We know an out of state couple, (early 40's) who have been jw's for most of their lives. I'll call them Dave and Kathy.
When they got married 15 years ago, kathy was a hard worker who did this religion mainly to keep her parents happy ( Dad was the PO).
Dave was starting his own business, he never held a real job in his life, and he was pretty zealous for the jw way of life.
Over the years they had their ups and downs, but around 5 years ago they both stopped attending the meetings, and were doing a textbook "fade". We would hear from them about every 2-3 months, and his business seemed to be doing well, Kathy was a stay at home wife who worked pt at home doing computer work. Two years ago they had an opportunity to buy an older house but because he was self-employed they were having trouble with the mortgage. It was some kind of a special deal, the owner was an older lady who wanted to sell the house, and since Dave and Kathy were starting out, she did them a favor. So my wife and I sent them $500 to help them get the house. Dave was extremely thankful, saying that he would pay us back as soon as everything was completed and his business picked up. (Never saw a penny of that money),,
Two years later, ( we hardly heard from them during this time,) Dave calls my wife out of the blue last night saying, " I have some good news, and some bad news". OK, start with the bad..... It seems that he has not paid his mortgage in 9 months, and the owners family is going to evict them next week. He needs $7000.00 to get everything current.
My wife was speechless, she told him no, we could not spare that kind of money ( no doubt we would never see it again)! And after prodding her for 20 minutes he finally gave up and said " well, here is the good news". It seems that he has returned to the kingdom hall, and has signed up for the theocratic school. He said that the brother he is studying with told him that " because you (Dave) have started to put jeh. first in your life again, satan is working double-time to discourage you. Just keep attending meetings, and putting god first and everything will work out"
My first reaction after hearing this was,, why not get a JOB and take responsibility for your own debt, instead of taking the easy jw way out..
And to top it off, his wife Kathy is considering leaving him because of all this nonsense. And the way I see it, she will be the bad person because she does not go to meetings. So because of not putting god first as the wt states, she will be punished .
By returning to the wt, he will not feel obligated to handle his own self-made problems. And what kind of a man calls a woman ( my wife, he knows both of us together) and asks for $7000, why not call me ?
To me this seems like an unrealistic situation all around, and it is made worse because of the jw "put the kingdom first" mentality.