I have been fading for years now and attend meetings very rarely these days. But something happened recently to make me think about going regularly again.
A couple have returned to my congregation who used to be special pioneers here twenty years ago. They were the ones who studied with various members of my family who became Witnesses. They also studied with lots of my family who did not become Witnesses in the end including my mum and dad. This subsequently affected me as I decided to have a Bible study when I was thirteen. They did not bring me in the truth directly - I started my study long after they left - but they are responsible for setting the whole thing off in my family so I feel they are responsible in some sense.
And it is not just my family this couple had a big impact on. They pioneered in our congregation for about ten years and in that time studied with dozens of people, probably about 30 of them to baptism. There are eight left in the congregation now who studied with them, a few died, and some others moved to other congregations, and some drifted out of the truth as well.
Their return to the congregation has created a real buzz of excitement that I have not known in all the time I have attended. There is a sense that we are on the move again. Things are happening theocratically. They are visitng old studies that they had, including my family, trying to spark the interest again. They have also started new studies in the few weeks they have been back and at the meetings you always see them talking to new ones and other people's Bible studies encouraging them. They are at it non-stop. No wonder they had such success before.
Although I heard a lot about them, I had only met them a couple of times before they moved back recently, so this is the first time I have got to see them close up. I can certainly see how they got their reputation and why they have been remembered so fondly all these years. They are both very intelligent and very committed to the truth. And from their comments they love to get into the details of prophecies, like at the Revelation book study, and they express themselves with real conviction. She especially loves to get into the Greek words and all that whenever there is opportunity at the Watchtower study.
We asked them to come over and visit us next week and I am looking forward to it. But I am a bit torn. Half of me can't help but be affected by their infectious enthusiasm for the truth. They also remind me of gentler times in my youth when the world was less complicated and the truth was there all conveniently mapped out in the pages of the colourful Watchtower magazines. You can't blame me for yearning for that feeling once again. It comes over me ever so comfy. Resisting them might be a bit like trying to evade the onset of a pleasant nap while stretched out in the lazy summer sun.
But then half of me wants to wring their bloody necks and ask them what the hell they think they are playing at. I mean these people are clever. Do they never doubt?
I really wonder how things will go in the end.