JW subtitle extractor

This global pandemic has thrown the world
into a state of uncertainty,
with so many unknowns.
But there’s one thing that we do know:
Through it all,
Jehovah has really been taking care of us.
Day after day,
brothers around the world tell us
that they truly feel
that Jehovah and his organization
are watching over them.
It makes me think of the scripture
at Isaiah 40:11:
“Like a shepherd he will care for his flock.
“With his arm
“he will gather together the lambs,
“and in his bosom he will carry them.
“He will gently lead
those nursing their young.”
Is that how you feel,
like a lamb in the protective arms
of our heavenly Father?
Well, we as members of the Governing Body
feel exactly the same way!
All of us are getting
through this challenging time,
thanks to the tender and loving care
of our heavenly Father.
As that tender Shepherd,
Jehovah does more than just take
note of our problems.
He looks for ways to help us.
As Psalm 37:5 says:
“Commit your way to Jehovah;
“rely on him,
and he will act in your behalf.”
One way that Jehovah ‘acts in our behalf’
is by motivating his people
to help those in need.
In this report,
we’d like to share some examples
of how our brothers and sisters
are doing just that.
In some parts of the world,
one of the foremost concerns
our brothers have
is simply getting enough to eat.
Extremely limited food supplies,
lockdowns, widespread unemployment,
and other problems
have left families with little or no food.
The Coordinators’ Committee
of the Governing Body
has been doing all it can to help provide
food and basic medicine to those brothers.
More than 400 Disaster Relief Committees
have already been appointed worldwide.
These committees are working tirelessly
to ensure that our brothers and sisters
have what they need to survive.
That’s the case in the country of Angola.
How are the brothers benefiting
from the food relief being provided?
Brother Johannes De Jager
from the Angola branch
has an update for us.
Back in March,
a state of emergency
was declared here in Angola.
With the lockdown,
many of our brothers and sisters
could no longer work,
making it difficult to feed their families.
As a Branch Committee,
we were extremely concerned
about the situation.
We wondered,
‘How are we going to look
after all our dear brothers and sisters?’
We immediately wrote
the Coordinators’ Committee
and informed them of the situation.
You can imagine how we were overjoyed
when they replied,
providing us the aid so that we could feed
our dear brothers.
Well, suddenly we needed
to coordinate a huge relief effort.
To accomplish the work,
we appointed 37 Disaster Relief Committees.
Locally, we purchased
and distributed
138 tons of rice,
138 tons of maize meal,
and 104 tons of beans.
Additionally, through world headquarters,
we purchased 313 tons of food from Brazil.
The first shipment arrived July 12th.
Our brothers have worked quickly
to distribute the food.
Thus far,
34,701 brothers and interested ones
have received basic food supplies.
The appreciation for these provisions
has been overwhelming.
For example,
one widowed sister
raising her five grandchildren received food.
She said, “Jehovah sees me.”
We realize that this is an ongoing situation,
but we are confident
that Jehovah will continue to lovingly care
for all our brothers in Angola.
What a clear expression
of Jehovah’s tender care
for our brothers in Angola!
Of course,
the need for relief isn’t limited to Angola.
Right now, with Jehovah’s help,
relief efforts are ongoing throughout Africa,
South America,
and many other parts of the world.
In fact,
the Governing Body has thus far approved
over 17 million dollars of relief aid
to help our dear brothers
during this pandemic.
Now, on this topic of food supplies,
we’d like to share a reminder:
With ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks occurring
and, in some cases,
reoccurring around the world,
we never know when supply lines
will falter in our area
or when we may need to shelter-in-place
for an extended period of time.
So, if possible in your local situation,
it would be wise to have on hand a reserve
of nonperishable food items
and other basic necessities,
not hoarding food
or stockpiling it unnecessarily,
but maintaining a reasonable supply
as a precaution.
But now, what about our spiritual food?
How is Jehovah caring for that need?
Many of us have been attending
our congregation meetings
by videoconference.
Although we miss the personal contact,
haven’t our online meetings been a blessing?
In many places,
meeting attendance has gone up significantly.
Many of our dear inactive
brothers and sisters
have been attending with us.
It’s been wonderful to have them.
And how proud we are
of you elderly brothers and sisters!
You’ve quickly learned
how to use the videoconferencing tools.
We love seeing you
participate at the meetings.
But as we know,
many of our brothers
and sisters live in areas
where Internet access
is either not available
or it’s simply too expensive.
How are our brothers in these areas
getting their spiritual food?
You may recall
from the third Governing Body update
that some branches in Africa were approved
to broadcast the special talk
and the Memorial
over local TV and radio stations.
Well, I’m so happy to tell you
that the Governing Body has also approved
to have regular congregation meetings
broadcast via TV and radio!
One of the branches
benefiting from this arrangement
is Mozambique.
Brother Amaro Teixeira will give us an update
on the impact that this is having.
In Mozambique,
many brothers live in areas where Internet
and electronic devices are not available.
So we were so happy when the Governing Body
informed all branches in Africa
that we could investigate
broadcasting congregation meetings
over TV and radio.
As of July 10,
arrangements have been made
with 87 radio stations
and one TV outlet in Mozambique.
This allows more than 51,000
of our brothers and sisters
to listen to the meetings
each week in 24 different languages.
That is very good for our brothers.
These spiritual programs
are at the same time available
to an audience of about 23 million people.
Our brothers are so grateful
for these arrangements.
When it was announced,
some cried tears of joy.
Many brothers shared the feelings
of one couple who wrote:
“Your hard work,
together with Jehovah’s holy spirit,
“has moved the ‘mountains’
to give our brothers in Mozambique
“their spiritual ‘food at the proper time.’
“Jehovah’s active support
and love for all of us
“overwhelmed us
with gratitude and love for him,
his Son, and our spiritual family.”
How wonderful!
This provision was recently extended
to other branches,
and now we’re broadcasting
congregation meetings
via TV and radio in 21 countries.
This allows
about 1.2 million brothers and sisters
to listen to recordings
of congregation meetings
and makes our spiritual programs available
to a potential audience
of almost 280 million people!
Jehovah is certainly providing his people
with needed physical and spiritual food.
But how is he caring
for our persecuted brothers?
During this pandemic,
many of us may have felt like prisoners
in our own homes.
But just think for a moment
about those who are actually in prison
—right now—
during this pandemic.
As of July 19, 2020,
at least 116 brothers and sisters worldwide
are imprisoned for their faith.
In Russia,
an additional 27
are presently under house arrest,
and 372 are under criminal investigation.
Worldwide,
the youngest ones in prison
are just 19 years old,
and the oldest is 81.
Some of our brothers have been imprisoned
or under house arrest for years.
Take, for example,
our three brothers in Eritrea
—Paulos, Isaac, and Negede—
who’ve been in prison the longest
—almost 26 years!
In Russia, just last week,
on July 13, 2020,
there was a record number
of searches of our brothers’ homes
—at least 100 in one day.
In connection with this raid,
Brothers Dmitrii Katyrov and Aleksandr Bokov
were beaten by the authorities.
Counting from the time
when the ban started in 2017,
this brings the total number of home raids
to over 1,000!
Our brothers in prison around the world
needed our prayers before COVID-19,
and they need them even more now.
At Hebrews 13:3, Paul wrote:
“Keep in mind those in prison,
as though you were imprisoned with them.”
Certainly, we feel
for our brothers and sisters
who are imprisoned for their faith.
How are they bearing up?
How is Jehovah sustaining them
through their trials?
Let’s get an update from two sisters
who were held in detention in Russia.
On June 11, 2019,
at around eight o’clock in the morning,
officers from the investigative committee
and the police burst into our home.
The search lasted almost all day.
And then after the search,
they took us to the investigative committee,
where they detained us
and put us in a temporary holding facility.
The result was a court hearing in Novozybkov.
They imposed restrictive measures on me,
meaning they put me in detention.
And, altogether,
I spent almost eight months behind bars.
I spent eight months
in a pretrial detention facility.
I spent 245 days behind bars.
For me, the time I spent
in pretrial detention
went by very quickly.
Even that number
—245 days—
it sounds like a lot
but, really,
it didn’t feel like that many
because I was busy replying to letters
and also talking to my cellmates.
I prayed to Jehovah a lot during that time.
I read the Bible, and I did personal study.
Eight months in pretrial detention—
You could really describe it
as being in isolation,
because I missed live association
—live association with brothers and sisters
when you can talk to them in real life,
face-to-face,
and even hug them.
In the beginning, it was hard.
But then I saw that if you
accept the circumstances,
it becomes easier to get on with life.
I prayed to Jehovah
not to feel sorry for myself
and not to concentrate
on how bad things were
being in one room all the time.
I prayed to accept the conditions
I found myself in on any given day.
I also realized
that it is important to always look
for reasons to be grateful,
and every evening, even if it didn’t seem
as though anything particularly special
had happened,
I tried to thank Jehovah,
and that also gave me strength,
because it turns out that in every day,
there is something good.
It got to the point where sometimes
I didn’t even notice the locked door!
Through the bars,
I saw the sky and didn’t even see the bars.
Or when we went out for exercise,
which was just a yard with walls all around
and just a bit of the sky was visible,
I realized that Jehovah
gives the right attitude when,
for example,
I wondered, ‘What is behind those walls?’
And I could even imagine
that the Alps were out there,
that there were cornflowers
(my favorite flowers) out there and poppies.
I thanked Jehovah that I had,
for example,
the Bible and that I could read it
and for being able to pray to Jehovah,
for the fact that I had been able to do
the right thing that day,
for the bird that I had seen from the window.
And before the detention, I imagined
that if it did happen,
it is an assignment from Jehovah
for the time being.
The first day I received letters
was the anniversary of my baptism.
Twenty-four years had passed
since that occasion.
I was feeling somewhat downcast,
and I asked Jehovah for a special gift.
And at the end of the day,
I received that special gift
—it was 59 letters from brothers and sisters!
And I realized
just what a unique God Jehovah is,
and that he tenderly cares for his servants.
It convinced me once again
that Jehovah is a caring Father.
The first time I received
such a large number of letters
—54 of them—
I sat on the bed, put them on my lap,
and didn’t know what to do with them.
I gathered my thoughts.
Of course, there were tears in my eyes!
So I gathered my thoughts
and started going through them.
Thanks to the letters,
I was also able to do personal study.
I wrote down in two exercise books
the thoughts that really strengthened me.
In one letter, it talked
about the secret of David’s courage.
And it said that he concentrated,
not on how big Goliath was
in comparison to him,
but on how tiny that giant was
in comparison to Jehovah.
That thought really helped me
to switch to the right frame of mind
and see Jehovah.
And when they escorted me
from the courtroom to the vehicle,
to the transport vehicle,
the brothers and sisters who were still there
shouted words of encouragement.
Of course, I didn’t expect to see them there,
because I didn’t know
how they would escort us from the courtroom.
Although you could say I was rather sad
because they left in place
the restrictive measures,
when I got into the vehicle,
I was overjoyed inside
because,
although I could hardly see the brothers,
I could hear their voices.
It made me determined
to remain faithful to Jehovah,
and it helped me to stand up for the truth
in the court hearings,
and I felt that I was not alone
because I knew that many
are concerned for me and praying for me.
When I was in hard circumstances,
I actually became convinced that no matter
how serious the difficulties are,
Jehovah always gives enough holy spirit
to overcome any trial.
I realized that actually
there is no need to be afraid
of trials that may befall us.
Jehovah is always close to us,
and he always supports, strengthens,
and helps us.
He is very sensitive to our needs
and, at times like that,
he draws close to us in a unique way.
How encouraging!
Prison walls cannot stop Jehovah
from tenderly caring for his servants.
I think these upbuilding expressions
of our sisters
will help many of us
who are feeling isolated
because of the pandemic.
Brothers and sisters,
we’re all going through a difficult time.
Some of you have lost your jobs,
some are concerned
about finding enough food for each day,
and many of us have lost loved ones in death.
In spite of all these challenges,
isn’t it clear that Jehovah
is helping us to cope
—both physically and spiritually?
As our Shepherd,
he is carrying us along
in his loving arms.
Whether we’re in lockdown,
facing food shortages, or even in prison,
his tender care will keep us going
and it will get us through to the end.
You can be confident
that with Jehovah’s help and guidance,
we will continue to organize relief efforts
wherever they are needed.
But remember,
Jehovah may also use you
to come to the aid of others.
Pray for his spirit to guide you.
If you see an opportunity to help,
take action!
Hebrews 13:16 says:
“Do not forget to do good
“and to share what you have with others,
for God is well-pleased
with such sacrifices.”
What a privilege we have
to be used by Jehovah
to provide tender care for one another!
On behalf of the Governing Body,
please accept this virtual hug
and know that we love
each one of you very much.
From the World Headquarters
of Jehovah’s Witnesses,
this is JW Broadcasting®.

2020 Governing Body Update #5