How We Used To Do It

Mar 07, 2022

Angelinajellybean and I spent 30 years building what Jehovah's Witnesses call Kingdom Halls. They are houses of worship that are built by volunteers using donated funds. For those 30 years we used regional volunteers from first plan to last polished piece of glass.

This was a cartoon I did of a project we did in a city where we lived. This was our Kingdom Hall on Conflans Rd in Irving, TX. It was a long, tough project we worked on from early 2006 to early 2007. I drew every one of these great people in this drawing. Some are pretty good likenesses, some are a bit of a mess. I didn't expect a lot of the changes that would come in the 17 years since we did this project and I have a hard time fathoming that much time when it feels like yesterday. We lost some, but we've also gained a lot of new friends since then.

We still build Kingdom Halls using volunteers, but things are a lot more organized and locked down than they used to be. The number one thing we have improved on without question is safety. There were more close-calls than you could even shake a stick at. On this project for instance, we broke THE SAME gas line TWICE. And it was a huge 6" line. I'm glad we've changed our pace a little, but I'll never forget those wild-west days we would call quick-builds.