For their senior project, recently graduated civil engineering majors Jenna Fanselau and Reuben Herbel created a redesign of a one-day church for Maranatha Volunteers International, a non-profit responsive organization that builds worship and education structures all over the world for communities in need.
A one-day church is exactly what it sounds like: a church structure built in one day. One of Maranatha’s most common projects, the current design of the structure has proven to be ideal for smaller congregations. However, such structures have easily been outgrown in many communities by Adventist ministry growth, which has presented a scalability challenge for such congregations that wish to continue growing.
Fanselau heard about this project during her junior year from a family friend who works at Maranatha and had expressed the need for a redesign. After partnering with Herbel and talking to their advisors, the team committed to the project, taking on the challenge of creating a new One-Day Church redesign that not only would allow for a quality structure to be erected, but would also allow for future expansion as needed.
Working closely with their technical advisor, Louie Yaw, an engineering professor at WWU, Fanselau and Herbel began with sketches. After spending several months evaluating their design, they eventually landed on a T-shaped structure that could easily be made of materials accessible to Maranatha when working internationally. The design also allows existing one-day church structures to be converted into T-shaped structures when congregations outgrow their current church.
Throughout their project, they kept in close communication with the team at Maranatha, who would review the redesign and send feedback to Fanselau and Herbel, expressing their excitement for the new model. “I did enjoy working with Jenna,” said Kyle Fiess, vice president of projects at Maranatha, “and am glad that she reached out to see if we could provide a real-world project that she could use for her coursework. We are excited to see young engineers using their skills to further mission work.”
“It’s exciting that we’re able to do projects like this working with nonprofits,” said Fanselau. “Walla Walla University has a really great [engineering] department and really great professors. They’ll put in the time to help you, and that’s been big.” Herbel noted that Yaw was one of their biggest assets for the project.
While Fanselau and Herbel satisfied the requirements for their senior project, additional steps still need to be taken before the design can be implemented in the mission field. Fanselau is currently in contact with Maranatha and is in the process of sending over the package of materials she and Herbel made for Maranatha’s structural engineering team. Once the materials have been reviewed, Fanselau will meet with the team to go over the design and discuss further steps towards fully transferring the project over to Maranatha so the one-day church redesign can be utilized in the organization's future builds.
To learn more about the WWU engineering department, visit wallawalla.edu/engineering.
Posted Nov. 14, 2024
