Going out with a bang (page 18)

vitty

Where can I read or listen to you talk ???????

JWdaughter

WOW, you did what many of us only fantasize about! You are SO the bomb. I wish I could just go to Scotland and hug you.

LittleToe

Vitty:http://www.angelfire.com/trek/littletoe/Profile.html

Ian:
I guess I should have updated this thread properly, since it's the one that get's bttt'd. It's a bit like a blog of my DAing experience and the way ramifications roll on.

DAed: Sunday 6 Jan 2002. The meeting had started at 10:30am, and I had exited the building by about 11am.

Maritally (to a beautiful and hard-working woman and Pioneer):

Married: April 1993
Separated: Oct 2003
Divorced: Dec 2005

I was a third generation JW and the eldest of four children:

All four of my grandparents (who were the original members of the family to join the JWs) had died before I DAed.
My parents are both living, and shunned me totally for the first 15 months, but now occasionally contact me on grounds of "necessary family business".
My nearest age sibling is an Elder on another island and hasn't spoken to me since that week.
My sister left the JWs before I did and has a husband and two boys. They moved back home to this island in April, so I get to see my wee nephews as often as I want.
My youngest brother married a non-JW, got taken off as a MS and eventually moved away to England.
I've not been in contact with any of my extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins - except one uncle who was DFed in the 70s due to the change in the smoking policy, and his children.

I have recovered relationships with wider family, who were never JWs, though. Providentially the church I often attend is the one my maternal Grandfather and my Mother were raised in, before that part of the family became JWs.

For quite a while I never saw any of the old congregation, but this last year I seem to be bumping into one or the other of them about every other week. Of course I get shunned, but that just reinforces the amazement of my friends who see the behaviour first-hand. They find it hard to believe, whereas previously they found it impossible to believe.

A small number of my JW acquaintences have subsequently left the WTS, but I can't go into any details. I'm sure you'll appreciate my concern over confidentiality, in that regard.

vitty

How many JWs live on your island ?????

LittleToe

Vitty:It fluctuates and near halved in the first couple of years after I left. I understand that it's around a few dozen now. It has never lacked for Regular Pioneers, though, peaking at 9.

This is a very religious area and one that many viewed as a place to "move where the need is great". The reality of the matter is that less than a handful (i.e. less than five) of local people have become JWs since my Grandfather, for all the WTS efforts. There's no lack of literature placements and doctrinal discussions, especially on the Trinity and Hellfire, but it burns JWs out due to the lack of results.

Meanwhile I do my part to educate people at to the realities of the WTS, and hope that it retains it's "greater need" status so that the WTS wastes more of it's paper/people resources. Bring it on, I say!

slimboyfat

How thoroughly weird to hear you talk in such an apostate fashion about Stornoway Ross.

Sometimes I think that was all just a strange dream and you will return to the truth. Might that never happen Ross?

I have a relative who was in the audience, and she did not see the punch line coming.

But when I listen to it I cannot believe that Ken did not stand up in the middle of it and interrupt you. What were they thinking?

Slim

MinisterAmos

ttt

free2beme

Never seen this before, and I must say, that is the best example of an exit I have heard of. Thanks for sharing!

Crumpet

But back to the big question by the little toe himself - does he look like an elf?

Nah - a faerie maybe!

I might have a relisten to this talk - was thinking as i passed the newly refurbished baptist church in our village - i miss listening to talks/sermons a bit - just the soothingness of them. Thats weird, but maybe I always look for a new crutch when I lose an old one...

LittleToe

SBF:Re-read the first page and you'll see the answers to all three of your quesations. Ken was the PO, the "truth" is not an organisation, and WTF more would I have needed to have done on stage for you to have got the point that I was "apostate" by their definition?

I love Christ unreservedly. That immediately puts any alternative "truth" or organisation in the shade...

Going out with a bang

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