Jehovah Regathering His Sheep

A phenomenal experience

Hello from West Texas!

Things down here are mighty hot and dusty, but the people are great. It's been a few weeks and it's been real nice spending time with the family and getting to know their Spanish congregation. Chinese territory has never been worked here, so it's been fruitful reaching these isolated people in their own language. In fact, it turns out that about 10 Chinese from the community regularly meet together to read the Bible, but they have no pastor!  So, I've been slowly meeting each one of them and building the interest.

But, I have to share with you another very interesting experience. I thought it would be good for me to find a little work to save $ while I'm down here. Well, since I was planning on only being here a few weeks, engineering jobs just weren't working out. Anyways, I put in prayer that I could find work somewhere that I could come in contact with someone that was searching for the truth. Well, I finally found a place that was agreeable with me only staying a short time and also payed well - Toyota Motors.  Unfortunately, I found out the first day  that the man who I would immediately be working under was not so happy that I would be there a short time. He was a large bearded & bald man who seemed to treat everyone real rough. Our first conversation was quite interesting....

Boss:  "I can't understand why we ever hired you, you're here only a few weeks! If I had been interviewing, you wouldn't have stood a chance! Why are you doing this anyways???"

Me:  "Well, I have a goal to relocate to China"

Boss:  "Why would you ever do such a thing??"

Me:  "I'm a volunteer minister. I have been active in the Chinese community for the past 9 years and want to expand my work by moving to China. This job will help me reach that goal"

Boss:  "I don't think having you here would be good for our staff...we're not used to working around 'holy' people.  But, well...it's not all bad, no one here would believe it, but I used to be a 'volunteer minister' too..."

Me:  "Really? What kind?"

Boss:  "I used to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses...but that was more than 20 years ago"

You can imagine my surprise!  I wasn't sure if this was a good thing, or a very bad thing. Turns out that he was raised by a Witness mother, but he rebelled and left home at 17 years of age, before reaching baptism.  You should have seen the look on his face when I told him that I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses.  He looked in complete shock, totally speechless.  

Then he stood up and invited me to come with him out of the office and out the back of the building.  Then he told me  "Now I know why you're here...it's because of me, isn't it?  It didn't make any sense why we hired you...but it's not about that.   It's because Jehovah hasn't forgotten about me...."   

This poor man's life had hit rock-bottom many times since leaving Jehovah, and he and his wife (non-witness) had prayed just the week before that Jehovah help them. He knew that coming back to the truth, no matter how hard, is what he needed to do. He specifically asked that Jehovah send them someone that can help them. This rough and tough looking fella had his eyes filled with tears, and I did too.  We spoke for about an hour and agreed that we needed to take advantage of this opportunity and make things right. Since then, we've had brief discussions at work and I've brought him literature, but we're scheduled to meet together this Sunday for our first Bible study.

Well, it has been very encouraging to me to have had such a great experience. There is definitely plenty to do anywhere we are. Hope you are doing good and keeping busy in your service. Keep in touch when you can.

  

Take care,

Roberto