Year 70, Early Autumn
Interview by Mara Vale, co-editor of The Peaceable Earth.
Kurt Weber was resurrected in Year 63, seven years before this interview. He says his first months back were spent in study, reunion, and long walks through uplands he recognized by shape but not by their restored fields and paths.
At Bethel-Hunsrück Uplands, he keeps a narrow desk beside the farm-route board. The desk is orderly. The route board is not. Colored cords show grain, seed, tools, and harvest teams moving between the upland farms. Kurt is the assistant regional farm coordinator. He says the word assistant should remain in the title because “somebody must still ask questions before moving three wagons of seed.”
What do you remember most clearly about your early life?
I was born near Simmern. We left Germany when I was eleven. My father said we were not going to America for adventure. We were going because work was there. Each person could take what he could carry. He said this very firmly, then carried my mother's second bag.
I learned English at school and more English at work. At home we spoke German. My parents expected useful hands. That was good training.
How did your family come to know the truth?
My mother accepted a Bible study in German. I sat at the table because she told me to sit. Soon I stayed because I wanted to.
The first thing that reached me was Jehovah's name. God was no longer a church word. He was a Person with a name and a purpose. We attended the German-speaking congregation. I dedicated my life to Jehovah while I was still a teenager. At nineteen I went to Bethel.
What was Brooklyn Bethel like?
Large, noisy, close. You learned that a family can be orderly without being quiet.
I lived in several buildings over the years. During the later part of our service, my wife and I lived at 124 Columbia Heights. The room was small and the building was busy. That did not trouble us. The building was not Bethel. The family serving Jehovah together was Bethel.
What did your assignment involve?
I began by helping receive food and household supplies for the Bethel Home. A delivery came in, we checked it, recorded it, and sent it where it belonged. If our count was wrong, the kitchen knew before lunch.
Later I kept receiving records and helped organize the food stores when deliveries came from the Society's farms. The work was not dramatic. That is not a criticism. When thousands of people eat on time, many undramatic things have been done correctly.
You married during those years. What did shared service mean to you?
It meant decisions were made for two, not one. My wife was warmer than I was and quicker to see when someone needed encouragement. I carried schedules in my head. She carried people. We helped each other.
How does serving at Bethel now compare with Brooklyn?
The purpose feels the same. You wake up knowing the day belongs to Jehovah and that your work should make someone else's service easier.
Brooklyn was crowded. You heard presses, carts, doors, and people moving in every direction. Here it is quieter. I know the farms and the brothers and sisters who work them. In Brooklyn I often thought as far as the next delivery. Here we can plant an orchard for people we have not met yet. I like both kinds of service.
How do you feel about serving again in the land where you were born?
There are no nations competing now, so I do not serve Germany as a country. I serve Jehovah and the people here.
Still, the hills are familiar. Rain on slate has the same smell. Sometimes a slope or the way wood is stacked brings back something one of my uncles used to say in German. We speak the shared language here, of course. The old words remain part of the memory. I left as a boy because my family needed work. Jehovah let me return with useful work already waiting. I feel that very much. I do not need many words for it.
It has been seven years since your resurrection. Is there an experience from either life that might encourage someone who feels new to an assignment?
When I was nineteen at Brooklyn, I entered a food delivery in the wrong receiving book. I thought I had proved I did not belong there. An older brother sat with me, helped me correct every line, and then asked me to receive the next delivery. He did not make a speech. He trusted me with the next job.
After my resurrection, I remembered that. The farm-route board here was new to me. A sister born long after I died showed me how it worked. On the third day she let me prepare one small schedule, checked it, and gave it back with two corrections. Then she gave me another.
Proverbs 24:16 says a righteous person may fall seven times and get up again. I had made one bad entry, not seven. The principle still applies.
So I would say: accept help, make the correction, and take the next assignment. Jehovah can use a willing person who is still learning.
What are your plans for the next few decades?
First, improve the soil and harvest records. We can compare more than one season now, and we should use what we learn. Second, train two more assistants who will disagree with me when necessary.
After that I want to work with pear trees for a while. My wife always wanted an orchard. I also intend to visit Brooklyn and walk where the old buildings stood. There is no hurry. Having time is still new to me.