I was shocked I do not know why as I have read that the CO's were doing this but to hear it with my own ears was unbelievable. I do not go to the meetings but my husband still does and this week is the CO's visit. I decided that I would listen in to his talk; I swear I have lost some brain cells by doing it but anywho.
He started out by talking about the old story that has been in the WT many times about a little boy who was seven and raised a chicken and gave the money to the Society. The CO went on and on and on about how wonderful that was and how we here in the US have so much and how that dollar that little boy gave could have feed his family, etc but no he gave it all to Jehovah. How we here in the US throw away stuff that the little boy would love to have. Plus what we have really is Jehovah's anyway right? So why should we hold back from giving to Him.
Now if that was not bad enough he does stop. He goes on about our giving our time in field service etc, but then he went back to the money part and he said when he was a little boy a CO told him to pick up every penny if he saw it while he was in service and put it in the contribution box. He then laughed and said that a penny is really nothing to day and he was dating himself, but if we find a dime on the street and there always seems to be money that people just throw down out in the streets, so if every publisher would just put one dime into the box each month it would add up to three quarters of a million dollars per publisher per month.
He went on and on about how many publisher there were 7 plus million. What I was thinking is what about the publishers in the country's where they are supper poor and they cannot afford to give a dime, and there is not money just laying on the streets like we have here in the rich US.
It was all just a huge guilt trip. It was so amazing they have to be hurting for money to have the CO's giving this talk.
LITS