November 23, 2001

To: St. Ephrem Church Parishioners
From: Joseph M. Sfeir
Re: Mother of Life Shrine Update

Dear Parishioners:

The construction documents and the project manual are complete and will be submitted this Monday 11/26/01 to the city of El Cajon. A copy of which is in Abouna's Office for review by anybody interested (please do not remove documents from Abouna's office). The city review process will take approximately between four to five weeks. Once the review is complete we will be contacted to revise our documents based on their comments, and resubmit. Hopefully there will be no other revisions after that, and we will secure the building permit. We are anticipating the permit around mid February 2002, start of construction mid March 2002, and end of construction end of July 2002. We have commissioned the stone statue to Mr. Pierre Karam in Lebanon; we will be finalizing his contract before Christmas, and start the work. Meanwhile, we will also finalize the fiberglass statue in the next few weeks, and that statue will be ready by July 2002.
Our total project cost is estimated at $589,000.00. This budget includes maintenances projects such as the reconstruction of the slope behind the school. Up-to-date we have spent $6,246.49 on permits, design fees, and printing. We will start soliciting for construction bid after the holidays.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who is helping us in the process specifically the shrine committee: Father Nabil Mouaness, Nassim Fares, George Habshi, George Ayoub, Milad Chammas, Elie Habshi, and Jihad Sleiman. I will update this note periodically. Meanwhile, please do not hesitate to call me if you have any question.

Yours truly,

Joseph M. Sfeir, AIA
Council Member- Shrine Committee chairman
jsfeir@aol.com

619-994-9896