Come fall, when the leaves start turning orange and red, trick or treating, pumpkin carving and the rain distracts the region, Mountain Vineyard Christian Fellowship members will start moving into their new church.

While it seems like construction has gone quickly — the church building is visible from Kent Kangley on the south side of the road — it took a number of years before the work could even begin. Crews from Olson Bros. began work on the building in March.

“This has taken years and years for us to save up and pray,” said senior Pastor Roy Conwell. “Nowadays when you’re going to develop a property you’ve got to have a lot of money in the bank.”

Conwell said it took $1.2 million just to get the property ready, including engineering and architecture fees, permits, among other costs. The property has six septic tanks, he pointed out, just in case they need it.

“We’ve though about it for years,” Conwell said. “Everything was though out so carefully it went crazy fast once they started digging. One of the reasons we put in such large infrastructure underground is because we want to be prepared for the future.”

Though there have been delays in getting work started, Conwell said, “it’s all worked out for the good.”

The church — which Conwell has led since it began — started out with 35 members and over the years has met a number of places, initially at First Presbyterian in Kent, later a storefront in the Kent Hill Plaza shopping center on 104th Avenue Southeast and Kent Kangley Road, then at Horizon Elementary and since 1999 at Cedar Heights Middle School in Covington.

In 1996 the church bought the land it owns now on Kent Kangley Road. It is near 192nd Avenue Southeast in what is a pocket of unincorporated King County between Maple Valley and downtown Covington.

A man named Jack Wagner sold the property to the church, Conwell said.

“Jack, he was walking around here with me, and he got down on his knees and he was 80 years old, he said, ‘Roy, I thought when I bought this property I was going to make a million dollars,’” the pastor said. “He said, ‘Roy, do me proud and build a church on this property.’”

There was a separate one acre piece next to the original eight or so acres Mountain Vineyard bought in 1996 near Kent Kangley that had a house on it.

Eventually the church bought that and it has been used for Mountain Vineyard’s offices.

By 2000, the church paid off the property and owns the entire 10 acres free and clear, and has intended to build a church home on it ever since.

For five years after paying off the property, the church developed a master plan for it then began seeking permits, getting a condition use permit in 2006 while they began the design and engineering for phase one, which is a 10,175 square foot worship center that will initially be home to a chapel and classrooms.

“It was very complicated for the county to keep the ball rolling for us as they were going through downsizing their organization,” Conwell said. “Since the recession started a lot of the labor costs went down but the costs of materials have gone up. Overall it’s been tremendously exciting and fun.”

The economy has impacted the church’s efforts to build in other ways.

“When the recession came and all the home foreclosures happened across the United States, we had our money in four different banks,” Conwell said. “Every single bank we had our money in told us, ‘When you’re ready to build, we will help you build, we will finance you’ When the banking catastrophe happened… in the end, all the banks said, ‘no, we cannot give you a penny.’”

While that tested the faith of the church leadership and its members, Conwell said, it was a valuable lesson.

“There were so many moments when it looked like things weren’t going to work out,” he said. “We came across a group called Church Commonwealth Finance and they do what’s called church bonds.”

Members of the church were asked to buy a minimum of $1,000 in bonds.

“So everybody in church went and looked at their retirements or their 401k’s,” Conwell said. “We bought $1.8 million worth of church bonds, so, you’re basically investing in yourself.”

Conwell was one of the first in line to buy bonds, which the bankers told him was unusual, but it just made sense because “we gave the money to ourselves, but, it’s all managed by a bank.”

And the church continues to receive financial support, often out of the blue, Conwell said, as well as support from other church in the community.

“Every week more money is coming in and it’s always a mystery to us because I feel like I know the financial status of the members of our church,” he said. “We do not have a rich church. It’s every day people building a church for every day people. I love the feeling that we’re being cheered on by the community… we’re deeply grateful that we are a part of this community.”

And while the 25 year old church is preparing to transition from renter to homeowner, so to speak, Conwell said the time it’s taken to build has been a blessing in another way.

“The nice thing about having all the years we’ve had is that it’s given us time to sort out our priorities and develop a focus,” he said. “We are building this with a sense that it is for the community, for the next generation. Out of that comes our heart to care for others.”