JW video about Katrina relief

by zagor 42 Replies latest social entertainment

• 

  jeeprube

  Wow, that is truly admirable of them, and how humble for a brother to put the video up on the internet. Has anyone been able to find a similar video from another religous group?

  And custom built crates as well? I am so impressed! Looks like all that free labor on quick builds is paying off!

  Just some quick math on the 525 pallets measuring 4' x 4' x 6' (so proudly presented in the video).

  4' x 4' x 6' = 96 cubic feet.

  96 cubic feet multiplied by 525 pallets = 50,400 cubic feet. That's a lot of goods, right? Let's put that in some perspective.......

  Assuming an average transport trailor pulled by a big rig measures 50' x 8' x 8' (That is a pure guess on my part, and I'm guessing low. Maybe someone else has an average measurement?) One tractor trailor rig could haul approx. 3200 cubic feet of goods (or in this case custom built JW crates).

  50,400 divided by 3200 = 15.75. So the JW's sent 16 tractor trailor loads of help to a distastor that affected the lives of millions? Then had the nerve to brag about it? I wonder how much of that cornacopia of aid reached non-JW's?

  I bet the churches in my local town sent more aid in the first two weeks of the disastor, let alone the rest across the nation.

  I would think that a worlwide organization with membership in the millions, and in control of millions of dollars, could do better than that!
• 

  jeeprube

  Oh my God.............."In paradise there will be one size of can and jar"........................I'm puking right now!
• 

  rebel8

  As long as we're discussing the topic of humanitarianism again, let's not forget that only active JWs are allowed to avail themselves of any reliefs provided at the assembly halls. Correct me if I'm wrong. This guy also used Kingdom Melodies without the WTS' permission--big risk.

  Just to point out the obvious, you can easily get the webmaster's contact info by going to www.whois.com and doing a domain lookup of www.studiomiguel.com. Then click on "whois lookup" and viola. His name, address, phone, fax, and email address are there.
• 

  stillAwitness

  572,739 pounds of what?

  Food? Nope.

  Water? Not even close.

  Candy? I wish.

  Of stuff! WOW! Stuff! Yeah, mommy, we're saved! We're saved! We got stuff!

  Yeah, I'm being a little cynical.
• 

  rebel8

  I wonder why they made an effort to weigh and inventory everything. What would be the point of that except to brag about it later?
• 

  Quotes

  Rebel, I was wondering the same thing: they sure are taking a lot of precious time to "organize and categorize the water bottles".
  
  I don't want to ignore that an effort was made here, but...
  
  According to this video, the first relief trucks left Denton (Texas?) on September 26 after four days of work.
  
  Hurricane Katrina struck Florida on August 25, and the Gulf Coast on August 29 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina for reference).
  
  I wonder, if I was waiting for food and water, I would have "meekly and happily" awaited on Jehovah's swift chariot for almost one entire month while bottles were sorted and organized, and detailed per-crate inventories were prepared. (Wow! Per Crate!!!???!!! Amazing!!! I'm glad I waited for extra days for THAT!!!!)
  
  As I typed the above, I figured something out: I was wondering why they didn't just shove everything together as fast as possible into trucks and start shipping the same day? (i.e. as soon as one truck is filled, send it, and start filling the 2nd with whatever supplies arrive)? Why did they delay, with 4 days of "organization and categorization" of bottle and can size?
  
  I suspect the reason is because they would deliver a crate or two to each afflicted Kingdom Hall only, and bypass the normal emergency supply channels. I mean, think about it. If you just want to get your relief supplies into the system, you hand them over to the Red Cross, or FEMA, and it goes to the normal distribution points. You don't need to pre-sort. But if you plan to create your own distribution points, and you want to make sure that location/congregation "A" doesn't just get a truck full of water, and location/congregation "B" doesn't just get a truck full of creamed corn, you have to pre-sort before you ship. That way, everyone receieves a crate with a wide assortment of necessities.
  
  In other words, this video contains circumstantial proof of the "Only Take Care of our Brothers & Sisters" policy. Oh, and hopefully Caesar can take care of our Bros and Sis for the first four weeks while we try organize relief for a disaster which everyone had known about a week before it arrived, 'cause Jehovah's Swift Chariot is 3 weeks slower than Caesar's already sluggish FEMA.
• 

  zagor

  According to this video, the first relief trucks left Denton (Texas?) on September 26 after four days of work.
  
  Hurricane Katrina struck Florida on August 25, and the Gulf Coast on August 29 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina for reference).
  
  I wonder, if I was waiting for food and water, I would have "meekly and happily" awaited on Jehovah's swift chariot for almost one entire month while bottles were sorted and organized, and detailed per-crate inventories were prepared. (Wow! Per Crate!!!???!!! Amazing!!! I'm glad I waited for extra days for THAT!!!!)

  Quotes, thanks for that. I didn't even notice it until you've said it. When you think about it, Bush is criticized by entire world for being late 4 days while WTBS has luxury of arriving late an entire month. Hypothetically speaking, if something on the scale or Armageddon really struck the earth WTBS would be ready to respond in matter of few decades I guess.
• 

  Gopher

  The subject line of this thread (Katrina relief) does not match the caption on the video, "Hurricane Rita Relief, September 23-25, 2005".

  If this truly was a response to hurricane Katrina, then indeed they were a month late. Rita arrived about September 23.

  The JW's couldn't actually have known the extent of what Rita would do and where help would be needed until AFTER the September 23-25 timeframe. So were they actually moving in fast speed as hurricane Rita arrived? Or is the video mislabelled?

  On another note: I see that the video is artificially speeded up. Since we all remember that "Jehovah himself would speed up the work of his people", JW's are not his people! They need to be sped up by video!
• 

  wednesday

  I thought it said hurricane Rita relief
• 

  willyloman

  After the tsunami, I heard 2 ministerial servants say, "the great thing is, there were no witnesses involved so we don't have to send any aid"

  Which explains why, when Katrina hit, the WTS instructed JWs to make relief checks out to 'the world wide work" (code for JW headquarters) rather than earmarking it for hurricane relief. The explanation was that this would allow the brothers in Brooklyn to determine where it ought to go.

  Of course, putting the money into a fund long ago established to cover the society's expenses is expeditious, but it raises a question about whether the money goes where the donor intended. If, for example, the Red Cross asked people who donated money to Katrina victims to "just make the check out to Red Cross Operations and we'll sort it out," the public would raise hell.