I have not told this sad story on the board of an elder who shunned his son. It breaks my heart to even think of.
This elder had only one child who he loved more then life itself, those were his own words after his son died. His wife in the truth left him when the boy was three and so this brother remarried a very strong willed sister. He was an MS then quickly appointed an elder most of the boys childhood. By this elders own admission he gave up huge amonts of time with the boy to be an elder huge amounts of the boy's childhood to do his elder things leaving his child without his father. I am trying to make a point here that elders give up their faimilies when they become elders.
The boy grows up and his parents push him to become a MS, pioneer, and go to MS training shcool which he did apply for they found the paper work after he died but he never turned them in as he got DF'ed.
They cut him out of their live as much as the father could bear. He loved his son and did not want too but the step-mom kept reminding the father that if he loved the son he would follow what the FS said to do and not have contact.
The boy had no one and was suffering huge depression. This is when I first met the family as they moved into my hall from another state and I learned all of this. They kept a small amount of contact with the boy I think the elder tryed to have more but the step-mom did not like it.
The boy started to date a (gasp) worldly girl and the step-mom flew down to put a stop to it. She explained to me that she told him when he came back to Jehovah what would the elders think. The boy also had (gasp) worldly friends.
So anyway he got on his motorcycle one night and crashed into a minvan, he was not wearing a helment. He died at the seen.
The hugly sad thing is that I had just had the parents over for dinner just a little over a month before. The mom was telling me standing in my kitchen how the son had just called that week and wanted to speak to his elder father about buying a truck. The step-mom had stopped him and said step-son are you coming back to Jehovah? He studdered and said can I just speak to dad. The step-mom said to him 'son not until you come back to Jehovah and hung up on him.' As far as I know those were the last words the family spoke to him.
After he died the step-mom told me that her husband had wanted to let the son move back home but she reminded her elder husband that he would be disloyal to Jehovah if he did. If the father had let him move home he might still be alive today.
Yet this same elder body that this father is on allows child molesters to go out in service alone, hold children and no parent is allowed to know in the hall. In fact just last year at the last meeting I attended the dad was trying to encourage me to come back. I told him louldy not with all the baby rapists in this hall. He counsled me on my attutide and told me that he loves both my husband and I but that he also loves the child molesters as we do not know if they are still molesting and we have to give them the benfit of the doubt.
OMG
LITS