More and more people I ask have been telling me that they've received emails about the JW showroom in Rouen, France--a town about an hour and a half northwest of Paris on the way to England. Thankfully, I recently got the chance to talk to my personal friend Havalah who lives in Paris and recently visited the location to get more information.
The showroom will be open for 6 months as a trial. She mentioned there was a boat show in town that attracted a lot of outside visitors to the city and that the brothers there are hoping to attract some of those tourists.
All of the brothers and sisters working in the place were locals. There were around 10 people in the showroom at any moment, and around the area there were a couple public witnessing stands set up within three blocks of the actual showroom. Those who worked in the showroom rotated shifts with those manning the public witnessing stands.
She noted that right now they have 11 different languages featured, and there are brothers that speak all of those languages working in the showroom.
There were also computers set up where people could access the website to get more information, and there is a section out of public view where people could look up information on their own or ask more questions/study with one of the Jehovah's Witnesses present.
On June 1st it was a barbershop. On June 3rd construction began. Three days later the showroom was open to the public (Thursday June 6th).
In the first week, around 1000 publications were placed in various languages. Since it has been open for over twenty days and seems to be successful for now, it will be interesting to see if more of these open up in the rest of the world. Hope an official video will be made on JW.org soon. :)
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