The door-to-door preaching that Witnesses are known for around the world was suspended in March 2020 as a safety precaution to stem the spread of COVID-19.
For most of the last two and a half years, Witnesses have remained closed globally due to the pandemic. Recently, they have been resuming their activities incrementally.
They resumed their in-person weekly worship activities on April 1. Commenting on going back to house-to-house preaching, [Keba Laletsang] a locally well-known Jehovah’s Witness in [Gaborone] said, “I have been preaching house-to-house for over 40 years in this area.
I was concerned about the new methods of preaching due to COVID-19 that I had never used before, such as telephone witnessing, but it was necessary to save lives. I soon realised that with letter writing and telephone witnessing, we were able to reach more people no matter where they were and at any time of day.
I felt apprehensive about resuming house-to-house because I thought we would not be received well, but on the contrary, we find many that are receptive, and it is so refreshing to talk to them about the Good News.” While their public preaching work was suspended, Jehovah’s Witnesses carried on their ministry through letters, texting, social media, videoconferencing, and phone calls.
They only went back to public places such as Metropolitan public spaces, streets, business areas, bus stations, near tertiary institutions, prisons, and harbours on June 1.
At that time, house-to-house preaching remained suspended. “We enjoyed using virtual preaching methods in the past two years. One interesting thing we discovered is that we could study the Bible with interested individuals according to their availability such as early in the morning or late at night without having to physically visit them.
However, we are excited to go back to our trademark form of preaching,” said Jonah Pongaponga, national spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses. To ensure the safety of all those who will be participating in house-to-house witnessing and the people they meet, all Jehovah’s Witnesses have been encouraged to respect individual choices on social distancing and follow government regulations.
