Hello Pickler!
I really appreciate you taking the time to keep in touch. Let me say, you have done more than any of the elders in our congregation. As mentioned above the only meeting I have been to in the last couple of months was the Memorial. In the whole time I have been absent from the meetings, not one single elder has been in touch to see whats up, or more importantly, to see if I am alive. I feel sorry for those in the congregation who look to these men as being their shepherds.
Our fade is going right to plan. This coming Saturday, April the 13th will be our 1st Apostaversary. One year since the lights went on with Mrs Smith and she joined me on this journey. We haven't been out in field service for 6 months now. We still put a report in just to keep the wolves away, and no-one has said anything. I haven't been to a meeting since the start of February, and Mrs Smith since the Memorial.
We have been doing a good job of staying under the radar so far, and in the near future, when we move house, we hope to make a clean break. We have family in NZ who are still in, but being in a different country has its benefits...
Our friend that I have mentioned before, Sister T, is the only one in the whole congregation who keeps in touch. Every couple of weeks or so we will catch up and have a coffee, or have her over to watch a movie. We continue to work on her as she has some doubts - even going as far as saying that she is convinced that the Organisation has been infiltrated by Satan and that soon Jehovah will step in to clean it up - but she still believes that there has to be an organised group of people as God's people, and that JWs are that group. We have had some brilliant open and honest discussions with her, she can see it, but fails to realise the import of it I think. Quite frustrating. She is our only genuine friend around here (in the congregation that is), and we can only hope that we have given her enough reasoning that one day, she might hear something in a talk or magazine and it will go CLICK and she'll see the light - the real light, not New Light.
Once we move it will be harder to keep in touch with her, you know what it is like, you can be best mates with someone from a different congregation that shares your hall, but only see them twice a year. So we hope that once we will go she'll keep in touch. We will certainly be keeping touch. Something tells us though that once we are gone, she will just melt back into the WT rut. Some people need to be a part of something.
Mrs Smith and I are happier that ever. We look forward the weekends, and having a bit of a lie in in the mornings. Sometimes we'll wander around the markets, sometimes head into the city, sometimes go to the beach and watch the world go by. We are appreciating life on a whole new level now. We see things different, and not just with a 'the end is just around the corner' view. We see the good in people and realise that we are all just animals hanging on to a rock flying through space. We are all equal in just wanting to survive from day to day and year to year.
Having said that, we are not so naive as to think that we are in the clear just yet. For now though, things are going well and we hope that things will continue in this way and we can slowly fade away to nothingness, and no-one will have any clue.
Stay strong friends, and hang in there no matter what battle you are going through. Patience and determination are what will win this game.
WS