‘Whoever becomes ashamed of me and my words, I will also be ashamed of him.’—Mark 8:38.

On
my first day in this University I transferred to juz recently as an
International Relations student, I had the opportunity to present
myself as one of Jehovah’s witnesses. Not long after my first day, I
became faced with individuals that talked about unwholesome discussions
of sexual matters and curse almost every time they open their mouths.
It takes real determination to ‘restrain one’s self’ especially when
other youths are telling dirty jokes or using obscene languages to
describe sexual activities. Whatsmore, to remain morally clean, we
need to strive to keep mentally clean and in order to do that we need
to be careful about what we listen to with our ears.

However,
the courage to let my classmates know that I was one of Jehovah’s
witness NOT only protected me from many of the dangers of being around
students that appear to have adopted this so-called "new morality."
It ALSO made it a lot easier for me to to speak up and let others know why I
cannot join in with them. This way I was less at risk of having to face
temptation and inturn do something that may compromise my faith and
bring me a troubled conscience. Eventually, it also made it possible
for me to carry further with giving a witness to them. In most cases,
this calls for one to be teased or mocked simply for remaining upright
and clean. Some would even call me primitive or old fashioned, even
‘boring’ to hang out with. Nevertheless, a lot of the students that
know I’m a Witness, respected me more. Fortunately enough, I didn’t
have to go through much hostility because a lot of them are familiar
with JW’s and their activity. In fact, in the end,one of our scholars
and representative of BSIR Students’ Counsel who’ve pretty much gone
out of the country commented that: ‘’Out of all the people he’d met, I sounded different… I was different….’’
I began to feel proud of all the challenges I had to go through then. I
knew I’ve stuck with Jehovah for the purpose of keeping His Word and
Commandments. I made a stand in maintaining his high moral standards
and with that made Jehovah’s heart rejoice.

Having the courage to be different brought me blessings both spiritually and morally… I had no regrets, so should YOU.