DAVID & CHRISTINE ARE JUST 2 exJWs WHO FOUND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP UP THE PRETENSE THAT THEY WERE IN THE TRUTH.

        

THE TESTIMONY OF DAVID HALL – Former Jehovah’s Witness elder who was a JW for 49 years

Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in England and spending 49 years as a Watchtower captive, David and his wife Christine left to find true freedom in Christ. His Father decided to move where the “need was great,” back n the 1950's. David served in a number of leadership capacities within the organisation, only to find his efforts rewarded with unjustified shunning and a genuine “lack of love” among the “brothers” and “sisters” of the congregation. Only in a personal relationship with the Jesus, did David and his wife find what they had been longing for all their lives.

I was born in London, England in 1947. My mother and father had both been badly injured during the second World War and were raising us in post War Britain. I had a younger brother and sister and can remember our early life together as being warm and loving as our mother was a wonderful woman—even though she had lost a leg in the final part of the War.

During the early 1950s our lives changed suddenly when two Jehovah’s Witnesses called at our door and told my dad why the World was in such a terrible mess. They explained that it was not God who caused all the Wars—but Satan the Devil. They started a Bible Study with my parents and within 6 months, they were baptized.

From that moment on, my dad became a fanatical preacher of the Watchtower message. Before the War, my dad had been a nominal Catholic and my mother an Anglican, so I had been christened in both churches and then baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness when I was only seven years old.

Within six months, my father rose quickly through the ranks and was appointed as a Bible Study Servant (a position that is equal to an elder today). However, he was not happy serving in that capacity and really wanted a fresh challenge. During the mid fifties, the Watchtower Society published a monthly newsletter called the “Kingdom Ministry.” It contained an article about “moving where the need was great.” So, my Father moved us all away from London to set up a congregation in a rural area.

Selling our large four-bedroom, Victorian house, we ended up living in a 22 foot Caravan (Trailer) with no running water, no electricity and no proper sanitation. It was as if he was on a mission to save the world before Armageddon struck. He told us ALL that we would NEVER DIE and that we would soon be in a wonderful paradise.

After a short time, my father set up a Jehovah’s Witness congregation in Clevedon, Avon (West Country of England) where we spend the majority of our growing years dealing with many problems that accompanied living in that area.

At eighteen, I met my lovely wife Christine at an Assembly held at Wembley London. After two years, we married and lived in Southampton, Southern, England. Over the next few years, we had two daughters and I progressed in the Watchtower movement, bringing our girls up in the faith. However, my wife suffered from terrible depression in the mid 1970s, and we realized that there was hardly any love shown to fellow believers who suffered from depression. If a Jehovah’s Witness had an illness, they were told NOT to bring their problems to the Kingdom Hall, as it could weaken others.

Regardless of this, I wanted to make progress in the congregation; so I worked hard and was appointed as an Elder in 1975 at age 28. It was a strange year because many were leaving the organisation as the Watchtower’s Armageddon prophecies surrounding the 1975 date had failed to materialize and the end had not arrived. I remember my first Elders’ meeting when I was absolutely shocked to hear “brothers” (whom I respected and looked up to) shouting and shaking fists at one another. When I went home that evening, Christine knew something had shaken me. From then on, we realized that “all was not as it seemed” in the organisation.

I carried on in the capacity of elder for many years, and I saw a lot of nasty things done to “brothers” and “sisters” (fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses) in the congregation—all in the name of keeping the congregation “clean.” During the early 1980s, we got wind of disfellowshippings in Brooklyn Bethel itself, and I was very interested to find out the “real” reasons why.

I never really felt the same about the organisation after that. When we visited Brooklyn Bethel in June of 1981, we were given such a cold reception that when we got home to England, I wrote a letter to Jack Barr. Jack had just given a talk at Twickenham and brought the so-called “love” of the Bethel Family back with him. I explained in detail about the awful way we were treated and how we were not even given a drink on a boiling hot day. I did not use my position as an Elder to gain any “favours” when visiting Bethel, but I told him that if we had of been an interested person visiting Bethel, it could have put us off. Deep down inside, I knew that there was something really wrong with the so-called Faithful and Discreet Slave organisation.

My wife became more and more isolated and did not enjoy attending any of the meetings at all. Yet, she is one of the most spiritual people I have ever met. When I first met her, when we were both Regular Pioneers. She actually told me that she would really love to go and meet Jehovah and Jesus in Heaven. I must admit that at that time, I had thought it was rather strange of her wanting to do that since she was not of the “anointed” class.

Later, we moved up to the North East of England and served in the Stockton-On-Tee’s Congregation for two years. It was during our time in Stockton that I met a “born again” Christian in my secular work, and he was very kind and considerate. This man told me about Jesus and that He was our personal Saviour. Then, he told me that he belonged to a “House Church” and studied the Bible (He asked me if I was repentant ofor my Sins and then askedif I accepted Jresus Christ as my Saviour, to which I answered YES) Later, I met another two members of their “group” and thought “What wonderful people” they were. From that time onwards I knew that the WT were not the TRUTH. However, we were locked into the Watchtower organization, and both of our parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses as well as all of our “friends.” It was very odd that Christine totally believed that this organisation was the “truth,” but hated going to meetings and doing the door-to-door work. While I did not totally believe it was the “whole truth,” yet I was diligent and loyal in going to the meetings and doing the preaching work.

After a couple of years, we moved yet again to another Northern City called Hull, and we had many problems there because of “jealousy” and “feuding” in the congregation. I was appointed as Bible Study Overseer very quickly, and unknown to me at the time, there was a feud going on within the congregation. The organisation encourages competition by making Pioneers and appointed Jehovah’s Witnesses seem superior to the rest. Because I was a Regular Auxiliary Pioneer myself, I ended up siding with the ones I regarded as the “workers.”

But within 18 months, life became intolerable within the Congregation. Resigning as an elder, we decided to move to the Midlands where a Jehovah’s Witness friend of ours lived. During the six months it took us to move, we were virtually “cut off” by many of our so-called “brothers” and “sisters” and treated like lepers. Yet, their treatment of us was unjustified as none of us had been publicly reproved or disassociated.

We moved to Wolverhampton in the Midlands and again started attending the meetings. Both of our parents moved to Wolverhampton as well, so at least we felt that we had some friends around us. My dad was an Elder and still Pioneering with my mom, but my brother had been killed in a car crash and my sister had become “mentally ill” with schizophrenia. Therefore, we felt we were far from living in a “spiritual paradise,” but were more like living in a “spiritual hell.”

I would often “debate” with my father about the teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and had often said that they would someday change their “generation” of 1914 prophecy for the end of the world and that we would probably ALL die before Armageddon. Sure enough, my dad died with a sudden heart attack in January 1994 and I was left with the care of my mother and sister, who were both disabled. The Congregation was no help at all. During 1995, the Watchtower did indeed change their 1914 understanding (just as I had thought they would), and they changed the sheep and goats understanding as well. This was the change that really got to me! Rutherford had said that the “anointed class” had been fully chosen by the mid 1930s and that their leaders were supposed to be the “little flock.” Yet now, the Watchtower was saying that the sheep and goats HAD NOT BEEN SEPARATED yet. Since the definition of “little flock” is that they are “sheep” and not goats, I began to reason that if none of us were “sheep” yet, how could the “anointed little flock” already be chosen?

Gradually, we got more and more disenchanted with the so-called “truth” and (against organisational policies) in 1999, we even went to Malta on the 31st of December to celebrate the New Millennium. In doing that, we felt a fantastic sense of freedom! However, we still could not bring ourselves to leave—even though I had been on the Internet and had read all the “apostate” material I could find about the history of this “cult.”

Christine was the one who defended them vehemently, so I did not want to cause a rift between us. Eventually, my poor sister died at the age of 49 in Sept 2000 and my dear mom died in January 2001. Seeing all of my family now dead, I recalled how the organisation had taught us that we were supposed to live through Armageddon and never die.

When I learned about the Watchtower’s connection with the United Nations, I just could not believe it and sat Christine in front of the computer to show her the proof of their cover up. It was around that time that I went to a meeting on my own, and Christine stayed home reading her Bible. There she found a scripture in Matthew 8:11 where it says that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be in heaven reclining at the table. We looked up the Society’s explanation and felt utter revulsion for their rhetoric.

During all of this time, I had been praying to “Yahweh,” “Jesus” and the “Universal Consciousness” (who ever he was). I started reading all sorts of material, some Christian, but mostly “spiritual” without being connected with any religious denomination. We even started to think that maybe there is “truth” in most religions and that it does not matter what we believe as long as we give God the Glory.

Finally, we left the Watchtower’s clutches in June of 2001 and were in a spiritual wilderness for around 18 months. We even traveled 20 miles every Sunday to a forest in order to pray amongst the trees in hopes of finding the real truth. In this manner, the forest became our “Spiritual Home”—until we were guided to the right place. Then, one Sunday morning in November 2002, I decided to go to a non-denominational church I had heard about. A man whom I vaguely knew and who had studied with the Jehovah’s Witnesses for 6 years also went there. I found out that these people had been praying for me for a long time.

Christine was rushed into the hospital with Appendicitis and the whole Church prayed for her. When she came out, she eventually gathered up the courage to go to a “house group” meeting with me. Two weeks later, in November of 2002, I was saved. I accepted the Lord Jesus into my life—even though I still did not understand the “Trinity” or “Hell” doctrines. My dear wife Christine also gave her life to the Lord. What drew her was the fact that at long last, she had found Christians who prayed for each other, cuddled one another and showed “real” love—like Jesus showed. Amazingly, this is exactly what Christine had been praying all along. So, when she met these Christians, she realized that the Lord had guided us to them.

We were both baptised in May 2003. In May 2004, our youngest daughter and her husband followed us in baptism. Thankfully, both of our daughters are now out of the Watchtower cult and glad to be free. Since finding the real Jesus, we have been shown so much “real” Christian love that we are now learning not to be judgmental like the Watchtower teaches.

When we were Jehovah’s Witnesses, we had always struggled with the Watchtower concept that Yahweh was going to kill every one on this planet if they were not Watchtower adherents. Now we know that the only TRUTH is Jesus (not an organisation). He is the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE and no one comes to the father except through him (see John 14:6). There is no other way!

Our mission now is to help as many “honest-hearted” sighing and crying Jehovah’s Witnesses and others find the real Jesus Christ and give their lives to Him as their personal Saviour. None of us need an earthly “mediator” such as the “faithful and discreet slave” (organisation). We are ALL faithful and discreet slaves if we acknowledge our King and High Priest (Jesus Christ) as our ONLY TRUE MEDIATOR.

Love In Jesus Name,

David

 

THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTINE HALL- Out after 52 Years.

I was born in 1949 in England.  When my mother was pregnant with me; my aunt who was a Jehovah’s Witness convinced my mother to start a “Bible Study” with one of her Jehovah’s Witness friends. The woman who studied with my mother was considered to be one of the “anointed remnant” of the 144,000. spoken of in Revelation 7 and 14.  Thus, my mother and father joined Jehovah’s Witnesses before I was even born.

My mother started to hemorrhage during her pregnancy with me and nearly miscarried.  The doctor told her that she had to rest or she would lose her baby.  During this time, she prayed to Jehovah God: “If I have this baby, I will give it to you and it will serve you for the rest of its life.”  True to her promise, soon after I was born, I was taken door-to-door spreading the Jehovah’s Witness “gospel” with my mother every week.  Thus, I was born into a Watchtower family and raised to believe this religion was the only truth.

At birth, I had a sister who was 13 years older than me. She understandably became very jealous of me and started to rebel against our parents.  She caused a lot of trouble for my family because she felt all the attention was being given to me.  Eventually, she married at 18 years of age and had a baby boy when I was 7 or 8 years old.

During those first few years, I was a very happy little girl until one day my mother left me alone with a close relative who lived in the downstairs flat (apartment).  This caused a dramatic change in my life because he began to sexually abuse me.  I thank the dear Lord he never actually raped me but this event changed my life, and I became full of guilt and terrified of Jehovah God’s wrath from then on.

After a while, I gathered up enough courage to tell my father and mother what had happened to me.  All my father said was, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”  He then told me that the police would put my relative in prison and asked, “Is that what you want?  He would be in prison and his son will not have his Dad.” He went on to say, “I don’t want to hear about this again,” and told me to just keep away from him.  As this relative was also a Jehovah’s Witness by this point, he warned me that if this matter got out, it would also bring reproach on Jehovah and the Watchtower Society and he would be disfellowshipped.

From that day on, I totally changed from being a happy innocent little girl into someone who felt completely alone, rejected and unloved.  If only my mother or father had sat me on their lap and explained that what happened to me was not my fault, I would have trusted them.  Instead, I felt that I could no longer trust them or anyone else ever again.  I remember thinking, “Why did God allow this to happen to me?”

I only knew Jehovah as a Big Scary God who punishes the wicked.  Due to the guilt I felt, I also thought that I had made Him very angry with me.  I would sweat with fear; afraid of what would happen to me, but in the meantime my abuser was allowed to carry on a normal life as a Jehovah’s Witness.  He was a Ministerial Servant and would get up on the platform in the Kingdom Hall to give talks.  I asked God, “Why do you allow this man to get away with the abuse of a little girl?”  Not long after I prayed to God, my abuser was removed from his position and never returned to it again.  In fact, he was never allowed to do any preaching or public speaking again, and I said, “Thank you, Jehovah, for answering my prayer!”

Even with this prayer answered my life never seemed to have any meaning.  I thought that God did not want to know me anymore, but somehow something inside me gave me the courage to go on.  My mother would take me around preaching every week and during those times we saw a lot of poverty.  We lived in South East London, which had its nice areas, but there were also some areas most people did not want to know about.

We would visit a big, old building called the “Half Way House,” used for young unmarried mothers and their babies.  The place was so filthy that I can still smell it as I am writing this.  The experience of visiting that place was horrible, and I felt pity and compassion for those people.  But because I was a Jehovah’s Witnesses, I never really knew how to handle this very sad situation.  All we could offer them were the magazines called The Watchtower and Awake! which never did anything to help resolve their many problems.  Oh, how they needed to know that God loved them!  But how could we tell them that, when as Jehovah’s Witness, we never knew that what they really needed was Jesus Christ to help them out of their pitiful condition?  We did not even offer to pray for them, as we did not know how to properly pray ourselves.  Therefore, we were unable to help these poor unwed mothers out of their desperate conditions.

My journey along life’s roadway seemed to be going from one horrible situation to another.  My father started to have a Watchtower “bible study” with a man.  The man was a loner, without family or friends.  Yet, after a few weeks, my father invited him to come to live with us; even though he had no idea where this man came from or who he really was.  My father was only interested in this man becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.  After a short time this man became a “part of the family” and started to take an interest in me by buying me things like sweets, candy and jewelry.  Looking back on this time, it seems very strange how my mother and father did not seem too concerned about his behavior.

After a while the man started to draw pictures of his private body parts.  I was very shocked, but thought there was no point in telling my parents because they would just sweep it under the carpet like they did before.  Eventually, one night he actually came into the entrance of my bedroom, which was right next door to his. (Yes, that’s right they put a man they did not know anything about in the bedroom next to mine!)  He then asked me if I would let him do to me the things he had shown me in the drawing; as the Jehovah’s Witness lady he had just been out with would not let him do it to her.  At that moment, my father appeared and asked him what he was doing outside my room.  They disappeared into his room together and my father told him not to enter my room again. However, he was allowed to remain in our home.

During that period of time my parents started to go out preaching together every Wednesday night, and I was left on my own with the “pedophile” Jehovah’s Witness living upstairs and my “pedophile” Jehovah’s Witness relative living down stairs.  At that vulnerable age, my parents would leave me alone from 7 pm until 11 pm and it was like living through a nightmare at 9 years of age.  But thankfully, those men never came near me again.  Praise the Lord!

As I got older, I started going out with boys who were Jehovah’s Witnesses and they all treated me respectfully.  But when I was 15 years old, I dated a “brother” who was ten years older than me.  I later found out that he liked young girls a lot and now that I look back on the situation, I realize that I had been in a very dangerous position as he also tried having sex with me.  I later learned from other “sisters” in the congregation that he made a habit of dating very young girls for this purpose. I could see he was a very dangerous Jehovah’s Witness predator.

During my last term at school, I was told by my head teacher that I could go to art college because I had a talent in that area, but my mother insisted that it would be better for me to serve Jehovah fulltime since Armageddon was very near.  So, instead of going to an art college when I left school, I worked part-time for my parents in their Guest House and went door-to-door as a Regular Pioneer of Jehovah’s Witnesses the rest of the time.  It was during this time that I met someone near my own age. As we got to know each other, we fell in love.  His name is David and he also has his testimony on this website.  He was a Regular Pioneer as well and gradually we started to get closer in our relationship. I knew I needed to tell him everything that happened to me as a child.  Needless to say, he was very angry at these men, but we both knew that it was pointless taking the problem to the elders as they also would have done nothing.

After we dated for 2 years, we got married when I was 18 and Dave was 20 years old.  Later we had two lovely daughters named, Naomi and Lisa, but our marriage was not easy.  The abuse had affected me more than I realized and I became very jealous and possessive.  I felt there was something missing from my marriage or my life. I felt very mixed up emotionally.  Looking back I now know that I needed the Lord in my life.  As Watchtower Witnesses, we never prayed for one another because we tended to keep things to ourselves.  Dave even felt embarrassed to pray with the girls and me, even though he was an Elder.

In the mid 1970s, I suffered terribly from chronic depression and was prescribed Valium, but all the elders could say was, “How can you suffer with depression when you believe in Jehovah God?”  So again, the guilt started.  Deep inside me, I felt unworthy, guilty and fearful of what would happen to me at Armageddon.  The following years we moved 4 times and lived in 4 different areas of the United Kingdom and Dave served as a Jehovah’s Witness elder in many of these locations. In one city, we sought to feel accepted at 3 different congregations within the city, but the more we reached out, the more detached we felt from everyone. A major straw broke when our youngest daughter Lisa was Disfellowshipped in 1995. This event caused a lot of hurt and stress due to the complete lack of love shown to all of us. I remember feeling like this religion had become like concrete blocks on my shoulders.

One day in desperation, I cried out to Jehovah and said to Him:  “Jesus said, ‘Take my load for it is kindly and light,’ but Jehovah it’s not light! It’s more like concrete!”  Later, I stayed home and began to read the book of Matthew while Dave went to a meeting. When I read chapter eight, verse eleven, I was amazed to see that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be in heaven. That was a very defining moment for me. Even though I was still trapped by fear and guilt, my eyes began to be opened.

By this point, Dave had resigned from being an elder and was feeling that he was always under suspicion by the brothers. This did not make me feel any better either.  Eventually in 1999, Dave got onto the Internet and typed in Jehovah’s Witnesses.  He started reading information that he felt was kept away from him for years, but I hated to hear him talking about the Society like he did.  I screamed at him that he was becoming an apostate.  I even prayed that Jehovah would blow up his computer and the very next day it did; the power supply blew up and caused a lot of damage.

Eventually he made me sit in front of the computer and read the information about the Watchtower’s involvement as an NGO with the United Nations (which the Society taught was part of the Wild Beast of Revelation).  I then realized that if it was “not hypocritical” for the Society to be an NGO for library access, why did they “resign” so quickly as soon as it became public knowledge?

It took another year for us to completely detach ourselves from the Jehovah’s Witness meetings. This occurred in June 2001.  For the next 18 months, we were in a spiritual wilderness and did not officially disassociate ourselves from the Society until after this time, but we knew in our hearts that we wanted God more than ever.  Then, suddenly in November 2002, Dave said he was going to go to a Christian church and I did not object.  After 2 weeks, he gave his life to Jesus Christ and I followed 2 weeks after that.

An amazing transformation took place in our lives within a very short space of time.  We were both baptized in water as followers of Jesus Christ in May of 2003 and started serving on the church’s Ministry Team within a short period of time. Dave was even asked to preach a few times on Sunday morning.  After a few months, both of our daughters and their husbands also accepted Jesus into their lives.  Then, in 2006 right out of the blue, the Lord spoke to me and told me that we had to move abroad, which is something I have never had the desire to do.  The Lord directed us to a place that I didn’t even like when we first went there in 1995.  It is a very hot place and I do not like the heat, plus it is 2,200 miles from the United Kingdom.  We have 2 daughters and 5 grandchildren and the oldest daughter was diagnosed with lung lymphoma in 2005.  However, in obedience to the Lord’s call, we sold our house in England and moved to Cyprus in 2007. (We moved back to England in April 2017 to be near our family and soon after our daughter Naomi was diagnosed with Cancer again, but this time she could not fight it and died on December 21st 2017).

We believe the Lord has directed us to this place in order to serve Him more fully.  Many Jehovah’s Witnesses live in Cyprus and we believe that when the Lord decides to shake this religion even more, a lot more of them will get free out of captivity and seek to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their only true God and Father.  We know that Yahweh is looking for people who have an unswerving faith in Him and are obedient to His voice.  Jesus said His sheep will hear His voice and they will know Him.  Many hirelings claim to be speaking with the voice of Jesus, but if we are Jesus’ sheep, we will know Him and follow Him alone.

I know from personal experience how frightening it was to leave a religion that I was taught from childhood was the only “truth,” but when the Lord spoke to me directly, I knew that it was only Him that could set me free from my captivity to a false religious concept. If you are in this situation yourself, I urge you to ask the Lord Jesus into your life and ask Him to fill you with His Grace. I never even knew what grace was as a Jehovah’s Witness.  Grace is the love of Jesus lavished upon us even though we do not deserve it and definitely cannot earn it.  Ephesians 1:3-8 states:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight.” 

God’s grace encompasses every good gift that the Father wants to give us, by means of His wonderful Son Jesus Christ!

In His Love,

 

Christine

 

http://www.4witness.org/testimonies