Ark Encounter nest in them. Much of the wood used to build the Ark Encounter was sourced from renewable forests or trees infested by beetles. During construction, former President Jimmy Carter toured the Ark Encounter, accepting an invitation from LeRoy Troyer, president of the Troyer Group. Ark Encounter opened on July 7, 2016, a date (7/7) chosen to correspond with Genesis 7:7: "And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood." AiG also announced that, for the first 40 days and 40 nights of Ark Encounter's operation – an
Noah later Christian thought, the Ark came to be compared to the Church: salvation was to be found only within Christ and his Lordship, as in Noah's time it had been found only within the Ark. St Augustine of Hippo (354–430), demonstrated in "The City of God" that the dimensions of the Ark corresponded to the dimensions of the human body, which corresponds to the body of Christ; the equation of Ark and Church is still found in the Anglican rite of baptism, which asks God, "who of thy great mercy didst save Noah," to receive into the Church the infant