She Talks to Passersby

By “Awake!” correspondent in Canada

PERHAPS you have seen persons on the street offering The Watchtower and Awake! and have wondered why they were there. Have you ever stopped to find out?

A reporter in Trois Rivières, Quebec, Canada, noted the zealous, all-weather service of a teen-age girl, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He interviewed her, and his feature article “She Talks Only About the Kingdom of God” appeared in the French-language newspaper Le Nouvelliste. This is what the reporter wrote:

“Age seventeen, a serene face rain or shine, warm or cold, you see [Sandra] one place or another in the city of Trois-Rivières. Perhaps one day it will be downtown, the next over in Notre Dame at St-Maurice and Laviolette. But wherever it is, she’s talking about God’s kingdom . . .

“I saw her several times at that intersection, [magazines] in hand, calmly mingling among the passersby, and I finally went and talked to her. . . . Everything she says is based on the Bible. Whatever question I raised on whatever subject, she opened up the good book and pointed out such and such a passage as she answered.

“Sandra works, but only part time. She needs all her mornings to go talk to people. In the afternoon she does secretarial work as a means of making a living and in the morning she shares the good news in God’s Word with others. . . .

“Do the passersby go to her? Not at all. Actually it’s just the opposite. After she catches someone’s attention, she can discuss pretty well anything, but first and foremost she points to the one solution to all this mess around us: the Kingdom of God.

“People are all mixed up; they don’t know where to turn, Sandra said, adding what I already knew: ‘The world is filled with cruelty. Nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms . . . the end is near!’

“At this point, without thinking, I uttered the expression ‘the end of the world.’ Fortunately this made her state that I was wrong. All these signs, she said, are mentioned in the Bible and show that the end is near, not the end of the world, but most surely the sweeping away of wickedness.

“In some ways, Sandra explained, it will be like the events surrounding the survival of Noah. ‘Only those who obeyed God were saved then, and it will be the same again for those who live now, according to the Bible.’

“‘So it is not a matter of the end of the world but of the end of a system of wickedness, it being replaced by goodness,’ explained Sandra.

“And that time is getting close, she added, for the signs given in the Bible (cruelty of people, wars, etc.) are especially evident since the first World War . . . Here she showed me again in her Bible where it is clearly written that the generation that saw these signs would not pass away before wickedness was erased . . . In this case, the generation would count from the war of 1914.

“Getting back into the present time, putting predictions aside, Sandra and I talked about their particular practices. Tobacco​—they won’t touch it, since it goes against the Bible’s counsel: ‘You shall keep your body clean.’

“What about alcohol? It’s OK, she said unhesitatingly, but not like some who go in overboard for it. Moderately, in other words. As it should be taken. What about dating and sex? Well, that’s easy. Just like at the beginning, Sandra showed me the Bible and made me understand that sex should be confined only to marriage. ‘You will become one flesh,’ my interviewee pointed out.

“Besides that, dating, during which time all this is forbidden, .should only be engaged in with marriage in view. ‘Dating is not for recreation,’ in other words. And after that, that is, after marriage . . . the Witnesses can have children. Of course, because the marriage mates become one flesh . . .

“Our time is up and now I must leave my guest.

“One last question:

“​—Who are the people with whom you can talk the most?

“Young people, certainly. in their case more so than others, one could say they have no purpose. They are searching for themselves. Hence they are more inclined to take in information, to want to know what the truth is.

“Tomorrow perhaps you will see Sandra Bouchard somewhere in Trois-Rivières. Unless of course a torrential downpour or an all-out blizzard strikes, because in any other weather she returns every morning, as serene as she was when I first met her and anxious to talk with the passersby.”

The response of the people to this article was very good. For example, at the Westinghouse plant, where Sandra’s father works, the employees pinned it up on the bulletin board. Many of them came and spoke to him appreciatively. Some young people, who are studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, had been experiencing pressure from their parents to stop. However, after reading the article, the parents now let their youngsters go to the Kingdom Hall to receive the fine Christian education offered there.

Afterward, as Sandra continued her preaching activity on the streets, the attitude of the people changed. Many now approached her, and even a person driving by in a car stopped to get The Watchtower and Awake!

A few months before, during the summer, Sandra had started a home Bible study with a sixty-year-old Woman. The husband, however, did not sit in on the study. But after reading the article, he joined his wife in the Bible discussions.

Then there is the young man who read the article and could not believe it. He called up a Witness whom he knew and said: ‘Nobody can have views like that today! Did somebody tell her the answers or do you people really believe that?’ The Witness was able to talk at length to the young man, who soon afterward attended a meeting at the Kingdom Hall for the first time.

The activity of Jesus Christ, according to the Bible record, included “journeying from city to city and from village to village, preaching and declaring the good news of the kingdom of God.” (Luke 8:1) His early followers did the same. Thus we read that the apostle Paul would speak with the people “every day in the marketplace.’’ (Acts 17:17) Down till today, this personal contact is still the most effective way of communicating with people, and especially in making known “this good news of the kingdom.”​—Matt. 24:14.