Project: Remove old entrance

 There is an existing entrance on the Ristee (Estonian for "Crossroads") Church. It leads into the foyer, but is not wheelchair accessible. In addition, it blocks another entrance to the basement of the church where Waumba Land is located. The only way into Waumba Land currently is through the sanctuary.

The plans are to eliminate the current entrance and replace it with two entrances: wheelchair accessible ramps to both the foyer and Waumba Land.

In this picture you see David sitting on the stairs of the current entrance. The stairs, roof over the stairs, and the wall to the left of the stairs must all be removed. In addition, the wall behind the stairs must be removed to gain access to the basement door. This basement door currently opens onto a storage closet behind and slightly below the stairs in the picture.

The first task is to separate the roof over the stairs from the main building. Enter or first hero, Auris, a local Estonian who climbed onto the roof and used a large saw and diamond-edged masonry blade to cut mostly through the concrete and completely through the embedded rebar. When it was done, the room was attached to the church by a narrow band of concrete.

At this point, we were pretty sure that we needed to shore up the roof so that it would not fall before we were ready.

This is Peep (Ristee's pastor) on the roof with Kevin using a power hammer to clear the last of the concrete.

This is Peep (the two e's sound something between a short "e" and a long "a" sound).

This is our next hero. This tractor and bucket are going to knock over the wall and clean up the mess.

Going...

Going...

Gone!

Only thing left to do is clean up the mess.