Witnesses quick-build churches

Wearing a hard hat and sporty sunglasses, Floyd Rogers watched Friday as dozens of people with tools ran around the newly raised wooden walls at a construction site in north Coeur d’Alene.

Come back in 10 days and you might see Rogers watch as dozens of people enter the new Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall for their first gathering.

The Coeur d’Alene resident works as a hydraulic consultant and is one of about 200 volunteers from Idaho, Washington, Montana and Wyoming working on a “quick-build” of the Jehovah’s Witness meeting place behind the Fred Meyer store.

He is on the building committee for the project and will spend 10 days on the construction site, until the building is finished. And it’s one of three Kingdom Halls going up right now. Volunteer workers are doing the same in Rathdrum and Sandpoint over the next week.

The collective method of raising these meeting halls in a few days helped add 106 new Kingdom Halls in the U.S. last year. Tim Avallone, of Columbus, Mont., part of the regional building committee, explained why Kingdom Halls are being put up so fast with the help of so many volunteers: “We want to come back on the main focus,” said Avallone, referring to his faith.

He took part in Jehovah’s Witness building projects in the 1960s, and he uses his experience now to help orchestrate the effort. “My job is figuring out where everybody has to be at which time,” said Avallone, pointing to a detailed timeline on a board that divides the week into trades and two-hour work-sections.

When a volunteer tapped his shoulder, Avallone added, “And I have to answer questions.”

The site seems to work like a well-organized anthill. People walk around gypsum boards and trusses that will be erected with a crane. Next to a camp trailer is the “rooming” reception, where volunteers from out of town find local families who will host them for their stay.

Within the walls, up to five saws cry at once as workers cut boards for the 42,000-square-foot hall, which will hold up to 180 people when done.

Members outgrew the old Coeur d’Alene facility and sold it in June 2006. For more than a year now the 200 Coeur d’Alene members have traveled to neighboring communities for their meetings.

There are about 2,500 Jehovah’s Witnesses in North Idaho.

Alison Johnson, 43, is one of them. She works full time in door-to-door preaching and has attended 10 hall-raisings, working on the heating and ventilation crews.

“Every year I am learning more about that,” said Johnson, while assembling ducts.

Like many of the volunteers, she also will work on the Rathdrum and Sandpoint projects.

Lauren Fischer, 27, is working on her first quick-build. “Whatever you want, I do it,” she said with a smile, tightening her scarf and tool belt.

Fischer, in her first year as an electrical apprentice, said she is eager to volunteer. Some day she could teach others in prequalification classes, before constructions begin.

At noon Friday the saws and hammers were at rest. Workers gathered to pray and eat lunch – tortillas with salad.

This approach saves a lot of money, Avallone said.

“Building the hall together with the volunteers is half the cost as if you get it contracted,” he said.

The buildings are financed exclusively through donations from congregation members.

Next weekend, they hope to admire the fruit of 10 days’ hard work. And come back to their main focus.