Yet another scam no doubt.
Years ago, the congregation we were in had very little money. We were in a mining community at a time when the miners were on strike, followed by mass mine closures. I don't recall any funds every being sent from Bethel but one thing I know for sure is the local congregations rallied round. So, even though we had next to no money, I know because I was the accounts servant at the time, we managed to buy an old church. Again with virtually no money, and no support from Bethel, we renovated the place. We made it a beautiful building that was admired by the local community - often folks would stop by and tell us they got married there or went there to Sunday school. A few years down the line we were told by the Circuit Overseer that the effort in maintaining the old place was too much and rather than spend a weekend a month on property maintenance, we should consider a 'quick build' and re-locate to hall with minimal maintenance needs. I was an elder by then and was the only one who spoke out against idea.
So we in the end we sold the old hall and built a new one. I had stepped down as an elder at this point but still helped out with the build. Again, no cost Bethel everything was funded, including a loan from the society by the local congregation.
Since then, and I haven't attended in 20 years now, the new hall has become home to three congregations with at least one of the congregations being forced to sell their existing hall and travel further to this new hall.
This hall, paid for with the money, labour and pride of the local congregation has since been given away to this Kingdom Hall Trust entity.
One thing for though, should there every arise the need for any expensive maintenance, the first people asked to put theirs hands in their pockets isn't going to be the Kingdom Hall Trust but the locals. Seems to me the cash flows in just one direction.
