The Last Days of a Pioneer

June 14th, 2023

The more I read of former JW exit stories, I understand there usually is some sort of event that perfectly encapsulates the experience.  One doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to not be a JW anymore.  There is a process involved, and even for sudden events such as a disfellowshipping, there always seem to be some things that linger if the JW hasn’t already exited mentally.  Since I am baring my soul through the lost art of blogging, it’s about time I share with you mine.

First, let me provide a bit of context.  I have never enjoyed field service.  Though I was a regular pioneer for a little over a year and an auxiliary for patches of time in my teens, it was all done either under duress or as part of a desire to escape from a bad situation at home.  I am naturally a social person so the association with others in field service appealed to me and made it somewhat palatable.  Until the part came where I had to knock on a door.  I’ve never understood that part of being a Witness, despite their strong efforts to link door to door work with first century Christianity.  The Apostle Paul preached in synagogues and in the public square.  If you live in an area like I do (in the southern United States), it is downright dangerous to show up unannounced at a door.  I can count on 3 occasions where a rifle or a gun was visibly flashed to me when I made my way to a door.  I even brought up the safety issue to elders, but they always dismissed it saying Jehovah would protect me. 

Easier said when you are not facing the shooting end of a shotgun. 

I’ve related before my troubled marriage to a JW elder’s son and an MS in his own right.  Though he didn’t directly have anything to do with my decision, his actions did trigger a series of events that ultimately led to my “event”.  I was regular pioneering at around the time I discovered I was pregnant with my first child.  My husband was always in a foul mood especially during this period and for the most part I enabled him and tried to play the part of peacemaker.  It was after one such argument where he was intolerably cruel and was using the foulest ways to describe me and my perceived weaknesses, I just couldn’t take it anymore and left for my pioneer partner’s home.  Once two nights had passed, she suggested it was probably enough time for emotions to cool and for me to return. 

I wasn’t ready.  I won’t go into what he said and accused me of, but I felt thoroughly abused and he had made no effort to contact me and certainly (as future events proved) had no plans to apologize.  There must have been a discussion happening behind my back, because in no less than an hour after I told her I wasn’t going back, my parents showed up at her door.  To say I felt betrayed by someone I considered my best friend to actually bring my parents into this, knowing quite well how I have always had a challenging relationship with, was an understatement.  Another effort was made to change my mind and I was just incensed.  I felt so alone, and here I was, emotionally and physically exhausted with nowhere to go.  At length it was decided I was to move back in with my parents while they were to act as an intermediary between me and my husband.  I did this with a reluctant heart, knowing this would only worsen the situation.  My husband had all the cards as he knew I my parent’s home was no safe haven for me at all. 

I had already learned all the pioneer tricks and had “banked” my hours earlier.  So, for the last 2 and a half weeks of the month, I did not plan on going out in field service at all.  But with my luck, a local needs talk was recently given regarding this and warning against “taking vacations from Jehovah”.  As a married pioneer sister, I was to set the example.  You have to understand how messed up inside I was.  No one was on my side, and it was always Jehovah this and Jehovah that, along with me making it work with my husband.  There was a childhood friend who had gone inactive a couple years before whom I had stayed in touch with.  Though she was still in her waking up process, she was my “worldly friend”.  Every now and then we got together and had fun.  Mind you, nothing ever came close to a disfellowshipping offense, but we stayed out late and acted worldly.  For a young woman who had recently entered adulthood with a child of my own on the way, having any kind of curfew was an insult and unnecessary restraint, but when I was at my parents, they had their rules. 

It was a Friday night that lasted until about 4 AM on Saturday morning.  It was fun and I had met a lot of people at a beach bonfire party.  I needed something to keep my mind off the turmoil going on in my life.  I came home to my childhood room and crashed, absolutely exhausted.  About three hours later, a familiar knock came on the door.  I knew what it was.  My dad was waking me up for field service.  Remember, I was a pioneer sister, and we just had the local needs talk about pioneers banking their hours. But still, I was a REGULAR PIONEER who had already put in her required hours.  I shouldn’t have been rustled up as a method of punishment when they should have been supporting me during this challenging time.  I didn’t respond as I had no intention of going out.  My dad didn’t agree.  An argument ensued, mostly with him yelling and lecturing me, and me just murmuring into a pillow.  He accused me of being drunk or even on drugs, which I was not.  I was feeling the effects of my pregnancy, which was made worse by staying up so late and going out.  My brother was sound asleep in the other room.  So was my mother.  But it was me who he was waking up.  This wasn’t an argument I was going to win.  I was being punished.

I put on the shittiest dress I could find as a form of protest and spent mere minutes working on my face and hair.  I wanted everyone to see what my dad was doing to me.  I swear I must have looked like hell.  To this day I wish I had taken a selfie just to remind me of what I was driven to.  I had no way out and was trapped in on both sides. 

There were two types of field service on that particular Saturday.  There was the leisurely type where you go on calls or rural territory where long periods of time were consumed by driving.  And then there was door-to-door.  My father was almost always the type to go the easy route in service.  Remember, he was punishing me, so not today!  Service groups were being arranged and there was an elder who was notorious for straight up door-to-door.  No not-at-homes, no calls, no rural territory.  This guy always insisted on fresh territory which meant you needed to walk up one side of the street to the next.  People tried to avoid being grouped with him for this reason, but my dad volunteered.  He wanted this punishment to sting. 

In the southern United States, the month of August is one of high temperatures and extreme humidity.  We split into two – my dad and me as one group and this brother on his own.  Door to door.  Up and down the pavement and the thermometer edged up to 100 as the day progressed.  I was ready to pass out, and at one point I just fell asleep in the car as we waited for this brother to finish at a door.  I was pinched and told to stay awake because we needed to hit the next street if he was at the door for much longer. 

That was it for me.  I told myself it was my last day of pioneering.  I wanted it to be my last day of field service and in a sense it was.  I felt like I was being held hostage.  Though I didn’t have much faith in my resolve, as it turns out I had a lot of deep resentment that had been building for years.  I was finished with this and understood that this was only happening because I was allowing it to happen.  To do this, I had to compromise on something that I wasn’t ready to do.  I had to return to my husband.

By this time, he had morphed into someone a bit more accommodating (don’t worry, it wouldn’t last long) since it was quite possible he’d lose me.  He didn’t want that, with his reputation in the congregation to uphold.  I surprised the hell out of my parents when on Monday I started loading up my car and told them I was moving back.  They were happy I was returning, supposedly as the meek JW wife, but they had no idea what my true motivation was.  My husband wasn’t what you’d call a staunch JW.  He was an elder’s son, which meant he got to do all the forbidden things while retaining the protection of his father.  He was carrying on a not so well hidden affair, and had regularly gone out drinking with his co-workers and friends, JW and non-JW alike.  Unlike my parents, he didn’t press me to go out in field service since that would mean having to find an excuse to get out of it himself. 

Resigning as a regular pioneer wasn’t going to have the same effect had I done it still living at my parent’s home.  To be quite honest, I don’t think my husband really cared one way or another.  I had a ready excuse as I was to welcome our first child months later.  I still heard murmurings about how I should have or could have pioneered into my third trimester.  That only incensed me further as I began to realize how I was just a slab of meat to them.  But I was done.  Inside I was so pleased to hear it being announced that I was no longer a regular pioneer. 

I mentioned earlier how in some ways that fateful day in the heat was my last day out in field service.  Let me explain.  I still lingered on as a Jehovah’s Witness for a few years after that and welcomed my second daughter.  But I was as irregular as you could get.  To put it another way, I only went when my husband did which was hardly ever.  I didn’t want to be seen as someone who was intentionally avoiding it.  At least not yet.   I might have actually taken a handful of doors in that period of a few years. 

Last October was my final day in field service.  We went on someone else’s calls and I came to the door with my fake smile.  That wasn’t entirely true.  I smiled because I knew that was my final day.  I was soon temporarily living with my parents and the pressure ramped up, but I wasn’t having any of it.  They seemed to have known I had one foot out the door.  The pressure ceased entirely as I signed the lease on my own apartment in January 2023.

I’m not ever going back, and this feeling is so invigorating.  Until next time.

Madison