Many are going back to Jehovah

[Dages]

My mother in law was at her circuit assembly in Okinawa last week-end.

She spoke with a young brother seated next to her.

 

When he was young, he studied the Bible with his mother but stopped because all he wanted to do is surfing and enjoy life in this system. So he went to the Ishigaki islands to surf, teach surf and live in own life. 

But in his heart, something was... you know... you feel that you lack something...

So he started to study again. In one year he was baptised, 6 months later he started his service as a regular pioneer. He is 27.

 

I have found a bible student recently (March and April topic), he want to go back to Jehovah now.

 

Isn't it exciting ? So many people wants to go back to Jehovah and the Slave has been telling us to go for them and help them.

 

[GrumpysWife]

I do believe that we are seeing that here in the US too. We have had a lot of DF'd people start coming back. So happy for that. I hope my son starts feeling like he needs to come back too. Time will tell.

[Miss Bea]

That's what I long to see here. So many of us have grown children out there. I remember a sister telling me, even with the Israelites, they had generations that had a hard time staying with Jehovah. For those of my generation, the exception is a united family. And these are the ones I pray for regularly.

[shali]

I have a younger brother that got disfellowshipped when he was 19.  25 years later he found himself sitting in prison and thinking about Jehovah for the first time in a long time.  I never really held out any hope that he would ever come back to the truth because when he left it, it never seemed that the truth had gotten into his heart - he never talked about it.  I thought Satan would make a turn around before my brother would. The actual story of how he came back to Jehovah is truly miraculous!  (the things Jehovah did for him while he was in prison!) As soon as he got out, he went straight to my older sisters' house (she is married to an elder) and asked for a Watchtower for the Sunday meeting (she didn't even recognize him because none of us had any contact with him for 25 years).  He got reinstated 3 months later and has even brought someone else into the truth!  He is doing fantastic and Jehovah has blessed him immensely and I feel like I have already literally experienced the resurrection of a loved one!  Just goes to show that you can never discount Jehovah in any equasion!  Jehovah knows when those who have left him are fully ready to come back!  I am so grateful that Jehovah didn't give up on my brother like I did.

[shali]

If anyone would like to actually know any of the details of what happened while he was in prison and what Jehovah did for him, let me know in this forum and I'll post it.

[rocket]

If anyone would like to actually know any of the details of what happened while he was in prison and what Jehovah did for him, let me know in this forum and I'll post it.

We love to hear first hand experiences. You might want to make sure that he is OK with it being posted however.

[perspective]

I'd love to hear it Shali. Not sure why you wouldn't be able to post a real example of Jehovah's help in action personally. I wish more people would share their stories. It is encouraging. Even hardships are real and we all face them in various forms, so it makes me feel more like a part of an organization. We call this the "Truth", so I love hearing real talk about how things go for people in this struggle.

[RaymondG]

One of the first people to contact me when my wife went into hospital was her third son. This boy, aged 29, had grown into a model Witness, married a pioneer girl, they had two children. But something was amiss...

 

His wife became very lazy and spent all her time on the internet, he worked hard to support her on one wage, he did everything for the kids, he did everything she asked him to do.

 

When we went to the US we arranged for him to drive us to the airport (he lives nearby) and to park out car at his place to avoid the excessive airport parking fees. He did this happily, then picked us up off the 'plane when we returned. 

 

But that night when we got home and checked our e.mails there was one from him. He explained that he didn't want to spoil our return by mentioning it when he picked us up, and that he understood that it might mean we'd not have anything to do with him, but he and his wife had disassociated themselves from the Christian congregation and were going their own way.

 

Moving along a year, I showed the text message he sent when my wife went into hospital. "I hear mum's in hospital, is she OK?" he wrote. She told me to ignore it. Later he phoned me, I told him the situation was dire, also that his mother didn't want to see him. 

 

But through the back door, when my own son asked me if it was true that my wife wouldn't let this one visit the hospital with his children, I told him that I doubted that his mother would turn him away if he was to turn up. My wife, meanwhile, asked me to contact his mother in law and see if she could arrange to visit with the children. 

 

To our surprise, she told me that she had been forbidden any access to the children many months before.

 

So this terrible situation had evolved. But then the pair of them turned up with the children and indeed, my wife did not turn them away. Though it's also true that she didn't recognise him when she first saw him... long curly hair, a beard that almost covered his face, nothing like the clean-cut young Witness he'd been just a year before.

 

Influenced by his apostate father and wife of questionable motives, he is about as far from the Truth as you would expect someone who had been a treasure in the congregation could become. Undoubtedly his mother died hoping that he will one day come to his senses, but the realist in her knew that the chances might well be slim.

 

We all have, I'm sure, stories of family or friends who've gone 'off the rails'. I have a daughter who went from the verge of baptism to an illegitimate pregnancy, from the light of my life to a foul-mouthed little servant of Satan. And now she's left the father of her children and lives with a man believed to have murdered two of his lovers.

 

How I'd love to see her again as the sweet little girl I used to be able to cherish...

 

My parents were never disfellowshipped or anything, they simply stopped attending, stopped witnessing, sat on the sidelines. Thirty years later my father was taken in by the quick-build halls and he had a hobby, a video camera. He started videoing these halls, including a full coverage of the building of the new hall at Orange in NSW, where they then lived.

 

Mum, meanwhile, had lost her mother and that meant some money her father had put into her care in case her mother ever needed it was released for use. Not really wanting to waste it, though her father did stipulate another use for it when he gave it to her, mum had that in mind one day when the doorbell rang.

 

The sister at the door introduced herself, and to her great surprise got the response: "Come in, you're just the person I want to see... I want to order 19 bibles!" Every grandchild, my siblings and cousins, got a bible out of that money and mum and dad started attending the book study at this sister's home.

 

One Sunday evening I answered a call from dad. He was livid - he'd gone to the book study and there was nobody there! "They should have let us know!" he told me in no uncertain terms. "Well, I said, perhaps they made an announcement at the meeting, if you'd gone to that you'd have known." H e wasn't impressed.

 

I continued to assure him that he should attend other meetings. "what? Up at the hall? I wouldn't want to go there, they're a bunch of snobs there!"

 

"Even if every one of them is a snob," I told him, "Gary and Cheryl Fechner are not snobs at all, they'll talk to you."

 

"But how would I know them?" he asked. "Because they're fat!" I said. Gary and Cheryl were significantly overweight, nobody in the congregation would be as big as them.

 

That wasn't good enough, he wasn't going to go...

 

Then the next week I phoned him. He didn't tell me he'd been to the Sunday meeting, but he said something so that I would know. "Did you see Gary and Cheryl?" I asked. "How would I know them?" he responded. And so I repeated what I'd told him the previous week.

 

Another week, another phone call. "I saw your fat friend, he gave a talk on Friday night."

 

When mum got on the phone I said to her, "So you're going to the book study?" "Yes." "And you're going to the Sunday meetings?" Again, an affirmative response. "And now you're going to the Ministry School and Service Meeting?" "Yes."

 

"All that's left now," I continued, "is for you to go out witnessing."

 

"We were going to go out on Thursday," she said, "but it rained."

 

It had been 34 years...

[ava]

We are seeing an increase of inactive ones coming back.  We are also seeing ones who were raised as Witnesses, never got baptized, and they too are coming back.

 

It's like there is something in the air and these ones are seeing things in the world, and they are remembering what they learned and coming back to Jehovah.

 

It's wonderful to see.  Hope a few of my family will eventually get back as well.

[ReadYourBible]

I met a brother today who had been raised a witness, went off his own way. He made up his mind to return prayed about it and a bro showed up on his doorstep with the question 'do you ever think the world will be destroyed? ' to which he replied, nope Jehovah would never let that happen. The guy showed me his before pic, he had a zz top beard and said he had been wearing a hells angels shirt. He told the bro he wanted to start attending meetings, and he said the bros eyeballs shot wide open, but he needed a rise. To which the brother offered. The brother confessed he wondered if it were a trick and he was going to be ambushed by bikers when he came, but nope....there he was waiting for him. He was baptized at last years assembly, after being away for 50 years.

Assembly experience: sister was baptized in1973, served faithfully all these years under opposition of husband. The husband got baptized today after 40 years.

[ReadYourBible]

Rise = ride...

[Poly Ester]

We are also seeing ones come back in my congregation and also bringing interested ones with them, although sadly not my daughter or husband

We also have a young man who cycled 50 miles to the congregation one Sunday morning only to find the meeting had just finished !! The brothers talked to him for a long time, now this young man is making steady progress, he is a fisherman from the Philippines and works on a large trawler....everytime his boat is in port he rings ahead and one of us gives him a lift to the KH . We are only a small congregation so it lovely to see growth

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[Miss Bea]

Rise = ride...

Thanks, love the lack of political boarders in Jehovah's organization. It's really evident here!

[Miss Bea]

We are also seeing ones come back in my congregation and also bringing interested ones with them, although sadly not my daughter or husband We also have a young man who cycled 50 miles to the congregation one Sunday morning only to find the meeting had just finished !! The brothers talked to him for a long time, now this young man is making steady progress, he is a fisherman from the Philippines and works on a large trawler....everytime his boat is in port he rings ahead and one of us gives him a lift to the KH . We are only a small congregation so it lovely to see growth :)Sent from my GT-P5210 using Tapatalk

We do it any way, but you pray for my husband and two of my kids, and I will pray for your daughter and husband. Okay??.

[Poly Ester]

I most definitely will Bea...we all pray for each other just like the large family wr are x

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[JEP65]

I came into the truth when I was 21, was disfellowshipped at 28.  I always loved the truth, but just didn't think I could do it again, too hard, meetings and service and studying.  Then in 2009 (seventeen years later) I decided to go to Memorial.  Was not going to come back, just wanted to see the new Kingdom Hall and, well I don't really know what.  I walked into that Hall and the overwhelming feelings that came over me, I cannot describe.  I didn't want to leave!  It was so wonderful to just be there.  I thought it would be awkward, but it wasn't and even though the brothers and sisters didn't talk to me, I felt so close to them.  Just to see them and hear their familiar voices!  Then I went the following Sunday to hear the special talk, and kept going every Sunday.  I didn't know most df'd people waited till meeting almost started, sat in the back and left right after.  Not me, I just wanted to be there.  I got there early just so I could see and hear all the wonderful conversation.  Six months later, I wrote a letter asking to be reinstated,  I thought it would be a long difficult process, with lots of hoops to jump through.  Not at all, the brothers commended me for my meeting attendance, they could see how desperately I wanted to come back.  They said YES, and I jumped alright, head first into meeting, service, TMS, all of it!  and have not regretted it one bit, I am so happy to be back.  I have even signed up to Aux Pioneer next month, I am so excited about that.  Love to all the brothers and sister, never give up on someone coming back, you never know when they just might show up.  Thank you so much Jehovah for taking me back.

[GrumpysWife]

From what you are saying Joyce, it sounds like Jehovah was calling you back to the fold. He knows his sheep and wants them to be in the middle of the fold. Great experience.

[RaymondG]

In my earlier post I didn't mention my wife's fourth son...

 

He went wild without ever getting baptised. He was associating with people who seemed determined to run down Witnesses and decry the simple truth of the bible. He learned answers to everything, he'd turn up at meetings and get into difficult discussions with brothers and waste their time.

 

His career has gone well, however, and he's moved way up north and currently holds a good position in a large grocery chain. 

 

A friend has a daughter living not too far from there and she told her father that this young fellow had turned up at their meeting!

 

And he told me in a phone call that he'd seen my friend's daughter, though he didn't say it was at the Kingdom Hall. 

 

Today he told me he'd been invited around to their place for lunch.

 

One can only hope..

[GStorrs46]

    I was touched to see this past summer the organization's release of the DVD on the "Return of the Prodigal".

Since for a number of years in my life I too was a "prodigal" I could deeply relate to much that was in the drama.

I was moved to tears as it dealt with real issues that many times are some of the barriers standing in the way

of ones returning. And returning is not necessarily a bed of roses either. But I am grateful to Jehovah for his mercy

to me, and for the spiritual strength that he is helping me to grow into. And I pray that my experience will prove to

be the same for so many, who, for whatever reason have left the care of the great Shepard of our Souls, our loving

Heavenly Father, Jehovah God.

 

                                                                                                                                                GStorrs46