Pursuing My Purpose in Life
As told by William Carnie
LOOKING back, I can see what an eventful day it was when my father took me to hear Judge Rutherford speak in the Synod Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland. That was in the early years of World War I, and I was just about ten years old at the time. An earlier visit by Pastor Russell had apparently stirred up interest, although we were a Methodist family, my father being a very active elder. That meeting in Edinburgh began a very joyful association with the Bible Students, in which all our family joined. The truth became the vital thing in our lives.
Soon came repercussions. Patriotic fervor was hot at school. My father came under the draft, or conscription, as we called it. Although there were eight dependent on him, we were prepared to resist all compromise and stand neutral to the warring nations. We lived for the truth. We lived in an atmosphere that tingled with the imminence of Armageddon. We saw the old system rapidly passing away and our personal construction was that it would not survive World War I.
I was nonplussed when the war ended and a period of so-called peace opened up. Never had I conditioned my mind to pursue some vocation in life. My future had always been linked up with the millennium. To my mind, however, there existed a great gap between what I could do and the requirements of the Society’s colporteur service, which seemed to be a field for elders only. But I distinctly remember the idea of taking up full-time service as a pursuit and kind of hoped someone would invite me to do so, but no one did.
The turmoil that ensued in the United States upon the manifestation of Christ Jesus at the spiritual temple did not seem to send its shock waves to Scotland until a year or two later. There was a disagreement and a breakaway. Because I had never really studied for myself but consistently depended upon my father, I found myself with him on the offshoot group. As I remember, we hankered for the old days and old ways centering on the glory of Pastor Russell.
By 1922 the affairs of everyday life seemed to take on greater importance. Big things were expected by 1925. When it came to my vocation in life, one of the trusted brothers of our new group advised that I should get a position where daily food was assured.
For more than a year I was on the catering staff of a large hotel. This was no place for me. I decided to take up a new life in the cleaner environs of some rural country and arrived in Australia in December, 1923, eager to plunge into the outback country.
I had never been a reader of the Watch Tower publications, but I knew the truth was in these pages. So I took a volume or two of Studies in the Scriptures, in the fond hope of making its message my own. The fond hope never materialized. I never seemed able to strike any heat from cold print.
From the years 1923 to 1929 I yearned to have my parents and brothers and sisters united in a kind of patriarchal circle away from the old world. But alas! When we all managed to come together there was little mention of the warm faith that had formerly stirred us to rejoicing. To make a living seemed the object in life.
Years were passing. Something was missing in my life. The year 1925 passed without anything happening as I had expected. The truth in our family had gone dead. Reluctantly I got right round to considering: I must reorient my sense of values, gain some wealth and make a name for myself.
Having joined a cultural society and taken up life in a big city I formerly despised, I attended a social function where a so-called “Reverend” told a joke based on the trinity doctrine. I joined in the laughter, but when walking home I was appalled to call to mind how at one time I had this subject at my fingertips, but here I was groping in my mind as to what was the truth on the matter. I knew I had drifted into darkness, but did not know where to turn for help.
CONTACT WITH JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
The year 1937. War drums were sounding. My brother and I were engaged in defense work. One day while walking with the hotelkeeper we saw on a nearby lot behind a garage a van with the painted sign “Jehovah’s witnesses.” We were promptly informed that here were some “Come to Jesus” cranks. It was said that the garage proprietor, instead of raking in the wealth that had come as a result of the big building scheme, was wasting his time running around the country preaching.
Our interest was aroused. We determined to see what these people had more than we did. For an answer we were invited to join the weekly study of the book Riches. This proved to be the most interesting study in our lives. We argued and argued. Sessions lasted late into the night. Point by point we had to concede. One night after a long discussion we returned to our hotel room and, as I sat on the bed, I said, “This looks like the truth.” When my brother replied, “Just what I’m thinking,” my joy knew no bounds. In a flush of gratitude I thanked Jehovah for the undeserved kindness of shepherding us back.
Now we made up for our former failing—lack of personal study. We got Bibles and books. Like Paul we even retired to the quiet of the hills and the woods and went over the matter in our minds and confirmed the truths. It was like living in a new world. Our friends wondered what had come over us.
When we heard that Judge Rutherford was to visit Sydney, N.S.W., in the spring of 1938, we resolved to return to the east to attend the big assembly and see our family about the truth. At home there was no responding joy. We began to see that to go on, it would be by ourselves. Family ties were very close, but ties to Jehovah’s organization were now closer.
Preconvention work opened up a new and happy experience. Here was the atmosphere I had always wanted to work in. It must be full-time service for me, though I confess I felt that I could never be a preacher. If I could do the incidental or background work I would be happy. My role seemed that of an assistant. I did not at all feel qualified to be out in front taking the lead as a full-time pioneer worker. That was for the anointed.
However, by now I had firmly resolved that my vocation in life was to serve the Theocracy full time; but instead of taking the plunge there and then, I felt obligated to complete some secular jobs first. How easy and foolish to be tied down! How I was to regret it in just a week or two. Racing on a motorcycle between two jobs I crashed into a fast-moving car and was tossed to the road for dead. While I was lying there conscious with eight bones broken, my immediate thought was, “Why am I not dead?” “What service could I have rendered if I had been killed?” “How important is secular work in puny comparison with service to the living God?”
At that moment I was absolutely convinced that Jehovah had spared my life. The importance of everything except Kingdom service faded away. With this driving incentive my recovery proved remarkably fast. The crash occurred in August, 1938, and by the middle of November I started full-time Bethel service. With such a belated start, but by Jehovah’s undeserved kindness, I have rejoiced in pursuing my vocation as a full-time servant of Jehovah ever since.
After less than a year of full-time work I received an appointment to take care of a large metropolitan congregation. When I thought of the responsibility entrusted to me I grew pale and learned to lean heavily on Jehovah.
Around 1940 in Australia as elsewhere opposition to the truth was intense. Soon we became hardened campaigners. Sound-car work and information marches caused great excitement. Three times I found myself on the dark side of the lockup, but three times walked out free, better appreciating how the apostles felt, as recorded in Acts, chapter five.
As a zone servant, I had many pleasant experiences and now enjoy many wonderful memories of service. When the ban came in Australia there was no dull moment. Yes, I had my turn on Kingdom farms and other enterprises. At the beginning of 1943 I was called to work in the Bethel office on the congregation desk. There was the training and sending out of the servants to the brethren to be accomplished under ban conditions. After about two years in the office I was out again in the work I loved very much, that of circuit servant. This work took me to New Zealand for another two years.
GILEAD AND THEN HONG KONG
To me it was a totally unexpected move when the Society opened the Bible School of Gilead. Then it seemed remote from us because of war and distance. I never contemplated being called to school. Our joy knew no bounds when we learned that we were called to the eleventh class.
Every minute of Gilead I enjoyed. That six months was a landmark in my life. It has supplied a fund of memories that has been a source of joy for the nine years since we graduated.
After serving a circuit in Wisconsin, where I made friends that have kept in touch with me ever since, there came a letter from the Society in November, 1948, inviting me to take up the missionary work in Hong Kong. The East had never appealed to me, but I had offered to go wherever sent, so Hong Kong it would be for me.
Out across the Pacific we went. At that time the Communist armies were sweeping down from the north and it was thought that Shanghai would fall any time, so that our ship might have to put in to some little-known port. However, we arrived in Shanghai in time to experience the uncanny sensation that accompanies the fade-out of one power to give way to the next. We spent some time with the brothers who have valiantly kept the service going during the trying times up to now. We were relieved when we set sail for the final stage to Hong Kong, as we had visions of being stuck in Shanghai away from our assignment.
How eagerly we gazed upon the beautiful and bustling island of Hong Kong as we sailed into the sheltered harbor. What would it yield in Kingdom fruits? How would our training stand up? Everything was so strange and new that we wondered where to start. We were fortunate in that two publishers had come down from Shanghai ahead of us and they met us and helped us to get on our feet. Hong Kong was overcrowded. It was almost impossible to get quarters to live in. Prices for accommodations were sky-high. The British navy club took us in for a few weeks, until we were fortunate enough to find a room. Meanwhile we were established in the work. Many people we witnessed to could speak English and where we had to cope with Chinese we memorized a little testimony and presented a card and found it worked very well. Placements and studies came freely.
We had arrived in the middle of January, 1949, and by May of that year we had a little congregation organized; just three publishers with the two missionaries. These three are still going strong and are joined with others to reach a peak of one hundred and forty-eight.
I did not know how much I loved my assignment until I visited the United States for the New World Society Assembly in 1953. I found myself longing to return. Hong Kong had become my home.
Sometimes I look back at the idle years I spent pursuing the husks of the old system of things and it makes me think of the long-suffering of God. I experience a great flood of gratitude that Jehovah has found a place for me in his house and work in his harvest field. I pray that he will sustain me in pursuing my purpose in life as a full-time minister, to his praise and vindication.