Jofrey Joshua

Jofrey is nearest the centre of the picture, holding the small child.

On previous occasions I have written about my student Joshua, and mentioned his 18-year-old son Jofrey. Joshua, as some readers may remember, was attending nearly all the meetings and becoming quite keen to publish himself, but finally gave in to opposition from his wife and has now returned to finding new ways to feed his 6 children. Life is hard, but I still feel sad that he couldn’t find a way to put the kingdom first.

Just as this was happening, Avril noticed that his eldest son Jofrey was becoming interested, and it took her a while to convince me that he was worth studying with. Finally, on her advice, we began the study together. One difficulty in particular is that, like many young people here, he studies at school six days a week, and the only day free is Sunday – prime time for bible studies with many in our territory.

His progress became manifest, and though he doesn’t often make it to Thursday meetings, I was thrilled when Jofrey was accepted as a congregation publisher. So he is now one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, with the privilege of bearing His name and talking to people himself about the good news of the kingdom, as all Christians are meant to do.

I double-booked myself with Joffrey and my other publisher student on Sunday, and so Lucas assisted with Joffrey’s study, then Joffrey assisted with Lucas’. We did the studies at the kingdom hall, as is my custom on Sundays. We had a good laugh, then the three of us went to look for two other students out in the field.

Avril and I are happy about this for a personal reason too. After a couple of years struggling with the language and the culture, we feel we are both beginning to make an impact in our territory (with a lot of help from the local brothers and sisters.) Jofrey is the first study that we’ve started ourselves that has taken the step of preaching. A rewarding morale booster for both of us.