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serve as sleeping quarters for the people who attend.
BUT---and read this carefully! Here is where we need a
near-miracle! Unless we raise our voices in united earnest and
believing prayer for God to move on many hearts who are able to
send large sums for this purpose, we will not be able to erect any
housing facilities for the hundreds who are coming!
It is going to take every dollar we can normally expect
to raise for the Tabernacle fund just to get the big Tabernacle
itself far enough along to permit holding services, and to feed
those attending. It will not be possible to finish the Tabernacle.
We will not even start the building of the great lounge room at the
front of the building, which also is to serve as a dining room. We
may not even be able to get the sides built on the large
auditorium. But we shall make every effort to have the big
building in rough shape so that we shall have a roof over our heads
for the meetings and for eating, even though we shall have to clear
the chairs in the auditorium and set up tables and eat in the same
room in which the services are held.
While over there on the Tabernacle grounds the other day
I made plans for building at least two or three of the little
sleeping booths---just to show those who attend what they are to be
like.
But now let me explain our big emergency problem. As I
stated in my last letter, if we do not have our own sleeping
accommodations built, even 700 people attending and having to go to
various cabins, auto courts and motels up and down the highway will
pay out to those motels about $10,000 in cabin and motel rent
during the eight days. But now it appears there will be more than
700---perhaps 900 or 1,000 people coming. And that means that we
shall lose about $12,500 paid out in auto-court rents which could
be paid in on the cost of this housing. IF we only had the money
to build the housing BEFORE the Festival.
There is still time to build our own housing IF we had
the money. The contractor says he could put on a large crew of men
and get it done fast. But our Tabernacle grounds and everything on
them are CLEAR---PAID FOR---there is no mortgage, and WE INTEND TO
KEEP IT THAT WAY. We have designed absolutely the LEAST expensive
type of sleeping cabins that could be built. There will be two
sizes, most of them little 8 x 12 sleeping booths, some with two
double-deck bunks for four people, others with one double-bed or
bunk, and one double-deck bunk. These will accommodate two, three,
or four people. There will be no windows---but a screened-in
ventilated space all around the top. There will be only an
electric light---no plumbing at all. Then there will be small
quonset-huts, in which 5 or 6 people may sleep. There will be a
men's and women's sanitary building, each containing sufficient
wash bowls, toilets and shower-baths to accommodate a housing
district of 400 people. There will be a small laundry room with
washing machines, wash trays and ironing boards. Each housing
district, built to accommodate about 400 people, will cost,
according to best estimates, somewhere near $40,000. But of course