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 van der Merwe 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 Van
der Merwe. “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,’ Pugin 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.’