Kingdom Proclaimers Report
Jehovah Rewards a Faithful Youth
FAITHFUL youths are very precious in Jehovah’s eyes. The following experience of a faithful young man should encourage other young ones to keep their integrity as they serve Jehovah.
In Argentina an 11-year-old boy and his younger brother studied the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life with their grandmother. Immediately, the boys’ parents manifested opposition, and they forbade the boys to go to meetings at the Kingdom Hall. For a time, in order to attend meetings, the boys escaped through the bathroom window, jumped onto the patio, and from there went over the wall onto the neighbor’s patio and on to the Kingdom Hall. Then someone told their mother that they were attending the meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The mother threatened to beat them, and this frightened the younger boy, who quit studying. But the older one persisted. For five years he managed to attend meetings without his parents’ knowledge.
When he was 16 years old, he wanted to take a course in high school that was not offered in his hometown. Being away from home would give him more freedom to pursue the truth. His parents agreed to let him go, and everything went well for three months. Then the school principal notified his parents that their son would not salute the flag or sing the national anthem. Before an audience of the principal, his parents, a secretary, a lawyer, and ten professors, the young man was able to give an excellent witness as to why he could not conscientiously perform these acts. (Exodus 20:4, 5) The parents were furious. The mother obtained a revolver, intending to shoot the grandmother, whom she considered responsible. But she could never find her alone.
Later, at the suggestion of a friend of the family and with the approval of the school principal, the parents decided to put the youth in a clinic for the mentally ill, thinking that psychiatric treatment would make him abandon his faith. The clinic personnel took the boy 60 miles [100 km] away in a car and injected him with huge doses of insulin and other drugs until he lost consciousness. Upon awakening, he was completely disoriented, did not know anyone, and suffered partial amnesia. After many studies the doctors could not find any mental disorder in him. But the clinic went ahead with the treatment. When conscious, the boy prayed continually to Jehovah not to abandon him and begged him for the strength to endure. Jehovah did protect him, and eventually he was released from the clinic.
On one occasion the school principal asked the young man if he was ready to retract. When he said no, the principal told the parents to take him back to the clinic because he was crazier than before. The parents took him to a boardinghouse and told the landlady to make sure that he did not go to the meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. After the parents left, what a surprise the boy received! The owners of the boardinghouse were Jehovah’s Witnesses! Finally the parents took him off psychiatric treatment, convinced that the doctors had lied to them. In the meantime the Supreme Court of Argentina ruled that the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses could not be expelled from school for not saluting the flag.
Did these trials benefit this faithful youth? Yes. He states: “I was able to give an extensive witness to doctors, professors, schoolmates, parents, and relatives, in fact, to the whole city. My parents have softened somewhat and have a better concept of the Witnesses. Now, when I look back at my childhood, I see how marvelous and tender our God is in taking care of someone who remains loyal to him. It is exactly as the psalmist said at Psalm 27:10: ‘In case my own father and my own mother did leave me, even Jehovah himself would take me up.’”
This young man is now 23 years old, married, and very active in Jehovah’s service. Truly, Jehovah’s sustaining power is without limit.—Psalm 55:22.