Appreciating Spiritual Treasures
IT MIGHT well be said that those who truly are conscious of their spiritual need appreciate the value of spiritual treasures. Among those who do appreciate spiritual treasures are the following:
● Not many persons would put the obtaining of a Bible and Bible literature ahead of their obtaining a pair of shoes, but that is what a certain German woman in Paraguay did. Feeling her need for Bible knowledge, she came into town in search of someone to teach her the Bible. Her sister, worried because of her restlessness, directed her to a neighbor who was one of Jehovah’s witnesses.
Impressed by what she heard, she began studying the Bible with this neighbor of her sister and attending the meetings of the Witnesses, walking one and a half miles to town for these. Hearing the Witnesses call one another “Brother,” she asked how she could become part of this family. The field ministry was explained to her, and within ten days of her first hearing of the Witnesses she accompanied one of them in the field ministry. She stopped smoking and became so zealous that in the first three months she devoted 97 hours to the ministry, placing 180 Bible magazines and obtaining eighteen subscriptions. In spite of her poverty she budgeted what little funds she had: First she got a Bible, then a subscription for The Watchtower, and after that she got a pair of shoes. No question about her appreciating spiritual treasures.
● In Surinam a person of goodwill toward God has many obstacles to overcome in order to attend the congregational meetings of the Witnesses. He must walk more than an hour through a heavy forest where poisonous snakes abound, and during the rainy season he literally has to swim his way through the swamp. How does he manage? He leaves a set of dry clothes at the house of a friend, and before and after the congregational meetings he changes his clothes. Truly he also appreciates spiritual treasures!