5 Tennessee Elders die in plane crash

by Nathan Natas 64 Replies latest jw friends

  • Honesty
    Honesty
    Who owned the plane?

    I would venture to say Terry Ketron except that he moved to Arizona a couple of years ago on account of his wife's allergies.

    This hits close to home. I used to be in a congregation in the adjacent county. I knew Bob and Marlene Burpitt. (As an aside, Bob was and probably still is a gifted pianist, and, I think a phi beta kappa - and still a dub!? Sandra

    Sandra, Robert retired from Eastman Kodak about 5 years ago and is now devoting wasting his life in full time service to the cult.

  • tnangel73
    tnangel73

    Wow. My heart goes out to their families and loved ones.

  • Mary
    Mary

    That really sucks.....despite the crazy beliefs of the religion, this was 5 humans who died and that is a tradegy......I think those small single engine planes are very scary and I'd never go up in one myself.......Now there are 5 families who have to face life without husbands and fathers (assuming these guys were married).

  • willyloman
    willyloman

    Not to be insensitive or anything, but the irony is that these guys died because they were working on a make-work project. U.S. congos don't really need more KHs, the building campaign is now based on zero growth and designed primarily to create the illusion that they are still growing.

    Sure, I bleed for the families and my heart goes out to anyone hurt by this senseless tragedy. But it was senseless. They didn't need to be there.

    The silver lining here is that some dub in one of those congos, who has been having doubts, will have his belief system completely shaken by the fact that five elders on "a mission from God" did not merit His promised protection.

    And what comfort will the poor dubs get at the upcoming memorial? At least if they were church-goers, they could get some solace in the illusion that God called them home for a higher purpose.

  • horrible life
    horrible life

    My first thoughts were, that these men, just like my dad, not only have job of 40+ hours a week, give talks, have to stay late on all meeting nights, and get called out all of the time for Judicial meetings, and people just needing to talk.

    To top off all of this, they have the added obligation, of being on a building committee, that took their lives. The families had already given up time spent with them. Children, wives, household projects, had already been given up. All to NYC.

    I am sure the Society, has a great compensation program to the widows. They couldn't take anymore from the families, could they? I bet a couple of them had wives that pioneered. When they have to quit pioneering to support their children, the elders will make a shepherding call.

    These good men, gave up everything. The Watchtower, can ask no more.

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW

    Horrible Life..The ugly truth is..The WBT$ will turn this into a "WBT$ Advertising Campaign" for every Jehovah`s Witness to do MORE!.....The funerals will be "WBT$ Infomercials".....The WBT$ will milk this for all it`s worth....1 Dead Jehovah`s Witness is worth 1,000 live ones in WBT$ Advertising.....There are 5 dead Jehovah`s Witness`s in this tragedy..The WBT$ will not let this opportunity go by...OUTLAW

  • TJ - iAmCleared2Land
    TJ - iAmCleared2Land

    Hortensia said:

    small planes are dangerous

    I fly "small planes" for Angel Flight and for fun. Small planes, well maintained and flown responsibly, are not dangerous. Crashing is dangerous. :-)

    Learn more about the good that General Aviation (aka "small planes") does for your community... it's not "just a rich boys sport" as many think.

    http://www.GAServingAmerica.org

  • ronin1
    ronin1

    This is truly sad.

    I and my husband were on the building committees for 10 years and the time, expense and, energies we gave up to help the WT build these KH's cannot even be measured.

    Because of what they believed, these ones gave their lives fully and now they are gone.

    I agree with another's post that these loss of lives were unnecessary. There are many congregations that are so small now, and yet the WT is splitting to make it look like they are growing and continues to build KHs. This is true of a cong here in Boynton Beach FL that we visited two weeks ago. The brothers and sisters were trying to sell us to coming to their cong because they had split and the cong attendence was under 100 persons. (go figure).

    I can only hope and believe that Jah will not forget these brothers and will bless their remaining loved ones.................

  • Nathan Natas
  • sass_my_frass

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