One thing I have become convinced of
over time is that Jehovah is a fan of poetic justice. You know how we
always read these accounts of the work being banned, only for the
population of Witnesses to explode into greater and greater numbers?
It seems like that's always how it goes. The harder Satan pushes, the
more Jehovah turns that pressure into blessings.
Living in a territory like this, which
never ceases to have its fair share of pressure from Satan, I've been
able to be eyewitness to this exact scenario more times than I can
count. Whether things go wrong at the last minute for our assemblies
or our travels out to conventions, it has never failed to turn into a
positive for us.
Let me share the most recent example of
this with you. Maybe you're familiar with our beloved
congregation boat, Kingdom Proclaimer VII.
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| Or "K-Pro" for short. |
In the last few years this boat has endured 50-60ish trips to
Siparuta, and it has received a heavy amount of wear and tear
throughout its faithful service to us. Until of course two weeks ago
when it wound up getting stolen, right in the middle of our Circuit
Assembly.
So here was our original plan: we were
going to take K-Pro to Siparuta the Thursday after assembly, cover
the whole village (or as much as possible) with the invitations for
Special Talk/Memorial, and then go over again the morning of the
Special Talk, get everything set up, and just hope everyone who was
interested would remember the event. Repeat for Memorial.
Once news broke of our boat being
stolen, we had a problem. How to get to Siparuta? Walk three hours
through the jungle, in the midst of a borderline monsoon? (We're
experiencing rainy season here at the moment) That didn't seem a good
option. Here was the pressure. But what would the blessing turn out
to be?
A Bible student over in Siparuta made a
tantalizing offer. See, there's a commercial boat that goes from
Orealla to Siparuta on Friday night, and travels back Sunday
afternoon. So this study suggested that if we came on the boat Friday
night, we could stay at their house until Sunday, and then ride back.
Added bonus, the boat captain offered to take us for free.
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| You can see how distraught we are over our predicament. |
So now instead of taking a small boat
that holds six people over to Siparuta to preach for a few hours and
go back home once every month (and spending a decent amount of money
buying the fuel for it), now we have the option of going any weekend
we want, with as many people as we want, spending all Saturday in
house-to-house and Bible studies, keep a Public Talk/Watchtower study
on Sunday (which many in the village have been literally begging for) and then
get a ride back. All for free.
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| Yet another bonus! Now we can spend several leisurely hours swimming in Siparuta's wonderful blackwater creeks! |
We first used this method for the
Special Talk weekend, which resulted in nine people attending. We
intend to make use of this new arrangement as often as possible, at
least once a month. Stay tuned to see how this pans out in the
future.
