‘You Are My Hope, O Jehovah, My Confidence from My Youth’
As told by Herman Mikkelsen
IN 1897, when I was twelve years old, we lived on the little Danish island of Bornholm. A friend of the family by the name of Swen Swenson, having read a book published by the Watch Tower Society and entitled “The Millennial Dawn,” dashed right to our home. With one hand he held up the book; with the other, he pounded his knee, and in a voice filled with emotion cried out: “Here I have a book that surely is the truth, and I want to tell grandmother Pedersen [mother’s mother] that grandfather is not in any hellfire as the preacher said at the funeral.”
Grandmother was so happy that she cried out: “My prayers are answered!”
With that, about twenty-four hours of uninterrupted Bible study began at our house. During the night, if my father’s eyes drooped, Swenson would ask: “Are you asleep? Did you hear what I said?” And they would continue.
In the morning my paternal grandfather, a teacher in the Lutheran church, dropped in. Soon scriptures came up that showed the church to be teaching things in opposition to the Bible. Grandfather tried to support the church but could not prevail because Swen had the Bible and a book that explained it. We began to place our hope and confidence in Jehovah.
Our family took a deep interest in God’s Word of truth, but grandfather Mikkelsen did not want to leave his church. Swen kept calling on him anyway. One evening grandfather asked grandmother: “I wonder why Swenson isn’t here tonight?” She replied: “You should be glad; you always argue.” But he answered: “No! He is right; I just can’t agree with his condemning the church.” So grandfather kept on going to church, but he told the church members about the things he had learned from the Bible, such as “hell” being the grave rather than a place of fiery torment.
Then one day he arrived at church to find two big young men blocking the entranceway. He was no longer welcome! When Swenson heard that my grandfather was debarred from church, he said to him: “That is the first time the church ever did you any good!”
From then on we were all united in serving Jehovah, and we would have regular meetings in grandfather’s home. Thus I learned to make Jehovah “my confidence from my youth.”—Ps. 71:5.
EVENTS LEADING TO BAPTISM
In 1910 I moved to the United States, and in 1912 married the Danish girl to whom I had been engaged. I had the Watch Tower Society’s series of books entitled “Studies in the Scriptures” in Danish, but my wife decided to study them with the Bible to prove them false. Well, the more she read them, the better she liked what she read, and soon she recognized it as being the truth. We both studied these books regularly and also worked hard at learning the English language.
By 1917 both my sisters arrived in the United States, and they and their husbands were interested in God’s truth. One day they told me there was going to be a convention of the International Bible Students, as Jehovah’s witnesses were then called. It was in Fresno, California, about twenty miles from where we lived. At this assembly, I met one of the Society’s representatives, A. H. Macmillan. He said that God’s Word of truth as explained in The Watch Tower is like the light of dawn that gets brighter and brighter until daylight appears. My wife nudged me as if to say, ‘Did you hear that!’ I had, and it has now lighted my steps for seventy-five years. From that little assembly until this day, we have never been away from Jehovah’s loving organization.
During the war years our home Bible studies moved us to make our dedication to Jehovah, but the opportunity to symbolize that dedication by baptism did not present itself until the visit of one of the Watch Tower Society’s traveling representatives. So on the day that the Memorial of Jesus’ death was to be celebrated in 1920, my wife and I were baptized. And that very evening we partook of the emblems at our first Memorial, placing our hope and confidence in Jehovah, and embracing “the upward call of God by means of Christ Jesus.”—Phil. 3:14.
PRIVILEGES AS SERVICE DIRECTOR
In 1922 I was appointed service director of the congregation in Reedley, the little farming town near which we lived. However, the following year someone else was appointed to replace me, and I resented it. I expressed my feeling to my wife, but she did not sympathize with me at all. She said: “Are we serving men, or are we serving Jehovah? Let’s be thankful that we are privileged to serve Jehovah, and let us assist the rest of the brothers to do the same, with all our strength.” Right then and there I saw how right she was, and I got rid of my resentment. Jehovah greatly increased our joy and happiness; I was thankful to God for having had the opportunity to be tested as to humility and being able to survive it.
In 1924 we moved to a farm near Fresno, and shortly thereafter I was appointed service director there. This came as a complete surprise to many and to myself. I was new in the congregation, still spoke with a heavy accent, and I was not the fine speaker that some of the others were. Nonetheless, I was appointed and now my question was, What to do to improve the “Testimony Meeting” (now called Service Meeting).
At this meeting we used to give testimony relating to developing Christian “character,” and not much was said about the public ministry. Previously we had read the Bulletin (now Kingdom Ministry) individually; it offered suggestions on how to share God’s truths with outsiders. When I got up after opening the “Testimony Meeting,” I was very nervous, and I asked everyone to get their Bulletin out. Though only two had theirs with them, we went ahead and used it and had a good meeting. We used the Bulletin from then on.
However, not everyone was pleased with the use of the Bulletin, since it placed emphasis on the field ministry. So steps were taken to have me removed. But at the next visit of the Society’s traveling representative the matter was reviewed. He then gave us all a very forceful talk on our responsibility to preach the good news to others. This helped us to get better balance, thinking not only of the need for a Christlike personality but also of telling others the good news.
WE ENTER THE FULL-TIME PREACHING WORK
In 1929 my wife and I applied for the full-time preaching work under the direction of the Watch Tower Society. We were assigned to Roseburg, Oregon. We had a Model ‘T’ Ford sedan but could not sleep in that, because we now had three boys. So we bought an old “Star” truck and built a house on it, and set out for our assignment. We arrived having little money, so we traded Bible literature for much of what we ate. One woman asked if I had a Bible that she could have. I said, “Yes,” and offered to trade her a Bible and a book for something. She said: “For that, you can have all my chickens.” We took only one.
We had one road in our territory that went sixty miles back into the mountains. It was very steep and crooked. In places the cliffs were sheer and the drop was far. It was a long way down if a wheel slipped over the edge of the narrow road. We also hoped that we would not meet anyone coming from the other direction.
We had many other interesting experiences. For example, as I approached a cabin, a voice yelled: “Get out of here before I kill you!” In a friendly way I still kept coming. Then he pointed a rifle at me and shouted: “Do you hear me? I mean it!”
I answered quietly: “I’m your friend; give me a chance to tell you something.”
He said: “Yes, I know, you are just the kind of friend I have been wanting to get a bead on. I was in three major battles in the war [World War I] and before each battle you dirty [using a word for chaplains] came out and blessed us. Once only four of us were left alive, and, according to you guys, God took all the rest to heaven. I was always looking for some of them [chaplains] during a battle, but I never could find one, or I would have sent some of them to heaven too.”
By now he had lowered his gun, and he continued: “During one battle, it was hot and we had no water left and I saw a canteen on a dead buddy, just as one of the other men saw it. He looked at me and I looked at him, and I shot him; I killed him for some water, my own buddy. I know that I am going to burn in hell for that.” It was a privilege to tell him the truth about “hell” and to share with him the good news as preached by the true ministers of God.
RETURN TO CALIFORNIA AND TESTS OF FAITH
In 1929 a financial crisis struck the country, and we found it necessary to discontinue our full-time preaching and to return to California. Here, in October 1935, my nine-year-old son, because of his Bible-trained conscience, refused to participate in the flag-salute ceremony at the little country school. What a bombshell this was to the community! Suddenly, we were ostracized by the townspeople. Neighbors who had been friendly were now afraid to look in our direction when meeting us on the street. Stores refused to sell us merchandise, and we had to go to Fresno to buy supplies.
Then in February 1936, the school expelled him. By 1938, many more Witness children were being expelled, so we started a private school, called “Kingdom School,” at our home. This covered grades one to eight, and we had fourteen children living at our home from Monday through Friday. Then their parents would take them to their various homes for the weekends. This school continued until 1943, when the Supreme Court reversed itself on the matter of compulsory flag salute and the Witness children were able to go back to public schools.
The territory that my wife and I covered stretched from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the east up into the Coast Range Mountains one hundred miles to the west. South of our territory was the town of Lindsay. The small group of Witnesses there had been very badly treated by the town officials, so the entire Fresno congregation decided to go down and witness to the whole town in one day. We finished our preaching work shortly after noon. There were two blocks that had not been done, however, because the police had threatened to arrest us if we called. My son and I, with another Witness and his son, volunteered to go. When I went to a home, a police officer came to the door and shouted: “You bet I’m interested in that. I just ran two of you fellows out of town, and if you don’t get out right now, I’m going to throw you in jail.”
Just then he saw the other Witnesses and yelled: “Come over here!” and placed us all under arrest. He took us to a little courtroom. The judge spoke nicely and asked us to sit down. But a few minutes later we heard footsteps and here was the officer with six men. He stepped up to me and said gruffly: “We represent the American Legion, and we are here to see to it that you get out of town right now or else.”
Then the judge said: “This is the American Legion, the boys that crossed the ocean to fight and die for you.” I answered: “Your Honor, I refuse to accept that anyone died for me, except Christ Jesus.” I then tried to explain that our first allegiance is to Jehovah God. But the judge now shouted: “Get out of here!” As we left, two men kicked the book bags from the hands of the boys, and their Bible literature went flying. We picked them up and left.
On Saturday afternoon my wife and another Witness woman were arrested in Reedley for exposing false religion by carrying a sign proclaiming “Religion Is a Snare and a Racket” and “Serve God and Christ the King.” When they were brought before the judge, who was a man we had known for many years, he said: “But, Mrs. Mikkelsen, a respectable woman like you, carrying a sign like that!” She replied: “Well, in your position, you know even better than I do that what the sign says is the truth.” He burst out laughing. He then called the officer and said: “Take Mrs. Mikkelsen back to where you found her and let her go.”
In 1939, when our home became too small for congregation meetings, we rented a small store about three doors from the Reedley police station. Despite this location, mobsters swung into action. They bombarded us with fruit and rotten eggs. They raced cars and motorcycles, yelling and trying to disturb our meetings, but the police never did anything about it. One Witness, Oscar Roth, a frail man of seventy years, was set upon by a mobster and badly beaten one evening on his way home. His ribs were broken and his eyes blackened. A few weeks later the same man tried to run over this Witness with his truck, but Brother Roth heard him coming in time to leap behind a tree, into which the truck was promptly rammed. Of all things, Brother Roth was then haled into court and charged with wrecking the man’s truck! At least they did not succeed in making such a charge stick.
Not getting any help from our neighbors, the police, we appealed directly to the governor of California. The governor replied: “I feel sure that this situation will not arise again; however, should it do so, please let me know and I will take care of it.” From that time on the police cooperated.
By the spring of 1941 we had grown to over a hundred Witnesses, and a new congregation was recommended for Selma, near where I lived. I was appointed as service director in Selma. During the mid-forties the congregation grew by leaps and bounds. We had many young people, and it made for a very lively and happy congregation. One of my cherished memories is a picture of sixteen young boys, teenagers, on their bicycles, book bags in hand, ready to go out one Sunday morning to preach the good news of God’s kingdom. Most of our territory was rural and gasoline was rationed, so we used bikes. I also had a bike and went right along with them.
RETURN TO THE FULL-TIME PREACHING WORK
It had always been my hope to get back into the full-time ministry, but my wife became ill and had to be confined to a wheelchair. It did not seem possible that I would ever be able again to be a full-time proclaimer of the good news. Then, after five years in the wheelchair and though past sixty years of age, my wife recovered and began walking. I was able to apply for the full-time preaching work. Once again we were able to go together in the house-to-house ministry. That was over twenty years ago.
Two years ago my wife’s health began to deteriorate, and when we came home from celebrating the Lord’s Evening Meal, my wife said: “Well, that was our 50th Memorial celebration, and I think it was probably my last.” Ten months later, after a little more than fifty-nine years of marriage and service to Jehovah together, my wife finished her earthly course, confident in Jehovah.
Now, in my eighty-seventh year, I count it a privilege that I am a third-generation witness of Jehovah. I have one son who helped to open up the Marshall Islands to the good news, and another son who is an overseer, near enough for me to visit. I have many Christian brothers whom I have watched grow up from the days on their bicycles, and who are now overseers in various congregations. I still have the strength of mind and of body to care for myself, drive my own car and take others in the witness work. But, above all things for which I am thankful, I am still able to serve Jehovah in the full-time ministry.
Now, as I reflect on seventy-five years in Jehovah’s loving organization, I take pleasure in the knowledge that I have had a share in its growth. I remember that huge territory, from the mountains east to the mountains west, halfway across the state of California, and how we sometimes felt we could never get it all done. But we always placed confidence in Jehovah, and he provided all the help to accomplish the work. For now there are at least a dozen congregations and hundreds of energetic witnesses of Jehovah, a large number of whom we were privileged to help to an accurate knowledge of God’s truth. I have the satisfaction of knowing that our whole territory is being covered with the good news of God’s kingdom.
I know too that on the little island of Bornholm, Denmark, there are now several congregations, which I like to think grew, to some extent, from those meetings we held at my grandfather’s house, where I first heard the name of Jehovah so very long ago. “You are my hope, O Sovereign Lord Jehovah, my confidence from my youth.”—Ps. 71:5.