I had my first major "crack" in 1992. It was before the age of internet, and I spent 5 years studying the Watchtower Paper Material to find out what they said about themselves and then critically comparing it with what I read in the Bible that they professed to believe in. I had "to start all over" researching the Watchtower after my baptism in 1990, having followed Watchtower Teachings all the way, although having experienced so many COVER-UPS from leaders within the WT Organisation. I experienced more blows/cracks from people within the WT organisation in the next 5 years, and finally I was convinced that the Watchtower Organisation WAS NOT THE TRUTH and DID NOT HAVE THE TRUTH in 1997. I (as ironically also my mother did almost simultaneously as we had been conversing during the years about our WT doubts), sent a letter of disassociation to the Watchtower Witnesses in late March 1997.
I went to a health care centre in Norway (to stay for a month) a couple of weeks after I had sent my letter of disassociation, and there I was (in the lobby of the health centre) met by all the Major Norwegian Newspapers front pages covered by the "Lillelid Murders". I called my mother and we shared that it was as if "Satan wanted to scare us (and other WT doubters) back to his organisation". Neither of us has ever again set foot in a "Kingdom Hall" or whatever the Watchtower Witnesses call their assembly hall nowadays.
Growing up I was taught that nothing bad would happen to Jehovah’s Witnesses, as they were protected by G-D, so when the Lillelid’s were murdered on their way from a Watchtower gathering, then that was NOT coherent with Watchtower Teachings.
Having myself experienced an attempted rape/seduction as well as sexual harassment when I was at the age of 15 (in 1992) by a Watchtower Ministry Servant (a (disgusting) "brother" 11 years older than me) who insisted that he was going to have a shower in his home before he went out to preach with me. (We had to preach 2 and 2 in our congregation, because “that was what Jesus’ disciples did...)
The fore mentioned Ministry Servant made sure that I was alone with him in the car (I was led to think that we were going to have a third person from the congregation in the car with us all the time, but the MS let that person off long before we got to his house. As we were parked outside the MS house I was terrified, as he would not take NO for an answer when I said that I did NOT WANT TO GO INTO HIS HOUSE WITH HIM, BUT THAT I WAS FINE WAITING OUTSIDE IN THE CAR while he had his shower. He got more and more AGITATED AND ANGRY with me, and in the end he left me in the car and stayed away for an hour. I spent that hour with the car door halfway open while trying to figure out where I was going to run to if he tried something. (He lived in a place with only one house nearby that I had registered and I thought that if he was going to try to rape me if he had not managed to calm down by the time he came back from "his shower", then I was worried about bringing reproach on G-Ds name by running to "unbelievers" for help. The nearest bus stop was also far away (I had registered it while we driving to the MS house), and as far as I knew, the buses in the particular rural area he lived in only went once a day on Sundays, so it was a gamble to think that a bus might come by. (This was the last Sunday of June 1992) Luckily (I thought) he came back quite calm, wearing another suit, and smelling oddly enough dreadfully worse than before...
We went out to preach while he practically "stood on top of me", seemingly trying to get a glimpse of whatever was beneath that modest long dress of mine, and when he insisted on driving me home afterwards I strongly insisted on to be let off at the nearest bus stop in town as I would not give him my home address. He finally “gave in,” and let me out of the car at the nearest bus stop closest to town. While waiting for the bus, I started to feel bad about having thought so badly of a Ministry Servant in “G-Ds organisation”. Maybe he was all good intentions and I was high strung. Maybe it was my fault for being young but looking older than my age, etc. (Classical guilt indoctrination by the Watchtower. IT IS ALWAYS YOUR FAULT, EVEN IF IT ISN'T!) I planned to get home with the next bus, tell my mother all about this scary incident, and then we were going to laugh at how high strung I had been, hoping she would be able to come up with “a rational explanation” for his behaviour.
The moment I came home, the phone rung, before I had managed to say anything to my mother besides that I wanted to talk to her... It was the MS who now asked me out for a cinema date after the next “book-study”!! (I thought frantically "Who gave him my phone number? I certainly had not!") I said something like: "I don't think that it is appropriate", hung up the phone and started to cry... HIS BEHAVIOUR WAS THE MAJOR CRACK. A WATCHTOWER WITNESS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE WHEN PREACHING, AND I CERTAINLY DID NOT FEEL SAFE PREACHING THAT DAY, AND ADDITIONALLY THE THREAT CAME FROM WITHIN THE ORGANISATION!!
The second crack came when I told my mother about the ordeal with the MS, she went to the elders, and got the reply that she was to give to me (I was still just 15 years old and the elders in our congregation knew us very well) that "this is something she has to deal with herself!!”?? Crack 2 ruptured... I had not ordained this MS to be a Ministry Servant, a person of authority whithin G-Ds Organisation, the adult elders had!! I was a 15 year old girl, not a male person of authority in G-Ds “orderly organisation”, and the MS in question was clearly not orderly in his conduct... Because the elders said to my mother that I had to deal with the situation myself, then they also took from her the ability to go to the police on my behalf, as then she would face judiciary consequences by The Watchtower for not obeying the elders!!
By the time I heard that that particular Ministry "Servant" was made an elder within the Watchtower Organisation and had repeated his offensive behaviour towards others, and even towards an elder’s daughter, the Watchtower ice mountain avalanche had already hit "hells bottomless pit of fire" as far as I was concerned….
No matter how many nice individuals there might be in that (and any) organisation, then remember that a little yeast makes the whole dough sour...
