In a couple months (January 23-29, 2010) I will be traveling to Monterrey, Mexico with a group of volunteers to work at some orphanages doing various construction oriented projects.  I will be joining approximately 10 other men who will be a part of this ministry opportunity. The trip will cost approximately $1400 per person and is being funded entirely through donations and by those going on the mission trip.

I’m excited about the opportunity to serve and to minister, and I ask you, if you can, to join me in this ministry.  I am seeking your support and prayers for this mission trip.  I would appreciate your prayers for wisdom, health, strength, protection and peace for everyone going on the trip and their families.

If you are able to help financially with this trip, please forward, within the next few days, your donation to Riverview Church (address available at rivchurch.com) with the check or money order payable to “Riverview Church” and write “MX 869” in the memo line. (UPDATE, NOV 17: The deadline for tax deductible donations through Riverview for this trip has passed.)  If you don’t care about the tax deduction or prefer the simplicity of donating directly online you can do that instead here: http://mexico.nateklan.com

Thank you in advance for your prayers and your financial support.

God Bless,

Nate Klan

We ripped out the wall that had been up for the last few series’ sets and quickly proceeded to build a 30ft diner-style counter. The front of the counter is made from 4×8ft sheets of tile board (looks kind of like tile and has texture but it’s definitely not real tile) cut down in three sections. The the drum riser and the middle section of tile board on the counter was hand-painted in a checker pattern. The counter-top (painted plywood) has a strip of floor threshold attached to the front of it so it looks legit.

We had a bunch of stools shipped in and assembled them, and a generous friend lent us their diner-style cocktail table for the duration of the series. At the end of the series we’ll be selling the stools locally since they are too expensive to keep in the budget.

Probably one of our fastest set installations ever, we painted our false wall black and covered the middle section with aluminum foil. Unfortunately, the spray adhesive we used to put up the aluminum foil failed after about a day and we had to come back and staple it all back up. Message resources are available here.

We started by pulling the CRAVE series pegboard off the (horizontal) middle section of the false wall. We had built 14 stand/shelf units to set monitors on and ran all the wiring for the displays. Once the monitors were installed we put up sheets of hardboard (same material as the rest of the wall) and used a recessed lighting cut-out bit to create holes of varied sizes where the monitors are and painted the whole thing gray.

We pulled down the black fabric from our previous set build and replaced it with eighth inch hardboard and pegboard. The pegboard has 1 mil translucent plastic behind it and we drilled out holes so the backlights would make the letters CRAVE visible. All the LED lights that were pointed up were reoriented to point down and toward the back wall so that the holes in the pegboard would effectively glow with color.

The most involved part of this was attaching all the sheets of hardboard and pegboard. We went through almost two full boxes of screws. Given the option I would have used 3/16 inch thick materials but that would’ve cost nearly twice as much, which is crazy.

Message resources available here.