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SANTEE -- It was an amazing sight to see. One day, there was a vacant three-acre field on U.S. 301 in Santee with a sign announcing the coming of a new Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. A few days later, the site preparation, foundation, plumbing, electrical work and framing were completed, and the watertight building stood proudly, a testament to the faith, cooperation and hard work of church members.
"There are 50 Santee families in our congregation, and we are all volunteers," member William Mueller of Santee said. "In addition, volunteers from all over North and South Carolina are helping us out with carpentry, bricklaying, plumbing and other construction trades."
A parking area for the campers of out-of-town volunteers was set up on the site because some stayed overnight.
"One of the volunteer bricklayers is a blind man," Mueller said. "This member works right along with the other bricklayers, passing bricks to them."
In the United States, Jehovah's Witnesses are among the top 10 largest international religious bodies with the most meeting places and congregations, but they have among the smallest congregation sizes of any group.
According to its public affairs office, no denomination in the world is responsible for as many hours of proselytizing as Jehovah's Witnesses. Witnesses says they provided more than one billion "volunteer hours spent in public Bible educational work" in the most recently reported year.
By winning more court cases in the Supreme Court than any other religious group, Jehovah's Witnesses are responsible for many of the freedoms of speech and religion that Americans now have, the group says.
South Carolina ranks 20th in the nation for its proportion of Jehovah's Witnesses, as determined by a 1990 nationwide telephone survey of 113,000 people.
The new Kingdom Hall in Santee was expected to be ready for occupancy Tuesday, Nov. 4.
T&D Correspondent Shirley Upton can be reached by e-mail at writer@ntinet.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.