“Jehovah Has Kept Me in His Thoughts”

I was born in 1983. The first years of my life, I had a normal childhood, but when I was ten years old, I began to feel severe pains throughout my body. About two years later, I woke up one morning and could not move. No matter how hard I tried to move my legs, there was no strength in them. Since that day, I have not walked again. My sickness also caused me to stop growing. Today, I am still as small as a child.

I had been confined to my home for a few months when two of Jehovah’s Witnesses visited. When visitors came, I usually tried to hide, but that day I let the women talk to me. As they spoke about Paradise, I was reminded of what I had heard when I was about five years old. At that time, a missionary named Jethro, who lived in Suriname, visited our village once a month and studied the Bible with my father. Jethro treated me very kindly. I liked him a lot. Also, my grandparents took me along to some meetings of the Witnesses, which were held in our village. So when Florence, one of the women who visited me that day, asked if I would like to learn more, I said yes.

Florence returned with her husband, Justus, and together they began to study the Bible with me. When they noticed that I did not know how to read, they helped me learn to read. After some time, I was reading on my own. One day, the couple told me that they were assigned to serve in Suriname. Sadly, there was no one in Orealla who could continue the Bible study. But, happily, Jehovah kept me in his thoughts.

Before long, a pioneer named Floyd arrived in Orealla, and he met me as he was preaching from hut to hut. When he talked to me about studying the Bible, I smiled. “Why are you smiling?” he asked. I told him that I had already studied the brochure What Does God Require of Us? and had begun to study the book Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life.a I explained why the study had stopped. Floyd studied the remainder of the Knowledge book with me, but then he too was assigned to serve elsewhere. I was again without a Bible teacher.

However, in 2004, Granville and Joshua, two special pioneers, were assigned to Orealla. They preached from hut to hut, and they found me. When they asked if I wanted to study, I smiled. I asked them to study the Knowledge book from the beginning with me. I wanted to see if they would teach me the same things that my former teachers had taught me. Granville told me that meetings were held in the village. Though I had not left my home for nearly ten years, I wanted to attend. So Granville picked me up and put me in a wheelchair and pushed me to the Kingdom Hall.

In time, Granville encouraged me to join the Theocratic Ministry School. He said: “You are disabled, but you can talk. One day, you will give a public talk. It will happen.” His encouraging words gave me confidence.

I began to share in the preaching work with Granville. However, many of the dirt roads in the village were too bumpy for a wheelchair. So I asked Granville to put me in a wheelbarrow and push me around. That arrangement worked very well. In April 2005, I got baptized. Soon thereafter, the brothers trained me to care for the congregation literature and to handle the sound system at the Kingdom Hall.

Then, sadly, in 2007 my father died in a boating accident. Our family was in shock. Granville prayed with us and shared comforting passages from the Bible. Two years later, we were overwhelmed by another tragedy​—Granville died in a boating accident.

Our small, grieving congregation was left with no elders and one ministerial servant. Granville’s death really hurt; he was a dear friend. He had faithfully helped to care for my spiritual and physical needs. At the meeting following his death, I had the assignment of reading the paragraphs for the Watchtower Study. I made it through the first two paragraphs, but then I began to cry and the tears just kept flowing. I had to get off the platform.

I began to feel better when brothers from another congregation came to help us in Orealla. Also, the branch office sent Kojo, a special pioneer. To my joy, my mother and my younger brother began to study and got baptized. Then, in March 2015, I was appointed as a ministerial servant. After a time, I gave my first public talk. That day, I thought back with a smile and tears of gratitude to what Granville had told me years before: “One day, you will give a public talk. It will happen.”

Through JW Broadcasting^® programs, I have learned about fellow Witnesses who are in a situation similar to mine. But despite their disability, they lead productive, happy lives. As for me, I can still do some things. My desire to give whatever strength I still have to Jehovah motivated me to become a regular pioneer. And what unexpected news I received in September 2019! That month I learned that I had been appointed to serve as an elder in our congregation of about 40 publishers.

I am thankful for the dear brothers and sisters who studied with me and helped me to carry out my ministry. Above all, I am so grateful that Jehovah has kept me in his thoughts.