I'd like to tell you a true story about my Father. He isn't alive now, but he was the PO of a congregation in the UK when he died. I did once post this on H 20, so my apologies if it is "old hat".
He had an unusual experience during WW 2, this mystified him so much that he searched for answers for years. Eventually, when JW's called on him in the 50's, they answered his query to his entire satisfaction, and as a result he eventually became a witness. This is his story:
In 1944, my father was a bomb-aimer on Lancasters, he did 43 trips over Germany in total. His crew were mainly English, however the pilot, McKay, was a Canadian.
In Sep 44, my mother gave birth to my elder brother. Sickly from birth, he died a week later with jaundice as the main cause. My Father was given 48 hours compassionate leave, and didn't fly on his assigned target the night that my elder brother died.
The night of his first born's death, the crew of the Lancaster bomber, minus my Father, received a mortal blow from ground-fire and were listed as "missing presumed killed" by the RAF.
Stunned at the news, my dad quickly realised that the death of his son had actually been the saving of his own life.
As the war laboured to it's close, my father took up with a fresh bomber crew in the RAF Pathfinder division, but mourned the loss of his mates from the original crew. If only he could have a last word with them!
Around this time, he attended a funfair in Blackpool, Lancashire whilst on a 72 hour pass. In one of the booths was a spiritualist medium, advertising her services. Dad went in, and she quickly went into a trance and told him what had happened to his crew and how they had been shot down over Germany. Easy stuff so far for any con-artist, but she then told him the names of his crew members, in particular he heard how Canadian pilot McKay had met his end! WoW!
Shaken rigid at this, my Dad soon started to attend spiritualism meetings to try and contact other people who he had once been close to, and eventually became quite involved in the whole thing.
Until........
We move on to the early 50's and a letter arrived from overseas. From Canada. Opening the letter in some puzzlement, my Dad was astonished to discover that it had been written a week or two earlier by non other than Canadian pilot McKay. Bloody Hell!
McKay related in the letter how he had parachuted out of his stricken Lancaster and picked up shortly afterwards by German troops. He was not dead at all, rather he had spent the last few months of the war in a POW camp before being released by the advancing Americans.
So now Dad had a dilemma. He was heavily into spiritualism, but clearly the medium he had spoken too had got it wrong. But then, she knew the names of his crew! How could this be?
This bothered him for a couple of years, and no-one could give him a satisfactory answer. And then...the JW's did!
So, does anyone here think that they know what the witnesses said to answer his question? Something that so enthralled my Dad that he became a witness, almost overnight?
Go on, give it a go!
Englishman.