Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 29, 1995 TAG: 9505010028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The roofers didn't look exactly like your normal professional crew.
They were teens and retirees, men and women, blacks and whites. They were in shorts and T-shirts, jeans and flannel shirts, heavy work boots and regular shoes.
And there were way too many of them for a normal job this size. There must have been three dozen people working at lightning speed, nailing shingles on the new building on Cove Road Northwest.
They were not professionals, it turned out, but Jehovah's Witnesses.
In just four days ending Sunday evening, they will have raised - and completed - this building and will have finished additions to and a complete renovation of a facility on Mill Lane in Salem.
The meeting houses - called kingdom halls - will serve two of the Roanoke Valley's seven Jehovah's Witnesses congregations.
``It's a blessing from Jehovah,'' the name the Witnesses use for God, said Leon Denson, chairman of the Northwest Roanoke congregation's building committee. ``These people are doing things for one another out of love. You just don't see that very often in the world today.''
The Witnesses are best known by many nonmembers as those who knock on their doors distributing the Watch Tower magazine.
Witnesses frequently have been persecuted for their beliefs by both secular and religious groups. The faith is distinctive, for instance, in members' refusal to salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance because of their doctrine of being ``separate from the world.'' They also reject the widely accepted Christian doctrine of the Trinity, but acknowledge Jesus Christ as the ``only begotten son of God.''
The denomination began developing kingdom hall quick-construction techniques in the 1970s. The weekend construction projects - often compared to old-time barn-raisings - are now supervised by regional building committees headed by skilled organizers.
Workers for the two Roanoke Valley projects came from North Carolina and West Virginia as well as all parts of Virginia. Some paid for their own hotel and motel rooms; others were put up in the homes of Witnesses throughout the valley.
An estimated 700 to 750 people will have worked on the two sites by the time the jobs are finished Sunday.
Professional bricklayers, electricians and plumbers are joined side-by-side by airline pilots, secretaries and homemakers. Unskilled workers carry bricks and boards, sweep floors and wash dishes.
``Our religion is a way of life for us,'' said bricklaying supervisor John Littleford. ``We are identified by the love we show,'' including volunteering for jobs such as this.
``Our lives are connected together,'' said Gino Wygal, a member of the Salem congregation's building committee. ``People do this because they want to, not because it's demanded of them.''
``If we did not have that love for each other, this would be impossible,'' said Richard Bryson, chairman of the Salem building committee.
Because of the volunteer labor, congregations are able to build facilities that would have cost perhaps as much as twice what they have to spend for materials.
Both the Northwest Roanoke and Salem congregations raised about two-thirds of the money needed for materials before beginning construction. They borrowed the remainder from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the denomination's headquarters in Brooklyn.
Most of the construction material is bought locally, though the regional committee has contracts from centralized suppliers for some finishing touches, such as chairs and sound systems.
Three meals a day are prepared on site. Some of the food is donated, - thousands of cans of Coca-Cola products, for instance - but much is purchased in bulk from an Alexandria food service. Saturday night, more than 500 people were expected to be fed roast turkey cooked in a huge wood-burning oven at the Northwest Roanoke location.
The meticulously organized operation - including food preparation, plumbing and first aid - is a marvel to watch, even for old hands.
``It's not that we don't run into any problems,'' said bricklayer Littleford, ``but with a Christian attitude, we make them fun.''
``Our success,'' said Ron Sledd, a member of the regional building committee, ``is a result of the love we have amongst ourselves.''
by CNB