“It also spurred the congregation to build a more suitable place for meetings,” writes Ron Sellars. Although there was little vacant land on the island of Tutuila, where Pago Pago is located, a local publisher kindly gave the congregation a 30-year lease on a block of land to the west of the city, at Tafuna.

“The land was below sea level,” says Fred Wegener, “so the congregation labored for three months to gather lava rocks to raise the site foundations.”

The local Catholic priest, who regularly read The Watchtower and Awake!, allowed the brothers to borrow the church’s concrete mixer when it came time to pour the concrete floor. “This priest,” writes Ron Sellars, “later read an Awake! article on marriage and immediately left the priesthood to get married.”

Brothers from overseas generously assisted with this Kingdom Hall project. Gordon and Patricia Scott, who were two of the first missionaries to serve in American Samoa but who had returned to the United States, donated chairs from their congregation for use in the new hall. “Then, by selling surplus chairs to the local movie theater,” says Ron Sellars, “we paid for the cost of freighting all the chairs to the island!” The new 130-seat Kingdom Hall at Tafuna was completed and dedicated in 1971. Upstairs missionary quarters were later added to the hall.

[Picture on page 107]

The original Tafuna Kingdom Hall, American Samoa