Growing up my mother always told us "jehovah will provide." We didn't have a car, we pioneered and did our best. When I left school I pioneered full time with my mother and sister, we were a single parent family living on government benefits. My mum was always generous cooking a big meal for all the pioneers every Sunday...those were fun times. She also invited many brothers and Sisiters to dinner thinking this was "good association." I often wondered why almost none of these well off brothers invited as back to THERE HOME for dinner but I guess they were too busy with preaching and meetings, and morgages and car payments. I bought a cheap car after much window cleaning, and many a brother would park his new car in the shade and then get in my old run down, car for field service..Oh well. My mum the pillar of our congregation, she invited two pioneer brothers to live with us in their mobile home. They stayed a few years, and even though we were poor used our phone alot, and power without ever offering to contribute. They taught me a valuble lesson in Watchtower politics. These were the most arrogant, rude, two-faced brothers, I have ever seen. The congregation helped them financially buying them a used car with free machanical services by a brother. When they moved on the congregation gave them a generous amount of money. A year later we decided to move where the need is greater...the congregation gave us nothing except a nice card...oh well. Decades later I ve become in-acitive, I"ve paid off my house and new car and am planning a family at a late 36 years old {thanks to Armagedon not coming very pissed off!!} I have a great career and am well respected at work. For the first time I'm STARTING to feel good about my self...sometimes I look back in dis-belief at my former life.
Witnesses = Too busy preaching to care for "widows and orphans" in cong!!
by Witness 007 10 Replies latest jw experiences
-
-
JWdaughter
I have also seen that love in action. Basic doctrine and teachings aside, they messed up on the most important messages we were given. The 1st commandment they can justify in their way, but they totally blow it on the second one. And pure religion? After all their going on about the 'works' mentioned in James, they clearly missed the entire message. The works in James were the works that are the fruitages of the spirit, the works mentioned elsewhere (as being of no worth)were the works of the law. They totally blow the most important (IMO) message that Jesus had for living on THIS earth as a human being. To care for others, whether it benefits us or not. Whether we know them or not. Whether they are our RELIGION or not (Good samaritan!). They lost all the really good lessons of Jesus about living with his love. That is so sad, because our understanding is not what makes God pleased with us, knowing the right theology-even in the bible, Jesus pointed out to th pharisees how they strained gnats and swallowed camels. And that is exactly what the entire religion of the WT is about. They are "Camel Swallowers".
Shelly
-
momzcrazy
This very thing is part of what drove my sister away. Growing up we did look after "orphans and widows", that is one of the few good things about my childhood. We had a young family live with us to hide from an abusive dad, and we always had a pantry stocked for single families. And we helped them fix things around the house or yard. I guess my dad's childhood of a fatherless family of 8 kids helped in a way.
My sister has lived on her own since she was 16. She's 30 now. 4 years ago she married an older elder in our hall. Soon after he proposed they found out he had cancer, she married him anyway. She said later she didn't want to get married per say, but wanted to be with him. This man was the most caring elder in the hall. While carrying his chemo pack he worked on their new hall, went in service, took young brothers and sisters fishing, to the movies, etc. He was conducting book study the week before he died. The day before he died he wanted all the brothers to come over, so he could make sure everything was taken care of.
It has been a year since he died. My sister cared for him in his last minutes. Now she is single with a POS house, that he redug sewer pipe with the chemo pack on, BTW. She ASKED the elders for help. She TOLD them she was lonely. No one was there for her. Now that it's been a month and she missed the CO visit and assembly, now they are calling. For a person who spent her whole life caring for others, that was the last straw.
She now has a girlfriend and will not speak to the elders. I'm almost glad they treated her this way though, it helped her escape. There is no "love among themselves".
momz
-
LongHairGal
Witness 007,
I know they are not interested in widows and orphans - except what they can get from them as you have experienced. It is a shame that those pioneer brothers exploited you and made no attempt to repay. This is a very exploitve organization that preys on gullibility and the illusion of a 'brotherhood' to get people to open up their homes. It also very telling that certain more affluent brothers didn't extend hospitality.
This is a typical scenario that plays out all over the witness world no matter what country you are in. There are those who are generous and giving and every user and taker will find them.
I knew of a similar situation where there was a needy but generous family. Those were the type of people I would help. Who would I NOT help? Those who deliberately lived on the edge and expected people to give them things. I see you were a single parent family with children living on government benefits so you didn't have much but yet you were generous with what you did have.
LHG
-
avidbiblereader
James 1:27 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
So what does this tell us? If this looking after widows and orphans is pure and acceptable to Him, then not doing it is----What? Yes it is that easy to identify!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
abr
-
changeling
I'm glad you are doing well 007. Dwell on the positive and be glad you are "out".
changeling
-
WTWizard
They not only don't care for orphans and widows, but they are sowing serious problems for them. The directive to not go to college is going to sow a lot of poverty among the "brothers". They are going to reap a bumper crop of people in their 70s and later that are having a hard time making ends meet, and many will end up on the streets or dead because of their harebrained policies. While Ted Jaracz is living high on the hog.
I have seen an example of this kind of activity in my Kingdumb Hell before I went apostate. One of the hounders was already working a job that paid borderline. The family was borderline poor to begin with. So, they cut out cable TV (saving around $40 a month at best, plus dispensing with whatever entertainment and education they could have had from it). The father cut back his hours at work to part time, also cutting back on his income. The whole family (including two grown children) are pioneers living on part time jobs.
This is going to lead to disaster. When the parents reach retirement, they are going to have nothing saved. Plus, they are going to find their Social Security benefits quite tiny because of cutting back on income. By then, it will be too late to do anything about it. Their health isn't the best either (the mother has diabetes in the family, and the father lost his own father to heart disease in his early 40s). When they get old, they are going to be the "orphans and widows" in dire need because of cutting back to do more for the Watchtower Society!
And, when that happens, I am not going to give them a penny. Why? Because this is the very same hounder that told me to just meet men at the a$$emblies! That is not the way to win my sympathy when they run into need. Besides, they brought this condition down on themselves. I didn't hound them to cut back on their material things to make room for pioneering. Also, I know that the money would be used for gas in field circus, plus a portion would be donated to the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund box at the back of the Kingdumb Hell. As a Witless, they denounced giving to the homeless on the grounds that a portion of it would be to buy cigarettes. So, I am going to apply that very principle and not give to them because a portion would be used in something I don't believe in.
-
Witness 007
The two brothers that used us, both became sick and gave up pioneering after 15 years of service. I heard the last congregation they were at bought them a newer car when one of them hurt their hand. They visited me at our new assignment and boasted asking: "What car are you driving now?" I still had the same old bomb. Most of my pioneer friends are, 15 years later either sick, disfellowshiped or very dis-satisfied and quit.
-
sspo
I'm very happy for you and that your life turned around and it was not with the help of the watchtower or the "blessing of jehovah"
-
mathilde
Yes, it´s so true what you tell there.
Strange, that it seems to be the same all over the world...it tells a lot about them doesn´t it?
When I was still in- I was alone with 2 boys-doing okay-saving every penny to send the youngest to a private school because I want him to get a good education.
But my house was always open for the "friends" and every summer I had the complete cong over for a party as I had the biggest garden.And they loved to come and enjoy themselves.In FS I would take the old bro´s and sis´in my car because the others already "had made plans who to work with". I would also often pop in at the old people in the cong and do some shopping,bring medicine or drive them to the doctor or so.Not many others helped them, no, they were in FS preaching about the love among God´s true people!
But never,truely never,has a brother helped me when there was something wrong with my car or if I needed a hand with something practical around the house...yet when bro x was building a new house they all helped there...or they would help each other with other things.
I was thinking that it might be because the JW´s are so paranoia about sex andthat their thought was that a single sister might just jump their bones and demand hot sex here and now....lol
I saw the old sisters,lonely and forgotten-the"loving" JW´s complaining when they had to pick them up to come to the hall or for FS-these old ladies who had been faithfull most of their lives,one even had the KH at her house and later donated the land on wich my old cong is built.another used to babysit for all the sisters in the cong so they could attend FS- now they were just a burden.
And I was thinking,jeeezzz is this MY future too?
Then, at a little come together a sis asked my son: well M.what are you going to do when you have finished your posh school?
And he smiled and said:well sis X ,I´ll go to a posh university,get me a posh degree and live a nice posh life.
You could cut the silence.
Then she looked at me and asked: do you agree with that?
Me: yes of course, why do you think I work so hard and pay for that school? Why should every JW become a window cleaner?Why should M let his intelligence go to waste?When I was young I was told not to have an education because the big A was just around the corner- and here I am today, struggeling on my own-do you realy think I want this for any of my children? no no no my son is going to study anything he wants.
And the woman said: well my dear, then you are not a strong JW.
She was right.
Mathilde