00:01 In addition to the many avenues of full-time service
00:05 we mentioned earlier in the program,
00:08 making yourself available when a need arises locally
00:13 is a fine way to seek the Kingdom first.
00:18 For example, in San Antonio, in the state of Texas,
00:22 in the United States,
00:25 a large convention
00:28 with over 20,000 in attendance was planned.
00:32 However, the venue could only provide
00:36 about one third of the chairs needed for the convention.
00:40 Where would our brothers find the needed chairs?
00:44 Well, Jehovah provided,
00:47 and many young ones were eager to help.
00:56 When I heard that this needed to happen,
00:58 I was thinking, ‘How are we going to do this?’
01:01 I thought, ‘It’s a big job!’
01:03 It was amazing!
01:06 The first thing I was asked to do
01:08 was try to find a storage place that we could use
01:11 for six to eight thousand chairs.
01:14 A sister manages a storage place,
01:16 and we saw Jehovah’s blessing
01:18 because the owner said, “You can have this stall
01:21 “at no charge for a year as long as you sign a contract
01:24 that it’s for Jehovah’s Witnesses’ organization.”
01:26 Truckload after truckload after truckload came in.
01:29 We had to unload the trucks.
01:31 The brothers had to unstack the chairs,
01:33 repair the chairs, clean the chairs, put them back on pallets,
01:36 restack them,
01:37 load them onto trucks, and that was half of it.
01:40 Those were the ones in the warehouse.
01:42 On the other side, we got permission to ask
01:45 the San Antonio congregations if we could use their chairs
01:47 for the convention.
01:49 We were hoping to get three thousand chairs.
01:51 And then the numbers grew for the audience,
01:53 so we had to increase our numbers.
01:55 So we were able to gather six thousand chairs
01:58 from the willing volunteers of congregations around San Antonio.
02:03 So we prayed about it and the brothers started asking for volunteers,
02:06 and it was a great cooperation right at the beginning.
02:09 As soon as we let the friends know
02:11 that this was going to be the case,
02:14 all of them— all of them said,
02:15 “We’re going to get off of work early.”
02:17 We immediately wanted to clear our schedules
02:19 so that we could be available to help in any way that we could.
02:23 It was a privilege to know
02:25 that our congregation was going to be part of it.
02:28 We are so grateful to Jehovah that he has given us
02:31 this privilege to do.
02:33 We had thousands of chairs
02:35 of every color —green, red, brown, blue.
02:39 We even had some bright orange ones left out of the ‘70’s,
02:42 and we’re putting those in the back.
02:44 But it was not just the colors but the sizes.
02:47 They were all different sizes.
02:49 And so how do you make sections with straight rows
02:51 when the chairs are all different sizes?
02:53 But I knew somehow, as Jehovah’s people, we’d get it done.
02:56 And we definitely— As you see, a lot of volunteers,
03:00 and we’re here getting it done.
03:01 And it’s made for a beautiful experience
03:04 because the friends have gotten to know each other as never before.
03:06 And they’re willingly working together,
03:08 and the excitement is there.
03:10 It doesn’t matter whose venue it is, it’s all for Jehovah,
03:14 and that’s been the attitude everybody has had.
03:16 It just tells you that Jehovah is a God of order.
03:19 It’s good to feel that you’re doing your best for Jehovah.
03:22 Well, it reminds me of Psalm 127:1, where it mentions
03:27 that ‘unless Jehovah builds the house,
03:29 it’s in vain that his workers even work hard.’
03:32 So it’s because of Jehovah’s hand and his blessing
03:35 —that is why everything runs so smoothly.
03:37 What other organization!
03:38 No one else can do that except Jehovah’s people.
