More Service Experience and Commentaries

CAUTION! Long winded ramblings ahead! ;-)

How would you define 'a successful day' in the ministry?  Getting out of bed in the morning?  Making it out your front door fully dressed and having eaten?  Making it to the service group on time? Finding at least one person to talk to in the ministry? Starting a new RV? Starting a new BS? Teaching someone a new truth and seeing the light-bulb effect in their eyes?

The questions above used to be qualifiers for "success" when we were in Canada ... to be honest we still use the first few questions as measurements since our field service groups are at 8:30 am.  But our definition of a truly successful day in the ministry is changing. It was almost easier to be focused on RESULTS when you don't have a lot of successes, just like someone focused on earning money thinks their first million will make them happy. But success CANNOT really be measured by counting results.

Here, you can place literature with almost every person you talk with in the ministry.  Most will agree to having you come back for a return visit or a bible study.  Some of those bible studies will progress.  This certainly brings joy to our hearts.  But is it really success in the ministry?

More recently, despite my slightly skewed focus, the feeling of success has come from drawing close to and being available to be used by Jehovah. Some of the times I feel most successful in the ministry I have almost no measurable results at all.

For instance yesterday, despite relentless stomach problems I struggled out of bed and made it to the field service group on time with a fruit smoothie warming my soul.  (measurement #1 met). We started our day witnessing to small family businesses along one of the main avenidas in our territory.  You know the sort that are painted bright colors on the outside advertising the local cellular companies that are making money hand over fist down here in South America.  As we entered, the shop was so filled with goods that it was hard to stand anywhere without brushing into something. Because of the "results" we get in the ministry there is a constant literature shortage in our congregation.  I had no more magazines or books, just a few tracts and dog-eared 'Creation' brochures that have been in my case for a while as you don't really need to convince people here that god exists.  If our service groups met at the Kingdom Hall each day I would be able to replenish our supplies, but alas, we meet in the territory to reduce travel expenses on the brothers.  I opted to use the "Dejaremos de Sufrir" tract for my presentation. The lady gave me a few seconds to talk before she began to warm up her own vocal cords.  Once she got going I had trouble keeping up and understanding everything she was rattling off.  What I was able to understand was she was "happily Catholic" and even traveled some 6 hours one way each week to get to her favorite church in another city.  The very Canadian side of me kept trying to enter the now one-sided conversation but very adeptly was talked over by the approximately 55 year old, somewhat rotund shop owner. The 82 year old brother assisting me on the call decided to stop the barrage of words coming from the shop owner with his own 'A to Z' explanation of the bible, terminating the speech with "you should come to the meeting".  The shop owner, whose efficiently shortly cut, permed hair that made her look like a pear shaped Q-tip replied, "well I already go to church and all churches are the same. They all teach the bible."  Well ... something in me was awoken and sprung to life!  Leaving my deeply ingrained Canadian personality behind I barged into the conversation and stated in a voice loud enough to be heard above hers if she chose to try to talk over me again; "if you think all religious meetings are the same I am afraid you don't know what our meetings are like. I have a video I would like to show you."  Whipping out the tablet like a six-gun from a holster (yes I am getting fast with the tablet) I navigated to the correct video while trying to keep control of the conversation.  She watch with faint interest in her eyes, but she watched. It is sort of like when you're in a restaurant and you don't really want to watch the television but the conversation has lagged and you can't seem to tear your eyes away from it.  Then at about the one minute mark her eyes lit up and she interrupted the video with a question; "What? All your meetings are free? You mean you don't collect the 10% or pass a plate??" She went on to explain that even outside her church people target the attendees selling vegetables and this bothered her.  So I showed her Matthew 10:8 that we try to follow Jesus instructions to give free and I mentioned the account of Jesus throwing the money changers and merchants out of the temple. Now she was very animated.  She stated that was exactly how she felt and it always bothered her the way things were run in her church. She averred that she definitely would attend our 'church' on Sunday and asked for the directions.  The older brother, Andrés, helped me explain where it was located.  She even remembered seeing it before and stated again she would attend on Sunday.  Andrés made sure to mention she needed a bible study and Rachel and I would come back to teach her, but she declined.  She said she already reads the bible.  She also said she wanted to still attend her church as her whole family is Catholic, and looking at me with sort of pleading eyes she asked whether or not it was okay to go to both 'churches'.  A look of relief crossed her face as I said it is entirely her choice.  So we departed the shop.

To clarify the reason for that long, novel-like experience ... I only placed a tract (hardly measurable), she didn't want a study or a return visit, she is still strongly determined to be Catholic ... but I felt that was one of the most successful calls of the morning.  We were able to show her that Jehovah's organization is not like other organizations. I'm one of the few in our congregation who has a tablet to show videos. The video was one of the the only things that would have likely affected her as she was quiet and not talking over it. It felt that I was working alongside our heavenly father and defending him to one of the only openly non-interested persons in our territory, and it felt like we were being used by him. We may never see that lady again, but it sure felt like success.

Around the corner we called on a house that many publishers would have skipped. Here there are a lot of bad dogs and if there is a strong chance of being bitten the publishers just skip the house.  I HATE missing houses.  It bugs me that we don't keep not-at-homes here and thus we "miss" many houses each morning in the sense that no one is home and we don't go back again until the next time we do that territory.  So I knocked.  The dogs were nasty, but we have cases and umbrellas.  A young woman exited the house.  She correctly identified the hope for the dead in response to my question and added even more details that were all accurate.  I asked how she knew and she stated she used to study with Witnesses until her life got so busy with University and her conductor moved away.  So I offered to start her study again and she agreed. 

True, this time there were results but the 'successful feeling' came, not from starting the study, but from being the foolhardy person who doesn't yet know what its like to be bit by a dog and have to go to a hospital in a 3rd world country.  Because of this it felt like again we were used to find a lost sheep.

A week earlier we had witnessed to a man at the public witnessing stand and received his address for follow up. Upon trying to follow up we knocked on about 30 doors.  Why?  No one has numbers on their houses and the direction was 'this street and that street'.  Was it on the corner?  Was it on "this street" or was it on "that street"?  Impossible to know, so we kept knocking.  After talking to about 8 people the next lady said, 'well there is a phone number why don't you call him'?  Feeling foolish I said 'because my Spanish is bad and I have a hard time understanding people on the phone.'  She offered to call for me and we found out that he lives about 4 streets away and had put down that intersection because it is well known and easy to find.  Anyways, I ignored the rising irritation in my soul and focused on giving a witness to the kind lady who helped us.  I explained why we were looking for the man and she invited us into her house. We studied a lesson in the good news brochure. As we got her talking she thanked us for coming and getting her back to reading her bible as she hadn't done that for a while. We tried to set up for a return visit but she declined.  She stated that she was an Adventist.  She then said thanks to Jehovah's Witnesses she started studying the bible. One sister studied with her for about a year and she realized she needed to make changes so she prayed to god to help her find the truth and know what was the true religion.  That was when an Adventist approached her and she has been an Adventist ever since.  Again pushing aside my Canadian  timidity I asked her to grab a pen and paper and we went through the "how to identify the true religion" lesson of the the Good News brochure. I asked her to write down all the scriptures and to read them from her own bible and to meditate on them.  I even got her to note down the subheadings that related to each characteristic of the true religion.  Then we left.

No placements, no return visit, no bible study, no measurable results.  But we by chance talked to a good-hearted, helpful person who had once studied with Witnesses and since stopped.  By her own admission she usually is not at home at that hour and is hard to find because she works a lot.  And we felt motivated to speak out boldly contrary to the nature of our personalities.  Will the scriptures affect her viewpoint?  Who knows!!!  But it felt like we were used by Jehovah to provide another opportunity to a potential sheep.  Regardless of results, it felt like a successful call in the ministry!

To sum up - we are starting to measure success in the ministry by intangibles;
- endurance; faithfully, regularly going out despite illness or setbacks
- availability; being used by Jehovah to accomplish even unfavorable tasks because we are there and we are willing
- boldness; success at overcoming our personality limitations and being more Christ-like and bold when the situation calls for it

It truly feels like success when we can work alongside our loving heavenly father (1 Cor. 3:9) and feel like he is there with us, guiding, directing and using us for favorable or unfavorable work.  Having said that, I now fear the repercussions.  I assume more unfavorable work will be on the horizon. Oh well, I'm available.

Thanks for reading, hope you were AT LEAST entertained. That's all for now. Until next time.

The Love of the Brothers, Circuit Assembly and Service Experiences

Welcome Party

A few weekends ago we were given a surprise welcome party.  We were told it was going to be a congregation get-together. It was scheduled to start at 7:00 pm on Sunday evening.  One brother warned us not to bother coming until 7:30 pm as they usually start late.  I'm glad he did warn us as only 6 brothers were there when we arrived at 7:30 pm - and they were still working on getting a light source in the large, windowless room being used for the party.  By 9:00 pm most of the brothers had arrived.

I was sick that night with a bronchial type cough that was triggered every time I started to talk or whenever I got up to dance.  Thus we were thinking of not attending at all but we decided we would attend because we didn't want to be rude and then leave by about 9:00 pm.  Our plans were spoiled with the late start. But were we ever happy we attended.

The surprise came at about 9:30 pm when the MC announced that the party had been arranged to say goodbye to a brother that had just completed MTS and was being sent to another assignment and to welcome us to the congregation (we had gotten our 1 year VISA and now were official in the country and thus official in the congregation too).  We were invited up to give speeches.  They even made Rachel go up to say a few words.  Of course with her level of Spanish she was too afraid to speak audibly so instead she put to use her new found sign-language skills.  We share the K.Hall with a sign-language group and when you can't understand Spanish very well watching the signers helps a lot.  So she signed a few words to one of the brothers who translated into the mic.  Everyone was very impressed.

After that two sisters sang us a welcome song.  It was beautiful!  Don't ask me what it was about ... but it was beautiful.  Now that I think about it maybe they were singing to the single brother that was leaving - it does sound like a 'broken heart' song!  Then the dancing started.  We stayed for about 45 minutes more.  At that point I was starting to explode.  My lungs were becoming an external organ.  It was totally my fault, I couldn't stay off the dance floor.  I especially loved the Bolivian version of the Bird Song which is the "Gorilla Song".  The dance that goes along with it is a LOT more entertaining than the bird song.  I didn't have the presence of mind to record it as I was laughing too hard, but I promise that at the next get-together I will remember.  As we were trying to escape at about 10:30 pm we got stopped by one of the sisters.  She had prepared a special dish for us which they hadn't had a chance to offer us as the meal hadn't been served yet. She wanted us to take some to go along with many other treats.  I may have been half dead and missed the next few days of service recovering but our hearts were overflowing from the love the brothers showed. 

Circuit Assembly - 1350 attendance - 11 baptized

Me and my gang.

This assembly was a lot more difficult than the last, for a few reasons.  One, this was my first time with an assignment. I was an assistant overseer in the cleaning department.  Here the brothers do a LOT of cleaning for an assembly. Let me give you an idea of what they do here;

As it is common for them to run out of water they have four large water tanks outside each of the four sets of washroom locations. When there are water shortages the idea is you take buckets of water from the tanks to flush the toilets. We were fortunate this time that the arena had running water for MOST of the time we were there (from 8:00 am until 9:15 am the day of the assembly there was no running water).  Upon arriving to clean the day before the assembly, we realized the patrons of sporting events used the water tanks as trash receptacles for leftover food and food packaging.  Thus we had to drain the blackened, scummy water out, remove the trash, scrub them clean and refill the water tanks.

The washrooms are SCARY when we first arrive. To give an idea of the condition of the washrooms, they don't flush toilet paper here (common in Mexico, Central and South America) and yet the management does not provide trash bins for all the washrooms.  Thus the odor when we arrive is quite pungent.  The brothers and sisters are amazing. Using the most rudimentary cleaning equipment (squeegee on a broom handle, a rag the size of a doormat and a bucket of water with cleaning solution) they go to work cleaning the filth.  They don't even have proper mops so they need to soak the rag in the bucket, wrap it around the floor squeegee, scrub the floors and then rinse it and wring it out by hand.  I know!!!!  It's disgusting.  Yet they put on gloves and willing throw themselves into the work.

As part of the process of making the arena suitable for the brothers, the cleaning department bought nine (9) toilet seats to install in the women's washrooms so that MOST of the women's toilets would have seats ('MOST' only because of budget constraints).  The men's washrooms we didn't worry about putting toilet seats, whatever were there was good enough. The cleaning department also bought 20 garbage cans to make up for what the facility did not provide.  We needed 36 garbage cans.  Thus in the remaining 16 stalls we taped garbage bags to the walls.

They don't have paper towel or toilet paper dispensers, so we put a piece of packaging (box) tape through the center of a toilet paper roll, twist it a few times and attach it to the wall of the bathroom stall. This creates a makeshift dispenser. We would do the same with the hand towels but our cleaning budget is very small.  Thus throughout the entire day 5 shifts of 2 sister / brothers are assigned to each washroom to hand out paper towel (1 piece per person) and reattach new rolls of toilet paper and keep the floor clean and dry.

In addition, on the pre-assembly clean the brothers scrape gum off of seats and floors, remove trash from between the concrete benches and the wood slats bolted on top of them, sweep and wash seats and floors throughout the entire arena, paint over the many foul language graffiti slogans, etc, etc, etc. And here is the kicker, apparently the brothers have to PAY to rent the facility the day before the program begins so that we can clean it!!!!

In addition to the workload during the Assembly, what made the Assembly even more difficult was that our cleaning station was situated in an alcove.  Because of the concrete construction this alcove was like a reverberating chamber, an echo tunnel.  We struggle at the best of times to understand the assembly programs as the different brothers have slightly different accents, they speak quicker to try to include more material or they don't enunciate clearly because of nervousness.  Thus, whenever I wasn't running to bring supplies to the different washrooms, I resigned myself to trying to understand and note down the scriptures used during the program.  Even that proved to be difficult.  Thank goodness for the provision of the Assembly audio recordings from the sound department - one of the many wonderful changes our organization has implemented in recent years!

Service Experiences

Recently we decided to cull RVs from our digital 'book of life'.  We were up to 61 RVs that we had placed literature and set up for a study in the Good News brochure.  The problem was we could never find some of them at home again and we were doing way too much traveling around. Another issue was we were not scheduling a specific date and time to return for most of the calls but just waiting until we were in that area in the ministry again.  This was too haphazard and inefficient.  So we took a few hours one evening to map out all our calls and make specific times to return.  With the ones that are never there we left notes with their family or in their doors giving them our contact information and putting the onus on them to contact us if they wanted to study.  Then we deleted them until we receive further contact.  We have really seen blessings from arranging our calls this way.

Finding sheep in the ministry!

Yesterday (Sunday) is an example of our recent service experiences using this method.  We started off expecting one of our new calls at the meeting.  He didn't show so after the meeting we scheduled a visit to him later in the week.

Rachel had worked hard and cooked a meal the night before so we went home and enjoyed a meal with a couple and 2 single sisters from our Hall.  We were able to enjoy a nice relaxed meal and some association, clean up and do dishes, rest for a bit and then get out in service by 2:30 pm (the benefits of a 9:30 am meeting).


We had 8 potential studies scheduled for that afternoon.  The first call was not at home.  Two days earlier we had contacted her in the ministry and she had poured out her heart about all the problems she was having in her family.  We had offered to return with the new brochure "Your Family Can be Happy", so we left it in the door with a note.  The next call was a no show as well.  We left our contact card with his family and informed them if he wanted a study he would need to call as we would not be returning otherwise.  At that point we phoned our 3rd study (always a good idea to get phone numbers).  He said he was happy to hear from us and would wait for our arrival.

This was our first real visit with him since the initial contact.  Upon our arrival he asked us to pray for him.  Thankfully this wasn't the first time we encountered this so we used the suggestion from the 'reasoning book' showing that we like to follow Jesus instructions for preaching (Matt 10 - which we read with him) and we don't pray with people at the doors like other religions. He wasn't offended at all but appreciated the biblical answer. He invited us in and told us his life story for the first 15 - 20 minutes. Then we started talking about the subject 'are all religions pleasing to God.'  He brought out his bible and we used ours without any other publications for the discussion.  At the end of the study he invited us back and confessed that he felt God had helped us meet.  We met him while witnessing on the minibus on our way to another study about a month earlier.  We ended up being there for almost one and a half hours as he kept asking questions - not good seeing as we had 5 more calls! As we left he walked us to the bus stop, asking questions all along the way. He helped us get on the correct minibus to go to the next call.

Finally on our way we decided to reschedule our next appointment as we were already very late.  Fortunately the appointment after that wasn't home either. I say 'fortunately' as this allowed us to arrive at our 6th call just on time.  This time we got the young man we had originally called on in the ministry, rather than his brother whom we had been studying with regularly at that house.  Grover was appreciative to see us again and mentioned that his brother had been sharing the points from the studies with him. So we continued the study with Grover rather than his brother.  He accepted the teachings a lot more readily than his brother and asked many questions.  So many that we were 30 minutes late for our next study.  After an hour there we peeled ourselves away. We had to cancel one more study for that day as it was now 6:30 pm and we were supposed to be back at the K.Hall for an appointment at 7:00 pm.

The last call of the afternoon, ended up being with 2 teenage girls. The original interest was with their mother but when she isn't available her daughters are happy to study and relay the information to her later.  This time their younger sister, about 8 years old, also came out. The first thing she did was start petting and pulling on my arm hair and the brochure.  Rachel tried to distract her while I conducted the study. This little, precocious girl was non-stop questions. She started with why were we so white, why did Rachel have blue eyes, why was her hair so short, where are our parents, where does god live, is he friends with Santa Claus, do we know the words to Feliz Navidad?... Through all this Rachel didn't think the girl was listening to me conduct the study but when I asked the other girls what hope is there for bad people when they die, based on John 5:28,29, she turned and shouted, "infierno" (hell)! She she was shocked when I said 'no'.  She didn't quite get the point of the study but she was sort of paying attention. We were only planning on staying 15 minutes but a half hour flew by and we had to go as it was already 7:05 pm and we were still 10 - 15 minutes from the K. Hall.

We caught a minibus and went straight to the Hall where new CUSHIONED chairs were being delivered.  We helped bring them in and unwrap them. What a treat to have nice cushioned seats. Our pampered, sore, Canadian butts thank the brothers that decided to get better chairs. We are sure the existing chairs had been designed as some form of torture device. Only 80 chairs were delivered to our hall.  We usually have about 110 in attendance at our meetings.  Am I ever glad most are late for the meetings as it means we will easily get the good seats by arriving early, or even just on time.

We left for home by 7:45 pm, picking up a 13 Bs ($2) KFC style fried chicken dinner for one which we shared.  A glass of wine, deep fried chicken and french fries - what a wonderful way to cap a full and rewarding afternoon in the ministry.

Since Mexico I haven't felt such excitement in my ministry, the surge of holy spirit that comes with having study after study of willing, eager students.  It's something I always want to be able to enjoy in this system. We got home after 4.5 hours of Sunday service and it took about an hour to 'come down' from the spiritual high - to use a crudely inadequate metaphor.  As King David sang in Psalms 27:4 - we too want nothing more than to be able to dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of our lives, to gaze upon the pleasantness of Jehovah - what a kind and loving father he is! And we would add, we want to always be able to enjoy the privilege of serving his kingdom interests full-time in such a rewarding assignment such as Bolivia.

Thanks for reading.  Until next time may the blessings of Psalms 20:1-4 be upon all of you!
(Yes, I'm in Psalms for my daily bible reading).