Curbing The Scourge Of Inequality

History verifies his words. Many are the men and women who were given little at birth but who, by making use of what they had, achieved successes that set them apart from their possibility more gifted peers. Conversely, other individuals richly blessed with advantages from birh squandered what they had and failed to live up to their full potential.

Make The Most Of What You Have

Jehovah's Witnesses are keenly interested in helping people gain a knowledge of God's purposes through a study of the Bible. They realize, however, that to benefit fully from Bible information, people must be literate. For that reason, Jehovah's Witnesses have taught tens of thousands of people to read and write, including 23,000 persons (as of the mid-1990's) in one West African country alone. Referring to the outstanding social service that Jehovah's Witnesses provide, the San Francisco Examiner noted: "You might regard them as model citizens. They pay taxes diligently, tend the sick, battle the illiteracy.

In addition, by means of a progressive course in public speaking, Jehovah's Witnesses have trained hundreds of thousands of people to become qualified speakers, able to express themselves fluently in public. Among these thousands are some who once had serious speech problems. Take the man from South Africa who writes: "My stuttering was so bad that I had become an introvert, usually relying on others to speak for me. . . When I joined the Theocratic Ministry School and had to give a Bible reading before a small audience . . ., I stuttered so badly that I was unable to complete the assignment in the allotted time. After the meeting the [counselor]kindly gave me practical advice. He suggested that I practice reading aloud to myself. This I did, spending day after day, reading aloud from my Bible and the Watchtower magazine." this man progressed so well that he now gives public discourses to audiences numbering into the hundreds, even thousands.

Next time: Enjoying Equality Among Brothers