Before everyone came in, I stood in the back of the chapel and took a few pictures. For members of my church, this room holds historical significance, but for a child recently moved to the small sleepy suburb in 1970, it was where we attended church.
It's not a big space, but it felt so much bigger when I was younger. As I sat and listened to the Sunday School lesson today, I felt the crisp air-conditioned air waft around me. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was no air conditioning--we all folded up our programs and turned them into fans to earn a small amount of comfort.
The pioneers who built it sacrificed almost everything to relocate thousands of miles from their homes, and the building that remains stands as a testament to their commitment and faith.
The room with rock walls several feet thick remains a functioning chapel, and is not upstaged at all by its sibling chapel built decades later to the north. We use the newer chapel for our main services--soft seats and all, but the older one, that's the one with personality, with charm.
The older chapel is also where my father's funeral services were held.
Like most chapels, the building is unused a majority of the week. Thousands of cars pass by it day and night. Thousands of worshipers have sat on its benches. I don't know how long the building will stand, because eventually all things decay. It may take years or centuries, but one day, a solitary parishioner will no longer be able to stand at the back of the room and remember all that the building means to them. Such is life.
