Hi all! Just thought I'd share this experience I had on Christmas. You could call it my first Christmas gift, although my uncle surely didn't see it that way...
My JW uncle (let's call him... Mike) is a very, very nice guy. I always admired him for his charisma, youthfulness, and style. Very nice guy. He was also, get this, once a missionary in Africa. This guy is a JW, but man, is he cool. Well, he was over visiting us on Christmas with his wife and we were having our dinner at my other uncle's place. Anyhoo, Mike wanted me to check out some stuff on the internet (windows service packs, etc.) so we went together at my place.
Let's just say we didn't just surf the internet. We had a very interesting and upbuilding conversation about my present beliefs and attitudes towards the JW beliefs. We started talking about the blood issue. To my surprise, he agreed with me that the WT had made mistakes on that issue. I mentioned other things like the vaccinations, organ transplants, and some other issues. Occasionnally he smiled and nodded, agreeing with my doubts.
I then talked about how the members of my ex-congregation treated me now, although I was only a publisher, never baptised. To put it bluntly, most of them treat me like a pile of warm, steaming sh!t. That's how I told it to my uncle. I was perfectly honest, because I wanted some honest answers. And he gave me one. He basically told me those congregation members were dumb, that they shouldn't do that. (another victory for me...)
The discussion basically ended with him... get this... encouraging me to continue questioning my ex-beliefs, and putting them to the test. Of course, the result would be, according to him, that I'd probably come back (to which I said the chances would be small) but it still seemed like a shocking thing to say. Imagine, I had the encouragement of a JW who was once a missionary and, I think, once an elder (or still is...). whoah... He congratulated me on my courage, and basically said "go for it". He actually mentioned Einstein's words, "Question everything."! (I, myself had said these same words to an elder I had chatted with earlier, but the elder said Einstein was only talking about science. My uncle, upon hearing that, said the elder was dumb.)
So here I am, with a JW supporting me on my journey. I never thought it would come to this. I guess there are exceptions to every rule.
Best wishes to all!!!