Here is my story of becoming a missionary after having Kin Suen (Pronounced “Shin”) as my circuit overseer.
I was 15 years old in 1980 and recently baptized when Kin Suen first served our congregation in Los Angeles, California as our circuit overseer. He was a charismatic speaker with a cool accent. He was 43 years old. I remember sitting in the audience as he gave a talk entitled, “Ability or Dependability, Which?” He explained how many have abilities, but what Jehovah God wants is dependability. He gave an illustration about the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park that erupted every day, as opposed to another geyser named Giant Geyser that had infrequent eruptions. Of course he said we should be like the “Old Faithful” geyser with regular preaching and meeting attendance. And he talked about how close Armageddon is. He quoted the scripture that says just as a pregnant woman knows she will soon give birth, we know the end is close. And if she doesn’t give birth on her due date, she knows she will give birth within a few days, she doesn’t suddenly think she is no longer pregnant! Armageddon will soon be here as well. I remember that talk as if it were yesterday.
To 15-year old me, brother Suen seemed to me to have it all. He was smart, he gave amazing talks that everyone raved over, and he obviously knew more than all the religious leaders of the world. He had been a Gilead missionary. His wife Mary Jo was a wonderful person, outgoing and funny. I wanted to marry someone like her someday.
I took a day off school to preach with him. He encouraged me to regular pioneer, so by his next visit I had signed up. My mother cried with pride. My father wanted me to go to college, but since he wasn’t a Witness, I knew he just didn’t understand how close we were to the end. Besides, I had bigger plans than college. Over the next two years, 1980-1981, Kin Suen interviewed me on several circuit assemblies at the Woodland Hills Assembly Hall in Southern California, even the B and C sides of our circuit. During my assembly interviews I told everyone how I had the goal of being a circuit overseer. I even copied his accent as I said it. Everyone applauded as I pointed to him showing I wanted to be a circuit overseer just like him.
Then there was our huge yearly convention at Dodger Stadium. Young people were encouraged to reach out and become Bethelites and missionaries. I remember thinking and then telling my mother, “This talk must apply to someone out there, it might as well be me!”
So, I did. I pioneered for several years, then I moved to where the need was great in Missouri. The circuit overseer there was named Gordon Merrill, who also encouraged me to become a missionary. He recommended me to the Ministerial Training School when it first opened in 1987 for single brothers only. By then I was 22. I had heard that some graduates were being sent into the circuit work so I was really motivated. I was accepted in 1988 and I was the youngest in the class by several years. I graduated and was assigned as a missionary to a developing country with a hot, tropical climate. I could not believe I was a missionary so young, I thought I would have to wait until I was at least 30. Again, my family and my congregation beamed with pride at my assignment. I served in New York Bethel for a few months waiting for my visa, and then one day I was I told I would be leaving for my assignment. I sat on the airplane with a ton of confidence, finally arrived at a missionary home, adjusted to missionary life, and then a couple of years later while still serving there I was invited into the circuit work. I was one of the youngest traveling overseers in the country. I remember lying on my bed in the missionary home after getting my appointment letter and just feeling fantastic. I could hardly believe it. I had reached my goal!
I had no car so I did circuit work by traveling on public transportation. It was hard, I stayed in hot tropical areas with no running water sometimes, and I was stressed a lot, but I reasoned that I really wanted this so stick with it. And then a couple of years later I traveled back to the USA for an International Convention. Lo and behold Kin Suen was there! I had almost forgotten about him. He and his wife immediately saw my Convention badge showing I was still in my foreign assignment and they had a happy fit! I had actually become a circuit overseer! I told him how I used some of his illustrations in my talks. They laughed and hugged me and told me how they related my experience as a youth to others and how proud they were of me reaching my CO goal so young and on and on and on. I was thrilled and happy.
So then I went back to my foreign assignment. The weeks and months and then years went by. I loved being a CO at first, I felt responsible for over a thousand Witnesses. I was arrogant, thinking I had all these answers, and I gave out advice and counsel that I often didn’t follow myself. I worked hard, I never missed a meeting due to illness. I taught pioneer schools and did dramas and talks on assemblies and coordinated assemblies. I rarely used my substitute, I did all the visits myself. I worked late into the night on judicial committee and writing letters and talks. I actually went in the field ministry even on my days off! I also enjoyed meeting different single sisters every week as I served the congregations…But as the years went by I became more and more stressed out and I almost always felt run down. Armageddon hadn’t come. My missionary partners had come and gone from the missionary home and I was still there with the older married couples. My father would call me every few months and always showed interest in my assignment though he never became a Witness. He didn’t seem to understand how important the work I was doing was. My mother was always proud of me. I would go back to the United States every year and be interviewed on conventions and give tons of talks and slide presentations. I saw Kin Suen again at another international convention and Gordon Merrill, the other circuit overseer that recommended me. I visited with the brothers in the Service Department at Bethel in New York and I compared notes with other circuit overseers that I met. I would give public talks at local congregations and tell my missionary stories. I would see my peers who had gotten married and had children. They would stand in line to shake my hand and tell me how they wished they had become missionaries or Bethelites. Older elders I knew would tell me how proud they were of me. I felt great at those times.
And then I would fly back to my assignment.
I was OK, I was relatively happy sometimes. But I was little by little losing my enthusiasm. I prayed about it and I tried to maintain a positive attitude but it was tough. Congregation after congregation every single week and talks and schools and preaching. Sleeping in a different bed almost every week. Usually no privacy. Hot humid climate, dusty roads and walking for miles every day. I practically memorized the Knowledge book after going on 4-5 Bible studies a week for years. I got a car which made life easier. But I was still single, and I carefully read the Watchtowers that still recommended singleness and missionary service and Bethel Service. So I was where God wanted me to be. I was doing the right thing. At the same time I had run-ins with the Branch Office, and I saw a lot of power plays and nepotism and elders doing crazy things. I also struggled with “self-control.” But mostly I was just burned out from everything. After almost 8 years of circuit work and 11 years as a missionary I just wanted to go back to the US.
So I called Brooklyn Bethel to arrange coming back to the US, snd I spoke with Bob Wallen. He was kind and said yes come back. I returned to the US and was immediately reappointed an an elder. Still not married, I was hoping for the new system to come soon. I was working part time and pioneering and always just somehow struggling financially. I felt out of place and bored and tired of the grind. The excitement of being a former missionary and CO was gone. No one asked me about it anymore. And since I had no career or secondary education I was usually broke. I saw my peers again, but it was different now. Most had been married for many years and some had children that were teenagers. Meanwhile I was still single. And I was getting close to 40 years old. I purposely didn’t go back to school to make more money or get a career. , i tried to still be self-sacrificing. I worked a bare minimum of hours and worked hard in throughout congregation. I hoped Armageddon would come soon.
So here’s the climax, at least of this story. A couple of years after I returned to the USA from my assignment I was invited to the Kingdom Ministry school for elders. Where was it held? At the exact same assembly hall in Woodland Hills, CA, that I had attended as a teenager! Over 25 years after I had been on the circuit assembly program I was suddenly sitting INSIDE THAT SAME ASSEMBLY HALL IN WOODLAND HILLS. I went and sat down in the seats all by myself before it started, just looking around.
And then suddenly as I looked towards the stage as they prepared to start the program, I saw him. Kin Suen. My old circuit overseer from when I was a teenager! By chance I had spotted him from far away and recognized him. It was the strangest feeling to see him standing near the platform that we had both stood on together 25 years earlier and it instantly brought up all those old memories.
Of course he looked much older now. He must have been about 70 years old, still in the traveling work. I felt embarrassed and odd as I looked at him. I just sat there and watched him as so many thoughts and emotions ran through my head. Should I approach him? What would I say? What would we talk about? I remember I was so excited as a teenager to be interviewed on that same exact platform by him and talk about my goals. And I had stuck by my words, I had gone after what I was told would be the best career ever and soon Armageddon would come, probably right when I was in my assignment! I would find a wonderful wife and live in paradise. But after all this time there was no Armageddon. All those years. Giving up going to college. Giving up a career. Remaining single. Living in a foreign country with no family and walking for miles and miles each day in tropical heat and mosquitos and no privacy and no Internet back then. And the literally thousands of talks I prepared and gave and the pioneer and elder schools I taught. I had done exactly as the Society had recommended. And then 25 years later there we both were, back at that same exact assembly hall. No Armageddon, no paradise. Just us, but 25 years older.
I didn’t approach him, I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t even tell anyone I saw him. I just looked at him. I think he saw me but if he recognized me he didn’t approach me either. It was weird and sad and embarrassing and just bizarre. I felt cheated. I felt my jaw clench. I just didn’t feel like going up to him and pretending how excited I was to see him and talking about how really, really close we must be to Armageddon now! Or instead I could say I felt somehow cheated. But I didn’t want to go up to him and say that either.
For some reason I felt humiliated. Reality finally came knocking so many years later and hit me right in the face. I started to realize that I was once just an impressionable kid who was heavily influenced by the adults around me. Adults that were wrong.
I’m fine now, I started waking up slowly after that. I stopped pioneering, later I was deleted as an elder but stayed a Witness. Three years after that elders’ school I married a beautiful girl, also a Witness, but also starting to rebel as I was. We started to fade sometime after our wedding. Now we have two beautiful children. My wife and I are now “faded” and we are undercover apostates doing our best to wake up others.
I go on here a couple times a week to read. Obviously I am not the only one who made sacrifices for the Watchtower. It’s strange how we can devote our lives to something and realize one day they are repeating the same lies to the younger generations. I was supposed to be the last generation. I was supposed to be the last group of young people going out there. But no, they are still telling the same stories to young people decades later. It’s crazy, really.
I’m glad I’m out.