During one of the interviews a sister was telling us how her family had violently opposed her becoming one of Jehovahs Witnesses and how she had to cope with it all.
Right as she was explaining how at one point her life had been in serious danger, a HUGE bug fell from directly above the brother who was interviewing her, hit his shoulder and bounced onto the floor next to his foot.
All within a split second he raised his foot instinctively to squash it as the sister very gently said "oh dont do th......"squish went the bug!! The whole audience gasped then erupted into laughter, while the poor sister having just explained her near death circumstances shook her head and sighed all the while having this cheeky, "the timing couldnt have been better" grin on her face, she then broke into laughter too.
The brother who after squishing the bug looked sheepishly up at the sister with horror on his face because he had just heard her say dont do th...... then saw her smile and heard her giggle and he too began laughing. It was quite a moment and I would say a first for all Im sure!!
At a recent assembly we were told that here in
A brother related his experience of before he became a Witness. He had been in the Vietnam war and was on the "Search and Destroy" team. (We were told by his best friend later that his job was to go around after the ambushes and kill anything that moved, he didnt tell us that off the platform as it would have been a little graphic for us all).
He told us of a situation where he found himself in a shoot or be shot situation with a 12yrs old boy. He shot and killed the boy to save his own life. He explained that he now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He talked while tears ran down his face of how every day he sees the face of that young boy and it strikes deeply at his heart that he took his young life away.
His experience was related in the part about how we have the privilege of living in a spiritual paradise even now. He said that before he found the truth he was lost and wanted to kill himself because of the extreme guilt he felt over his past actions in the war. He then went on the explain the impact the truth has had on him and how now although he still grieves every day for that young boy he has the hope of seeing him again in the resurrection and he hopes and prays that Jehovah will give him the chance to meet the boy, to study with him and to teach him the truth!
The dear brother had tears rolling down his face throughout the entire interview and he had to stop a few times to get it together so he could carry on. The brother interviewing him was the same and we, the audience silently felt his pain and cried quietly with him too. What a moving day that was!
The truth cant take away our past actions, but it sure can put them into perspective. It allows us the chance to make amends as it were and to make the most of our now precious time sharing a wonderful hope of eternal blessings for all, with others. What a privilege!!
Back in Jan we had our Special Assembly day in a city called
Our whole
Anyhoo, I have to say I have never cried so much EVER in an assembly. The experiences and interviews were so heartfelt that they were bringing the entire audience to tears! I will share a couple of experiences with you over the next few days.
I was lying in bed the other morning listening to all the new sounds of our new house when I heard this very strange squawking kind of noise. I listened and couldnt figure out what it was. So later I went and did some investigating. Turns out there is a huge parrot that lives next door and it chats away to itself constantly. The parrot is very cleaver and can talk too, whats funny though is that its speaking Spanish!!! Weird how in my mind parrots only speak English!!!
We have just moved house as our old landlord wanted to raise the rent by 75%!! Yeah whatever, dreamer! Our new house is very cool, it is way smaller than the last one, but thats just fine, its much easier to keep clean.
Funny thing happened though when we first walked through the door to the house...... It has not been lived in for a while so all had been quiet in the house. Well we opened the door and switched on the light. We walked into the main living area to see how messy it was and how much cleaning we would have to do before we moved our furniture in. As we did so there was a flurry across the floor as cockroaches scattered in all directions, they starting coming out from under the skirting boards, everywhere!!!! We began jumping, stomping, yelping on a murder spree of epic proportions!! In the end we counted about 25-30 squished ones!!!! AWESOME! and we thought we were the only ones in the house......
Obviously the first thing we did was buy highly potent spray to kill them. It has been funny, as each morning there have been bodies big and small to greet us, but the good news is each morning so far there have been less and less of them, so Im living in the hope that there will be none soon!!!! Ahhhh the joys of life in
Apart from the cucarachas, the house is lovely and quiet, which is very weird for
