JW subtitle extractor

I’m from Colombia.
I have five more sisters.
I learned the truth from a very young age
through my parents.
It was a very active spiritual life.
My dad lived the truth.
He wasn’t just in the truth;
he lived the truth,
and he always tried to pass that on to us.
He made sure that we never went to school
without reading the day’s text first.
That was essential.
We could be late for school,
but we couldn’t leave the house
without reading the text.
We were a big family,
but we were always at the meeting.
We filled two rows.
He was always concerned
about the well-being of the brothers.
He was always available.
He was very hospitable—my mom as well.
So he used to invite his Bible students
and the brothers to our house,
and I remember that he would
close the kitchen door,
put on some music,
and cook a delicious meal.
He liked to keep everything fun
and for us girls to have fun,
especially when we were together as a family.
He would give each one of us
what we needed and enjoyed.
He used to take us for walks on the weekend
after the meeting and after preaching.
It was a privilege
to have a father like that.
Well, that day I remember
that we were at home.
He was going to put the car in the garage.
Some men came to the car
and threatened him and my mom
with machine guns
to get him out of the car to kidnap him.
We heard a noise.
We all got scared and ran outside,
and then I remember
that my dad was on the ground,
and some men had shot him.
He was just left there.
I just picked him up in my arms.
He was taken to the hospital,
and a few hours later, he died.
My dad’s last words were:
“Jehovah, protect my daughters.
“Take care of my daughters
and my little old lady”
—that meant my mom.
My mom, she was strong.
She gave us—
She gave us a lot of strength.
And she carried on
with the spiritual routine.
The same week that my dad died,
we had a meeting
and my sister Raquel had a talk.
And even though
my dad had died the day before,
she gave her part in the meeting
the very next day.
That next week we had an assembly;
we didn’t miss it.
So we wanted to follow that pattern
that my dad had left.
It was very difficult and complicated.
But Jehovah always took first place
in all the decisions we made;
they were always made
while thinking of Jehovah
and the loyalty that my dad
always had shown toward him.
I carried on as if he was alive,
trying to keep all my sisters together
and in the truth, you know?
At first, I prayed to Jehovah for peace:
“Give me ‘the peace . . .
that surpasses all understanding.’”
And now when there is
something that is harder,
I say to Jehovah:
“Jehovah, preserve the peace
that you have already given me.
Don’t let this trial take away my peace.”
And that’s when Jehovah strengthens me.
Well, I am very fond of my sisters.
I have a lot of respect for them
because they were like extra mothers to me.
Three of my sisters still live in Colombia,
so we make sure to stay in touch
on the phone or on Zoom.
That way they can see how Mom is doing.
Some of my relatives who are not Witnesses
wanted to have some of my sisters
live with them to finish raising them.
But we didn’t want our family to be split up
because that was not my dad’s plan.
His plan was for all of us
to make it into the new world
serving Jehovah together.
All his efforts, all his life,
and all that he devoted to Jehovah
was not going to be in vain
just because he was no longer with us.
We couldn’t let all that go away.
My dad taught me so many simple things
about creation and about Jehovah
that instilled love for Jehovah in me.
That was something that I didn’t know,
at that time,
was going to help me to move forward.
But then I always say, “Wow!
“Dad’s not here,
but he left me another Father, Jehovah.”
And that’s what has helped me to move on.
In Paradise, what I long for the most
—those last words that he said,
“Jehovah, my wife, my daughters”—
is to be able to say to him:
“Look! Here they are.
We are all here.”
We made it!
You did a good job.

The Otalora Sisters: Build Faith That Endures Tragedy