Busy Building: Youth with a Mission construction crews stay busy

It’s been five years and counting for David Garrigan, the facilities manager at Youth With A Mission in Lakeside, and he’s loving it.

Garrigan closed his construction business in Alabama and moved with his family to Lakeside to help with Youth With A Mission construction projects. Garrigan is one of many full-time volunteers who are living on the 37-acre campus. He is supported financially in his work by various sponsors, including churches and individuals who make monthly monetary donations. “We’re sort of like missionaries,” he said. Garrigan is part of the 180 full-time staff on campus, who instruct students from all over the world in a variety of subjects.

Garrigan said it’s great to work at Youth With A Mission. The campus is on a former Air Force base, which was built in the late 1950s, where the Air Force maintained a radar tower on Blacktail Mountain. “There’s just a lot of value in being able to give time and energy to something you really believe in,” he said. “All of the staff believe we have a calling to do this.”

Garrigan and his crew of 12 includes three maintenance staff, three apprentice staff, four apprentices and two part-time staff. They have been busy working on maintaining the existing structures and building new ones to make the campus look more like a college campus instead of a military base. Youth With A Mission’s presence in Lakeside began in 1985, and they paid off the property in 2006, Garrigan said. Since then, campus staff have been working on restructuring and remodeling buildings and updating the plumbing and heating systems.

Garrigan took over that project when he moved to Lakeside in 2008. At first it was a three-month stint in the summer, but it turned into full time. Garrigan and his staff work in a two-story construction and maintenance structure known as the “slab” building. It was just a concrete slab for years, he said. The building was completed in 2010.

Other completed projects at Youth with a Mission include moving the Bayshore Hotel from U.S. Highway 93 to the campus in 2010 after the building’s former owner donated it to YWAM. Garrigan and his crew cut the hotel into three sections, which are now used as apartments. Another recent project involved moving all the electrical and communication fiber optics underground. Jim Sutherland, a former Flathead Electric employee, helped with that project.

Two of the three dormitories have been enlarged, along with the student center, which is almost complete. The remodel of the third dorm — the Air Force base’s former bachelors officers’ quarters — is currently underway. That includes adding a kitchen and bath for each room. That project was started in April 2012 and is now 60 percent complete. It involved removing siding, installing new windows, insulation and a new heating system, relocating the kitchen and laundry and adding an upstairs lounge.

This remodel is estimated to cost $275,000, and about $130,000 is still needed, Garrigan said. “We will try to finish the majority of the project by the end of the summer. We can only do two rooms at a time because our staff is so full,” he said. Staff commit to serve for two years at a time. The crew is also working on a new recording studio. That building is already framed and will be state-of-the-art. The project’s cost is estimated at $75,000 with $14,000 remaining to be raised. After the current projects are done, Garrigan and crew will start building a new cafeteria and auditorium.  That one is pegged at $1 million. “We don’t have a building big enough for us to meet in,” he said.

There are 13 public buildings on campus — including two student dorms, one staff dorm, cafeteria, classrooms, student center, offices and the facilities building, plus 12 studio apartments.

There are 15 or so programs offered at the Youth with a Mission campus. Volunteer staff and students come from all over the world. Just on his crew, Garrigan noted there is a diverse group from Brazil, New Zealand, England and Plains, Mont.

All students initially receive a three-month discipleship training course followed by two months of outreach in a foreign country. There is also a nine-month Bible study school, apprenticeships in construction and architecture, and classes in dance, sports, theater, worship, Greek, Hebrew and theology.

Garrigan said his wife, Mary, and their five children enjoy living in Lakeside. Mary Garrigan is currently taking a reading course where she will read 35 books over six months. That’s 7,000 pages.

The Garrigans’ children — ages 12, 10, 8, 5 and 3 — are involved in the community too. One is home-schooled, while two attend public schools and two attend a campus pre-school.

“Our main focus is to make God known in the world,” Garrigan said. “We believe men and women have a great gift to give to ministries around the world.” And the ongoing maintenance and construction projects on the Youth with a Mission campus help in that training effort.

They recently donated a day at Lighthouse Christian Home in Somers. “We’re able to do that all the time,” he said. “Our life, our work, is to give, to volunteer. It’s a very life-giving experience.”