Jehovah’s Witnesses try out a new approach

Nick Ayala and his friend, Albert, stand outside the post office in hopes of visiting with people about their beliefs as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“We’re community volunteers trying to help people make better citizens of themselves, with a spiritual side, of course.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses usually go door to door. They’ve been doing it for 100-and-some years. We just started this new initiative, working with what we call witnessing cards.

“Since most people aren’t at their homes or won’t open their doors to us, we thought we might meet them at the post office or the store. The other day, we met a lot of people going in and out of the courthouse. Some didn’t want us to recognize them. They tried to hide their face when they walked by. On any given day, out of two or three hours pursuing people and trying to get them engaged, we consider ourselves successful if at least one family, one individual, gives us a few minutes.”

Isn’t that a lot of time invested just to speak with one person?
“Yes, but there are 700 of us in town. And there are a little more than 8 million around the world. This is not done in a corner. This is a worldwide effort.”

— Nick Ayala