Eyes to the Blind

SOME years ago a man in Indiana suffered a stroke that impaired his speech. As a result, he had to learn to speak properly all over again. To help him to this end he joined a tape club, hoping to improve in his speech as he read into a tape recorder material for blind persons. He in effect wanted to be the eyes to some blind person.

The first assignment he received was to read copies of The Watchtower and Awake! for a woman in Canada, one of Jehovah’s witnesses who was blind and who had heart trouble. Although his basic desire was to improve his speech, when he began to read The Watchtower and Awake! for the Witness he realized that what he was reading was quite different from what he had been taught in church. The Scriptural articles with their many Bible quotations stimulated in him an interest to know more.

In view of his interest the Witness in Canada sent him a copy of The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life and suggested that the two of them have a regular Bible study using this small volume. He accepted the offer but wondered how she was going to manage this, since she was blind. As it turned out, she had a copy of the book in Braille and so over the next eleven months a Bible study was held by tape, slowed down somewhat by postal strikes.

The Witness in Canada encouraged the man to contact Jehovah’s witnesses in his area. But this was a problem, for he was not able to get around as he would like. Finally, a minister of Jehovah’s witnesses sharing in the regular house-to-house ministry knocked on his door. The man’s surprising greeting to the Witness was: “Come on in. I have been waiting for you for a year now . . . I know I’ve got to go to your Christian meetings. I’ve been waiting for you to come and get me.”

Now he regularly enjoys a study of the Bible with one of the local ministers and is aided to get to the Christian meetings at the Kingdom Hall. He has not, though, forgotten the means by which he learned the truth of the Bible. Though he is not physically in position to share in the house-to-house ministry with Jehovah’s witnesses, he does carry on a preaching work by means of tapes sent to blind and crippled members of the tape club. It is his hope that, just as his spiritual blindness was cured through tapes, he will be able to open the spiritual eyes of others with the enlightening truths of the Bible.