Did you see any sad living conditions in Field Service...?

by Casper 37 Replies latest jw friends

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  momzcrazy

  In our territory growing up we had several Laos and Vietnemese immigrants, this was in the 80's. You would go into the run down apartment buildings and smell fish and dirty bodies. Several families would be living in one apartment, with no furniture but mats and rugs on the floor to sleep on.

  A good friend of mine had a BS with a mom who had 4 kids. Her apartment was filthy and stank to high heaven! We all went over there on a Saturday after service and spent all afternoon cleaning. It amazes me now that I have 3 kids and a HUGE house that she couldn't keep up with a little apartment.

  Here in TN on back roads we would see shacks with no running water or electricity. The only heat would be the wood burning stove, and light came from lanterns. These poor people actually lived like people did 200 years ago! Even so far as washing clothes on washboards and hanging them on lines to dry. Poor little dirty kids with runny noses and non stop coughs.

  momz
• 

  llbh

  We have some local authority housing in our town and some of it is very unkempt. I just do not get why it is not well looked after. My parents were both poor yet always scroupulously clean. Sadly alot ot he local JW's live on thid estate too

  Regards

  David
• 

  buffalosrfree

  I haven't had the kind of experiences of seeing houses that were in too bad of shape, but one place that was completely dirty, yard a mess (make a redneck blush), the bedrooms were at best trashed, dirty clothes everywhere. But what was the icing on the cake so to speak was that it was a Brother and Sisters house. They lived in filfth, we never ever went back there. And to top it off, the brother was perplexed that when he offered his house up for the book study, that no one wanted to go.
• 

  Casper

  Goodness, those are some very moving experiences....that we've all shared.

  I never could bring myself to ask for money (at the time) and later a donation from these people...I just gave them the literature. They needed the money a lot more than the WTS. I guess in reality they didn't have it to give anyway.

  Cas
• 

  serendipity

  In East Texas, in late 70's, saw an old couple living in old log cabin, dirt floors, old-fashioned hand pump for water, no electricity, just kerosene lanterns and a wood stove. Bathroom facilities were out back. Not sure what they did for baths.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  I saw many very poor homes.

  I preached in Spanish in the US.

  We would go out to the farm labor camps. Illegal immigrant labor. Dirt poor. Illiterate. Rusted clusters of trailers. Mostly Chiapans.

  Very poor.

  This was in the January-April time frame, when there are harvests down here. Corn, tomatos, etc. The migrants would start heading north after that, springtime crops being planted and the local farms would shut down.

  We once pulled up and they took off running from the complex. They saw us in ties coming out of a Ford and thought we were immigration enforcement.

  A retarded bro would get on the labor bus and place a hundred magazines.

  I was no stranger to poverty and filth in service, even in town. I remember homes crawling with roaches and filthy barefoot children. Daddy had a nice new Ford pickup though.

  A lot of bros would not preach those places. I loved to. These were truly needy people! These men were far from home and were sending money to keep their families alive in Mexico and Guatemala. I gave them lessons on reading and writing. I started borrowing a big green club van and would bring more than a dozen of these migrants to the KH. Gas was killer in that thing and we were a bit po' ourselves at the time. The migrants started calling it (the van) "el tomate verde". I used to pull up on Sundays to pick them up, and go into town. After KH I would take them to the supermarket so they could buy their needs. Some of the bros would look askance at these poor dark-skinned people. >:-o

  God's little sheep.

  Burn
• 

  Dorktacular

  I saw quite a bit of poverty in the areas I worked out in field service, particularly among the elderly. But, you know what? I worked in some pretty affluent areas as well and a lot of those people lived like absolute animals. There was no excuse for that. They just were lazy and filthy. I always felt bad for the old people. Sometimes, rather than talking their ears off about the Watchtower magazine, I'd go inside and help them out with things around the house for a while. As far as anybody knew, I was on a return visit with someone. I made up my mind from a young age that I didn't want to end up old and poor like that, just waiting to die. When I'm old I want to be taken care of.
• 

  Casper

  Wow.... Burn and Dorktacular....

  The kindness you both had shown to these people is amazing.

  Cas