Serving With the Most Progressive Organization

AS TOLD BY ROBERT HATZFELD

Today a great many people turn on the television by remote control to watch the evening news in living color, hardly considering it anything extraordinary. Yet, it seems only yesterday that I was a wide-eyed 12-year-old boy watching on a movie screen a bigger-than-life image of a man, and he was talking!

NOT exactly big news, you might think. But it certainly seemed like a modern-day miracle to me back in 1915, in the early days of silent black-and-white film. A stately bearded man appeared on screen and said: “The Photo-Drama of Creation is presented by the I.B.S.A., the International Bible Students Association.” For the next two hours, the Bible’s story unfolded before our eyes. Its Scriptural message was clear and refreshing. Yet, it was the motion-picture film, interspersed with color slides, and the synchronized speech that really caught my attention.

I did not realize it then, but my youthful enthusiasm for that landmark technology was a prelude to a lifelong career with the most progressive organization on earth.

It was during this period that the “Photo-Drama” filled me with wonder. Since I was mechanically inclined, the new photographic techniques and sound/​picture synchronization fascinated me, as did the time-lapse photography. Observing the opening of the flowers was thrilling!