Over the 40 years I was a JW believe me there were plenty of odd people like;
The young 20ish schizophrenic brother who tried so hard to be pleasing to Jah, studied, commented, was regular in field service, had regular parts on the service meeting as well as in the Ministry School. All of this while living with his mental illness and a house full of very dysfunctional people, parents and too many siblings to count.
One night he had the Bible reading which was not given first thing as is regularly scheduled but postponed until last talk. He gets up on the platform and apologized the the Congregation for being late and said it was due to his just getting out of the hospital minutes before because he tried to poke his eye out. He had a bandage on his forehead.....sadly enough many in the audience began to laugh. I have a sister who has this same mental illness, I didn't find it funny.
I always was amazed by his dedication and zeal for Jah, something which I felt lacking in myself and would many times wonder why a mentally ill person could do it and I couldn't.
Then there was this young married couple who were both mentally challenged and who found such delight in the simplest of things but had a hard time fitting in with other young couples in the congregation. Many of the older couples took them under their wing. They were cute, strange but very sincerely in love and sincere about their service to Jah. I once again found them to come up to the standards of serving Jah in ways I felt lacking. I also wondered how a (excuse the term) but a retarded couple could be so happily married with all the struggles that goes with marriage and I was so called normal and very unhappily married. I envied them.
Then we had a sister who's parents survived the concentration camps in Germany, he mother was a militant and literally snuck herself her daughter and a son into the US. They lived with meager means. The sister lived as a street person back in the 60's and had very little to call her own. Somehow she got hooked up with the JW's and they really helped her out, but her Mother disowned her due to becoming a JW.
She moved away from her Mother and ended up in our congregation. She married a nice guy (brother) and they had one boy. She was notorious for going to the swap meet in town and the town dump where she got most if not all of the furnishings for her home which btw was beautiful. You could never give her a complement about what she was wearing or anything with out her saying; "I bought it for a quarter at the swap meet, thrift store or found it at the dump." In her heavy German accent which was mocked by most all the JW's in the congregation behind her back, myself included, it became a joke.
Her husband had a good business and did well and she invested all their money in property to this day she is a millionaire, takes care of elderly people and sad to say he husband (who btw left the b'org) was murdered by some druggie while trying to get the rent from him.
I grew to love her she was a very humble person, kind and giving and really cared nothing about what others thought of her weirdness, she knew where she came from and was very proud of her achievements. I got to where I stuck up for her when others (JW's) would start mocking her.
I could go on and on here newboy with the strange and weird ones I got to know over the many years as a JW. My point is I used to think of the different ones as weird and shamefully before I knew better I used to join in making fun of them. I went through a very tough time and learned a lot about human nature, myself and what makes us tick and began to see the "nut jobs" differently and put myself out there and got to know them. Most people are damaged goods, we all are to some extent I know I am but now I try not to judge them and see their strangeness more as a response to the trials in their lives.
I know your purpose with this thread wasn't to make fun of people and I don't mean to put a damper on the thread. This is just my intorspection so to speak about what I've learned from a few "nut jobs" I've know in the B'org. Whos to say they are the nutters anyway? LOL
