|
Definitely Not a "Barn-Raising"
 | | Assembling the roof truss. |
|
By Pauli Jayné, Winsted
If you blinked while passing the corner of Coe Street (Route 183) and Route 44 heading west out of Winsted throughout the past few months, you missed all the backbreaking work being done for the building of a new Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses for the local congregation.
As the winter months were extremely mild, all of the needed prep work was accomplished ahead of schedule. The purchased property was quickly cleared of unwanted trees, boulders, topsoil, etc. Cement sidewalks were poured. Sewer pipes, water pipes, gas lines, electricity, all were installed. The cement slab was poured and even the tile for the lobby and restrooms was laid. Blacktop was paved and landscaping begun.
This past weekend saw the end result of all this effort. On Thursday morning, April 25, approximately 700 volunteers from Connecticut and Rhode Island came to lend a hand to construct a new house of worship for the Winsted congregation of some 95 Witnesses.
 | | Many tasks are undertaken simultaneously as work progresses. |
|
A Kingdom Hall is the principle local meeting place of congregations, presently numbering over 95,000 worldwide. These halls are Bible-education centers that are conducive to study and concentration. Five different meetings a week are held, during which Witnesses learn more about spiritual matters.
The new Winsted Kingdom Hall has 4,100 square feet that will accommodate 135 seats, with room to spare. It includes large handicapped-accessible restrooms, a baby care room, private meeting room, boiler room, coat room, and an extra large foyer with fire-safety glass doors leading to the main auditorium.
The building also houses a spacious library area with windows viewing the main auditorium. This room serves for overflow attendance, and is the meeting place for the second Theocratic Ministry School. This a 45-minute meeting (more than one may be occurring simultaneously) designed to help Jehovah’s Witnesses improve their public reading and speaking. Students receive assignments on a rotating basis. At each meeting, five students give brief speeches on pre-selected Bible topics, and an instructor comments on the speech and offers suggestions for improvement. Young and old, male and female, can enroll in this school—but no one graduates, one just keeps improving!
Thousands of new Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations are formed every year; last year alone, some 32 new congregations were formed each week! Such congregations need places to meet and to worship. The Witnesses devised the quick-build method of construction so that the local congregation would not have to be away from their families or their ministerial duties for a long period of time. This method also provides for less disturbance in the neighborhood from the building project.
 | | The finished structure. |
|
In order to conserve funds, the vast majority of congregations have endeavored to do as much of the building work as possible without resorting to commercial contractors. To the extent possible, it is done with voluntary, unpaid labor. Entire families often share. Tradesmen who are Jehovah’s Witnesses volunteer their skills, and over the years many unskilled volunteers have been trained. All give evidence that they fit the description given at Psalms 110:3: "Your people will offer themselves willingly."
Although these buildings go up with amazing speed, this is not the primary consideration. Of greater importance is providing quality construction of modest Kingdom Halls designed to meet the needs of the local congregation. Careful planning is done to accomplish this. Measures are taken to see that safety is given high priority—the safety of workers, neighbors, passersby, and future occupants of the Kingdom Hall.
When the work begins, it moves swiftly. In an hour the walls are up. Roof trusses follow. Sheeting for the walls is nailed into place. Air-conditioning and heating ducts are installed. Electricians begin running wires. Cabinets are built and installed. There is no competition, no rivalry between the tradesmen. By Sunday, the carpet is installed. Landscaping is finishing up. Finishing details may remain for the following weekend. Everyone is encouraged to work together in love, to be kind, to show patience and consideration. They are reminded to work at a steady pace, but not to rush and not to hesitate to take a few minutes to share an upbuilding experience with someone. At the end of the project, the workers are very tired but happy to have had a share.
And so it was this past weekend in Winsted. Work progressed so quickly it almost beat the shutter lens on the cameras of the picture-takers! By Saturday afternoon the last brick had been put in place, and wallpapering had begun inside. All door and window frames were pre-made in a decorative light oak wood with corner finials, and were in place by noon Saturday.
For any readers who appreciate landscaping, there will be a colorful array this fall with the many dwarf fire bushes planted along the side of the highway. A number of Bradford pear trees will bloom each spring, yielding their lovely dogwood-like white flowers. Ground cover plantings include cranberry cotoneaster and willow leaf cotoneaster, and, of course, many bushes of mountain laurel were purchased to make it truly a Northwest Connecticut Kingdom Hall. A beautiful hand-carved sign will soon be installed with night-lighting for passersby.
You don’t need to make a hole in the wall to find out about the services of Jehovah’s Witnesses. All meetings are open to the public, and visitors are welcome. Meetings are usually held on three different days each week, and most of the programs involve audience participation, similar to a classroom discussion. Worship starts and ends with prayer, and most services include singing. All meetings focus on reading and discussing the Bible and seeing how to apply it in our lives. Those in attendance—even the very young—are encouraged to read the verses being discussed in their own copy of the Bible.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have no clergy-laity division. All baptized members are ordained ministers, and all who attend services, including children, have an opportunity to participate. There are no Sunday schools; rather Jehovah’s Witnesses are encouraged to read the Bible daily and to study the Bible at home with their families.
You won’t see religious symbols such as crosses or images in a Kingdom Hall. Why not? Jehovah’s Witnesses follow the Bible’s command: "Guard yourselves from idols." So they don’t use religious images in their worship. (1 John 5:21)
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not pass collection plates or practice tithing. For any who wish to contribute, small donation boxes are set up near the rear of the auditorium. (2 Cor. 9:7)
In closing, I would like to quote some of the comments made by a clergyman a few years back after viewing a "quick build" Kingdom Hall: "A large circus tent was set up where men and women fed hundreds in 15 minutes. Open trucks were all over. If a person lost a tool, he could go to the "lost and found" truck and find it returned. If you arrived in clean clothes and wanted to work, there was a truck with work clothes and hard hats available. There was a first-aid truck if anyone got hurt or needed medical attention. I saw women going around with cans of water to dampen down the soil just to keep the dust down, and that’s all they did all day. As boards were nailed in place, painters were on hand to paint the wood.
"It was a sight few of us had ever seen. General contractors in the area said it couldn’t be done. The foundation was done earlier, but the rest of it was built in two days. I didn’t hear a cuss word. No arguments. Very quietly the group went about their business. Their hands were where all the action was—not their mouths! The people here were from all over New England and beyond. A mixed racial group mostly of young people with lots of enthusiasm.
"I have never learned a lot about these people due to poor press and poor word-of-mouth reports, but what I saw was all good. I've never cared for those people who came knocking at my door over the years, but be assured I’ll greet them with a lot more respect and admiration. It’s occurred to me than many of us close our minds to ideas and new approaches because of ignorance and prejudgment. Ignorance and fear do a job on us long before we’ve started to listen. I think we all have to sit up and take notice when they pass us by in the race. But especially when they are doing such a good job of growing and generating a lot of enthusiasm."
So whether the weather was sunny, or whether the weather was not, they weathered the weather, whether they liked it or not—and at the end of the afternoon on Sunday, many workers remained, tired but very happy, to enjoy the first regular congregation meeting, a study of The Watchtower magazine, as is usual on Sundays.
More information about Jehovah’s Witnesses can be found at <www.watchtower.org>, or at <www.jw-media.org>.
| 
)
)
)