New Kingdom Hall 1

Twenty something years ago our present Kingdom Hall was built.  It wasn't built by brothers so imagine the excitement when it was announced that we were going to leave Serrekunda Market and BUILD OUR OWN Kingdom Halls!  Not ONE but TWO!!

This is our Hall today.

And the chaos outside the gate.  We have to drive through this lot to get in.  It just isn't working any more.

 
So the hunt for land started.  Not easy.  There aren't estate agents like the rest of the world, you just have to ask around.  People who call themselves agents will take you to see land THEN find the owner and ask if he wants to sell.  Usually they don't.  When we did find land AND an owner who wanted to sell the next problem was to find the person who actually owned the land.  This could be any number of people.  An old man would die and leave his land to his 20 children.  Or to just one child who now lives in America.  Or the old guy may be still alive but has no proof he owns it.  After many months of searching we finally found a legal owner, willing to sell.  All we had to do is evict the tenant.  She said she couldn't afford to move so she was given some money.  Well, there's only one thing to do with a windfall like that . . . PARTY!!

We also had to register the land in our name.  This also took many weeks.  Our poor missionaries were given the job of crawling from office to office to get all the needed paperwork.  He would get the ball rolling then move to the next office leaving her behind to make sure they were still working on it because if not they would return the next day to find nothing had been done.  Adding to the pressure was that we sold our land almost immediately.  The new owners very kindly allowed us six months to leave the site so all the purchasing and building has to be done in a limited time.  The clock is ticking!

When the tenant moved out her two dogs were left behind.  They're delighted with their new home.  Lots of company, shelter and they get our leftover food every day.  In return they work as guard dogs (well, sort of) apparently working day and night shifts.

This is the day shift dog.

 

Unlike many parts of the world, here we have to do everything from scratch.  We can't go out and buy blocks, we have to make our own steel fixings (for the foundations), no bulldozers, diggers.  We have a cement mixer (repaired by Terry because someone put the wrong belt on and melted a pulley) and a pump to get water out of the well.  But it's mostly a hand made project.

Here you can see the steel fixing line, the area behind the wood posts are where the Hall will be, the septic tank hole, the brick making area and the palm roofed canteen.

The blocks are hand made.  They dry overnight and are stacked the next day.  I haven't been involved in that, bit heavy for me, but many sisters are being trained and are working well.  Last night at the meeting we were shown a dvd of construction projects under the fund for building Halls in areas where they can't afford to build their own.  You can tell I've forgotten the name of it.  They showed a brother making bricks and he said he had no construction experience before building his Hall and now he has a trade and can make bricks for a living.

It's a real international effort.  On steel fixing we have Haddy from Senegal, Solomon from Benin, Victoria from Sierre Leone and me from UK. 

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 It's a lot of fun but hard work because we're outside all day under the sun.  Fortunately it hasn't been too hot for the time of year (low 30's) but the sun is intense and the real heat is coming.

 Ben has been digging out the foundations. Even our CO gets involved.  This isn't just a pose picture, they were both working together and only stopped for a moment.

We're at the start of the hot and rainy season now.  So far it's been very cool for the time of year.  Please remember us in your prayers that we can keep working and bring praise to Jehovah with our new Kingdom Hall.