SOLON -- Three years after they began building it, Charli and Reggie Spearrin are just a month away from opening Evergreen Wilderness Chapel & 1800s Christian Museum on River Road.

And when the fundamental Pentecost church, an affiliate of the Church of God, opens for services on June 28, it will be free of debt.

The Spearrins funded the project as they went along.

"We haven't asked for any donations, and we didn't think it would be fair to the people to have debt," Pastor Charli Spearrin said Friday. "We just get to love the people, and we don't want to ask anything of them."

That first Sunday worship begins at 10:30 a.m. June 28. Evergreen Wilderness Chapel also will offer a 6:30 p.m. Sunday evangelistic service, and Reggie Spearing will teach Bible classes at 7 Wednesday nights.

"We believe the Bible just the way it's written," Pastor Spearrin said.

The Embden couple, who run Somerset Ceramic & Marble on Water Street in Skowhegan, built the church on land they own. Reggie Spearrin, who has done much of the carpentry, said his cost was around $280,000. It would have been double that to hire a contractor, he said.

"We are carpenters, we've had a lot of volunteers, and we've bought right," he said.

Ronnie Brown helped set up the 17-foot, hemlock cross while Sharon Kimball made a stained-glass window.

Charli Spearrin, an ordained Church of God minister, said that the couple has a video of progress at the church, ready for the June 28 service.

"It brought me to tears," she said. "It was like, 'oh, my God, look what God has done.' It has been one miracle right after another."

The church at the rear of the first floor will offer seating for 77, and chairs will be available to seat more than 100, Charli Spearrin said. The museum will feature early 1900s Christian artifacts -- and some from as far back as the 1300s -- that the couple has collected.

"We've got a bunch of people waiting for us to open the doors," she said.

The upstairs, which is unfinished, will include a Sunday school room and an apartment.

Evergreen Wilderness Chapel is affiliated with the New Beginnings Church of God in Waterville. The web site is www.oldruggedcross.org, and the chapel telephone number is 643-2636.

Larry Grard -- 861-9239

lgrard@centralmaine.com