Calling LadyLee a liar could of course have been a joke, intended as a praise because she performed so well, but because LadyLee did not master the language, it would be very difficult for her to understand it as a joke or praise, she would merely take it at face value. I speak four foreign languages and understand two more - but jokes or "double meanings" are generally the toughest to get.
Moving to where the need is great
by Lady Lee 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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greendawn
I didn't do it but a hated that phrase: in fact the need is great for the WTS corporation to make new victims by using existing victims, to deceive and exploit additional unwary persons.
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Balsam
I was one of those folks who moved a long way from home to preach in an area where the need was great. 3,000 miles across the USA.
I was born and raised in California and became a witness at age 20 and by 21 my JW husband and I moved to his home state of North Carolina. The need was great there but hey it was an adventure and I embraced it. We had no children then but was poorly prepared for the economic difference we would face there. Neither of us had any real job skills and no college because we both dropped out. I dropped out because of becoming a JW after all the end was coming it was 1972 when we made the move to preach. We did it all for Jehober or we thought was for God.
When we got to the small town where his parents lived in Asheboro there was one small congregation there and of course they embraced us. I didn't have to learn a foreign language but the difference of English in Calif. and NC was extremely different and hard to understand. So for a year I struggled with learning new slang words and trying to catch words from the thick southern accents of the deep south. By the way my husbands family were not JW we were the first JW's in either of our families to join the religion. Later on my mother, nephew joined and my then husband's sister became JW's. I vacationed pioneered (term they used then) off and on when I could working low paying jobs for $1.50 an hour back in the early 1970's. We scrapped by but the congregation was good to us and embraced us and didn't make me feel like an outsider. I came to love them all. We moved around to various congregations both of us taking turns to vacation pioneer every time we could. We got along financially but it was always a struggle and money was always tight and lived one week at a time.
My JW husband and I stayed married for 30 years and I've lived in this southern state now 34 years. We divorced and both of us have married other people. I've very happy now and out of the JW's of course. I ended up having my children born here in NC and I still live here now because they still live here. Now their grown we've thought of moving but its not practical considering the expense. I wouldn't want to return to Calif. My husband of 4 years is from Calif too but lived all over and both us know how to make anywhere home. My 2nd husband has never been a JW. We love Seattle, Washington where he lived for 11 years while after he retired from the military but too expensive to move there.
I remember those years of pioneering, I remember it being my dream to go into the full time pioneer work here. I am one of those rare witnesses that also loved the preaching work. Mostly I just loved listening to people's stories and they always welcomed me into their homes. I really believed in what I shared with them, it wasn't until I'd been a witness for 28 years that I ever questioned the JW policy over blood which eventually caused me to leave. I can't say my entire experience with JW was bad or unhappy, because most of the time I was proud and happy being a JW. It makes me laugh now at how nieve and ignorant I was. I was the perfect little witness, gullible, unquestioning, ready to obey.
Yes willing to move 3,000 miles from my home town to do God's work. I had to get to 50 years old to wake up. Today my 18 years old son says "Mom how could you have been so stupid to buy into that nonsense?" That is a good question and one I can't entirely answer. He is lucky he escaped by the time he was 15 yrs old because I opened the door to reason and left myself.
Balsam
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Lady Lee
Thanks for your interesting stories. Way too any people did this. One thing I thought was weird was people moving to Quebec "where the need was great" and other people moving out west to serve "where the need was great". They should have all stayed home and served the great need in their own area.
But the WTS puts a spin on it making people think they are doing something wonderful by moving away from "home" It's just one more way to isolate people
A few of you have commented on the elder's wife that called me a liar. It was no joke to her. She was angry anf I understood her very well. Don't forget my mother and grandmother spoke french regularly around the house. Understanding it wasn't the problem. What I discovered after being there a while was that she was an angry controlling woman who used her husband's position as elder to lord it over all the women in the cong. I think in the 1 1/2 years there we never spoke to each other again
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Nosferatu
The only decent friend I had in my cong had to move to where the need was great. He was two of the three kids that were still JWs. They had to learn spanish and move to Ecuador to serve where the need was great. My friend learned nothing but how corrupt the congs were down there, and was high on cocaine at most of the meetings he attended (along with many others). He also learned how slutty the Elders' daughters were.
I connected with him again a few years later, and he told me stories that would make your eyes pop out. Needless to say, he is no longer a JW.
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Bumble Bee
I knew several people that moved. Several moved to Quebec and atleast three others moved from Ontario to PEI. I also remember people spending their summer vacations in the Eastern Provinces (NS/NFLND) to cover territory that hadn't been done for a couple of years.
BB
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Jringe01
I heard of a lady who makes trips every year, $ permitting to Ramea and Grey River on the south coast of NFLD. In fact she goes so often that that territory was (and may still be) permanently assigned to her cong. She's on the southwestern tip of NS.
I knew of an elder and family who moved to our cong because they needed a PO.