Kroonstad Cell Church
A severe drought and water shortage left Kroonstad, situated in the Free State, in dire straits earlier this year. In fact, there has been little improvement since. In the midst of this crisis, Kroonstad Cell Church were moving into a new church building which they had worked on for a couple of years, when Johannesburg based Maranatha Community Church decided to pay it forward and donate some of their existing lighting system to them.
“Kroonstad Cell Church is a dynamic local church with sound leadership,” said Pastor Kobus from Maranatha Community Church. “We believe that if you touch a church you touch a community and so we wanted to give them a kick-start in getting on their feet in the new building.”
Maranatha Community Church decided to upgrade their own auditorium with Longman Phoenix Bars and then to donate their existing Robe LEDForce 18s and a lighting control software system with PC to Kroonstad Cell Church. Kroonstad Cell Church had a budget to install a Prolyte trussing structure onto which these lighting fixtures could be hung.
“We chatted to Robert Izzett from DWR to get advice on a system,” said Pastor Kobus. “Rob also did a great job visiting the Kroonstad Cell Church and did a weight and design analysis for their needs.”
Keith Pugin from DWR headed the install team at Kroonstad Cell Church’s new building, formerly an old warehouse that had been completely gutted and converted. “They had to rip the entire roof off and engineer a new roof and ceiling with wall finishes and carpets, but because of a shortage of funds, the building had used up most of their budget,” Keith explained. “The Prolyte trussing was all dead hung from the new roof structure and all the lighting fixtures which came from Maranatha were installed onto it. We did lighting points and DMX points on the stage for up lighting, and to have the infrastructure for future use.”
Back at Maranatha Community Church, lighting designer Nereen Bradshaw was very pleased with her new replacement lighting fixtures. “The technical team, most of whom are volunteers with full time jobs who assist over weekends, now have the ability to add their own flavour to the lighting for each service. They choose their colour sets and decide on positioning, movement and beam effects. They are really enjoying the creative aspect of this and it has given me more free time. I keep adding new positions and new colour sets and the likes, so we just keep going from strength to strength.”
Marantha’s year end service
