Norma & Cris Sanchez

TRANSCRIPTION IN PROGRESS

I'd like to tell you what the best day of my life was, the greatest day of my life. But before I get there, I have to tell you what happened before a little bit at least when I came to this country I had been until 19 years of age.

I had been a nominal Catholic and I knew very little of the Bible. I was very sad with world conditions. I was by myself. I had lost all my friends because I had left my country. My parents weren't here, and I was just a very easy prey of the pseudo-gospel of Jehovah's Witnesses.

I remember one thing in particular. One evening, after a Bible study, I had learned about the hundred and forty four thousand and I was reading the Bible in the book of John. I read the fourteenth chapter. I felt very happy and an instant afterwards. I felt very sad and you'll understand why. John Chapter 14, Jesus our Lord said Do not let your hearts be troubled. Exercise faith in God. Exercise faith also in me. In the house of my father there are many abodes. Otherwise I would have told you because I am going my way to prepare a place for you. Also if I go my way and prepare a place for you, I am coming again I will receive you home to myself, that where I am, you also maybe. And where I am going you know the way. And I felt so happy I felt touched by the love of Jesus, and I felt so sad, because I realized it wasn't for me. It was only for the one hundred and forty four thousand and I remember I called my mother who was also studying with the witnesses and I showed her this and we both felt very sad and we tried to encourage each other with the idea of paradise, but somehow it wasn't. It wasn't as pleasant as being with Jesus.

But anyway time went by I became a pioneer very soon after that I went to Bethel. Well as you all know, or most of you anyway, the organization doesn't highly recommend one go into college but if you do have a college education then they'll use it. And that's what happened to me. Within a few months of being in Bethel I was asked to come to the offices of the factory overseer and he told me that I was going to start working in translation and they were going to train me. I started as a proofreader I mean making about six months I started to translate first that was watching the world you probably know what that is.

(You were witnesses). Then it was "Awake!" articles then it was articles from "The Watchtower" books and I even had the opportunity of working in the revision of the translation into Spanish of the large print Bible. This one I'm holding here and I'm mentioning this because it has to do with the way the Lord used it to help us to come to him, and I want to mention some words from 1st Peter that are very dear to me. They say: "Out of darkness into his wonderful light." Brothers, once the Lord has called us into his wonderful light, we appreciate in what deep darkness we were. And at that time, we didn't know. So how did he do it? How did he work in our lives? One day, we were revising this Bible, as I said, and that was the first step.

There is a lie by the way in the foreword of the Spanish New World Translation It says that the Greek text was consulted. No that's not true. I mean really if you just think about it why would anyone able capable to consult the Greek text would want to translate the Bible from an English translation.

They would just go right to the original translation and translate from the Greek Neither of the translators in the Spanish department knew the first thing about Greek. But anyway, in Revelation 11 1 the English uses an expression which is Temple sanctuary that can be rendered in Spanish in at least two ways. You could just put the word Temple and next to it the word sanctuary in Spanish and make Sanctuary an adjective. And so you're talking about a temple that in effect is a sanctuary. Or you could say this is the sanctuary of a temple.

So we had a problem how do we do it. So we sent a note to Freddy Franz. And the answer was that it had to be rendered sanctuary of the temple because the Greek word "naos"or "na-os".

I don't know how to pronounce it, meant, the sanctuary of the temple. Well that was just a fact. But it stuck in my mind. Somehow it was there in my brain.

And then one day a dear brother from which I think all of you are still praying and I hope you keep praying. Showed me a scripture.

It's in Revelation Chapter 7 and verse 15. He showed it to me in the interlinear translation of the Bible.

If you had an interlinear with you. The New World Translation interlinear you would see that it says: "Through this they are inside of the throne of the God and they are rendering sacred service to him of day and of night in the divine habitation of him." And if you were to check the Greek that divine habitation of him was his "naos," Right? Brother Wesley? Okay, 'cause I don't know any Greek but that's what it says here. Now the thought immediately came well why so much first of all translating Temple sanctuary as the sanctuary of the temple in Revelation eleven one and the other portions in which the new world uses that phrase, and yet nothing about that fact here.

And it was quite a shock. But I thought I told this friend I said I said René but we know there are two classes and it's only the one hundred forty four thousand that are in union with Christ. And you know what he said. He asked me a question. He said. Chris do you feel condemned? Now you can ask that question to any one of Jehovah's Witnesses because it is really a question that will help them. The answer will probably be no. And, it will be an honest answer because these are people that love the Lord.

These are people that think they are serving Jehovah. So then he showed me Romans 8:1. It said: therefore me with Christ Jesus half no condemnation.

If you can I show that scripture to one of the witnesses you may be able to help them because it's very difficult to think that you are condemned. I read that scripture says if you're in Christ Jesus you have no condemnation words to anyone that thinks a little means if you're not in union with Christ Jesus you have combination so I can in all honesty say that that was all that that brother said to me from then on I started to read and I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

The first thing I read was the book Life Everlasting and the freedom of the sons of God. I have read that book very carefully again. All those characters are about how you could tell you were a son of God. I just happen to have two days off. So I just read constantly during those two days. What I've read helped me to see that there were no basis for what they were teaching. And all of a sudden the Scriptures started to really pour in. Come in. I could see so many scriptures in the Bible that showed that to be a son of God all you had to do was to have faith in Christ.

So that was so beautiful to me so wonderful that I wanted to share it with other friends I had in my mind. No one in my city whatsoever I can say that I don't have any animosity against them as persons as people I had in my mind no feeling whatsoever of forming any sect or at any any group rebellion whatsoever. But here were the most wonderful good news I had ever heard in my life. That meant that after all I could be with Jesus. Those words of John 14 came back to my mind.

I know paradise on earth will ever have the value of being with Jesus. It could never be that feeling. Well we learned a few of the things we learn.

My wife and I will talk to you too. And I say we learn and I want to tell you one thing my wife has been a real gift from the Lord from the very beginning. Most of the times when I learn something and I feel it to her at the beginning she couldn't see it but he would always take time to look it up by herself and she has stuck with me and well he'll tell you about herself. OK. I'm going to let her tell you but I just want to express here in front of everyone that the Lord really gave me a wonderful blessing when he gave me my wife and I can say that thank you Lord.

OK all this time my mother on her own she used to go out from house to house like every witness or just about like every other witness does. And one day she found a Pentecostal and this Pentecostal showed her something in Romans chapter eight that made her eyes wide open. She was a pioneer and the pioneer tried to contradict everything the Pentecostal was saying. And yet my mother said she couldn't put it out of her mind. She went back home. Now mind you my mother can hardly read. She read Romans 8 and she'd read Romans 8 and she'd read Romans 8 and she'd read Romans say it.

Finally she said I got it.

Well after that she kept praying for all of us and she little by little started to miss meetings. She stopped going and field service. She didn't know exactly what to do. She didn't know who Jesus was in there but it was a beginning. And I would get home and she would ask me a question and I would try to put her down tried to not care a question. Finally one day I said do you think that you know more than the brothers of the Anointed that are in Bethel governing the organization.

And my mother never answered. And she went about it very meekly very quiet. But anyway when my eyes were opened ISIS well this is what my mother has been trying to tell me all along. And I remember I said to my my wife Honey I have to tell my mother on my says you better be careful. ISIS I don't have to be careful I know she knows and we went home and I remember we'd read John Chapter 17 and we started to try to understand what we were reading and unexplained as we went along.

When I finally tell her what I believe my mother had tears in her eyes you said Well finally my prayers have been answered. You said I used to pray that you would see this too. It was so beautiful we embrace ourselves our brothers. I fear of death was gone. It was the most blessed thing. What we learn from that idea and this is all we knew we could become sons of God by having faith in Christ. Well we believe what we have to look at what we would render and learning.

So I started to tell this to some of my best friends. Show them from the Bible and one of them without telling me anything went to this society to a service department and accuse me of being an apostate. So I got a phone call. I mean the phone call they told me that they wanted to meet me. But the law is so kind because a few days before something happened that spiritually separated me completely from the watchtower society. What was it.

I became a real real Bible student. I started to read every book of the Bible and all translations I good and I made a cassette my own cassette of the good news Bible translation of John in Spanish. And when I did the tape itself I don't remember. I don't I didn't see this point but when I was listening to that cassette I heard something that stopped my world literally. I had to stop the cassette. Put it back listen to it again. Put it back again. Listen to it again.

I got out every single Bible I had. It was like if I could hate myself because what I had read there meant that every single thing I had done was absolutely zero absolutely anything.

What work it as John Chapter 5 verses 22 and 23 and I was preaching from the Good News Bible in Spanish I'll read to you from the Good News Bible in English.

And Jesus said there nor does the father himself duck anyone. He has given his son the full right to kill it so that all will honor the son in the same way as they honor the father whoever does not honor the son does not honor the Father who sent him.

And really that means whoever does not honor the son in the same way does not honor the father of that man that all the years in Bethel all the years of pioneer it was nothing because I had not been honoring this song in the same way. He was someone one some where else in the background but I remember I called my wife and I said Listen to this and I just play it back again. And she heard it and told her it didn't mean anything. She insisted that we had been given this song in the same honor but we left it like that Nancy.

She knows that that's not the way it is now.

But but it that in itself literally severed my spiritual relations with the Watchtower Society that we can just before the Monday when I was call on the phone something else happened that made me realize to what extent I was in a bad position. It was in a circuit assembly was in the elders meeting and using Hebrews chapter twelve the district overseer told us that we had to discipline the brothers. Anyone that read Hebrews chapter twelve.

[00:00:01] And he's told that he has to discipline the brothers if he understands what he's reading. He also knows that that makes him an enemy of God. Because what that says is that God is going to use his enemies when he we must persecute his people. He's going to use that persecution for the good of these people. That's why it's called discipline. And he tell his people don't we kick that discipline accept that it's going to make make it better for you. So I went back home and I was so sick. I remember I had to sit in a chair. I couldn't cry. I could just about fry. It was like there was nothing. The whole thing was a hoax. The whole thing really was bad. And I didn't even know the half of it yet. But anyway that Monday I got a phone call I was supposed to go to a meeting and this meeting with who I was with five men. One of them was a member of the governing body. And the others were members of the different committees of society has a member of the governing body. Well I think I better not mention these names but these men treated me in such a way that I felt that they would have had the power of thought perjuring me on this. I can say in the presence of my God I'm not lying. If they would have had the power of torturing me if they would have had the power of sending me to the stake I wouldn't be here. I felt so afraid that at one point I told my wife I said Honey if by any chance. They find me dead. Don't believe that I committed suicide. Don't believe it because I haven't done anything bad. [00:02:15][134.3]

[00:02:16] I've just talked about my faith so I'm not going to commit suicide. So I felt that my life was in danger when my wife heard that. She said I'm going to eat with you to every single one of those meetings. And if I went outside in Bethel to to to the hole to throw out the garbage and just took a minute longer my wife would just run out because she could see that I was pretty scared and she thought for only one year so scared that may be a reason for it. And she didn't want to take any risk. But anyway the place where they would take me was a very lonely place here where sometimes they were up to seven men bombarding questions. They were putting me in such a way a member of the governing body said I was a worm. Another brother called me a cancer. Another one called me a leech and these words were not said in a very nice way. They were set in a very angry mood. The hatred was coming out of their eyes. They were not able to refute the things I was saying. I remember at one point I said to the brother of the governing body I said Can you explain me this scripture. First John five one which says everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God and all he could say was I am not here to answer your questions later on in a meeting with my wife only these men stole my wife. However that they almost fell out of the seat when they saw that scripture. These are men in the high places of that organization. So if you can ever find a way of showing in a loving way this scripture to a witness you may be able to help him because he is that witness agrees with you in that in the fact that he believes that Jesus is the Christ. [00:04:37][141.9]

[00:04:39] Then he would have to believe that he has been born from God. But remember only the one hundred and forty four thousand believe that. So that's a good one an easy way of doing it if at all possible. Anyway that's it. I said when there was another brother in the Spanish department he had come from Spain. They had called him from Spain where he had where he had been a missionary for all about 13 or 14 years. And he came and he help us in translation and he also was learning some of these things at the same time although in a different way he was also called in. They found somebody talked about him and I saw eyes on Andrew so he was his fellowship. My wife was this fellowship for the sole fact of being my wife. That was it for being my wife and I was his fellowship a little later on although my mother and father sign. My mother was his fellowship and the only thing we can make up was because she was my mother. That's about it. But anyway we were all this fellowship and so there we were. We were all by ourselves we thought. But do you do you remember what happens in John Chapter 9 in John Chapter 9. There is something that that to me was the Bible came to life. And I'll tell you why. There was a blind man there and Jesus and the apostles went by and they asked him who did whose sin was it the man. Was it his parents and his sister. Well the blindness of this man was for the glory of God could be seen. And he did a wonderful miracle. He spit on this man's eyes. He don't go and wash herself and he and the man did. [00:06:47][128.0]

[00:06:48] Probably somebody had to help him. Jesus left. The man never saw Jesus when he when he was himself. He was able to see. I feel it. That's what happened to us. Why. Because many times from door to door people try to help us. It is true that many times they throw the doors at us but many times they do try to help us and I don't remember times when people really tried to show me the gospel and they would say I will pray for you. And I just laughed. These people are going to pray for me anyway. By choice we had blinded ourselves because like Jesus said I am the light of the world unless you're not with him. Well if you have no light you're as good as blind. How are you so. He was the one as far as I'm concerned. That opened my eyes and I started to see and I knew it was by having faith in him. I didn't know who he was at that time but I knew by having faith in Him I Could Be A Son of God. And that changed my life anyway. What happened to this man. When we saw he started seeing instead of getting very happy about the whole thing that used to come through the fences. And that's exactly what happened to us. When I started seeing when I got so happy Hey I'm seeing things in the Bible. I was taken to a community meeting and I was taken to the highest hierarchy of the Watchtower Society for that committee meeting. Well in that meeting it would have been easy for me to say well no I believe that if I stay in the organization I will gain life. I believe it's just by staying in this organization but I kept saying no. [00:08:53][125.2]

[00:08:54] It is by having faith in Jesus. And I thought if I didn't do that I was denying my lord. And I remember what he said. If anyone confesses me publicly I so confessing in the presence of My Father and of the angels and if anyone denies me I will deny him. So my my conscience wouldn't allow me to go back. And that's why really we were disfellowshipped because otherwise it would have been a matter of just perhaps every proof or whatever. But we will have not been disfellowshipped as it was though the Lord had opened our eyes and at least just like that man did. I couldn't say that what had happened was bad. I had to say this has come from God. Just like that man knew that the man who opened my eyes must come from God. He said because whoever heard of a sooner opening the eyes of anyone. And I saw one thing is very interesting too if you go over that chapter carefully you'll find that that man's eyes were really spiritually open in that trial. Check he first call Jesus a man when he calls him a prophet and then he winds up saying he must come from God. And at the end of the trial when he needs Jesus what does he do. He worships Jesus. What had happened. He could see what the Pharisees were all about. And that's what happened in that trial to me too. I could see the hatred. I could I could see the evil that was there that caused my wife to be disfellowshipped without any reason whatsoever anything that had to do with me had to be cut off because I was a real danger a cancer you want to operate a cancer an extra explaining it. [00:10:58][123.4]

[00:10:59] So as I said this chapter is very dear to me. But why. Well I you remember what happened to the man when he confessed Jesus. He was his fellowship. And then what happened. The next verse is very important. Let's bring it together. OK. So in chapter 9 I think it's on the beginning on verse 35. It says When Jesus heard what had happened he found the man. And you know brothers and sisters. That's exactly what happened. Jesus used a very dear brother who's here sitting back there one night I got a call from him. His name is Dwayne. I love Duane dearly. I. I was kind of hoping I could hug Duane and I was embarrassed. I said Well I do it. I really wanted to do it. So when I saw him when I was telling him who I was Dwayne embraced me you know. And so. Praise the Lord the love that we had on those calls. And this is very special to me this is why I'm getting a little emotional media a lot. But why. What was it. Well I was hoping Dwayne would tell me what was exactly the words that when that we talk the very night we talked several times many times. But there was one night in which he finally helped me to see who Jesus was. And I was expecting Dwayne to tell me because I had forgotten but Dwayne had forgotten also. So last night I went in prayer to the Lord and I said Lord please help me to remember what was it that he told me. And sure enough the Lord helped me to remember know when I remember now maybe Dwayne will remember but he had to do with Abraham and I think it had to do with Abraham and Isaac Isaac being the only begotten son of the first begotten son of Abraham. [00:13:15][136.3]

[00:13:17] And when God ask Abraham to offer Isaac. Was he asking Isaac to author anyone lesser. Excuse me was he opening. Was he asking Abraham to offer anyone less or inferior to he himself to Abraham himself. Isaac the inferior as a man for his father. No he wasn't. So was God going to offer any lessons that what he had asked Abraham. In that moment I understood what being the son of God was. This man had come from God. He was the manifestation of God in the flesh. At that time I understood the love of God for the first time. I remember Dwayne also said and see how much the love reminded me last night. I remember you said it's easier. And I repeated that afterwards. But I never remember that you had said it. But now I remember you did it. It seems you were a general could tell one of the soldiers you go on die for those people go out there at the front of the battle and die for them. So easy to do that but it isn't that easy to get dressed as a common soldier and come down and do it yourself. And that's exactly what God did for us anyway. Matt may I please make a parenthesis here. At lunch today I was eating with a very dear sister and also a couple and my wife that I love very much and this dear sister asked a very interesting question that made me think a lot. He he he asked something along the lines of How can we understand God hard we visualized God. And I really didn't know what to say because this is what you see Jesus and when you see God and my wife and I'm the married couple gave very good answers but I wasn't able to give any answer. [00:15:43][146.5]

[00:15:44] And then a little later the married sister said something that really helped me to to understand the answer. She said she had seen this man who was all love and it was so loving so affectionate so compassionate. You could see it in his laugh and his eyes and his expressions. And then I said that's it. That's how I really see God. When I look at the eyes of Jesus I see the compassion of God. The kindness of God the mercy of God. When I see his clothing I look at the righteousness of God. When I see his hands I look at the law my God because I see those nail marks there. Anyway that night Duane told me what I had to do to be born again and to accept the Lord. I remember I went home and I prayed and I prayed to Jesus for the first time in my life. And I told him every single thing that I could think of and I could only see Jesus hanging in the cross. I can't just thinking you died for me. And I ask him to come into my life to cleanse my heart to save me to do with me whatever he wanted to do. I remember the tears were flowing out of my eyes like it was it was something. It was the best day of my life and the Lord came into my heart and I knew I had been born again. Not only that I understood what being saved was I understood for the first time what colossus. Chapter two and verse eleven mean which I had never understood before. I mean unless you experience this is no one that can tell you is not a plus b equals. See this is something you have to experience but here it is. I understood it that day collections. Chapter 2 verse eleven I had asked Jesus to come. I'm like he says in his word losing me losing my heart. It says in union with Christ. You were circumcised not with the circumcision that is made by men but with the circumcised. Nate by Christ which consists of being free from the power this sinful self. That then I understood why the angel says call Him Jesus because he will free his people from his saints. And I understood why he could tell the Jews when he said You shall learn the truth and the truth shall set you free and a little later on he said. This song. Will set you free. He had explained you're in bondage to sin. You're a slave to sin. I can liberate you. That doesn't make you sin. That's. It doesn't make you seamless but that forward that thing has goals. I'm the closer you get to the Laura. The weaker that power gets and you know it. And you know it's not you the one who's doing the work you know is to lose the one who is doing that work and no one has to explain it to you. No one has to tell you is there. Then you agree start understanding the love of God. All the wonderful things that are related to salvation. So I was so happy I went through our bedroom when I told my wife I adore my wife two new things I tell her. Jesus was God. I thought I was safe. So you know what her answer was. She's good. What's next. I don't worship. Why don't I let her now tell you her father's story. And if I have time I'd like to tell you some few other things that the Lord has made for both of us.

Yeah. When Cris first told me that I almost died. I said, what are we going to be doing next for shipping idol? I just couldn't believe it that I think if there's anything hard for witness to understand is the deity of Christ and it wasn't a simple for me as a whisper. Crystal was very difficult and it took a while for quite a while for me when we were at Bethel and he first told me what he was learning. I guess I had this terrible attitude. I always say, well, don't tell me anymore. And every time he always brought this new points, don't tell me anymore. I'll find out on my own. And that's was my addict too. When he first called me about to read to me, Romans eight one and I said, well no, I'm not convinced, but I said, I want you to tell me anymore.

It was, it was too shocking for me to find out that now I had a heavenly hope and it wasn't earth, which I love so much and I said, no, don't tell me anymore. I want to read it. I want to pray. And if that happened, Chris had a speaking assignment. Those are do hope to overs. Witnesses know that uh, from Bethel they assigned the brothers to go and give talks to different congregations. And so Chris had to go that weekend and I said, I'm not going on. I want to say I send a two days reading and praying if you hold off. That's the first time I had read the Bible with really reading it and I couldn't deny it. I, I said, well, what do you call me? It's true, but I couldn't, I kryptonite and I wasn't convinced of it. I couldn't really believe it.

And I kept telling the whole vibe and know Jesus. Then I kept say, Oh Jehovah, I want to live here. I don't know. I want to go to heaven. And you know, it was so difficult for me to accept that I was just, I've been at the over witness all my life. I've never known anything else. That's where I've been brought up since I was five years old. So it was very difficult for me to accept it. But I, I want it to read and find out for myself. And every time Chris Paul tried to tell me something different, I said, okay, let me read. So I would go by myself and I would read and I couldn't deny it. It was there, it was in, in, in my own bed. Now I started, Chris had, he's always had a lot of different bibles. So I started looking at all the other translations and it was even more clear recordings from the new world translation.

I said, oh my God, what is this? But when we were called to the meeting meeting be about a month or two before we even found out about anything, we had decided we wanted to leave that. So we have been pondering over this, that we wanted to have a family, but we liked that. So we weren't too sure whether we should leave or not leaving for simple, if you want to leave Elissa. And I said, well, if you want to leave Ali's. So it was always like that, you know, about a year passed and we were still there and that year we had decided we're leaving for months later. This sort of talks to Chris and he finds out all this new information, which you start sharing with other people. Well we got to the committee meetings before we knew it. I didn't even know what was happening. I wasn't convinced of anything.

And when they first called me to the meeting, Chris, if you want to I'll go with you. I didn't even know he had been with a meeting meeting that day I was working with, he came back, he said I was a comedian meeting. He had been gone for hours, not in the where he was and they call me. I said, they call me and uh, Chris Algos do, so we have to go walk I think to another factory building. I didn't even know where the place was. So he walked with me, was on the 10th floor, one of the factory buildings way out in the deep corner behind the food cartons and everything was kind of spooky place. Then you get in there to a little office and he's, man, I have never been in before the meeting meeting. You know, I was, I was kind of trembling inside and I'm usually at the type of person that cries very easily.

And yet, I don't know. I know now what it was. I know God was helping me, but at that point I just sat there and I looked at them and they asked me questions about the organization and all I could do it. We looked at that. I didn't know what to say. I mean, what can I stay if they said, they said to me, well, do you believe that your organization is the tool God is using to direct these people nowadays? And Andy though I wanted to answer yet, I couldn't answer yet. Uh, and I said, well, I don't know.

And if so, what do you mean you don't know? And I said, well, I'm not sure I can be 100% sure of that. And so they, they kept questioning manner as well. I don't know. That's all I could say. I don't know because I wasn't sure of one thing or the other at that point. And I, but I couldn't tell him this is it going say so. They said, okay, they left, did they haven't let us go? I said, well that's it. The next day they called them. They said they decided to have her judicial committee. That time, I guess they wanted to know where I stood in the whole matter. So the next time it was going to be a real committee meetings, five men there. And so they started asking all these questions about the a heavenly holds or what you believe. And uh, one, only one hope for everyone.

The 140,000 thousand. The, uh, annoying did about the blood issue. I didn't know anything about that. I said, well, I don't know. That's the no was, all I could tell him was, well, I can't deny what the Bible says. And, and at that time, even though I wasn't really convinced, I said, I do believe that there's a heavenly hope for everyone and I can't deny that. I can't deny that now. And He, well, you can wait on the organization and the field, bring out the information in due time and are you all, you have to be a super for the organization and be loyal to the organization? I said, well, I, I've always thought that I've been keeping, everyone wants to be loyal to Hobah. That's what I always tell the people I study with, be loyal. Nothing. Don't ever look at me or if a man look it got, I said my father was read the Bible, nothing.

He always told him if he has loyalty to Jehovah and now you're bringing the thing, organizational benefits. And I said, I can't be loyal to who an organization. I said, it has to be C. Dot. Will that dunes anybody right in front of black community rating. And um, well went on for about a week. We finally got this fellowship guy. I never believed that I could go to meetings like that and just be as calm as, as a PR is. Any thing can be and never cry. Never better as to whatever question they ever asked. As best as I could answer that. One day, Chris apologized for has been caught through the brother who did coffee. He never has to be back purpose of driving him away from the organization. We want thinking about at that time. So then decide if you change the uh, the accusation from a foster across the seas to covering up.

We are going to be the fellowship for covering up and apostasy because we were supposed to, supposedly we were supposed to be in conjunction with three other people at Bethel and uh, we were part of this constellation against the society and trying to get people away from the organization and we didn't know that. We didn't, we never talked to the other brother about these points so we can sell them anything about them. They weren't even at baffled at that time. So we said, well, we can answer those questions about them. So that one day, at the end of that week on a Friday day analysis with a five o'clock, everybody had gone out, work had finished and it causes them to call the other couple of birthdays cells, just the brother. They didn't fell off with his wife and then they call Chris and I and all the five minutes wedding there was so nervous and everything. Sam would look at us like that and they'll have to just say to me that glance, you just stand there and listen. People say whores. I had the phone should do for covering up and apostasy in line and I just looked at them like that and the other couple and I left. We started getting everything out of the office, recycle me books and the other brother out of the office. It was a Friday afternoon and we got everything on it there. We've got in the car and we went to a restaurant and we celebrate it.

[inaudible]

point. We didn't know the tears was any, but at that moment, I don't know, we just decided let's go. And we went to Manhattan to a restaurant and we just had a lot of fun that night. And then we went home and they only gave us about 12 or 13 hours to put a letter of uh, to call it resident. No appeal appeal. They usually gradual week that they would brand as a week. They just gave us about 12 hours for that night that both, both couples who are writing up a letter, Kristin went to ride it and I say, yeah, we better better do it. But they denies the appeal. Anyway, the next morning about 11 they came and they deny the appeal and we said, well, what are we going to do? When do we have to leave? And I said, well, you can leave whenever you want.

And Chris's the winter when they go in now and started to spell shipping, oh, Monday morning, you know, we have here, we have about a day and a half to leave vessel pack our things and leave because Monday morning there's running off is going to be just setting your dishonest. I mean, you're not going to be around all those Bethelites, you know, walking around the hallway. So we, it was a terrible day and a half. I mean we had to get our [inaudible] or whatever. We had our furniture, the little that we had out of there and a day and a half. And the Lord really helped us. She had a brother that came and got our things and, and luckily we had parents here in New York around, I don't know what we would've done really, who would have taken us in because no tells his witness was take you in after your fellowship.

So we leave, we had his parents and we were able to move into his bear upon which is very small. We put our stuff in there and stay there until we got an apartment around. So we felt so alone. All of a sudden I was walking in a town and I thought the room was empty. There was no one, I didn't know anyone. I went to apply for a job and then we didn't be asking for references. I was stunned. I just walked out because I couldn't give any references. I couldn't give the name of anybody. I knew so many thousands of people. And now I didn't know anyone. I couldn't put the name of anyone down for a job reference. And I, I left. I can look for a job for about a year. And, um, and I was walking in town and just look at people and they look at those screens and apparently they look happy though.

And I would look at them and while, and I was in limbo. I didn't know Christ then and I just walked around like Chris went to work and I would stay home and I was always talking. That was weeping in talking to myself all day while he made do this to me, I was, I was always talking, always talking, always talking to myself and explain to me why didn't know why does this happen. I wouldn't do. And then about six months later, Dwayne call, thanks Dwayne call and we started getting calls. I don't leave them drained from brothers, from Seattle, from Canada, from different places in United States. Them all this literature started coming in and where is this somewhere you, they get a phone number. Where did they get our actors? Who are they, you know, all this literature. And then I started reading because for the first time I realized what the organization was.

And I found that most of the information that Dwayne, and I'm reading all these things about the organization, I see, oh my God, where have we dead? And then Duane Carter, I don't know your cell phone bill, Mr [inaudible] gone. He would spend hours and hours on that phone talking. And finally when Chris told me about the Deity of Christ, that I almost died when he told me that. But I said, well, I'll pray about it. And I thought about it and I thought it looked in the Bible and my mother in law and I didn't believe it. So we said, we're going to read and we're going to prove it, prove that he's wrong. So we would read and read and read and the more we written and we realize who we know condensed and I, it, it's there. And I said, I'm not convinced that it's there.

And every time we try to read a scripture, it seems to point to the Deity of Christ more than it's been other, anything else. And I still couldn't accept it. So one day we were coming in the car, I don't know from brother's house. Okay. One brother went into scholarship and all of a sudden we weren't even thinking it was late at night and I was in the car and and I, all of a sudden I just said to Chris, I understand it, I got it. And this is what I found that that would be instead of God means and this praise God, I don't know. I don't remember what he said. I don't think he used that yet, but I understood it. I kinda got it. But then the next day I kind of do, I really understand it. And then I went for weeks like that. Do I really? When I tried to explain it then I would get confused and I said, let me, let me leave it.

That one. And he was at one and then Chris would go work and Harrison things at home talking. I would be talking to Jehovah talk and then I was confused whether I should use the Jesus or is your whole run events. So I would say, well as the hope in Jesus and my parents, I will use both names and then, oh, this is confusing to have to use both names, Jehovah and Jesus. I don't know when I stopped using to hold them and I say father and I'm going to confuse it. I don't know when that happened, but it happened. I know the confusion went away some time, but I was sent days at home just talking to myself when I was cleaning in these conversations with Jehovah and Jesus in, Oh God, that helped me in, what am I gonna do when I have this confusing?

I don't understand that. And then we laid it and I didn't have that spirit and I am, I don't have that fear that this must be something wrong with me. If he's born again, how come I don't have that? You know? And one day I felt, I literally felt like, cause I always had, like I said before, this feeling that every time you told me something I was always fighting it. And then I would find it out on my own. One day I felt like I was talking like that sweeping and talking like that to you're holding something, Santa's sickness, liked it, liked it. Like he grabbed me by my arms and said stop funding and, and that was, I stopped fighting and then I, I supplied that day.

[inaudible]

and there's no confusion. I love my boy.

Right?

I wouldn't say that the Lord has been very time to ounce after that because uh, many things that are happening on life, they had clean. Now we know we have a dog that really cared. Now we know that we have so many brothers and sisters around the world. We can walk in any church and feel like we are home, not with our brothers and sisters. Let me tell you a few things if you can spare the time. Okay. One thing it with did I, I had a, after this happened and Norma had to go to Puerto Rico for a couple of weeks, knife pay by myself. First night I called Herky to Chris. There were these two sisters, they were Baptist and they really helped me. I want to go to a Baptist church. Nick Knight, Dwayne cold. I asked Dwayne about the Baptist Church and he told me a little bit, he gave me a very good suggestion. I said, I got to go and check this. I almost died. I mean, know what, if you being a Jehovah witness, you have any idea of what it is to walk me through a carrot.

It's like, have you ever seen those mystery movie scene? I'm using the cave that is full of reptiles and, and bad. Well, it's not quite like that, but it's almost like that I'm, my heart was beating like it was, it was very nice. I really liked it. Did it two hours went by. I was singing all the songs the first time I had heard of them. And I, you know, well, I like the song very much. I went home that night and I was praying the fast or had frayed. I remember that, that if anyone had his sickness, if anyone, uh, if wanted to be healthy, you know, and I wanted to be helped. So I raised my hand and all that. But that night I was praying. I, let me tell you some things that work. A little boy I far back as I can remember, I've had a nervous tick is the little noise I've made with my teeth and my call and I have never been able to get rid of it.

Never. It was proving that I just did out thematically people calling that sometimes you're hurt people or when you meet with notice it and some people, like I remember my aunt would go meet when he is near me who tell me he would make me conscious of what I was doing and I would stop. But I would always go back after a little while. You know when I forgot that people, me and my wife would tell me on all of these, this was something I couldn't defer. It would've been a terrible fight to try to control these things. I work with a do that is an atheist and he gets them in and you gonna have to go to a doctor. You didn't have to do something about this noise. You're make. Well that night I was fraying. But mind you with my witness train mine, I would have never ever asked the Lord to heal me. That was a no, no. And that was a no, no, no. You know, so they literally had to tell me to ask him and he did that night, the Lord asked me to ask him to take away Mike nervous. I don't really, because he told me, I asked I, I did. I asked him, I need if is it off,

is this like,

nope, this may or may not seem like a big thing too to you perhaps. But when you've lived with something for all of your life, you know, and in one second assignment taken away, it's a big thing. It's a very big thing. So I said this, this really happened. Let me go to sleep and I'll find out some more. And when I got back home from work, that's his me, Hawaiian haven't, I haven't even decided to do it or have done anything and I haven't even think about it. Maybe I should call them and go, hey, no, no. I bet to work one morning. And I did. I waited one more night and sure enough, the following night I call him when I told her, he said, are you sure? Well, I take it there. You know she can be up for living. Sure. Because the Lord did and I, it doesn't make any difference to me with anyone wants to think about it.

I know he did it because it happened to me. So let I phrase the Lord for it and I thank him for it. But that's not all one. One My, my wife went through a lot of phone calls with her nerves. She has a lot of fresh or her family, a Oh for fine and a t. He suffer from fevers. And one day we were in church. It was the resurrection service. It's a beautiful service. I was one of the most beautiful service and everything in my life and it was so joyful and so marvelous that I had a congress or in my tone and I forgot. I had to Congress store and I started to sing and things started to bleed. That's as bad as it was. It was horrible living. I have, but our regular services in the afternoon, I was going to stay home.

When I went home I said, I'm going to have to stay. It hurts too much. But then I get out and says, well, it's going to hurt anywhere. So I went and after it, after the, the regular service, we weren't threw a little party they were having in the basement and we were indicates 10 fucking through an analysis in. The pastor came by and he got to talk to us and somehow normal told him about her fever and he says, why don't you let me pray for you? And he did and you put one hand on her head on one hand on mine and when he was praying I felt the holy spirit and I had felt that before. I mean, I remember one time I thought I wasn't 13 the ground on it wasn't a, wasn't a shaky or a spooky experience. It was the greatest experience of love that I've ever felt in my life. I felt I was being healed, but I do. I at that time I couldn't think of my sources for what, what is it that I you've been healed for? You know, I don't know. So we went home that night. I went to look for my right work in there as well. Maybe he's on the right side. So I looked from the right side. It isn't on the right side. Well, I looked over the top and it wasn't their brothers I need was in, in raw flesh, bleeding on, I didn't ask for it.

I didn't even think it was happening. They looked at it. So I praise him for it.

[inaudible]

he has given us the opportunity of, into different characters, explaining to the Christians and those services, uh, how they can help Jehovah's Witnesses under one thing that he's pressing. It made me feel this brittle is that love that these people have [inaudible] how much they want to help them to come to Christ. And then I put things, well, the way we thought when we live witnesses about these Christine's and he had this Christmas, we're willing to take time off I an for meeting and they stay there for hours. Was One night in one church where it was 12 o'clock 1215 I wanted to go home, but they didn't want to go home. And so we just breakthrough the Lord that he keeps using our founder and he had it. Whatever ministry he has in mind for us, may his name be praised and brothers, we're so glad to be here and we're glad to have all of you are at brother.