My story begins in 1984 when I was only 4 years old. We were living in at the time and my mom had just begun to study with a couple who were Witnesses. They were nice people who didnt mind when I constantly interrupted their study to show them my newest toy. A friend of the family (turns out he had been dfed many years before) had given me a copy of My Book of Bible Stories from which I would ask questions to this witness couple. Mostly things such as who is this guy?, what did he do? things like that. Before anything can come of the study my parents get a divorce and my mom and I moved to Puerto Rico .
During my time in I began studying with an MS by the name of Zenon. I was soon after attending meetings regularly. I was only 7 at the time and it was great because I was getting to use the English that I had learned while I lived in the states. I was meeting kids my age that spoke only English, they let me pass the mics, and they even let me work at the literature counter every once in a while. Pretty interesting stuff when you are 7 years old.
In 1990 my mother married an American guy from that she had met while working for an aircraft company. He wasnt a witness when they met but he began to study and was eventually baptized. The aircraft company shut down and we were forced to move to where his non-witness family lived. We started attending the Fair Oaks Congregation soon after arriving in . The reception that my mother and I received when we first went was ice cold to say the least. I dont know if it was something racially motivated due to the fact that we were in the south or if it was just because we were strangers. The fact is though it didnt improve from there. Sure, there were a few families that warmed up to us after some time but for the most part, the brothers and sisters were cold and distant.
Because of financial difficulties, my family decided to make the move to Wichita. When we finally arrived, we began attending the congregation. I was baptized 8 months after we arrived at the ripe age of 11. (In retrospect, that was WAY too young to make such a commitment. The elders should have never even allowed me to go through the questions knowing that someone that is 11 years old would have no real grasp as to what a large commitment they are undertaking.) At the West Congregation is where I got my first taste of the politics, nepotism, and favoritism that is rampant throughout all of the truth. There were situations that I can remember when elders, servants, and their children commited some sort of wrongdoing and it was all swept under the carpet. This was especially true in cases where it was the children of an elder because if they were still living at home the elder could be removed. There was also one particular ministerial servant who was in charge of the sound...
He and my step father had a disagreement one day at work where the servant was my step fathers boss. From then on I was a target for him. I remember more than once I went home with tears in my eyes because of his ridicule. My family could not afford nice clothes, or even new ones at that. I wore old second and third hand clothing that we found at a local DAV. He said that he would not allow me to handle the mics until I got some clothes that were fitting to the position of a mic runner. Years later my pioneer partner informed me that he had once told her that if you ever think of marrying or even liking that dirty spic, I will have nothing to do with you. This is when I began to have doubts regarding the organization.
Although I had my doubts, I thought to myself that it was just me and I would work through it. From the ages of 16-18 I served as a regular pioneer (the good old days when we did 90 hours a month). I was doing everything and more than what any elder could have asked from me. I made it a point to be a model witness. I would answer at least 3 or 4 times per meeting, put in massive hours in field service, and I was told by many elders several times that I was a great example to all the young ones in the congregation. I never carried on with a double life during all this time. I found it intriguing though that some of the people that I pioneered with were being made ministerial servants but I as of yet was not. Why? Well as for the 2 brothers that come to mind that were made servants, one was a pioneer brother who had just year previously been publicly reproved and had been privately reproved several times through all the time that I had known him. Not only that but he was part of one of the biggest cover ups of anyone I knew. He and his girl were caught in a compromising situation. Did he get removed as a pioneer and MS? Did he get reproved? No, his presiding overseer daddy and his girls dad who was an elder as well covered up the whole situation and made it go away. Why didnt he get in trouble? He was the son of the presiding overseer. The other was also the son of a respected elder in the congregation. This is the same guy who was caught being alone with someone elses girlfriend. Mine. Funny though, they got married 2 months after I dumped her.
In spite of all this, I still wanted very badly to reach out to those who had not yet seen the light. I packed up my bags and moved to the North Spanish congregation that was in desperate need of help. I spent the first 3 months there getting used to meetings in Spanish, commenting and the such until one day I decided that I was ready to give talks. I started noticing that the elders were not willing in the least to give me responsibilities within the congregation. I though it was because they didnt know me too well or that maybe I had given them a bad first impression. I decided to improve my standing with them and started conducting 2 studies as well as averaging 37 hours per month out in service on top of working a full time job. All this time, not a single elder approached me to ask how I was faring in the Spanish congregation, if I needed some help, or to offer me some loving guidance as to how I could earn some responsibility within the congregation. When I would ask if I could run the mics or take a place at the literature counter I was told no. When I would ask why they would reply that they had to talk about it in their next elders meeting.
This went on for about 8 months until I got fed up with the lack of answers and asked a friend of mine who just happened to be a servant there as to why they wouldnt let me help in any way. His reply was that they had discussed this long ago and they wouldnt let me take any responsibility within the congregation because my hair was cut too short. MY HAIR!!!!!!! The loving elders never once came to me to talk to me about this horrible problem that existed. They were content with keeping things the way they were. I decided to leave the congregation and go to another hall. I next went to Prarie Park congregation. Interestingly enough, 2 months after my departure I received a phone call from my friend the MS at the North Spanish hall telling me that he was just told that the elders had just now looked at my field service records and saith they would have made me a servant by the next C.O. visit. I was shocked to hear that all it took so I could serve as an M.S. with my short short hair was that I had to boost their field service #s for the next C.O. visit.
Prarie Park was the last kingdom hall that I ever attended. By this time I was frustrated to a breaking point with this organization. The more I looked into it, the more I saw that all their rules that are meant to help you are actually meant to trap you. The hypocracy, the rule bending, the lying everything was getting to me. To make matters worse, in this kh the meetings were more like business meetings that were occasionally interrupted by music more than they were religious services. The final straw came when they got wind of the fact that I had started dating someone who was not a dub. First they pulled me into the little room or back room. They showed me scriptures about bad association and becoming unevenly yoked and so on. I listened to them and just nodded my head until it was over. I went to a few more meetings until one day 2 elders knocked on my door.
The elders first off invited themselves in after I had told them that I was busy at the moment and would be leaving soon. They insisted that they would only be there for no more than 5 to 10 minutes. I went ahead and let them in. The elder started in about the whole bad association thing and unevenly yoked thing again. Then he got on to the subject of how being one of JWs has had such a positive effect. He was under the impression that because I spent my whole life with a father you could not have cared less than me, and growing up in a very tough neighborhood, that I turned out the way I did (one hell of a guy if I do say so myself J ) only because I was a witness. My reply to that was that I turned out the way I did simply because this is the kind or person that I like to be. He turned bright red and yelled quite loudly at me saying Do not underestimate what Jehovah and this organization have done for you. I looked him in the eye and told him that it was pointless to go on with this conversation because we were arguing semantics and that they should leave now.
At this point everything in my life is going well. I have my own apartment. I have a mother who is supporting my decision to be with someone who is not a witness, my father is as well though neither is pleased that I stopped going to meetings. I have a wonderful girl friend who I feel very much in love with and had given a promise ring to. My life is grand. That is until the elders start whispering nasty things in my mothers ears about how my girlfriend was only with me to try to convert me to catholosism, how she was going to ruin my life and my relationship with my family. For whatever reason my mom decided to go along with what the snakes were whispering in her ear. Our relationship crumbled from there. My brother was not allowed to visit me and they even turned him against me. I was disowned and not allowed to visit unless I was hungry and needed to eat. The verbal lashings that I took were miserable. I couldnt eat, sleep or concentrate. Things got so bad that one night I had a severe nosebleed that would not stop due to all the stress I was under. I lost almost 2 pints of blood that night, the bleeding did not stop for 5 hours.
This treatment continued for almost a year and culminated when my girl friend said she couldnt take the pressure of our relationship and decided to end it. Thankfully we are still very close friends thought there is no chance that we will reconcile. Here recently though everything has made a turn for the better. My mom decided about a month ago that she was sick of being a puppet as well and has stopped attending meetings. My little brother is back in my life and I am no longer disowned. The relationship that my mother and I have will never be like what we had. Although I realize that she was being manipulated by this most hateful organization, I feel that blood should be thicker than anything else. I hope someday we work our way back to the relationship we had when I was younger Im sure that will come in time.
Well this is my story. Im may not be as moving or touching as other stories but it was what I needed at the time to help me realize that I could no longer live under their control.
P.S. If someone out there is reading this and going through something similar, feel free to contact me. [email protected].
Edited by - pr_capone on 30 December 2002 4:42:35