La cirugía cardíaca es segura para los testigos de Jehová

http://vidayestilo.terra.com/salud/la-cirugia-cardiaca-es-segura-para-los-testigos-de-jehova,1370449954358310VgnVCM3000009acceb0aRCRD.html

 

 

Un estudio sugiere que los testigos de Jehová, cuyas creencias religiosas les impiden recibir transfusiones de sangre, evolucionarían tan bien como otros pacientes después de una cirugía cardíaca.

 

Los cirujanos suelen tomar precauciones prequirúrgicas adicionales (administración de vitaminas B y hierro) para asegurarse de que los glóbulos rojos de esos pacientes no bajen demasiado durante la cirugía. Y esas precauciones darían buen resultado.

 

"La estrategia de manejo actual (...) no aumentaría los riesgos en esos pacientes y, en realidad, algunas complicaciones disminuyen", dijo la doctora Colleen Koch, coautora del estudio de la Clínica de Cleveland.

 

Con su equipo comparó la evolución de 322 testigos de Jehová operados del corazón en su centro entre 1983 y el 2011, sin utilizar una transfusión de sangre, con la de una cantidad igual de pacientes que habían recibido transfusiones. A la mayoría se le había realizado un bypass.

 

Una cantidad similar de ambos grupos (10 testigos de Jehová y 14 del grupo control) murió en el hospital. Un testigo de Jehová tuvo un infarto durante la cirugía, comparado con nueve del grupo que recibió transfusiones sanguíneas.

 

Los testigos de Jehová también pasaron menos tiempo en el hospital y la unidad de terapia intensiva y fueron menos propensos a necesitar otra cirugía por sangrados.

 

Ahora, "demostramos que los cuidados que tomamos son seguros", dijo la autora.

 

Koch consideró que no existe motivo por el cual no se podría aplicar el mismo enfoque en pacientes con bajo riesgo de padecer anemia que no sean testigos de Jehová. La anemia, junto con el sangrado excesivo, es la causa principal por la que hay que hacerles una transfusión a los pacientes.

 

El equipo había demostrado que las transfusiones aumentan el riesgo de complicaciones. Y el doctor Victor Ferraris, cirujano del Centro Médico Chandler de la Universidad de Kentucky, Lexington, explicó que existe una "variación enorme" en cuanto a qué pacientes reciben una transfusión: entre el cero y el 88 por ciento de los pacientes tratados con un bypass, según el centro.

 

"Debemos examinar mejor algunas de estas prácticas y determinar si podríamos aplicarlas de manera más amplia", dijo Koch.

 

"Esa es la cuestión fundamental", dijo Ferraris, que escribió un comentario publicado con el estudio en Archives of Internal Medicine.

 

"Si podemos operar a todos esos testigos de Jehová de manera segura y obtener resultados comparables sin transfusiones, ¿Por qué no lo replicamos en el resto de los pacientes?", se preguntó.

 

Ferraris señaló que una limitación del estudio es que los testigos de Jehová operados del corazón serían más saludables que otros pacientes: no fuman, no beben alcohol ni consumen drogas por vía intravenosa, y los médicos quizás evitan la cirugía cardíaca si están tan enfermos como para necesitar posiblemente una transfusión sanguínea.

 

Aún así, Ferraris opinó que más pacientes se beneficiarían, y menos necesitarían una transfusión si reciben la preparación prequirúrgica con las precauciones que se adoptan en los testigos de Jehová.

 

 

 

FUENTE: Archives of Internal Medicine, online 2 de julio del 2012

Family comes first for fast-growing Jehovah's Witnesses

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/family-comes-first-for-fast-growing-jehovahs-witnesses/2012/07/03/gJQAhFLOLW_story.html

 

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — When it comes time for family study hour at Chad and Charlotte Tate’s home in Huntsville, Ala., Evan, 18 months, is quick to grab her Bible and climb onto her seat at the table.

 

As Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Tates believe it’s never too early to help children begin learning the Bible.

“That’s one of the things we really like about Jehovah’s Witnesses,” said Chad Tate, smiling as he watched his son, Tucker, 12, help boost his sister onto the table’s bench. “We worship together and we study together as a family.”

The small size of Kingdom Hall congregations, which are kept to around 100 members, emphasis on witnessing, and lack of paid clergy have helped Jehovah’s Witnesses become one of the fastest growing faiths in the world.

Jehovah’s Witnesses now have more than 1.1 million U.S. members and are one of the country’s fastest-growing denominations, with personal evangelism required of all members.

There are more than 150 worship centers called Kingdom Halls in Alabama, with a combined membership of more than 15,000. And no matter where Witnesses walk into a Kingdom Hall, anywhere in the world, they can know the study will be the same there as at home, since each congregation follows the same study schedule.

“It makes everyone feel close-knit, like a family,” Charlotte Tate said.

Chad Tate says that, at first, he didn’t see much to like about the faith when, a few years ago, his wife began re-exploring the religion she grew up in. Tucker had started asking her questions about God and life and death. He started asking why their family didn’t join his maternal grandmother at services at the Kingdom Hall.

Charlotte Tate’s interest worried her husband.

“At first, I wasn’t crazy about it, to tell you the truth,” Chad Tate said as his wife nodded a vigorous agreement. “I was just scared — anytime someone is interested in something new, it’s scary. I told her I didn’t want her teaching this stuff to our son.”

But the more Charlotte Tate found out about Jehovah’s Witnesses, the more she knew that was one request she couldn’t honor.

“I just wanted the answers for my son,” she said.

And it wasn’t long until Chad Tate said he saw a change in his wife.

“No matter how mean I was to her, I saw her faith,” he said. “I’d never liked religion. It always seemed so fake to me. But when I’d go with her to the meetings, I could see how loving the people there are. They really care about you.”

About that time, Charlotte Tate convinced him to let her “practice” a Bible study on him as she got ready to do a study with his mother.

“Things just slowly progressed,” Chad Tate said. “I found myself starting to pray. But I’m a skeptical person. I’ve got to have stuff laid out in front of me. They had to show me from the Bible.”

Eventually, he and Tucker were baptized on the same day.

Preparing to show people teachings from the Bible is a big part of why Witnesses are encouraged to plan family study time. For the Tates, that means Monday evening worship and study.

That’s when one of them reads aloud from “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived,” a lively retelling of the life and teaching of Jesus, who, Witnesses believe, was the son of God, but not God himself.

Each of the short chapters, with illustrations on each page to help keep little Witnesses involved, end with a set of questions that reinforce the information in the chapter.

Tuesday evenings, the family joins others from their area Kingdom Hall for teaching and study at the hall. Thursday nights is family study time when each person studies something on their own — a little like a family study hall. Sundays are back at the Kingdom Hall for teaching and also for demonstrations of how to witness to others.

“I like the play the best at the convention — and seeing my friends,” Tucker said. “And there are some really encouraging presentations. It encourages more people to get out. It’s a good thing.”

Tucker, as a baptized member, is considered responsible for setting and then keeping goals for hours spent witnessing each week.

“I always use spring break to get 30 hours,” Tucker said.

(Kay Campbell writes for The Huntsville Times in Huntsville, Ala.)

Jehovah's Witness heart patients do well, even without transfusions Y MAS LINKS

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/jehovah-s-witness-heart-patients-do-well-even-without-transfusions-1.863763

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/07/03/heart-surgery-safe-in-jehovah-witnesses/

http://www.smh.com.au/world/jehovahs-witnesses-recover-best-from-surgery-despite-refusing-blood-20120703-21fi1.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-04/jehovah27s-witnesses-recover-quicker-from-heart-surgery/4110358 CON AUDIO

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-04/jehovahs-witnesses-recover-better-from-heart/4109754

 

 

 

Severe Blood Conservation Appears Safe In Cardiac Surgery For Jehovah's Witnesses

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2012/07/02/severe-blood-conservation-appears-safe-in-cardiac-surgery-for-jehovahs-witnesses/2/

7/02/2012

 

Severe blood conservation in conjunction with cardiac surgery is not associated with long-term adverse consequences, according to a new study published in Archives of Internal Medicine. 

 

Investigators from the Cleveland Clinic and the NHLBI compared 322 patients who were Jehovan's Witnesses with an equal number of matched controls. Due to their religious beliefs Witnesses do not receive blood transfusions, and therefore "provide a unique natural experiment in severe blood conservation," according to the authors.

 

Compared to patients who had transfusions, Witnesses had better  short term and long term outcomes. They had fewer complications in the hospital and better survival out to 15 years.

Perioperative MI: 0.31% for Witnesses versus vs 2.8% for controls (p = .01)

Operation for bleeding: 3.7% vs 7.1% (p = .03)

Prolonged ventilation: 6% vs 16% (p < .001)

Hours in the ICU (15th, 50th, and 85th percentiles): 24 versus 24, 25 versus 48, and 72 versus 162 (p < .001)

Survival at 5 years: 86% versus 74%

Survival at 10 years: 69% versus 53%

Survival at 15 years: 51% versus 35%

The investigators concluded that although they "found differences in complications among Witnesses and control groups that received transfusions, current extreme blood management strategies do not appear to place patients at heightened risk for reduced long-term survival."

 

In an accompanying editorial,  Victor Ferraris points out that "Witnesses who undergo cardiac surgery are likely a healthier subgroup of Witnesses because those who are believed by their surgeons to require blood transfusion to survive cardiac surgery presumably never go to the operating room." Nevertheless, "the finding that the Witnesses who did not receive transfusions did at least as well as, if not better than, those who received a transfusion raises questions about whether more patients might benefit from surgical strategies that minimize transfusion of blood products."

 

Here is the press release from Archives:

Study Examines Outcomes of Patients Who Refuse Transfusion Following Cardiac Surgery

 

CHICAGO– Jehovah's Witness patients who undergo cardiac surgery do not appear to be at increased risk for surgical complications or death when compared to patients who undergo cardiac surgery and receive blood transfusions, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

 

Jehovah's Witness patients (Witnesses) hold beliefs that disallow blood product transfusion and encourage the use of a number of blood conservation practices, according to background information in the article.

 

Gregory Pattakos, M.D., M.S., of the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, and colleagues, sought to compare morbidity and long-term survival rates of Witnesses undergoing cardiac surgery with a similarly matched group of patients who received blood transfusions.

 

The authors found that after propensity matching, Witnesses (322 patients) and non-Witnesses (322 patients) had similar risks for hospital mortality, but Witnesses had significantly lower occurrence of additional operation for bleeding, renal failure and sepsis compared with non-Witnesses who received transfusions.

 

Witnesses had fewer acute complications, including myocardial infarction (heart attack), additional operations for bleeding and prolonged ventilation. Witnesses also had shorter hospital lengths of stay compared with matched patients who received transfusions, as well as shorter intensive care unit lengths of stay.

 

Additionally, Witnesses had higher survival rates compared with non-Witnesses at one-year (95 percent vs. 89 percent) but both groups had similar 20-year survival rates (34 percent vs. 32 percent).

 

The authors conclude that the Jehovah's Witness patients undergoing cardiac surgery at the Cleveland Clinic experienced similar or better short- and long-term survival than non-Witnesses. "Although we found differences in complications among Witnesses and control groups that received transfusions, current extreme blood management strategies do not appear to place patients at heightened risk for reduced long-term survival," they conclude.

 

Editor's Note: This study was supported in part by the Kenneth Gee and Paula Shaw, Ph.D., Chair in Heart Research, held by one of the study authors. Another author is a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Clinical Research Scholar of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network, and was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

 

Invited Commentary: Severe Blood Conservation

 

In an invited commentary, Victor A. Ferraris, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center,Lexington, notes that Jehovah's Witnesses, "believe that the Bible prohibits ingesting blood and that Christians should therefore not accept blood transfusions or donate or store their own blood for transfusion."

 

Ferraris continues saying, "the finding that the Witnesses, who did not receive transfusions did at least as well as, if not better than, those who received a transfusion raises questions about whether more patients might benefit from surgical strategies that minimize transfusion of blood products."

 

"The findings of this analysis by Pattakos and colleagues add to the increasing data that suggest that more conservative use of blood transfusions would be in our patients' interest, in both Witnesses and non-Witnesses," he concludes.

 

(Arch Intern Med. Published online July 2, 2012. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.2458)

Jehovah patients 'recover faster'

http://www.theage.com.au/world/jehovah-patients-recover-faster-20120703-21fdo.html

 

July 4, 2012

 

JEHOVAH'S Witnesses, whose faith forbids them from blood transfusions, recover from heart surgery faster and with fewer complications than those who do get blood, in a study that may change thinking on current practice.

 

Patients who are Jehovah's Witnesses had better survival rates, shorter hospital stays, fewer additional operations for bleeding and spent fewer days in the intensive care unit than those who received blood transfusions during surgery, a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine shows.

 

Members of the Jehovah's Witness faith undergo extensive blood conservation before surgery, including red blood-cell boosting erythropoietin drugs, iron and B-complex vitamins to guard against anaemia. The practice offered a ''unique natural experiment'' for scientists to study the short and long-term effects of the blood management strategy and may point to ways to reduce need for transfusions, researchers said.

Advertisement: Story continues below

 

''How we care for Jehovah's Witness patients with this pretty extreme blood conservation doesn't put a patient at increased risk,'' said Colleen Koch, a study author and professor of anaesthesiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. ''Perhaps it needs to be examined more closely applying some of these practices to our routine cardiac surgery patients.''

 

Researchers in the study included 322 Jehovah's Witness patients and 87,453 other patients who underwent heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic from 1983 to 2011. All Jehovah's Witness patients refused blood transfusions. In the other group, 38,467 did not receive transfusions while 48,986 did.

 

The authors wanted to look at the difference between patients who receive blood transfusions during surgery and Jehovah's Witness patients, who undergo strict blood conservation practices before, during and after surgery, Koch said.

 

While many patients do not have blood transfusions during and after heart surgery, they also do not undergo the same blood conservation practices that doctors use for Jehovah's Witness patients, she said. The study found that Jehovah's Witnesses had lower occurrences of heart attack following surgery.

 

Jehovah's Witness patients had an 86 per cent chance of survival at five years and a 34 per cent chance of survival 20 years after surgery, compared with 74 per cent at five years and 23 per cent at 20 years for non-Jehovah's Witness patients who had transfusions.

Jehovah's Witnesses meet in Gwinnett

 

http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/jehovahs-witnesses-meet-in-1470203.html

 

The convention, which begins on Friday, will be held at The Arena at Gwinnett Center. Subsequent conventions bringing an equal of participants will be held July 20 through July 22; Aug. 17 through Aug. 19; and Aug. 24 through Aug. 26.

 

The theme will be "Safeguard Your Heart" and will highlight biblical references to the heart. The program will encourage self-scrutiny and reflection.

 

The district includes North Georgia and parts of North and South Carolina.

 

Admission is free. The district conventions are supported entirely by voluntary donations.

Jehovah's Witnesses to gather in Kennewick for annual conventionK

 

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/07/01/2200855/jehovahs-witnesses-to-gather-in.html

 

07/01/12 12 KENNEWICK -- Jehovah's Witnesses are coming to town this summer.

 

They'll be here, almost 21,000 strong, for four weekends beginning Friday as the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses holds its annual convention at the Toyota Center in Kennewick.

 

"It's actually four, three-day conventions of nearly 5,000 people each weekend. Each weekend brings a new group of individuals drawn from throughout the Northwest. So when you add them together, it makes the Jehovah's Witnesses our largest event of the year," said Kris Watkins, president and CEO of the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau in Kennewick.

 

While here, they're expected to spend an estimated $9,450,000 in direct visitor spending with Tri-City hotels, restaurants and other merchants.

 

In comparison, the Triple Crown Sports' Father's Day Slugfest held June 15-17 in the Tri-Cities drew almost 4,000 players, coaches and spectators from across the Northwest and generated an estimated $1.2 million in revenue for Tri-City merchants.

 

"Although the primary purpose of each convention is for delegates to attend the Bible-based convention program, while they are here they also find time for shopping, dining and sightseeing. Many local business owners report that the weekends that the Jehovah's Witnesses are in town are some of the busiest days of the season for sales receipts," she said.

 

The theme of this year's convention series is "Safeguard Your Heart." The first, July 6-8, will be in Spanish. The next three, July 13-15, Aug. 3-5 and Aug. 10-12, will be in English. Each will be held at the Toyota Center, 7100 W. Quinault Ave., Kennewick.

 

All convention sessions are open to the public and free. No collections are taken.

 

For more information on the conference, call 509-460-0683.

 

Each day, the convention begins at 9:20 a.m. and wraps up about 4 p.m.

 

It's expected that the streets around the coliseum will be congested each day as people arrive and leave.

 

"Be patient with traffic," Watkins advised. "And not just in the area of the coliseum, but all over the Tri-Cities."

 

Between sports and other events, and just tourism, we actually have several thousand people visit the Tri-Cities nearly every weekend from spring through fall, Watkins said.

 

"It makes for busy streets, fewer empty tables in restaurants and just a busier time for everyone," she said.

Effects Of Refusing Blood Transfusions After Cardiac Surgery/Efectos de rechazar las transfusiones de sangre después de cirugía cardiaca

 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247393.php

 

The study, conducted by Gregory Pattakos, M.D., M.S., of the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, and his team, is published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

 

The researchers enrolled 322 Jehovah Witness patients and 322 non-Witness patients in order to compare morbidity and long-term survival rates after cardiac surgery.

 

The researchers discovered that although the risk of dying was similar in both groups, Witnesses were considerably less likely than non-Witnesses who received transfusions to need additional surgery for bleeding. In addition, Witnesses were significantly less likely to have renal failure and sepsis, and were hospitalized for shorter durations than patients who received transfusions.

 

Witnesses also had fewer acute complications, including heart attack, and were less likely to require prolonged ventilation.

 

The team found that one-year survival rates after cardiac surgery were higher among Witnesses (95%) than non-Witnesses (89%). However, 20-year survival rates were comparable between the two groups, 34% vs. 32%, respectively.

 

The researchers conclude:

 

"Although we found differences in complications among Witnesses and control groups that received transfusions, current extreme blood management strategies do not appear to place patients at heightened risk for reduced long-term survival."

 

 

Victor A. Ferraris, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center, Lexington, explains in an invited commentary:

 

"Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits ingesting blood and that Christians should therefore not accept blood transfusions or donate or store their own blood for transfusion.

 

The finding that the Witnesses, who did not receive transfusions did at least as well as, if not better than, those who received a transfusion raises questions about whether more patients might benefit from surgical strategies that minimize transfusion of blood products.

 

The findings of this analysis by Pattakos and colleagues add to the increasing data that suggest that more conservative use of blood transfusions would be in our patients' interest, in both Witnesses and non-Witnesses."

Religious outreach to deaf and hard-of-hearing

http://blog.pe.com/multicultural-beat/2012/07/03/religious-outreach-to-deaf-and-hard-of-hearing/

 

July 3, 2012

 

One of the West Coast’s biggest religious gatherings of the deaf and hard-of-hearing will return to Norco Friday through Sunday.

 

About 1,500 people are expected at the regional convention from throughout California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and parts of Colorado, Pasch McCombs, a spokesman for the convention told me.

 

The convention has been held in Norco for several years, and I attended two in the past few years. I spoke to deaf people who traveled hundreds of miles to worship with hundreds of other deaf and hard-of-hearing Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been the leaders, along with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as the Mormon church), in serving the deaf and hard-of-hearing in the Inland area, experts told me in a 2008 story I wrote on religious outreach to the deaf.

 

Since I wrote the story, the number of Inland Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations with services that are entirely in American Sign Language has increased from four to six. Both new congregations, in Riverside and Ontario, were added last year, McCombs told me.

 

Nationwide, the number of ASL Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations is approaching 200, he said. There were fewer than 150 four years ago.

 

Experts told me the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons have been most successful in outreach to the deaf because of the two denominations’ stronger emphasis on evangelism.

 

But it’s not just the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. Other denominations also are offering more ASL services. That’s a result of deaf and hard-of-hearing folks increasingly requesting ASL worship services and the realization among religious institutions of the need that exists.

 

The Jehovah’s Witnesses conference is at the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1001 Parkridge Ave., Norco. For more information, email ASLJWConvention@aol.com.

 

Bloodless Heart Surgery Risk Overstated

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/AcuteCoronarySyndrome/33600

 

Patients who refuse blood transfusions during cardiac surgery may not necessarily be at an increased risk for surgical complications or long-term mortality, researchers found.

 

Compared with patients who had transfusions, Jehovah's Witnesses -- a religious group that forbids blood sharing -- had significantly lower rates of myocardial infarction, additional operations for bleeding, and prolonged ventilation, as well as shorter hospital stays, Colleen Koch, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues reported online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

 

They also had significantly better 1-year survival (P=0.007) and comparable 20-year survival, they reported.

 

"Thus, current extreme blood management strategies do not appear to place patients at heightened risk for reduced long-term survival," the researchers wrote.

 

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits ingesting blood, which makes blood transfusions or donation off-limits. Instead, the group encourages the use of a number of blood conservation practices, including preoperative erythropoietin, iron, and B-complex vitamins, as well as liberal postoperative use of additional operations for bleeding.

 

However, some blood conservation practices have been associated with morbidity. For instance, the routine use of erythropoietin may increase the risk of thromboembolic complications.

 

Also, comparisons of long-term survival with blood conservation are lacking, the researchers said.

 

So they assessed 322 Jehovah's Witness patients, all of whom refused blood transfusions, and matched them with an additional 322 patients who'd received blood during heart surgery at their clinic between Jan. 1, 1983 and Jan. 1, 2011.

 

The main outcomes were postoperative morbidity, in-hospital mortality, and long-term survival.

 

After propensity matching, the researchers found that both groups had similar risks of in-hospital mortality, stroke, atrial fibrillation, and renal failure, but those in the study group had fewer of the following acute complications:

MI: 0.31% versus 2.8% (P=0.01)

Additional operations for bleeding: 3.7% versus 7.1% (P=0.03)

Prolonged ventilation: 6% versus 16% (P<0.001)

 

 

Witnesses also had shorter stays, both in the intensive care unit and in the hospital in general (P<0.001 for both), as well as better 1-year survival (95% versus 89%, P=0.007).

 

Both groups, however, had similar 20-year survival (34% and 32%).

 

Koch and colleagues concluded that refusing blood transfusions after cardiac surgery likely won't put patients at increased risk for surgical complications or long-term mortality.

 

They noted that the study was limited because it couldn't be done as a randomized trial, and by the potential for selection bias. Witnesses treated at the center may have been healthier because those who would have been deemed to need blood transfusions to survive the surgery probably wouldn't have made it to the operating room, they said.

 

In an accompanying editorial, Victor Ferraris, MD, PhD, of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, noted that more observational evidence has been suggesting that there could be some harm from receiving blood transfusions during surgery, and that the findings "add to the increasing data that suggest more conservative use of blood transfusions would be in our patients' interest, in both Witnesses and non-Witnesses."

TEMECULA: Volunteers building new Kingdom Hall

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/temecula/temecula-volunteers-building-new-kingdom-hall/article_846e2c37-98b5-552b-8169-6751047e18de.html

 

June 24, 2012 4:00 pm 

 

They gather at the construction site each workday for prayer and a reading from Scripture, and that 15 minutes of reflection serves to set a tone.

After that, it's time to work, share meals with their fellow members and assist in some way the building of their newest house of worship, a Kingdom Hall on Calle Girasol that will eventually host seven different Jehovah's Witnesses congregations.

Three of the congregations, groups of around 200 people that are generally centered around specific neighborhoods or a locations, will be made up of Spanish speakers.

Scott Zaida, a regional building committee representative, said the church decided to build a new facility, a double auditorium with two separate worship areas, because of the tremendous population boom in Southwest County and the corresponding increase in the church's numbers.

"We grow with the growth of a community," he said.

For people unfamiliar with the faith, a Kingdom Hall is known for its modest appearance inside and out, a clean and simple design that doesn't make use of statues or other religious accouterments.

Zaida said the goal is a friendly, cozy environment that is comfortable for the relatively small congregations.

Decades ago, witnesses would get together and put up a new hall in a couple of days.

It was the equivalent of a barn raising that brought members together for some hearty meals and a burst of building activity.

Today, the members still enjoy meals together and the church still uses volunteers ---- more than 1,200 alone in the construction of the Temecula facility ---- but the workers are trained and supervised by skilled professionals.

The construction process also falls under the normal rules for a building project, which means inspections by the city and following all the state-mandated safety regulations.

During an interview at the under-construction hall, slated for an open house in mid-August, project manager Joseph van Haaster of Temecula said he and his fellow witnesses have developed a tightly coordinated construction system in recent years.

The members of the regional committee work on about four projects each year, either building new halls or remodeling existing ones.

"Basically, I say good morning to them, make sure they're fed and off they go," van Haaster said.

Those who are volunteering for the first time or learning a new skill are trained by a fellow witness, a tradition that has given a good percentage of the 7.6 million church members construction skills that are employed during disasters, such as the tsunami in Japan or Hurricane Katrina.

These days, van Haaster said, all it takes is a couple of phone calls to mobilize teams across the world.

The plans for the 8,200-square-foot Kingdom Hall on Calle Girasol, in the mostly rural Nicolas Valley, were approved by the city in 2010.

That action sparked some calls and letters of opposition from neighboring landowners concerned about traffic. Those residents, however, never filed a formal protest and construction proceeded as planned.

Zaida and van Haaster said that the church strives to be a good neighbor and that its members have consciously worked to avoid causing any hassles for residents. That has included using a dirt parking lot near the site instead of available street parking and shuttering the construction site on Sundays.

When up and running, the hall will hold around 14 services a week, which works out to about two services per week for each congregation. One of the services is during the week and another is on the weekend.

In recent years, the various congregations that will use the new hall have been meeting in Temecula near the Pauba Road library and at a facility in Murrieta. Both of those halls will continue to be used after the new hall is opened.

 

 

 

 

 

Work begins on new Bible education center

http://lexch.com/news/local/work-begins-on-new-bible-education-center/article_1ae76cc6-c22a-11e1-938e-001a4bcf887a.html

 

LEXINGTON – Hundreds of people from across the state and South Dakota will be making their way to Lexington over the next few months.

 

They are gathering to help build Kingdom Hall, a new Bible education center for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Rick Lenz, one of the volunteers said when the building is completed, which is expected on Sept. 16, it will be quite the sight.

 

“It’s the culmination of months of organization,” said Lenz, one of the volunteers.

 

The organization for the new building started several months ago and volunteers broke ground last week on the project near 20th and Adams Street. So far volunteers have been busy raising the foundation to above the flood level, putting in footings, doing rebar work and prepping for the parking lot.

 

That’s just the beginning.

 

Volunteers will be working extended weekends from now until the beginning of September, when nearly 500 volunteers are expected to gather to finish out the building.

 

The building is expected to be complete on Sept.16. One of the unique things about the building it is will be built almost entirely by volunteers. All of those who work on the building have donated their time, and a majority of the equipment used in the process has also been donated.

 

Lenz said the new building will be able to educate close to 100 members who regularly attend the congregation’s Sunday meetings.

 

“It’s where we preach the King’s news,” he said.

 

The building will replace the old building for the Jehovah’s Witnesses on north Taylor Street, which the congregation has out grown according to Lenz.