Ten years later, where are they now? Youngsters moving to London where the ministry is more exciting

by truthseeker 13 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  truthseeker

  About 10-12 years ago, some of the young pioneers in my hall moved to London because they thought the ministry would be more exciting than the poorly supported field service groups in my sleep town in Sussex.

  I was thinking the other day what became of them. I know that one is now an elder and married, the other one I'm not so sure about.

  One of my relatives once said that the truth is more exciting in London, people are warmer, there's more opportunities for young witnesses.

  If you lived in the UK, perhaps in the South of England, was it a fad for some of the youth to move to London where they thought the ministry was more exciting? If so, do you know how they are doing now? Have they left or are they still in?

  Ten years can change a lot of people.

  Truthseeker
• 

  cantleave

  I think most young people in the various Southampton and Portsmouth congregations stayed in the area. I know some who moved to London for work purposes, but not for theo-crap-tic activities.
• 

  truthseeker

  Can'tLeave,

  Our field service groups were not well supported. We had about 2 regular pioneers at any one time. Our hall had a lot of youth but they were not generally interested in field service. We had two young brothers who were pioneering and a sister from London moved to our hall several years ago and sort of encouraged them to go up there. They moved shortly afterwards. It seemed to be the thing to do.

  Did you congregation have good attendance for the field service arrangements?
• 

  PrincessCynic

  I don't know any cases personally, probably because London is far too expensive for young pioneers. They tend to go to developing countries where they can live on a few hundred pounds a month and then come home to mummy and daddy when the money runs out.
• 

  Nambo

  1990 A trend started in the North Surrey congregation I was in to move just along the road to Croydon, it was considered that as it was far more multicultural, there would be a lot more quality ministry to do,

  I used to occasionally accompany a Pioneer on the field service there but do not recall the work being as good as our home congregation which being in a rich area, had a lot more housewives at home.

  As for friendlyness, I attended a meeting at Streatham which is predominantly black, they had someone playing a real piano and the singing was really hearty, afterwards a really friendly Latin family took us back to their house.

  I was more looking to move to Ireland for the work but then the oppurtunity confronted me to move to the grim North instead.

  Cannot say I know whats happened to them now though, I hardly see any Witnesses ever, being as I live well over 1/2 a mile away from 5 Kingdom halls, last I heard, a lot of the big personalities had left or "apostacised".
• 

  besty

  hi nambo we might know some people in common - send me a PM
• 

  cantleave

  Truth seeker - we had quite a few pioneers and well supported FS. But this was in the late 80's to early 90's.
• 

  WTWizard

  Here in the US, people tend to move to "where the need is greater". Usually, that means the rural areas in the south. I have seen too many witlesses move to places in the South, usually Kentucky or Tennessee. And they have wasted 2-week spells going to those places to place rags where there is "unassigned territory". That was the fad during the mid 1990s, when local field circus became unproductive.

  And yes, they do missionary work in third world countries. One pious couple I know had three of those stupid missions: One to Mexico City, one to the Dominican Republic, and one to South Africa. Each was about 6 months to a year. This was a complete waste of money and time--I wonder what they are going to do for retirement if they keep pxxxing away all their resources flying, selling their place, and moving around like that. Nigeria seems to be a popular destination, and based on the growth that dump is experiencing, it seems to be drawing Christian missionaries of all denominations like a magnet.
• 

  dozy

  Lets face it - English language ministry is a total waste of time so there is a trend for young pioneers to get involved in the city "foreign language field" where there is a degree of interest (albeit often very shallow) & more importantly a lot of other young JWs to hang out with.

  I see almost a Mormon style rite of passage amongst many younger JWs now - leave school early , faff around doing a bit of window cleaning or building work for a JW , pioneer for a couple of years until they get to Pioneer school , marry at about 20 / 21 , come off pioneering & get a fairly menial full time job ( male) / fall pregnant (female). It kind of ticks most of the boxes as far as keeping the parents & elders happy. If they can throw into the mix a few months having an extended holiday abroad in Central America or giving tracts to the Chinese waiters in the city high street on their day off then so much the better for JW CV purposes.
• 

  chicken little

  I moved to London area from up north when I was 18, I was in Middlesex at first, called the pioneer graveyard. I had a hard time as a young girl, only one old badtempered pioneer who thought working with me was meeting me at 5am to hand out watchtowers for 2 hours at the train station. UGGH!

  Moved to foriegn congregation in scandinavia for one year, totally fantastic experience where everything was cool, laidback and different. Of course it could not stay like that and eventually it became like all the rest but it did attract loads of young people who became pioneers there. Many stayed. I met my husband and we went back to London, to Brixton/Peckham/Southwark area and we pioneered there. Again I can say that it was very different, loads of studies and lots of pioneers. Now when I think back and can see that there was nothing else for the brothers and sisters, we lived in relative poverty and in awful housing and the meetings and service was their life and ours. We had people come down to try it, but I remember one sister from bethel was scared of our territory, she felt like she was in a missionary assignment when she went out with us.

  We moved back to scandinavia to help in the english circuit and were pioneers here, the numbers coming over tailed off before I left, but there were a lot joining spanish, chinese, arabic, turkish groups. We spent most of our time looking for names that just might indicate they spoke english. Waste of time.