I was a regular pioneer (90hours) also my husband. We had one child and I was expecting our second. My husband and I did cleaning to support ourselves. When the big renovation of a circuit assembly hall came along my husband was asked to go in fulltime. His service hours were counted as part of the renovation project. However he could not always get to the morning worship at 8.00am that came before the start of the work at the site. He was up with me at 4.00am cleaning and then drove for one hour to get to the site. One brother at the entrance kept telling him it was not good enough that he was late for the day's text. Finally my husband told him that if he was willing to take his work for him at 4 in the morning then he would gladly get there in time for the day's text.
It was shortly after the completion of the project that the elders asked me to go into the "back" room to discuss why I was low on my pioneer hours for that year, I missed the 1000hours by about 70, keeping in mind the project and being pregnant and having a small toddler. At that time I had around 6 bible studies and each assembly we had one of our studies baptiized. None of this meant anything to them, three men said I should step down as it was obviously too much for me. I was so mad, I just resigned and told them I would not be pioneering anymore, after 8 years and over 15 studies baptized. They were not thinking of my well being, only of figures as they said I had not got in my time for some months. I used to get up early to help my husband get off to the site many times pushing our old car (Yes while pregnant!) to get it going as it would often not start. We took a car full of volunteers down to the site at the weekends....none of this seemed to count in their books.
