Life Story/ We Learned Never to Say No to Jehovah - AS TOLD BY KATHLEEN LOGAN - A NEW ASSIGNMENT BRINGS NEW CHALLENGES

 

After three years in the traveling work, the Japan branch asked us if we would be willing to go to Taiwan to work among the indigenous  Amis people.  An apostasy had arisen there, and Taiwan needed a brother fluent in Japenese to help remedy the situation.  We loved our work in Japan, so this was hard decision. But Harvey had learned never to turn down an assignment, so we agreed to go. 

We arrived in November 1962. Taiwan had 2,271 publishers, most of them Amis.  But first, we needed to learn Chinese.  We had only a  textbook and a teacher who did not speak English, but we learned it. 

Soon after arriving in Taiwan, Harvey was assigned to be the branch servant.  The branch was small, so Harvey could care for his office responsibilities and still work with the Amis brothers up to three weeks per month. He also served as  district overseer from timt to time, which included giving tasks at assemblies.  Harvey could have given the talks in Japanese, and the Amis brother would have understood. However, the government allowed religious meetings to be held only in Chinese.  So Harvey, still struggling with the language, gave the talks in Chinese while a brother interpreted them into Amish.

Taiwan was then under martial law, so the brothers had to obtain permits to hold assemblies.  Obtaining permits was not easy, and the police often delayed issuing them.  If the police had not issued the permit by the week of assembly, Harvey would just sit in the police station until they did.  Since the police were embarrassed to have a foreigner waiting in their station, the tactic worked.

Next time: Life Story/We Learned Never to Say No to Jehovah -AS TOLD BY KATHLEEN LOGAN - MY FIRST MOUNTAIN CLIMB

From the jw.org publications