Lesson 44 Do All Celebrations Please God?

[Click for Transcript]|[Showing Hospitality at International Conventions]
[Montage of brothers and sisters of all nationalities expressing themselves about the hospitality that is shown at international conventions. A long line of brothers and sisters welcoming delegates from various countries and races]
Person 1: We have 2,500 delegates coming in. For us, we want to give them our absolute best.
Person 2: What we want them to feel is the love of the true brotherhood.
Person 3: The commission was to make it a life-changing experience. In order to do that, we thought we had to put together more than just, ‘Come and have some dinner with us.’
Person 4: Overwhelming, I don’t know how to express how I feel.
Person 5: We had to first of all come up with and create the acts. So, I went in a room for two days and cried and prayed.
Person 6: This is where the trust that Jehovah is directing us through his organization has helped us.
Person 7: There was so much more involved in showing hospitality to our delegates than we originally thought.
Person 8: We have an original, authentic, 1892 chuck wagon, real Texas cowboys, real horse trainers, [Swinging lasso] roping lessons, and Texas Longhorns. We’re making buttermilk biscuits just like they did on the trail, in a Dutch oven with coals.
Person 9: We have four different casts that we’re using (each somewhere in the range of 80-90 per cast), three different locations we’re going to be performing at, and this spans over four days.
[Rehearsing Show]
Person 10: The evening programs include providing some food to the friends that are here, some spiritual entertainment with music, some interviews, some videos.
Person 11: We haven’t had field service as part of our conventions as in the past.
Person 12: However, it’s so apparent that Jehovah is behind this, the example set by the slave; it’s so evident that this should be done.
Person 13: They’re facing similar challenges in the ministry, but they’re still working hard while dealing with these challenges. Hearing that was very encouraging, and it gave me the renewed motivation to keep preaching with zeal.
Person 14: We also needed volunteers to come to the Assembly Hall and greet the delegates as they came in off the buses.
Person 15: At first, I wasn’t sure why there were so many people outside when I saw them from the bus. When I found out that they were there to welcome us, it brought me to tears.
Person 16: When we found out that the tours were coming to the Assembly Hall, we knew that we were going to have an extra special blessing.
Person 17: We had well over 3,600 volunteers and probably more like 5,000 that were willing to help.
Person 18: We contacted probably a little bit over 200 congregations to participate in these activities.
[Hug delegates at bus]
Person 19: We are from Cheyenne, Wyoming, about 850 miles (1,367 km) away. We started about two or three weeks ago getting all the wagons ready, and it took a couple of days to get here.
[Friends climb into covered wagon]
Person 20: One of the things I had to do was to ask permission at my job—ask for a week off in order to be here. I prayed a lot to Jehovah. And through him, they gave me permission, and I was able to be here.
[Shed tears]
Person 21: I’m so energized and pumped, and I really just see us walking into the new world and feeling all of this every day.
Person 22: My job has been to come up with drawings and paintings for note cards of things that are indigenous to Washington.
[Artwork of Native American Indians]
Person 23: I had the privilege of designing the logo that went on the gift bags for the international convention.
Child 1: We’re going to sing for the delegates.
Child 2: I want to sing for the delegates because I want to make God happy and the delegates too.
Person 24: The singing at the airports, it was touching to see them waiting for us at night, because we arrived around 10:00 p.m.
[Holding signs]
Person 25: I think that they’ll be happy to see all of us welcoming them and the things that we’re preparing for them, something to take back with them to remember this opportunity that they have had.
Person 26: This part, the top part, the large JW was actually from The Messenger, which was back in 1931 at the international convention in Columbus, Ohio.
[Pass out black totes]
Person 27: As you see with all the brothers and sisters—everyone wanting to contribute, everyone wanting to have a part, everyone wanting to be called, everyone wanting to participate in whatever way they can.
[Make cards]
Group 1 in Unison: Welcome to Seattle!
Person 28: Just seeing it being used and enjoyed by the delegates was a great feeling.
Person 29: I was a little bit tired from the flight. But when you (kind of like) saw all the smiles and the cheers and the big banners and all the gifts, it was just like, 'Oh, my goodness!'
Person 30: You felt loved, didn’t you? You felt loved straightaway.
Person 31: You felt loved.
Person 32: It was love.
Person 33: We don’t know where they’re from. We don’t know their names. But they just smile and wave and seeing that unity, I mean its genuine love, and you just, you just almost want to cry. Person 31: We want them to know that they have brothers here that will support them and who love them and are willing to do whatever we can to make them enjoy their stay here.
Person 34: Yes.
Person 35: We just want them to feel like our arms have been around them the whole time they’ve been here.
Person 36: It really shows that Jehovah is behind the work. But it also shows the loving brotherhood because it’s so evident by what you see with all the happy faces, the zeal, the enthusiasm. Everything that is being spent is all so that we can praise Jehovah but also to welcome his sheep, the delegates, coming from all the different parts of the world.
Person 37: I hope that 2,000 to 3,000 years from now somebody walks up to me and says: I remember you! You were at the cowboy deal in Texas! That, to me, would be fantastic. I know cowboys aren’t supposed to cry, but trust us, we do when it comes to this.
Person 38: I’m so happy! It moves me to tears.
Child 3: They came here to let us sing, and they watched us, so they take our song with them.
Child 4: We want the delegates to be happy! [A little girl with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing a pink frilly dress with a pink headband in her hair]
(Logo: Black capital letters JW.ORG inside a white box. Copyright 2015 Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania) [Click to close]