and be maintained through the construction period. Estimated completion is Oct. 31.

Route 374, Town of Dannemora: Installation of 5.8 miles of new water line is continuing between the Village of Dannemora and the hamlet of Chazy Lake. Completion is scheduled for Dec. 31.

ESSEX COUNTY

Route 22, Town of Essex hamlet of Whallonsburg:Closed between County 12 (Jersey Street) and County Route 22M (Middle Road)until 5 p.m. today for culvert repair and replacement.Car detour is County Route 55 (Whallons Bay Road) out of Whallonsburg and County Route 22M (Middle Road).Trucks detour is County Route 80 (Lake Shore Road) between the hamlets of Westport and Essex.

Hulls Falls Road, Town of Keene: Road repair on stretch still damaged from Irene, when road sloughed off into the river. Road is open where Hulls Falls Road meets Route 73, but still shut to all traffic at site of repair work. Project is expected to take all summer.

Trout Brook Road, Minerva: Work starts this week to replace the bridge. A temporary span will be in place through the duration of the project.

Route 9N, AuSable Forks, town of Jay, Essex County: Route 9N bridge replacement over West Branch of the Ausable River. Bridge reduced to one alternating lane controlled by traffic signals. Tractor-trailer truck detour using Silver Lake Road (Clinton County Route 1), Bonnieview Road, Route 86 and Route 9N.

Northway (I-87), North Hudson, Essex County: Traffic reduced to one lane in each direction at Exit 29 for bridge rehabilitation over the Branch River in the Town of North Hudson, Essex County. Additionally, the on ramp at Northway Exit 29 from Blue Ridge Road to the southbound Northway is closed during construction. Motorists will be detoured south on Route 9 to the southbound on-ramp for the Northway at Exit 28 and Route 74.

FRANKLIN COUNTY

U.S. Route 11, Malone: Durable pavement marking placement will be performed 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Traffic controlled by flaggers. Expect minor delays. Completion expected by Friday, July 14.

Route 11B, Malone:Durable pavement marking placement will be performed 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Traffic controlled by flaggers. Expect minor delays.Completion expected by Friday, July 14.

State Route 30, Malone:Durable pavement marking placement will be performed 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Traffic controlled by flaggers. Expect minor delays.Completion expected by Friday, July 14.

Route 86, Town of Brighton: Work continuing between the hamlet of Gabriels and Donnellys Corners. One-way traffic controlled by flaggers.

County Route 4: Westville into Fort Covington. Paving continuing on first 4 miles off State Route 37, heading west to State Route 95. Flaggers in place; delays possible.

Lane Street bridge, Malone: Closed deck replacement expected to take five months. Detours in place.

County Road 25 bridge, Malone:Closed deck replacement expected to take five months. Detours in place.

Compiled by News Editor Suzanne Moore

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Road Construction Roundup: July 11, 2017 - Plattsburgh Press Republican