I take you to the future, to a elder meeting with someone in a serious state of depression ... It is the backroom to a Kingdom Hall, and three people are sitting in a room. One is a woman, and the other are two elders. The woman sites down and starts crying. The elders act caring and ask her what is wrong. To which she replies, "I am dealing with a issue from my childhood and I am having a hard time handling it right now." The elders give her a moment and then ask her what the problem is, thinking of course that she is about to confess a sin that they suspected anyway. The woman responds, "When I was eight I spent the night at my best friends house at the time, and Brother Smith raped me." To which the elders act shocked, as Brother Smith is now a Prosiding Overseer in the neighboring congregation. The elders speak softly and with a caring sounds and say, "Are you sure this happened, as we know that as children we can see things different then they really happened. Plus, Brother Smith is such a outstanding elder. It seems so unlikely that he would do such a thing." The woman draws back her tears for a moment in shock, and replies "I know what happened, and I have asked for help before." The elders give the classic shocked look, "what do you mean you asked for help?" Again the woman pulls back tears, although you can hear the pain in her voice, "When I was 15 I talked to the elders and told them then, but they told me that since I had no witnesses they could not do anything. My parents listened to them and told me to try to handle this without making to much trouble. I was treated like a liar!" The elders looks back and forth at each other in a lost look, "I am sorry that happened!" The lady then starts to cry more and stumbles into a thought that she did not want to bring up, "I saw online at this site called silentlambs that others have had this problem too, and I just needed help. I cry about this every night and I know this man knows what he did to me, and I hate to see him. He is out there in the assemblies giving talks, and acting all holy and right when he did this to me and ruined my life" The elders shift into a stern look, "Did you say you went to a apostate site?" The woman looks caught off guard, "no I went to a support site for people in this same situation" and blows her nose from all the crying. The elders open their Bible and begin counseling, "don't you think you should go to Jehovah first, before you go to a apostate site that is bent on harming Jehovah and his organization?" The lady stops crying, but her voice still shows signs of the recent tears, "What? I am here for help, how did this go into apostate information?" The elders loss all emotion and start looking angry, "The man who runs that site is disfellowshipped and is against the organization, wouldn't you say that makes him a apostate?" The woman looks even more upset, but begins to build in strength, "I don't care, the site helped me and brought me to the level that I could talk about this again with you and to seek help." The elders speak abruptly, "Well you need to give more thought to your actions, we will need to consider this in what you are saying. As you may be speaking with Satan influencing your thoughts and we have to be careful for the well being of the congregation." Pausing to open their book bag, "here is some information on the danger of seeking help from the internet, and apostates." The woman stands in disgust, "I came her for help on being raped as a child and all you want to talk about is apostate information ... how is that helping me. I am disgusted!" She then walks out and is heard crying harder then before. The elders look at one another and speak judicially, "I see that Satan has her now, we may have a bigger problem here then we thought", to which the other elder nods in agreement. ... Yes the world has changed since the disfellowshipping for the Witnesses. Is it going to really help them? My thoughts Dragon
Edited by - kenpodragon on 13 August 2002 17:6:59