Philanthropist Sam Wilfred King has made a donation of two million Leones as he re-launched the construction of a multi purpose hall at the Portuguese Town Methodist Church Sunday.
Addressing the congregation at the 4th annual thanksgiving services of the Stewards’ Union, the business tycoon reflected on the history of the church, stating that, “it sends a powerful mixture of shockwaves and feelings.”
He emphasized that the first set of settlers of Portuguese town undoubtedly worked very hard, stressing further that, “they were like the first settlers in Salt Lake in the United States of America who built their tabernacles and church from stones ferried from the mountains.”
This aspect the congregation was told took over 40 years and eventually they got the job done, while reflecting on the first foundation stone of the church that was laid in 1886, he opined that the first founders did all the work out of nothing.
“In our own generation”, he stressed, “instead of natural disaster it has been a man made disaster of theft, rivalry, insincerity, non commitment to church work and sometimes bordering on integrity deficiencies, that has not fully complement the effort of our forefathers”.
Sam King further recommended that, “giving the limited space on which the church is situated it might be a good idea to maintain the existing church as a historical monument and faith and seek new land sufficient enough to cope with your current development plan.”
Earlier in his speech the president of the Stewards’ Union, Archie Ayo Davies recapped last year’s thanksgiving service with the theme ‘hope’ when the project was launched, but lamented that, “we have been unable to kick start the project as there was a breakdown in the pledges as the appeal was rather spasmodic and not meaningful.”
He revealed that when the project was actually re-appraised and various professional quotes and estimates prepared including the reconstruction of the existing structure, the new estimate had been put at a little over Le230.
Pledges made were over the Le6 million mark.
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