after going through 3 peoople i finally talk to a brother expressing my concerns that the "new and improved" website did'nt have anything about the school shootings. i said you missed a golden opportunity for a good witness, you could have offered our condolences and give a scriptural reason why these things happen and a hope for the future. so the first thing out of his mouth was "are you a jehovahs witness?" yes for 50 years i said. "well brother then you should know we get the best results from direct contact with people and thats what the local brothers are doing in the area. what results have you gotten in your area?' he asked. So i said nobody is home, they are either working or christmas shopping [ even though i realy did'nt go out] best results?! are you kidding?! they actually still think people come into the truth from the door to door work. so then he said, next time brother if you have a concern we reccomend you write a letter. yeah right! so my elders can pull me into the library next month?! as the saying goes "sometimes you can't tell the forest from the trees".
so i finally call Bethel today...
by nowwhat? 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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LostGeneration
Write a letter? He really said that?
I thought the QFR last year made it clear that they were too damn busy to address individual letters.
I wonder how many "apostate" calls they have to deal with up there?
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wolf42
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 9:50 AM
I know some are wondering about this. Here is a message I just got this morning. Makes you appreciate our “considerate” organization even more! (some who are geographically closer may have already seen this)
----------Original Message----------
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 10:19 PM, > wrote:
We know that many of you are concerned and have questions about the horrific events at the school here in Connecticut last Friday. You'll be glad to hear that no children of Jehovah's Witnesses families, nor any adults, were among the victims. Though this is not yet official, I spoke to our Circuit Overseer tonight and he told me that there are four of our children who attend that school, and were there that day, also one sister who is on the staff, but they were unharmed.
The Branch, through the Disaster Relief Desk, was on top of the situation immediately. I received a phone call from our Circuit Overseer at work in the middle of Friday afternoon, relaying instructions from the DRK. They instructed us to immediately contact all of the families in our congregation to make sure that their children are not traumatized, or to offer assistance if they are. All of the schools in the area went into lock-down within a short time after the shootings: as soon as they heard what had happened, so of course all of the children knew something bad was happening. The branch also arranged a special meeting in place of the normal meeting for field service for the Danbury East and Bethel, CT, congregations. Anita, Belinda, and Cori attend Danbury East. Our Circuit Overseer conducted the meeting at the direction of the branch. The two congregations meet in the same hall, and the Sandy Hook School is in Danbury East territory. The school's enrollment area includes parts of both congregations' territories.
All of the congregations in the area were instructed to offer, in place of our magazine offer, the All Suffering Soon To End tract, or the Comfort brochure, to ask after the householders' well-being - and listen to what they had to say. We could offer comfort with an appropriate scripture if the householders were open to that. It was a different day in service. Householders would start to dismiss us, as is their usual reaction, and we would mention that we were there to ask about their welfare and offer what comfort we could. At almost every house I personally went to, at about that point the householders started talking, and talked at length while we listened. They were really shook. Every single one accepted the tract. One man who was probably around 55 or 60 at first stated, "We're fine here," in a dismissive way. The sister I was with at the door mentioned that we wanted to make sure that our neighbors were doing okay. That was all it took to get him to talk. He was almost crying, in fact his eyes were brimming with tears. He accepted the tract and thanked us for coming.
We appreciate your concern for those close to the tragedy, and ask that you keep them in your prayers, since they were indeed traumatized by the events of that day. This is all of the information that we have at this point, and you will probably hear what the Branch has to say about the situation as soon as we do, but we thought you'd like to know whatever we could tell you.
With Christian love,
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wha happened?
The only direct contact that would increase numbers is child bearing.
They are soo clueless in that Ivory tower, aren't they?
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St George of England
They instructed us to immediately contact all of the families in our congregation to make sure that their children are not traumatized, or to offer assistance if they are
.Yes, I got a copy of that also. How can a bunch of janitors and window cleaners offer proper assistance to people traumatised by an event like this? They still do not understand the meaning of PROFESSIONAL help.
George