Providential Care

THERE are times when insurmountable obstacles threaten to prevent sincere ones from receiving help in learning the Bible. Jehovah God, who cares for these persons, often maneuvers matters so that they can receive the needed assistance. The following experience of one of Jehovah’s witnesses in San Lorenzo, California, highlights this:

“I have a Korean cousin-in-law who lives here in the United States. She has been asking me and her sister-in-law to teach her the Bible. However, this is impossible because we cannot understand her, for she speaks very little English. Though she has our literature in Korean, she was brokenhearted that we were unable to give her the needed personal attention. She would come to the meetings at the Kingdom Hall, but she would cry because she could not understand what was going on. During all this time I was searching for a Korean Witness, but I could not find one. I really felt helpless.

“On the last day of our district assembly, I got lost in the parking lot while looking for my car. Evidently, Jehovah was maneuvering matters, for I chanced to meet a friend who had a newly baptized Witness with her. Yes, this newly baptized one was Korean! I immediately asked her if she would like to study with my relative. She was overjoyed, for she was praying to Jehovah for a Korean Bible study, as her English was poor. Here my cousin-in-law was praying for just this very thing.

“Arrangements were made, and what a joy it was when they met. Tears, embracing and happiness! The newly baptized Witness was still receiving help from yet another Korean Witness. Arrangements were made for my relative to sit in on this study too. Now she has two Korean persons with whom to associate and she receives a double portion of spiritual food in her language. Truly, Jehovah lovingly cares for those who seek to know him.”

Another Witness, in Arlington, Massachusetts, reports: “I am teaching the Bible to a young woman who lives in a trailer park. One day she told me that there was another woman in the park who was interested in the Bible. She had invited her to join our study but she could not do so because of having to work to help support her family, which includes little twin girls. She told me that this woman lived in the first trailer in the park. I promised to call on her.

“When I called, a young woman with a French accent answered and, seeing me with a bag, said, ‘Come in, please!’ I asked her if she knew who I was. She said she did and again invited me in. I entered and began to explain why I was calling and she interrupted me, saying, ‘Wait a minute, I will get my things.’ It seemed that she had me confused with someone else, but she was gone before I could tell her this. I did not want to sit down, as I was sure she would ask me to leave when she found out who I was.

“She returned, and the ‘things’ she went to get were a French Bible, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and French and English copies of the Watch Tower Society’s literature. ‘Sit down,’ she said sweetly, ‘we study!’ I was completely surprised and wondered why the other woman had not told me that this person was so interested.

“I then asked her about her little twin girls, and she asked me, ‘What twins?’ When I asked her if she had twin girls, she said she did not. Then I asked her about her neighbor with whom I study and she did not know her. Again she repeated, ‘We study, please.’ I asked her who was the woman that had little twin girls living in the park. She said that she lived in the first trailer across the street. Again she said, ‘We study now, please!’ So we studied, and we have been doing so for the past three weeks.

“It seems that this French girl had studied the Bible in Texas. She then moved to Virginia to live with her mother-in-law, who belongs to one of Christendom’s religions. While she was living there, Jehovah’s witnesses called on her and she was puzzled as to why they never returned. The week after I called, she received a letter from one of them in Virginia telling her that they did return but her mother-in-law turned them away. Evidently, she never told her daughter-in-law about their visit. Yet in this trailer park with four rows of trailers, making eight ‘first ones,’ Jehovah evidently directed me to the one in which there lived a person who needed spiritual care.”