A TIME FOR PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING
Rev. Dr. Sam Thompson, Project Director.
THANKSGIVING WORSHIP AT CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NAGERCOIL.
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Psalm 103:1-2
Concordia Seminary celebrated the successful completion of Phase II of the re-construction work on campus with a thanksgiving worship service on 29 October 2018. This service was held at the Seminary chapel, and Rev. Dr. Ross E. Johnson (Director, LCMS Disaster Response) was the guest preacher. Rev. Suvisesha Muthu (President, IELC) and Rev. Dr. D. Christu Das (Principal, CTSN) led the worship service, and the chief guest for the occasion was Mr. Darin Storkson (Assistant Director, LCMS Church Relations).
The Ockhi Cyclone hit the Seminary campus with heavy storms and torrential rainfall in November 30-December 2, 2017. Subsequently, LCMS Disaster Response approved and funded re-construction work. Phase I concluded in March 2018, and helped restore the campus to normalcy, after Ockhi devastated the thirteen acre campus. In Phase II of the emergency relief work, several buildings which badly needed attention were identified and prioritized for reconstruction. The following projects were undertaken as part of Phase II work: Library and Archive reconstruction, Chapel and Faculty Room block reconstruction, Kitchen reconstruction, Main campus road tarring, and pavement Inter-locking campus.
LIBRARY MAIN BLOCK AND ARCHIVES ROOM RECONSTRUCTION
The seminary library and archives had been neglected for more than three decades, and OKCHI further deteriorated the general condition of this 86 year old building. To improve the condition of the building and to make it able to withstand any future disasters, the we undertook and successfully finished the following works: we strengthened the walls with new cement plastering, installed new heavy duty metal roofing, fixed new wiring and electrification, replaced the broken cement flooring with new verified tiling, and gave the building a facelift with new paint. In addition to these, the library catalogue was digitalized with “Koha” software, and a computer lab with twelve computers was inaugurated.
Professor Robert Roethemeyer from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne visited the campus for ten days to facilitate the re-construction process in July and August 2018. The Seminary is extremely thankful towards Prof. Roethemeyer for all his professional assistance.
The Seminary Archives is home to some fourteen thousand rare documents. The Archive room received major attention during this phase of work. The physical condition of the room and the documents had been of great concern for so long, and OCKHI put the physical condition of the archives in further danger; so we undertook major reconstruction work to restore and make the seminary archives functional again. The reconstruction efforts received professional assistance through the visit of Dr. Daniel Harmelink (Director of Concordia Historical Institute) in July and August 2018. The Seminary remains extremely grateful towards Dr. Harmelink for his valuable service towards re-building the archives after OCKHI disaster.
CHAPEL BLOCK (CHAPEL AND FACULTY ROOM) RECONSTRUCTION
The Chapel block of the seminary has two sections, the Chapel and the Faculty Room. This block is sixty six years old. In Phase II, the Chapel and the Faculty room were re-built with new plastering, flooring and electrification. To the Chapel we added granite flooring, cladding tiles for the walls, and a backlit wooden cross; moreover, we rebuilt the front of the Chapel with inter-lock bricking. The faculty room received a renovated washroom, and a new conference table was built for the faculty with teak wood that fell during the cyclone.
CORRIDOR FLOORING AND CAMPUS ROAD TARRING
In Phase II we removed the deteriorated and broken cement flooring in the Library and in the Chapel block corridors, and put down strong anti-skid granite flooring. We replaced the steps with ramps to make the corridors handicap friendly.
The main campus road was destroyed during OCKHI. We rebuilt this road with metal tarring with water draining facility, to avoid flooding during the rainy season.
KITCHEN RECONSTRUCTION WORK
The cyclone Ockhi damaged the roofing of the seminary kitchen, which was already in a deteriorating condition. The sewage system was also destroyed. In the Phase II of the campus restoration work, we added two additional rooms, with a general purpose store room, to the existed two room kitchen. The re-constructed kitchen is capable of withstanding heavy rains or storms. The re-designed kitchen, now has a serving area, a cooking space with propane gas stove, a cooking space with firewood stoves, a vegetable/ meat cutting area with wash space and a storage room.
Our Thanks and Appreciation
The campus restoration work would not have been possible without the generous support of LCMS disaster response. Our sincere appreciation and gratitude to LCMS disaster response department and especially to Rev. Dr. Ross Johnson for his unwavering support and guidance.
Our special thanks goes to Mr. Darin Storkson (Assistant Director, LCMS Church Relations) for the timely approvals and his efforts to coordinate the funding with the LCMS disaster response department. We also would like to record our appreciation to Rev. Charles Ferry (Asia Director, LCMS), Rev. Dr. Daniel Jastram (Theological Education Facilitator LCMS Asia), Rev. Dr. Edward Naumann (Theological Educator, South Asia) and the IELC officials, Rev. Suvisesha Muthu (President, IELC) Mr. Ravi Jesupadam (LCMS India Coordinator), Rev. Vijayakumar (General Treasurer, IELC) and Rev. P.N Gopinathan (IELC Secretary) for all their prayers and support towards this project. Rev. Dr. Sam Thompson (Project Director) along with Rev. C. Justin Raj (Bursar) worked in this project. The Principal,the faculty, staff and student community assisted this project in various and significant ways.