IT IS not easy to be handicapped and happy. Most persons burdened by physical impediments get depressed, at least from time to time. On such occasions they often ask themselves: “Why me?”

I was no exception. I was born with a severe physical impediment that prevents me from walking, standing up, or even using my hands. This circumstance understandably has had a marked effect on my personality. I still remember the jealousy and frustration I felt as a child when I watched other children running and jumping.

Sometimes I visited a nearby church to beg God’s help. I would earnestly repeat 20 or 30 times the prayer “Padre Nuestro” (“Our Father”) and a similar number of “Ave Marias” (“Hail Marys”), interspersing among these entreaties the heartfelt plea, “Please Lord, cure me!” I promised God so much if only he would heal me.

The Seeds of Pride

I was born in Granada, a beautiful city in southern Spain at the foot of the towering Sierra Nevada Mountains. As a young child, having a disability motivated me to develop other skills, and by the time I was seven, I was more advanced scholastically than others of my age. At that time I mixed quite normally with other children, playing with them and somehow moving around dexterously while seated on my small chair. I even learned to draw and write left-footed by gripping a pencil between my toes.

On one occasion the local newspaper published an article about me, together with photographs showing me writing with my foot. This publicity resulted in my receiving numerous awards and trips, plus the admiration of others. All of this served to foster in me a vain and conceited spirit. Pride was taking over.

Effects of Enforced Isolation

Before long I had to stop attending school. I was growing, and it became impossible for my mother to take me back and forth from our second-floor apartment. Thus, from the age of 13, I continued my education by means of a correspondence course. I found it easy to study and progressed well, but the enforced isolation affected me. Although perhaps outwardly I appeared cheerful and outgoing, I started meditating about my physical condition and its implications for the future.

In 1971, I won a scholarship to study for one year in a rehabilitation center run by Catholic nuns in Madrid. It was there that I learned to typewrite using a pen in my mouth, which has proved very useful. Of course, religion was an obligatory part of our weekly schedule. Every Sunday at 7:00 a.m. we assembled to attend Mass. Although the ritual seemed unnecessary to me, I attended faithfully, for I wanted to please the nuns who looked after me so well.

After a year in Madrid, I returned to Granada. Progressively I became more introverted, imprisoned as I was within the four walls of my home. For the most part, I spent my time reading novels and other books that I could get hold of. I also followed the trend of the time: I grew a beard and let my hair grow long. But it was not a happy period of my life.

Asking for a Sign

Often I was morose because of loneliness and a feeling of helplessness. I prayed to God, asking him for some sign that would demonstrate his existence and his concern for me.

Sure enough, God did provide a sign—but not the way I expected. It was toward the end of 1973. One of Jehovah’s Witnesses called at our door, and as my mother was out shopping, I opened the door and listened to what he had to say. At the end of the conversation, he offered me the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. I readily accepted it, for at that time I was willing to read anything. I read the entire publication that same afternoon. Its contents really surprised me, especially in regard to two Scriptural prohibitions: the use of images in worship and the misuse of blood.—Exodus 20:4, 5; Acts 15:28, 29.

The Witness returned a week later, and while he showed me what the Bible taught, I showed him how I could light a cigarette using only my feet! He offered me a free study of the Bible for six months. I immediately accepted without realizing that this was really the sign that I had been asking for.

I quickly assimilated a knowledge of the Bible. However, it was quite another thing to make the necessary changes in my life in order to be a real disciple of Christ. My biggest problem was my personality.

“Knowledge Puffs Up”

A brief experience will illustrate my mentality. After I had studied the Bible for six months, a traveling minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses visited me and asked me how I was progressing. “I’m doing great. I’ve already memorized 500 Bible texts,” I replied with a smug smile of satisfaction. “Really, 500 Bible texts?” he repeated somewhat incredulously. “Yes, 500! Look, I have them all written down here in this notebook,” I boasted.

Intrigued, he tried me out with Proverbs 18:1. Immediately I repeated the text word for word: “One isolating himself will seek his own selfish longing; against all practical wisdom he will break forth.” He then asked me: “Are you applying this text? Do you meet regularly with your Christian brothers and sisters?” “Well, yes, I do,” I said, for brothers in the congregation had kindly made practical arrangements so that I could attend the meetings.

After another couple of questions my visitor realized that I really had memorized all those texts. At the same time, he discerned that I was paying more attention to the acquisition of Bible knowledge than to the application of such knowledge in my life. He reminded me of the text at 1 Corinthians 8:1, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” He helped me to see the need to change my personality.

In time I stopped smoking, improved my appearance, and eliminated reading material that was not upbuilding. Eighteen months after first being witnessed to, I got baptized in June 1975.

Overcoming My Pride

Nevertheless, I still had not conquered my pride. My circumstances permitted me to study three or four hours every day, and I soon accumulated a vast store of Scriptural knowledge, which I was eager to demonstrate. Witnesses in the congregation to which I belong started to come to me with their Bible questions and even personal problems. I was only too happy to use my ability to help others, but at times this too caused my vanity to be flattered.

In time my conceit became less evident. Every time I realized that I was displaying a proud spirit, I would pray to Jehovah, asking him to help me. I would especially ask for help in having the right motive: that of helping others with my knowledge rather than glorifying myself.

A Source of Real Happiness

Witnessing to everyone with whom I came in contact became a source of real happiness. Sharing with others what I had learned not only produced an inner satisfaction but forced me out of the shell into which I had retreated and enabled me to mix with others and to be of help to some of them. I was especially delighted to help an elderly man who had problems similar to mine.

I first met him when I was witnessing to a couple of men on the street. During our conversation I couldn’t help but notice a man, walking with the aid of crutches, who passed from time to time. He stopped for a few moments each time he passed, as if he wanted to listen to what we were saying. Finally, he stopped in front of me and asked: “Is it true, all this about a global Flood?” I replied in the affirmative and went on to explain its meaning for us today. In time I was able to study the Bible with him.

Despite his age and his physical problems, he made progress and applied the Bible in his life. He was baptized at the age of 80. His wife, who at first ridiculed him, was baptized at the age of 85.

Being able to aid those who have impediments or who need help in other ways makes it easier for me to forget about my difficulties. In all, I have been able to help ten different people to get to know the truth of God’s Word. This has been a real source of encouragement to me.

My Pride Has Taken a Fall

Most important, I have discovered that a physical disability does not preclude the finding of happiness in life. Getting to know the Creator has helped me to be realistic and face up to my impediments, including my pride. I try to live a normal life as far as possible. I can now provide for myself economically, which gives me great satisfaction. I enjoy serving as an elder in the local congregation, and I try to have an active share in preaching the good news of the Kingdom. (Mark 13:10) Without a doubt, being able to help others is what furnishes me my greatest happiness. At the same time, I have learned to seek Jehovah’s glory, not my own.—Luke 17:10.—As told by José Martín Pérez.

José Martín Pérez

http://www.gbasesores.com/biografias/jose2.html

"22 años sirviendo a un proyecto humano, creyendo que era Divino"

"22 years serving a human project, believing that it

was Divine"

THERE IS this Spanish saying that: “Second parts were never good.” I am not in much agreement with such aphorism, because I have full trust, and this is my experience for the past five years that, second parts, they can be as good or even better than the first ones, especially when a person, after having lived a dependence experience and hypothetical relationship to a religious community, one can be made aware of his individuality and his right to determine what values in his life are worthwhile, without a religious community who determines and imposes them.

Ten years ago, I felt very happy when contemplating reflected my life in the pages of the Awake! magazine. I thought that it had gotten something unimaginable, a sensational unique privilege. It’s obvious the main reason for which it appeared there was: my physical state. Those physical and psychic disabled have a good used for many things. Nevertheless, regrettably the society in general, and many religious and political groups, they generally use the images of the one disabled to sell their products, to promulgate their ideas, to make aware, to put landmarks, and to motivate a certain action; in sum, to say: “This person is not worth anything, but does he does more things than you, why don't you imitate him?” Is for that reason that the Jehovah’s Witnesses magazines, there is not a year in which is not shown two or three experiences related to some disabled, sick, excluded, pariahs and others, to motivate for more activity, more productivity, more generosity and more indifference in the work that they are carrying out for 125 years.

I could not imagine how a story that I edited, but that it was “retouch” and entitled mainly by Jorge Weilland, would have a boomerang effect in my life, i.e., it would backfire against me, and it would be used in different occasions, (especially after I was ended as an elder), to rebuke me in any small detail that it didn’t agree with that could be denominate what should be a “good and obedient boy.” Of course, after leaving the group, I don’t know if for envy or for spite, sever hard criticisms have arrived to me, based on such story, saying: “You could see it coming.” My reputation and truthfulness have been quit deteriorated because of leaving the Witnesses, and for admitting my great sin openly. Behind are being left 22 years of service, sacrifices, of economic contributions, etc. which according to them, they don’t have any value on Gods sight, and they have only been good to confirm my pride and intellectual prepotency, in relationship with one another.

It has been thirteen years since that story was published, and what since? What has happened in my life? What do I think of what I edited and mainly was published in that magazine in 1988?

Many times, human beings feel the need to embed their objectives, their scale of values, their hopes, especially when they have been objects of manipulation from a collective group, that without bad intention in their origin, they had appropriated of the most basic and essential thing of a human being: their freedom. I have felt that need, when I observed that a religious organization, assuming the role of God in this XX century, has taken captive my thoughts, my beliefs, and my individuality.

As I had the opportunity to say to the elders in my disassociation letter, an organization in itself doesn’t have anything wrong or bad. I understand that they are a mean of combining efforts in order to achieve more as group than as individuals. Nevertheless, they are not figures or entities with wills, intellects, or independent capacities. Unfortunately, this becomes the mind of those who put their trust on it, illusions and expectations in an incorporeal and omnipresent figure of an entity with these characteristics.

What I now comprehend with easiness had been hidden from my understanding, while I belonged to the denominated community known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. I ended up believing that the organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, was the channel God was using to communicate his will to men, because they made me believe that “God always had on earth an organization or “channel” to communicate with human beings, and that it was necessary to be associate and to supporting such an organization in order receive his favor.” They spoke of it and acted towards it like if it was a different entity with own personality, and own life.

As others had said before me, the organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses was like a loving mother that in the father’s absence, she worries about the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of its children. It didn’t perceive that such a belief, controlled and administered by imperfect men, it could cause a metamorphosis in symbols, a transformation in the characters, to become authentic figures that assume a role that doesn’t belong to them.

That figure assumes a role of reality, and it goes on occupying parkland of power in the life of those affecting them in such degree that what begins with a determination that the Bible is and it will be its sole and definitive guide and true source of authorized information, it becomes in extreme cases for all those that adhere to that structure, in a prescription of what one must read, study, and what should be spoken. That has been the pattern of development of many religions nowadays.

Paul explained prophesying the arrival of the man of sin saying: “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (2 Thess. 2:4 KJ)

It is for that reason while I believed, what I was believing, I was happy, and it channeled my abilities to collaborate and to contribute so that this “mother” had a very numerous family of obedient and submissive children. Surprisingly, the defects that I had: (my “pride” that was no another thing that using a formula of psychological balance for my physical lacking), and the community accepted it, as long as I assumed the “role” of helpless son that appear humble even though it was fictitious, and as long I stayed in the sheepfold. When one is in there, all fault are excusable, attributed to the human imperfection. I never had an experience in which I was rebuked on such horrendous sin, until I had the courage to admit it openly.

I didn’t realize that these “children”, as soon as they accepted the “maternity” protection of the group they began to lose their individuality and to assume a collective and impersonal one, that at times would be powerful and intolerant against all those that didn’t stay within the mother cover. Moreover, that collective personality, in most cases is a dangerous weapon even tyrannical.

It has been very costly to reach these conclusions, because my physical and mental dependence on the organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has always been very strong. They were the first ones that were interested in me, not only so that I could studied the Bible, but by picking me up at my house and taking me to the meetings, conventions, etc. In addition, I was invited to social meetings, dinners, trips, etc. where they took care and assisted me. I believed that these personal favors made them “the organization”, my “mother”, when in fact they were Tom, Dick and Harry, etc. This gave me a huge measure of security. The problem was that, those that did me these favors, also believed that it was thanks to the ‘organization’ that they acted this way, therefore, it was not to those who I had to grateful for their favors, but to the organization.

Intellectually, they also satisfied my restlessness, because their concepts about the life, the truth, love, etc., they were assumed and contemplated by me as concepts of their own.

I had always observed some deficiencies of doctrinal character, especially while I was conducting a biblical study to a Pastor of a Pentecostal Church, and I deepened in topics such as the Trinity, the prohibition of the blood, the end of the world, etc., although for my convenience always I was self encourage that I way always right, that the arguments that I used were more powerful than those of this gentleman, that my reasonings were based on the Bible and those of him not, (although in some occasions he was able to leave me silent without arguments which to refute his ideas); in short, I thought that I was the winner, although my victory were pyrrhic victory, without giving more importance to the matter. In addition, I saw many deficiencies in the people's personal aspect that surrounded me, but since I also considered myself very imperfect and continually committing mistakes, the evident lacks of love that was observed inside the organization I saw it as something natural.

In more than one occasion, I had to mediate in problems and disputes among the brothers, and even among my own partners the “elders”!

Remarkably, it didn’t perceive that these personal mistakes, and the ones of organization that I excused generously, they were the same ones that it criticized of other groups or religious movements.

Soon after my resignation as an elder, I began to observe certain attitudes in some members of the congregation where I served that saddened me. The indifference on the treatment starting from this fact hurted me, for the reason that during the eight years that I was on that responsibility, I had sacrificed many things to serve others, and I didn’t see a positive answer on behalf of these members of the organization, that previously had valued my work profusely in spite of my state. Therefore, this shrill screech of love, which is said, exists among the Witnesses, showed its true face in front of difficulties or the misfortune of others.

However, these were not the factors that had me disassociate from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, from my ceasing of being an elder until mid 1995, we continued to have a “book study” at my home, and my wife and I continue regularly attending meetings, and door to door preaching, (this is the thermometers used by the congregation to discern who is considered spiritual and who’s not, inside their lines).

My doubts began to take shape, with the incisive questions of a relative, a Jehovah Witness from his childhood that had always gone around the same matter: the question of the “progressive truth” and “present truth”, because he couldn’t understand it completely. He didn’t understand how the Jehovah’s Witnesses could assure with dogmatism that their biblical and doctrinal conclusions were “the truth”, (and in fact, all their members had to accept such conclusions, in ordered not to be disfellowshiped from the collection), and some months later, they modify these doctrine or norm, saying that this also “was the truth” without any exchange of ideas. This can be made over again on the same matter three or four times, going ‘back and forward’ and always their last interpretation is at all times the final truth.

I explained to him saying the same thing that were reproduce by the Watch Tower publications, when they deal with the matter, but as more as I examined the topics and meditated over it, I felt the lacks of arguments they used.

To fasten up matters, rumors were blasted in the District Convention that took place at the beginning of August in the pavilion of Sports, South Area, of Granada, for the reason that long time brothers, had told me that the Society had changed the 1914 matter, and that such explanation would appear in a next Watchtower issue.

I maintained some days of true expectancy waiting for these news to be published on The Watchtower, however it was not about 1914 what they modified. It was regarding the ‘sheep and the goats’. After been establish for more than 70 years that Christ “came in his glory” in 1914, and that starting from there on, he began gathering the nations to judge them as “sheep and the goats”, the editors of the Watchtower, had discovered another “truth”. In fact, until that moment, it was praised the great discernment shown by Joseph F. Rutherford who had discovered such «truth».

If someone had dared to question that interpretation, he would have been unforgivably disfellowship. If anyone would dare to question anything regarding their currents concepts, he will also be disfellowship.

When was it discerned that the humanity was being judged as sheep and goats? The Watchtower of May 15,1986, p. 14, was declared: “Thus, in 1923 Jesus’ great prophecy about the sheep and the goats was properly understood, and it was discerned that the whole world was under judgment.

Indeed, The Watchtower of February 15, 1995, p. 8, said that: “…back in the 1920’s, the Watch Tower Society proclaimed the message “Millions now living will never die.” Who would these millions be? The “sheep” spoken of in Jesus’ remarks about the sheep and the goats. (Matthew 25:31-46) These sheeplike ones were prophesied to appear during the time of the end, and their hope would be everlasting life on a paradise earth. [...] It was realized that these obedient ones were to be distinguished from the stubborn “goats,” and after the destruction of the latter ones, the sheep would inherit the earthly realm of the Kingdom that had been prepared for them. Beginning in 1935, ‘the faithful slave’ has concentrated on locating such sheeplike ones and bringing them into Jehovah’s organization.

So, about seven years after the supposed coming of Christ ‘in his glory’, just only a few people of then, discerned that Christ, was already ruling in heaven, that he had been ruling for 7 years!, and it was discerned that the whole world was under judgment. However, the world didn’t even found out about this.

Although in these publications, it is stated that such beliefs in 1923 were ‘properly understood’; this belief was not established until 12 years later. Indeed, the promoter was the second President of the Watch Tower Society, Joseph F. Rutherford, just as it’s acknowledge by several publications, among them The Watchtower of September I, 1980, p. 21, when it stated: Such a gathering in of those doers of good to the “chosen ones” began in the spring of 1935. What gave tremendous impetus to the ingathering was the speech given on Friday, May 31, 1935, at the widely advertised convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses held in Washington, D.C.,.. On that day the president of the Watch Tower Society spoke on the theme “The Great Multitude” and discussed the prophecy of Revelation 7:9-14, Authorized Version. He identified the “great multitude” as being the same as the “sheep” in Jesus’ parable at Matthew 25:31-46.

The real problem was not to make an erroneous interpretation about the when, how and where, of the fulfillment of this parable. The real problem was that they related those explanations, which were exposed by them, with an operation and revelation of the Holy Spirit, and they forced others to profess these same beliefs, because for anyone to question or to show disagreement with such beliefs was considered punishable.

This is deduced from the comments carried out on The Watchtower of May 15, 1995, p. 17-18, relating to that discovery with flashes of light that are assigned to the Holy Spirit.

Certainly, after establishing that ‘Russell and his associates caused truth to shine forth as never before’, and that: “It is remarkable to see how greatly Jehovah, by means of holy spirit, favored these early Bible Students with flashes of light. To begin with, they firmly established that the Creator exists and that he has the unique name Jehovah.” They indicate a year after the 1922 Ohio, Cedar Point convention, “…bright light shone on the parable of the sheep and the goats. It was seen that this prophecy was to be fulfilled in the present Lord’s day, not in the future during the Millennium as previously thought.”

Who was the one that favored those early Bible Students so that they made this mistake? Who pass on the bright light shone that totally darkened them on the parable of the sheep and the goats? For sure, it wasn’t the Holy Spirit of God.

Nevertheless, that was not all. One week later, I received another Watchtower that contains a change that influenced more in me so that I began a serious investigation. It had to do with a statement that was made for more than 50 years, that the generation who witnessed the events of 1914 would not pass away until the complete end of the world arrived. Based on this argument, the Watchtower Society has exercised great pressure on all the survivors to the doctrinal fiasco of 1975, so that our lives rotated resting on three basic premises: the preaching and distribution of magazines and books, the programmed meetings, and the reading and exclusive study of the same publications that are distributed.

I read the magazine with astonishment, I reread it believing that I had not understood it’s meaning well, I underlined it and that same night at the book Study meeting, I made a comment. The surprise and disillusion faces of some spoke quite clearly. It could not be otherwise.

I wondered: What guarantees I had at that moment, that the new explanation was better than the previous one? What guarantees, that this new explanation that we all had to accept without complaint as ‘the truth”, tomorrow wasn’t denied or modified or even rejected as false? What credibility had a Society that had been insisting with subtlest and sophisticated arguments about an idea during 81 years, so that I could place my trust on the new explanations that I had to profess by force and came from it’s leaders?

What was behind all this? One morning, without my wife or my Witnesses employees noticing, with the help of another none witness employee I went to an Evangelical Bookstore, and asked: “Do you have any book which speaks of Jehovah’s Witnesses?” The person assisting me said hastily: “Yes, a book has just arrived, written by one that was high rank. His name is Raymond Franz.” These words he said while showing me the book “Crisis of Conscience” published by Editorial Clie. I didn’t think too much. I asked the price (although this was not very important), paid and that same day I began the most fascinating reading that I had ever had during all my years.

It was such the emotion that levied in me that I tried to share some ideas with my wife that same night, but she got very angry. When she saw who the author of the book was, she flatly refused to know anything of his content. I insisted another bit more the following days. I could not remain silent of what I knew and what the book had to show. One week later, my wife could not leave her astonishment: Who was the ‘faithful and discreet slave’? Was it a real and tangible figure, embodied in a group of people through the history of Christianity, that has to do with the responsibility of providing ‘food’, (in form of explanations, understandings and revelations) of the content of the Word of God, its doctrines and teachings, and that is the ‘only channel of revelation of the truth of God’ to men in this XX century? Who were ‘the sons of God’? Was it necessary an organization type Watch Tower to serve and to please God in this time?

It was as if a veil that blinded us, had fallen suddenly before our eyes (2 Co. 4:4). Together we began investigating the content of the book more deeply looking and contrasting quotes, reasoning their arguments, and reviving our own experience with the details, that brother Franz contributed. There was no question about it. The deceit and manipulation to that we had been subjected by the Watch Tower Society were evident. I didn’t judge any of the brothers because we all were victims. No one was responsible direct of this whole lying laze, but we all had a degree of responsibility for having been linked to the lie. Our gifts and abilities had been used by this Society to mortgage the minds of many people in favor of a denominated community ‘The Governing Body’ that has assumed control of the minds and hearts of all them.

The following steps were inevitable. We could not keep silent. “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20 NKJ Bible). Our friends had to find out the things that we knew. It is for that reason that, when we met with some brother, or we went out with him preaching, or to give a study, or in the own Kingdom Hall, the conversation took means in what we expressed as our discrepancy, the ‘rareness’ of certain changes.

Quickly, the “elders” detected us, who threatened us effrontery, after meeting with us during more than three hours. They told us that we had to keep silence; otherwise, they would have to “take measures”. I felt sorry for them, because they were assuming a role that didn’t correspond them: the role of judges, but my wife and I could not continue undergoing such control in our lives.

That same afternoon, we agree not to go to any more meetings, and some months later, we wrote a letter of disassociation that is reproduce at the end of this article, for general knowledge

In that interval, I had diverse truly sad experiences that gave me even grater reasons to move away from the community.

One of them had to do with an arrangement of help that the congregation had concerted so that I could attend meetings, it consisted of every week a different youth came at my work or home and took me to the Hall. Then took me back. This arrangement was made, not because of the initiative of the congregation or the elders, (it was always my wife or my brothers-in-laws who took and brought me from the meetings), but because my wife was pregnant at the end of 1994, and she had huge difficulties to take me, after the birth of my boy it was worse. Do to that need; I personally spoke with the elders so they would make that arrangement.

Hence, after that meeting on May of 1996, one of those elder phone me and told me, not to call the youths anymore, to take me back-forward from the Kingdom Hall, that I had to speak with them first, that they would deal with the matter. This way, they avoided my contact with those youths, speaking with them, and ‘channeling’ the love of these, in such a way that none could express that love spontaneously, taking me and bringing me back from the meetings, if it was not with the permission of the elders.

Another, had to do with the way some of my clients acted towards the Consultant-advice that I direct, they began to boycott my business before making my decision to leave the group, and to take away their documents and countable books, with the excuse that it plundered them to far, or that they will do themselves these documents. A sister told me that ‘she came to pickup her papers since she heard at the District Convention that I was an apostate, and the elder were going to disfellowship me.

These extremely totalitarian ignorant attitudes are proper of a political regime, but not of a religious group who says they follow the footsteps of Christ and that have the signs identifying them as true Christianity, this was the straw the broke the camels back, which me us decide to present our disassociation.

Of course, those that know the Witnesses can imagine the immediate proceeding used by the clients that I still had. As soon as our dissociation was made public, all and each one of them parade to withdraw their documents from my office. The fact that I was married and with two small children, or my physical state, didn’t matter to them. In fact, let me say this, that if after my departure, my business had gone broke and left me in ruins, they would had been happy about it, and they would had said: “That happened to him for turning his back to Jehovah.”

An incident that I had with an “elder” of Chauchina (Granada) it is symptomatic of the attitude of most. He was a painter particularly of homes, and in fact, he painted my house twice and once my office. He came personally to withdraw his documents (most sent their wives) and when present before me, I told him that I didn’t understand why he was taken the documents, that I continued being the same Pepe, and that my work had nothing to do with my religious position. Immediately, he told me with roughness that he “was the one who didn’t understood what I had done.” I asked, “What have I done”? He answered, “You abandoned Jehovah.” It was that he confused the organization for the own Jehovah himself.

I asked him: “Can you imagine if all your clients, when you became a Jehovah Witness did to you what you are doing right now, what would you had to eat?” Or if your clients asked you for your religion before hiring you, and when realizing that you were a Witness didn’t want anything to do with you?” Annoyed because of my questions turning his head said: but it’s not the same thing.” And left my office.

The case was, that I began to breathe a different atmosphere after leaving the Witnesses, a much better one then that one that I inhale among them: the gossips, hypocrisy, and favoritism was our daily bread among them. The “adjusting” to the norms of the Society to receive the little pat on the back of approval can be exciting at the beginning, but with time it becomes a heavy load. Although at the beginning, I noticed the ‘isolation’ that witnesses are subject to from a former-member, a short time after our disassociation, new circles of friendship began to arise, especially; people that previously have belonged to the Witnesses, and that had suffered and still suffer under the oppressing and suffocating hand of the Watchtower. With them, I share my thoughts, my friendship, and my desires to continue serving God. And since they live at different geographical locations in Spain, now we travel more often, we visit our friends and help them understand biblical details they before didn’t comprehend.

Often, we remember the unjust norms that we were subject to, especially, their mistimed politics in the treatment to former-members of the group that no longer supported the Watch Tower for reasons of conscience. We laugh when we hear speaking of “tolerance”, because this word is erased from the Jehovah’s Witnesses dictionary. Making a great effort and thinking that the Watch Tower was similar to Christ, I don't imagine him treating with contempt, looking of the corner of the eye and with repulsion, and shunning one of his followers that had stopped supporting him in a given moment. This is what is taught on those ‘edifying’ meetings they have, in the publications they distribute, and this it is proceeding which most follow.

My thought on religious matters has changed a lot. Also my concept on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I fear, as Paul, that the desire, the courage and the sacrifice of many of them have been in vain, the paraphernalia that accompany its for there proceed was worthless, and all suffering they have gone through, was unnecessary. I regret collaborating with a group like this, (so much in facts as by means of words), in mortgaging the minds of those who listened to me and imitated me, a teaching based on the tradition and caprice.

For that reason, I plead for the breakup of all type of religious organizations, especially the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which trade with the natural inclination to worship our God, and they control the life of people; they have appropriate the figure of Jesus Christ as if it was their patrimony, imposing the outward appearance of seeing things, stealing the most valuable gift that God gave to all human being.

I Support all those people that in freedom, opt to adore God without losing their individuality, their autonomy, their critical capacity on themselves and on the group which they are associated with; the person that, independently of their religious ideas, live the good news of salvation the twenty-four hours of each day, not as an act of a outer shell of religious saintliness, but as an imperfect reflection of the image of God in the human being.

I also support those religious groups that have a set of beliefs and rituals and don’t maintain a pyramidal relationship with their followers; that their component are free to choose with total freedom the enjoyment of doctrines and practices of the group with full knowledge of everything and they can disassociate themselves at any moment, without fear or being harass, having control of their own mind, and in contact with their feelings, having “their perceptive powers trained to distinguish both right and wrong.” (Heb 5:14)

Groups that allow and foment in their members the ability to think analytically, to inquire, to look at opinions from multiple perspectives, and that they don’t put obstacles so that the follower, can take intermittent “vacations” in which they can meditate and have access to information that may possibly be “negative” for leadership of the group.

Groups that allow their followers to be, Christian and solely CHRISTIAN.

I don’t consider myself better than anyone. In fact, I have gotten off the pedestal where the Witnesses had put me. I have my feet on solid ground. Moreover, of course, it is not my purpose to destroy the faith of any person.

It’s not my ambition to spread teachings of any religious sect. I think that Christianity is much bigger than all that, so as to that it cannot be contain in a denomination or particular doctrine. Every one has its own personal preference, and I respect their options. However, I cannot stop speaking of which has been my experience inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses, of what I have seen and I have heard within them.

Twelve years ago, just as I said in the Awake! magazine, date November 8, 1988 pages 13-15, I wanted or ask for a sign, without knowing what type. For a long time, I believed that God had answered me that request with the arrival of Miguel to my door, and with his offer, that together with the rest of the Jehovah’s Witnesses members, I studied the Bible with them, so that I could feel secured and protected in the community. As I said in some other place, this ‘sign’ that I ask for, I don't know if it was with selfishness, with interest or with pride. Now, I have the assurance that the arrival of Miguel at my door was not the ‘sign’ that I ask for. I didn’t ask God, to put me in a religious community that did me favors, and at the same time it appropriated of my persona, as well as I may had felt within them. I didn't request “paradises” in exchange for slavery and submission to the guidelines of imperfect men.

I requested him, a sign of His existence and of his interest in me, without realizing that, this ‘sign’ was already evident from the very same moment I was aware of my need of Him. Of course, God does respond to those who cry out to him for help, but that answer doesn’t necessarily have to come because a gentleman calls at your door and offers you the possibility of ‘joining as member’ a religious group that he represents, or because of their ability to answer certain questions that alleviate our restlessness.

The answer of God has been progressive, and I’ve seen it in these last years. His ‘sign’ has consisted on opening up my eyes to this life, gaining freedom, in removing the veil that muddled up my vision, in taking me to Christ as my Savior, in restructuring my life: my thoughts, beliefs and priorities.

I still have a lot to walk from my wheelchair. I can say that God, without necessity of so much show, of so many ‘vicars’ and ‘communication channels’, and in spite of the many intolerances that has to suffer everyone who decides to serve God without ties, has taken me by my hand and has indicated me the way. “This is the way. Walk on it.”

Of that, I give testimony.

José Martín Pérez.