Many who join the JWs are running away from something. Nothing unusual about that, it happens in relationships. But I didn;t know about that in 1987.
It was one field service weekday, as a fresh faced, new convert on the doors. I should have been chasing tail, getting work experience or an education, but instead I was studying with the masters at the university of Not-today-thank-you, and thumping doors. Still, I was happy enough.
A woman of about 30 answered the door. In retrospect, she was gorgeous, I mean 100% organic produce, but I was a too-young 17 and couldn't see it.
Anyway, she stood there and seemed completely in control of the situation, unlike most people who answer the door who are looking about for reasons to get away, and she was looking AT me with intelligence. When my spiel about the Kingdom-universal-issue, bla bla bla dried up she asked if I was born a JW. No, I said, I wasn't. "So you really believe everything you've just told me?" Yes, I did. "Will you stay a JW for the rest of your life, bring up your children in your faith?" Well yes, I said I would. "Would you allow your children to die for want of a blood transfusion?" Here I hesitated to give the effect of being human, and said something like, yes, I would do that.
I allowed a second's silence, for her to be shocked by my super high-voltage faith, but she just kept looking at me, completely ignoring the old buffer-with-bible standing behind me. Then she wound up the conversation by telling me, without kindness or disapproval, that I had become a JW for personal reasons, not because of any universal issue, and that I would leave the JWs after a few years.
Was I spooked! It was like meeting a witch! I couldn’t see how she could be so confident in her own intelligence. Now I realise that she probably had either some history as a JW herself, or some relevant education. But I carried her words around with me for the whole time I was a dub, 14 years.
philo