usa: patterson, brooklyn and wallkill bethel tour
our story begins at 4 in the morning, at a place called far rockaway. this is where we were staying, lovely place on the beach. however, it was not named 'far' for nothing. so we were supposed to catch the shuttle to patterson at 6 in the morning. this is us at the bus stop in the morning. you can tell its like 5am just by looking at everyones excited faces...
but, being the africans we are, we arrived there at exactly 6.13, about 2 minutes after it left. major disaster!! we were supposed to meet our friends for lunch at Patterson! what to do? well, this poor crippled brother was the receptionist that day...
haha, just kidding steve. he's not crippled, just a minor injury that no doubt is long healed. steve was awesome. he told us where the secret bethel hideout cheap breakfast joint was, then he put up with us disrupting his reception area with our noisy selves. then he got us in for lunch, where we were the loudest table. our missing the bus led to us making a new friend so it wasnt so bad after all. thanks a million steve!
so how to get to patterson? dawn to the rescue. she gamely DROVE us there after we called her and begged to be rescued. we had a great time with her, in spite of getting lost due to my poor map-reading skills (drove to connecticut instead of patterson, but hey, it was the right general direction). we eventually got there. we didnt get much of a tour (to clarify: our tour guide was great, but we were late so it had to be shortened considerably) but we were happy to meet with some old friends, mark and charlene. mark gave us a wonderful tour of the gilead class which was such a privilege. we even found moms name in the book. assignment: 'unknown'. not anymore, we have rectified the records!!!
the next morning (at 6am, of course) we were all ready to say goodbye to patterson and on to the farm...
...and wasn't wallkill beautiful. what an amazing place. the tour took us the whole day - morning was the factory and afternoon was the outside areas. the printing presses are mind-blowing. 94,000 impressions an hour is what the red digits above it indicate. i had to do a panorama to fit it all in - it looks better if you double-click on it so it fills the screen a bit better....
and in spite of this prodigious output, magazines are no longer being printed here. as you may have heard, canada branch have just installed a press similar to this one and are producing magazines for all of usa and canada. so this press is just running books. wow.
the thing i liked most about wallkill (apart from finding a bunch of brothers playing football*) was the mind-blowingly beautiful garden. i doubt whether in paradise they will be able to think of anything to improve on it.
and finally, our last morning (yep, you guessed it - 5.30am this time) we jumped onto the last shuttle to go back to brooklyn bethel. though many things have since been moved to either patterson or walkill, there were several interesting things here. one was the opportunity to hang out with moms friend from when she was in gilead who amazingly still remembers her. her and her brother are the 2 longest serving bethelites: he has been in bethel for 71 years. (if you want to read his life story, its in w89 9/1 30)
another highlight was when we visited the bossert. this was formerly a hotel that has been restored by the organisation to its past glory. according to this site, the brothers even went back to the original quarry in italy to restore the marble. what a beautiful building. built in 1909, it has been described as “the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn.” i can believe it. we took our time, relaxing in the lobby and looking at the detail on the walls and roof.
the detail everywhere was astounding:
and we ended up with a quick walk around the garden at 125 columbia, which is where mom stayed during gilead. the window visible at the top right hand corner, if i am not wrong, was her room. you can see in this pic how excited she was :)
and our last night in bethel we fittingly ended with a visit to our favorite bethelites: steve and josh. also, we stayed in this room with this stunning view of manhattan. (beautiful night pictures to come in the next blog!)
so our exciting 3 day tour of the world headquarters came to an end. it was soo wonderful to be among our fellow brothers and sisters. we made many friends and had an outstanding time. hopefully all of you will eventually be able to visit kenya branch so we can repay your kindness!
____
* real football played with actual feet, not american football
but, being the africans we are, we arrived there at exactly 6.13, about 2 minutes after it left. major disaster!! we were supposed to meet our friends for lunch at Patterson! what to do? well, this poor crippled brother was the receptionist that day...
haha, just kidding steve. he's not crippled, just a minor injury that no doubt is long healed. steve was awesome. he told us where the secret bethel hideout cheap breakfast joint was, then he put up with us disrupting his reception area with our noisy selves. then he got us in for lunch, where we were the loudest table. our missing the bus led to us making a new friend so it wasnt so bad after all. thanks a million steve!
so how to get to patterson? dawn to the rescue. she gamely DROVE us there after we called her and begged to be rescued. we had a great time with her, in spite of getting lost due to my poor map-reading skills (drove to connecticut instead of patterson, but hey, it was the right general direction). we eventually got there. we didnt get much of a tour (to clarify: our tour guide was great, but we were late so it had to be shortened considerably) but we were happy to meet with some old friends, mark and charlene. mark gave us a wonderful tour of the gilead class which was such a privilege. we even found moms name in the book. assignment: 'unknown'. not anymore, we have rectified the records!!!
the next morning (at 6am, of course) we were all ready to say goodbye to patterson and on to the farm...
...and wasn't wallkill beautiful. what an amazing place. the tour took us the whole day - morning was the factory and afternoon was the outside areas. the printing presses are mind-blowing. 94,000 impressions an hour is what the red digits above it indicate. i had to do a panorama to fit it all in - it looks better if you double-click on it so it fills the screen a bit better....
and in spite of this prodigious output, magazines are no longer being printed here. as you may have heard, canada branch have just installed a press similar to this one and are producing magazines for all of usa and canada. so this press is just running books. wow.
the thing i liked most about wallkill (apart from finding a bunch of brothers playing football*) was the mind-blowingly beautiful garden. i doubt whether in paradise they will be able to think of anything to improve on it.
and finally, our last morning (yep, you guessed it - 5.30am this time) we jumped onto the last shuttle to go back to brooklyn bethel. though many things have since been moved to either patterson or walkill, there were several interesting things here. one was the opportunity to hang out with moms friend from when she was in gilead who amazingly still remembers her. her and her brother are the 2 longest serving bethelites: he has been in bethel for 71 years. (if you want to read his life story, its in w89 9/1 30)
another highlight was when we visited the bossert. this was formerly a hotel that has been restored by the organisation to its past glory. according to this site, the brothers even went back to the original quarry in italy to restore the marble. what a beautiful building. built in 1909, it has been described as “the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn.” i can believe it. we took our time, relaxing in the lobby and looking at the detail on the walls and roof.
the detail everywhere was astounding:
and we ended up with a quick walk around the garden at 125 columbia, which is where mom stayed during gilead. the window visible at the top right hand corner, if i am not wrong, was her room. you can see in this pic how excited she was :)
and our last night in bethel we fittingly ended with a visit to our favorite bethelites: steve and josh. also, we stayed in this room with this stunning view of manhattan. (beautiful night pictures to come in the next blog!)
so our exciting 3 day tour of the world headquarters came to an end. it was soo wonderful to be among our fellow brothers and sisters. we made many friends and had an outstanding time. hopefully all of you will eventually be able to visit kenya branch so we can repay your kindness!
____
* real football played with actual feet, not american football
