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To Me, Imprisonment Was a Blessing

AFTER graduating from high school, I took a job with the National Bank of Ethiopia, and I also became a deacon in the Greek Orthodox (Coptic) Church. In fact, I prided myself in my knowledge of the Bible. Then in 1972 two of Jehovah’s Witnesses approached my compound to speak with me and my wife, and we invited them in to talk about the Scriptures. They placed with me a copy of the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, but I must confess that I did not read it.

Upon their return, they offered to start a Bible study with me and my family. I declined, preferring to discuss certain topics of interest to me, such as baptism and the Trinity. In my church it was the custom to baptize infants​—boys when forty days old; girls when eighty days old. I thought that the Witnesses were wrong in not supporting infant baptism, but, with all my Bible knowledge, I could not prove them wrong.

When it came to the teaching of the Trinity, the Witnesses showed me 1 Corinthians 15:28, where it says that Jesus would turn the rulership over to his Father. I had no answer as to how this could be possible and, at the same time, the Trinity teaching be true. Feeling that perhaps my understanding of the matter was faulty, I presented this and other scriptures to the priest, who was a spokesman for the church. When I did so he immediately asked if I had been talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“Yes, I have,” I answered.

His response was that the Witnesses simply were reviving the teachings of the early anti-trinitarian Arius. When I pressed for a specific reply to the scriptures at hand, he told me that he was a busy man and that I would have to come back later in the day for an appointment. I returned, only to be told that the appointment had been rescheduled for another day. Time after time I came to his office without being able to see him.

Still waiting for an appointment with the priest, I decided that no harm could come from visiting the meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Imagine how I felt when, after attending meetings for only about a month, the police came into a meeting in August 1972 and took all of us in attendance to jail! The local religious leaders had instigated this harassment.

In prison, where we remained for about two weeks, I was able to see firsthand the genuine love that Christ’s disciples display from the heart. All the Witnesses shared their provisions equally, and showed real consideration for one another. Our heads were shaved, reminding me of the humiliating treatment meted out to King David’s ambassadors by the Ammonites.​—2 Sam. 10:1-5.

The two weeks in jail allowed me opportunity to take in more knowledge about the purposes of Jehovah God. I also reflected on the hatred (similar to that vented against Christ and his early disciples) that prompted the local religious leaders to have us imprisoned. Thus some months after my release, in May of 1973, my wife and I were baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses. We continue to serve our God happily here in Ethiopia.​—Contributed.