After Armageddon

Written by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses

DAY ONE AFTER ARMAGEDDON

It seems ages since we last heard the gunshots and screams. Today has been really quiet. The last few weeks have been sheer terror. Total anarchy, everyone turning on each other. Not so the brothers – we all looked after each other, later on we had to flee and hide wherever we could.

Bill and I have been on our own for a few days, we went looking for food for a group of Witnesses we were with, but later on we got separated from them.

We managed to find some tins of food in a burnt out farmhouse yesterday but when we heard gunshots we decided to hide here for the night. In the distance we saw people running for their lives, the look of terror of their faces is a sight I will never forget. But since the morning it has been so quiet!

All morning the birds were singing and the sun was shining. We could see smoke rising high in the sky from fires in distant cities, but other than that it was totally peaceful today. At lunchtime Bill and I decided it was safe enough to look for the others. Everywhere we looked we saw dead bodies; some people slumped at the steering wheels of their cars, and some even with their cars still running.

Could it all be over?

After an hour of walking we found another family from our congregation, they were so happy to see us. They had not seen any sign of disturbance all day either.

As we walked on we came closer to the city. We decided to walk to the site of the Kingdom Hall. The whole city was deserted, what a mess! Houses were on fire, crashed cars, some with dead people still in them. We zig-zagged all over the road dodging wrecks, bodies and some looters that were laying dead next to the things they had looted. Some of the things that used to very valuable, like sacks of money and valuable jewelry laying on the road, but we did not even bother picking these valueless things up. Bodies laying where they had fallen. Churches totally looted, some burnt out; some of the priests that had apparently been able to avoid prison when the government banned religion, seemed to have died trying to stop the mobs.

We spotted a group of people walking in the distance. They were people we did not know. They looked like witnesses to us and they were looking at us the same way. We walked over to meet them and asked them where they were going. They said they were looking for fellow believers who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Once we found out we were all Witnesses, we all hugged.

It turned out that they were from a neighboring congregation. They told us that everyone they met so far this day were witnesses too. We now were getting more certain by the hour that Armageddon had passed. It is hard to describe our excitement! Now we just had to see if our Kingdom hall was still standing. We all run down the road whooping with excitement.

When we came to the hall we had such a huge shock.. There were so many people there. The place was all boarded up, and obscene graffiti had been sprayed all over it. Brothers and sisters were already cleaning it up and removing the boards from the windows. A brother was already mowing the lawn, and a First-Aid tent had been set up. One of the sisters from the neighboring congregation said it reminded her of the day they built the hall in a “quick build” weekend. None of us expected everything to be organized so quickly!

As we were marveling at the scene, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was our Presiding Overseer (PO). He was so pleased to see us. He gave all of us the biggest hug we ever had. I will long remember this day, when I cried so many happy tears until I ran out of tears. Then he told us he was organizing volunteers and asked us if we had any special useful skills we might volunteer. I was a cook in the old system. That seems funny now; we use to always talk about the new system. Jim, one of the brothers in our group was a truck driver. Our PO told us to register at the volunteer department at the literature counter of the hall.

Walking in the hall was such a shock. Even though the place had been vandalized, brothers and sisters were already cleaning it and had started setting up various departments in there. Well I must say they were TRYING to clean up, because every now and again we heard excited shrieks and saw people hugging each other sobbing and crying and laughing all at the same time as they found friends that made it.

Two brothers laughed and laughed and laughed when they saw each other. Bystanders asked one of them why he was laughing so much, and when he composed himself he said “I never thought HE would make it!” The other brother was not offended. He laughed even more and later, when he also had composed himself, said: “And I think YOU were the least likely to make it here.” Neither was offended, they were just glad to be there and they hugged each other with tears streaming down their faces.

Others were somewhat disappointed some of their love ones did not make it, but soon were swept up in the euphoria of this great day, and were smiling with everyone else.

Every now and again people came running towards the hall jumping for joy, shouting “We made it! We made it! We really are in the new system!” and went running around shaking everyone hands and hugging all comers.

In among all the excitement Jim and I registered with a brother entering all names in a laptop. We wondered where he had found that, and even how he had managed to charge it up, but we were too exited to ask. He told us all names were being registered so we would know who survived. Jim asked about his mother who he had not seen for weeks. The brother entered the name and told him she was already registered and was working in the First-Aid tent and… (Jim did not hear the rest of this sentence as he was running off like an Olympic sprinter to the First-Aid tent)

Later when Jim came back we were both assigned to collect food from the neighborhood and to salvage any supplies we could. So we walked away from the hall into the deserted streets and found a big pickup truck standing in the middle of an intersection. A big burly man lay dead across the front of it, a woman lay dead next to it, we wondered briefly if she was the man’s wife. We moved the bodies to the side of the road and started the pickup truck; it started straight away. The fuel tank was half full so we decided we would use it for our search.

Brother Jim reached into the glove box and found a handful of CD’s. They were all rap and heavy metal so he walked to a rubbish bin and threw them away. It seemed quite funny doing that now, we did not expect the city garbage trucks anytime soon, but then again we were not going to litter the new system!

Wow! It seems so funny saying that still. The new system! And we are standing in it. Wow!

We had just driven barely a kilometer when a police car came chasing after us with sirens blaring and lights flashing! Jim was shocked and pulled over immediately, like he had always done in the past, but out of the police car jumps Terry – one of our ministerial servants, his wife Mary and their excited young son Tim who had gone for his first ride ever in a police car.

Terry excitedly told us of how he had found this car on a country road deserted with its engine still running. The policeman was laying on the road, it looked like he had been shot, but Terry thought the car would save his family a long walk. We suggested that he should drive to the kingdom hall and register, but that he would not be needed to keep order.

As Terry was getting back into the car a voice came on the police radio “Hello, can anybody hear us?” Terry answered the call and found out the voice was from a brother in a neighboring town that had found a police car. They reported that everywhere the brothers were convinced Armageddon had passed. There were scenes of jubilation with people dancing, leaping for joy and crying tears of joy everywhere, the brother on the radio said.

We jumped back into the truck and went from house to house collecting food out of kitchen cupboards, and restaurants until the truck was loaded. At one of the houses Jim came running back to the truck nearly doubling up with laughter. He shouted that I had to come and have a look. I followed him and there was a sign on the door “NO JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES PLEASE!” We peeled the sign off and stuck it in our pockets to show the brothers at the hall, and then walked in laughing shouting “Hello, we are Jehovah’s witnesses and we calling at homes in the neighborhood!” It seemed a little sad to us that witnessing had finished as we knew it back in the old system. (Boy it seems funny writing this. Back in the old system).. But then we wondered what Jehovah had in store when the resurrected ones start coming back!

It was dark when we came back to the kingdom hall. The whole town was in darkness, but we could see the Kingdom Hall from several kilometers away. Obviously, someone had found generators and the whole site was lit up like the quick builds we used to have in the old system.

One of the brothers in our congregation used to set-up the sound systems for the quick build halls and he had set-up a sound system. Brothers and sisters were serving meals and while we were eating an announcement came over the sound system, “Brothers and sisters we just had word from the governing body, Armageddon is over, everyone that is here has survived the war Armageddon.” A huge cheer went up, brothers and sisters danced, hugged cheered and celebrated. Then one of the Italian brothers started singing song 212, “We thank you Jehovah!” in Italian. We all recognized the tune and all joined in!

We made a huge bonfire many joined in singing kingdom songs. Yes we sang the “victory song”! Two brothers had dragged the piano out of the hall and everyone was singing with such fervor, it brought tears to our eyes. There was a crowd of hundreds singing like the Levites in the back of our song books singing in full voice with feeling and pride to be serving this great wonderful God, our God Jehovah

I will hear the words of song 171 ringing in my ears for all eternity. A VICTORY SONG! We won, and Satan had lost the great war. Sing to Jehovah, for he has become highly exalted. Happy we are to be living today. To our God Jehovah and his Messiah, thanks we render all day long. To them alone we look for salvation, grand will be our victory song.