Two months ago I posted a blog entry about the preliminary work being done to prepare for the construction of the new parish church in Torit town. Well, while I was away work on the new building itself commenced. It will be a very large octagonal building able to seat hundreds of people, and is being built by a friendly and respectful construction team from Uganda. The panoramic photos above and below (click on them to enlarge) give you an idea of the size of the building. The main entrace is near the existing ruins of the previous church, which will have to be demolished.
The builders are using local methods, which means using mallets to break large rocks by hand into gravel to be used as aggregate in the concrete, and hand formed bricks that are baked in makeshift kilns of about 10,000 count each, ingeniously stacked in such a way as to be fired from below with wood.
The recent heavy downpours have impeded the work a bit, filling the trenches with rainwater and making it difficult to trudge through the mud, but the construction team continues on undaunted.
Amazingly, Our Lady of the Assumption Parish has raised more than $50,000 locally through second collections at Sunday Masses, but that amount is still far short of the total cost of the new building, for which they will have to rely on additional donations. The parish continues to develop though; while I was a way a third Sunday Mass is classical Arabic was added for people who were displaced in the north during the war and are accustomed to worship in that language.
To donate online, please CLICK HERE.
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