About a year later, the fledgling group in Saint-Denis rented a small hall that could seat about 30. It was a wooden building with a corrugated iron roof, two shuttered openings, and one door. After obtaining permission, the brothers knocked out the internal walls, built a small platform, and installed wooden benches that had no backrests.

On a cloudless, tropical Sunday morning, the iron roof became a very effective radiator, and soon all in attendance​—especially those standing on the platform, their heads just inches from the roof—​broke out in beads of sweat. Moreover, because the hall was often filled to capacity, many stood outside, listening from the shuttered openings and the doorway, reducing the already poor ventilation.

One of the new Bible students was Myriam Andrien, who had begun to study in Madagascar in 1961. She remembers that the afore-mentioned hall also served as an Assembly Hall of sorts. The brothers simply erected a shady extension using palm branches.