Witness Given by Obedience to God
By “Awake!” correspondent in Brazil
HOW seriously do you view obedience to God? Do you consider faithfulness to the law of God of higher value than personal safety or even life itself? Today there is a growing inclination to minimize the law of God, to consider as fanatical those who choose to place obedience to God above other values.
For example, the law of Jehovah God given to Christians prohibits consumption of blood. It says: “Keep abstaining . . . from blood.” (Acts 15:29) This command to Christians was a reiteration of the law that was given years before by Jehovah God to his people: “You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh.” (Lev. 17:14) Once in a while a particular case involving a Christian’s obedience to God’s law on blood receives widespread publicity. This occurred recently in Brazil.
Rosemberg Cabral do Nascimento, the four-year-old son of Christian witnesses of Jehovah, was admitted to the Children’s First-Aid Hospital at Fortaleza, Ceará. He was suffering from purpura hemorrhagica, a condition of unknown cause that is characterized by bleeding into the skin. The actual count of his blood platelets was down to 20,000 per cubic millimeter, while the normal average is 250,000.
Therefore the physician on duty ordered an immediate blood transfusion. When the child’s parents objected to this treatment due to God’s prohibition on the consumption of blood, the doctor said they were fanatical. He threatened to publicize the case by phoning the leading newspaper in town, O Povo (The People).
Thus, the news soon was flashing everywhere: ‘A child is about to die at the hospital due to his father’s obedience to his God and the Bible.’ This became the talk of the town. Headlines appeared in many newspapers throughout Brazil, and the matter became a topic of radio and TV broadcasts.
Frequently, however, the beliefs of Jehovah’s witnesses were grossly misrepresented. For example, reports said that the Witnesses do not eat meat, and that they do not accept blood transfusions in order that there will not be two souls in their body. To clarify matters, a group of overseers of Jehovah’s witnesses went to the newspaper O Povo. As a result, a fine, first-page write-up was published in the newspaper under dateline of August 22, 1969.
At the hospital the entire medical team tried to pressure the parents into permitting a blood transfusion ‘to save’ their child. The father explained the Biblical view relative to the use of blood, and asked that other treatment be tried to save the child.
Nevertheless, the pressure continued mounting. It was reported that the city’s Juvenile Judge, whose function is to protect children, was going to sign a court order allowing a blood transfusion. However, the Witnesses were prepared to fight legally to resist this invasion of their constitutional rights.
Then things began to change. The newspaper Tribuna do Ceará also published a clarifying interview. It quoted the words of Dr. Arthur Kelly of the Canadian Medical Association: “No doctor can be positive that a person will die if he doesn’t get a transfusion or live if he does.”
And in the meantime little Rosemberg gradually improved. Eventually, after eighteen days at the hospital, he could return home. Representatives of the newspaper O Povo took the child home in its station wagon. Many persons at the hospital and nearby stopped work to see him go. He was heartily welcomed back to his neighborhood.
The right heart condition of many persons became apparent. One of the nurses asked the Witnesses to study the Bible with her, saying: “It has been a long time since I started searching for a religion of people with courage and who are not afraid of dying for their faith.” Since then she has attended some meetings and a circuit assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses.
Another person said: “This is the only religion in which people take their belief seriously.” And others, who have been studying the Bible with the Witnesses, have manifested their desire soon to take their stand for Jehovah God. A fine witness was indeed given as a result of these parents’ obedience to God’s law.