JW Convention

The Convention

   Dream Journal

I WAS A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS ON THE FIELD MINISTRY WITH MY DAD. We were walking down road London Road in Retford. I was pushing a very long telescopic pole with a wheel on the end. We walked into Holly Road and went from house to house preaching. The buildings were a mishmash of styles, some large and opulent, others small terraced houses, but all of them were covered in large pebbles and cobblestones concreted into the brickwork. We walked around our “territory” for a while and then headed towards my dad and mum’s house on Grove Lane. My dad stopped at the end of their street and pulled a tarpaulin off a couple of wheelbarrows and a tarmac machine. I commented that they might get stolen if left in the open but my dad wasn’t concerned. We walked to what used to be my parent’s house but then we realised it was now my sister’s house. My dad asked me if it was ok for him and my mum to come to tea at my house but I said, “No, my (now ex) wife wouldn’t like it.” 

The second day of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Regional Convention had just ended. I was in a community hall with my wife and kids. There was an after-convention party going on. I was drinking Coca Cola and Ribena and eating Kit-Kats. My oldest daughter was with a boy who seemed to like her. I scared him off. Then I left the party with my wife and daughters. They got into a car with a circuit overseer and drove off, leaving me behind with my dad. We started looking for my dad’s car but we couldn’t see it. I had the car keys and kept pressing the alarm button. The headlights on other cars began flashing which made finding my dad’s car even harder, but in the end, we spotted it. It was a strange-looking car—gold with six wheels, four like normal, but with a single wheel at the front and back. We got in the car and drove home.

The next day I was at the convention. It was in a large outdoor stadium. I was sitting in the stands with my wife and daughters. I had a very long pole with a feather duster on it. I was tickling someone sitting in the opposite stand—that’s how long the pole was! I was sitting with my feet up on the seat in front of me. The “brother” giving the talk started to play a Michael Jackson song over the PA system. I said (out loud), “Wow! Once upon a time, they would have never done that!” My (now dead) mum was sitting behind me. She leaned forward and started talking very loudly. I told her to keep her voice down. My wife took my daughters out for the toilet. While she was gone things started getting even stranger.

First, the speaker invited hundreds of disabled people onto the pitch. They were told to leave their wheelchairs and walking sticks behind so they were all falling over. The audience was applauding their “faithfulness to Jehovah”. I sat there thinking. “This is odd” while banging a brass pot with a ruler. Then, the speaker invited hundreds of pioneers (full-time preachers) onto the pitch. They walked around the parameter of the pitch waving while the audience cheered and clapped. I thought, “Hang on, I’m a pioneer! How come they’ve not included me?” Next, the pitch began to rotate like a huge turntable. The speaker began to relate an experience of a “sister” who died while on the field ministry. As he did, the pioneers all fell to the ground and played dead.

Then, as if things couldn’t get even weirder, the stands began to move sideways as if they were on rails! At that point, I realised the “stands” we were sitting in were actually railway coaches. The coaches picked up speed and hurtled out of the stadium into the surrounding countryside. We passed open fields full of sheep and chickens. There were Jehovah’s Witnesses in the fields preaching to the (literal) sheep! Just then, I heard my youngest daughter call out her sister’s name. Then the coaches returned to the convention stadium. As our stand-cum-coach pulled into the stadium I saw lots of people I knew waiting to greet us.