Witnessing Jehovah

We were driving down a busy road, minding our own business when CA-LUNK!!

Looking behind we saw a vast, brand new, Land Cruiser turning across the road. It was a LOOK AT ME car, with high level air intake so that it can drive through rivers, and huge bars in front so that it can push through the jungle. And it, in its haste to find a slot to turn around on a main road, across two lanes of traffic, it had hit our back end.

The driver had the decency to stop, and we jointly looked at the damage. Luckily it wasn’t much – he had knocked off a back reflector, housed in our rubber bumper. Many people would have brushed that off: we had retrieved the damaged part from the road and could probably glue it back again. But there was something about the car that told me that we should insist on getting recompense. After all, the spare, small as it is, would probably cost a fortune – about $200.

It was at that stage that I noticed, on the driver’s door, in discrete writing, the words Jehovah’s Witnesses. That clinched it.

My driver took the lead. With great eloquence he emphasised the great damage that we had suffered and the inconvenience and cost that we would suffer to get it repaired, and demanded to know what the driver was going to do about it. Did he, we asked, want us to report the matter to the police? If he was going to be obstructive we would have no choice. Oh no no, we will find a solution. After humming and hawing he went to get someone else whom, it seemed, he had just dropped for a meeting nearby. The new person insisted that they would pay for the damage. But how? Then things got a bit vague. He phoned the HQ, and after a long palaver said we should go to the reception and they would sort it out. Meanwhile the driver would continue with his work. Continue with his work? – what about me continuing with my work? We insisted that the HQ person should come to us, and stop playing around with us. He phoned again. No, it was impossible for anyone to come here – they didn’t have a vehicle. So we relented and agreed to go there. That was followed by more negotiation in which we insisted that the driver come with us. We knew they would never believe us if we just turned up without him.

So the convoy started and half an hour later, in a grim industrial area, we come across this very high wall, topped with razor wire and bougainvillea. We get inside the compound and are stunned at the beautiful landscaping, the obvious sense of order and cleanliness, as well as the grand scale of the place. The whole compound must be about 8 – 10 acres, with workshops, storage depots, classrooms, assembly rooms, offices and presumably dormitories. Walking around these beautiful grounds were lots of blessed, mainly young, people, basking in the knowledge of being saved. And everywhere we looked were rows of shiny news cars, just like the one which had hit us.

We park in front of the main reception area, and the culprit driver goes to find the man who deals with accidents. When he returns, and before he says any more to us, he reprimands my driver for parking forwards: here, he said, you have to reverse into your parking bay. So we did that, only to be told that the man we had to see was out, and they couldn’t say when he would be back. The injustice of the situation was so ridiculous that we started complaining loudly. After a while a group of observers clustered around. We had been told that all we had to do was present ourselves at the reception and now no one would see us?  Appalling. Especially when we had important business to do.

Eventually a grey-haired old man came out and invited us inside. He said everything would be sorted out. The offending driver was invited in first to give his report, and after about fifteen minutes we all went outside to inspect the damage. But then we were given the same message: there was no one available to see us. The responsible person was on business in town, and there was no one else. Then we get a lecture about good management, about how the Jehovah’s Witnesses were organised in independent lines of command, and how someone from the gardening division could tell someone from the garage division what to do, etc etc. Who, I asked, does the person we are waiting for report to?  Surely there’s someone above him who can help us? He, came the reply, reports only to God. Then someone started saying that we should follow the law. The law was that if you had an accident you had to report it to the police. And then the matter would be put in the hands of the insurance people. And so it went on, arguments becoming more and more bitter as their self-righteous attitude became more and more intolerable.

Then a little Frenchman (or more likely Canadian) turned up. He heard the story, made a phone call, and said “How would it be if we buy the spare part, and then call you when we’ve got it so that we can fit it for you? And, by the way,” he added, “I am very sorry for the accident and the inconvenience you have suffered.”

And that was that.