Spanish JW Headquarters Removed

Here's a story which will resonate with many disappointed WCG members.

In Spain the Watchtower has decided to dismantle their headquarters and printing facilities in Spain. The Spanish Witnesses are very unhappy with this.

At the time, expansion at the head­quar­ters in New York left the Watch Tower cor­po­ra­tion with­out the finances to build offices and a print­ing facil­ity in Spain and so the Span­ish Wit­nesses were solicited to fol­low the exam­ple of the Israelites in bring­ing their gold, sil­ver, and valu­able items to Moses in order to build the Taber­na­cle. (Exo­dus 35:5–9) The 1983 Year­book of Jehovah’s Wit­nesses, reports the gen­er­ous way that the Span­ish Wit­nesses responded to this appeal.:

At the close of the con­ven­tions, peo­ple were lin­ing up to con­tribute their jew­els, gold and sil­ver rings and bracelets, so that these could be turned into cash to finance the new project. At the con­ven­tion in San Sebastián in the Basque coun­try, an elderly sis­ter handed over a heavy gold bracelet. When asked if she was sure that she wanted to donate such a valu­able item, she answered: “Brother, it is going to do far more good pay­ing for a new Bethel than it will on my wrist!”

With the unspar­ing finan­cial sup­port of the Span­ish Wit­nesses a new branch office and print­ing facil­ity was later con­structed in Madrid. Being financed within the coun­try, this new Bethel was a source of pride for the Span­ish Wit­nesses. Many would make spe­cial trips just to tour the facil­ity. Now some are hurt to watch as the print­ing presses that they gave their pre­cious heir­looms to buy are shipped to Ger­many and the Bethel that they sac­ri­ficed their sav­ings to build is antic­i­pated to be sold, with the pro­ceeds of the sale return­ing back to the US Watch Tower cor­po­ra­tion that was orig­i­nally unable to finance its con­struc­tion.

At the end of this blog he writes,

Cur­rently the dis­con­tent among the reli­gion are orga­niz­ing and mak­ing their case that any funds com­ing from the sale of the Bethel facil­ity should be go back to the ones that financed it the first place. They sug­gest that such money could be used in a char­i­ta­ble way, such as pro­vid­ing a retire­ment facil­ity for those in their ranks that are now aging, with­out pro­vi­sion, hav­ing giv­ing their life in ser­vice of the reli­gion.

This situation reminds me of many WCG members' justified disappointment at WCG's selling of the Ambassador College properties without giving anything back to those who had paid for their construction.

On other news the Watchtower will soon be moving their world headquarters to Warwick, New York.

Thanks to Watchtower News for providing me with these news.