I became a Jehovah's Witness in 1954 at the ripe old age of 17. Being a loner growing up it felt suddenly wonderful to find people who befriended me. May 5, 1954 was a big day for me as I excitedly got immersed at a Circuit Assembly in my home town of Newport, R.I.

By age 19 I got married to a JW girl from Vermont. We moved to Glendale, California and joined the ranks of full-time Pioneers. Of the many congregations I have served in I will always consider the Glendale congregation and it's then (1955) Congregation Servant, Denzel Babcock, one of the greatest. Denzel knew of several in the congregation who had various and sundry personal problems. He dealt with them all in a loving and caring manner. I never heard the word "disfellowship." The congregation was happy and prospered.

As soon as the change over to rotating elders took place several were disfellowshipped over Denzel's protests. Wherever Denzel is today I wish him godspeed. My wife and I had the privilege of serving later in a small congregation in northern New Hampshire and later we traveled to Stuart, Florida to serve where the need was great and I was appointed Presiding Overseer. It was there that our son was born. We had been married 10 years but constantly had put off having a child because we were assured of Armageddon's closeness and that it was not the time. However by then I had become a Registered Nurse and we both immensely enjoyed her pregnancy and the birth of our son.

I had always longed to return to California and after 8 years we were able to come to the Escondido, Ca. congregation. Of course I expected to find another Glendale but alas it was not to be. People here were stilted and performed their ministry in a very perfunctory way. I was disillusioned. Nevertheless we remained and I was appointed to several servant positions over the years.

I don't feel the need to share all the facts related to my disfellowshipping after 30 years but I would like to focus on a few thoughts surrounding it. If I was expecting love and compassion and concern for me and my family such was not forthcoming. At a 10 p.m. evening meeting my confession was greeted with scriptural quotations of judgment and condemnation. As I drove home hours later I wept as I saw my life and ministry of 30 years dissolve. Whatever good I had done over the years, whatever sacrifices we had made, were all swept away as meaningless. I felt like I had made a request for bread and was given a stone. Over the years I have come to realize that that was all they could offer. They had no other tools. They had no other instructions. The "mother" organization had given them no knowledge of the helping or emotional healing arts.

In the end it was not "God's organization" that helped me get well but many years of psychotherapy with therapists who knew the art of unconditional positive regard and nonjudgmental empathy. Even though I had been reinstated, as I watched many young ones disfellowshipped for fornication or older ones with emotional needs, I began to realize that the only tool they had at their disposal and often used unscrupulously, was to throw them out.

It was then that I turned to my wife at the end of a Sunday Watchtower Study and said: "That was my last meeting. I will not be back." I confess, that at first, I worried about such scriptures as those purporting: "....a certain fearful expectation of judgment....." What I found instead was the freedom to be genuine.

In time my wife and I divorced and she too left the JWs, not for any disfellowhipping matter but because in fact they treated her as if she had because of her relationship to me. I am happy to report that we remain friends and she has since remarried and also has worked toward genuineness for herself and has been a very successful Realtor.

I continued on to college and graduated with a Masters Degree at 42 years old. It has been grand to learn that life is not about an old world or a new world nor about God's vindication, (what a silly thought!) but about being genuine, learning to trust and accept ourselves and to grow, and willingly helping others who reach out to us, without judgment but with pathos for the human condition.

In the end, perhaps it was better that I was thrown out. Perhaps if I had felt an elder's supportive arm around my shoulder, a sense of loving concern and compassion and a few tears shed with me over my "sins," I might still be locked into an organization that portends to "save" lives but in point of fact, destroys them.

Frank Maitoza, San Diego, Ca.