by In_between_days 21 Replies latest jw friends
Those who are not "blacklisted" by the WT, do you often get dubs at your door? Ive been at this address for almost a year and I have never had the pleasure of their witnessing work! Whats going on? Do you think my cong has a record of who I am and where I live (even though I was never baptised) and avoid me. or is the cong just plain slack?
Do you get called on often?
I used to have two homes, one in Flint, Michigan, and one in Dayton, Ohio. In Flint, I was called on about once every two years. In Dayton, I have been called on twice in 23 years, neither of these have been in the last 15 years.
I am never home long enough to get called on. I work to much!
I am blacklisted but we did have one lady call on us 2 years ago. She looked like a newbie to the local congregation and probably never read her card right. Small town, can count the number of dubs on two hands. So she calls on us and I am in rare form. Let her give her spiel, let her come inside the door. As she proceded to offer me the Awake mag, I told her hold on..do you know who you are talking to? She says no. So I tell her I am the one that ended up in the loonie bin from the treatment the WTS gave me, that I am the one who dissaciated myself after I saw the true light, and in turn got a restraining order on the dubs to stay off my property. Informed her she was breaking the law and my husband was in the bedroom and called the police already (which he wasn't even home). Well she went white as a ghost, took off out the door, down the steps, dropped her magazines in the process, bent down to pick them up, I hollered out..uhuhuh...so she left them there, hightailed it down the street to a waiting car which never took long to depart our street. I have not seen the dubs working our street since and non of my neighbours have been called on either.
Spell check would be nice
Edited by - pincushion on 29 September 2002 0:56:8
I have lived here for 3 years and nothing. Then the Saturday after dateline 2 ladies showed up at my door and now the Saturday after the March an elder and his wife show up. I was never a JW here in this city so they don't know me
In Montreal I lived in a few places after I left the borg. They always knew exactly where I lived. And the only ones to show up in 15 years were a couple of JWs from a new cong in the area. And yes they got a good talking too even back then
I must be a DNC!! My neighbours have had calls but I haven't (or maybe they've been knocking on the bricks like I used to and I haven't heard them - that's a win-wn situation!).
The local Special Pio-Elder (a reasonable enough guy) and his wife (a mad fundie 'Jesus is the answer for everything' lady), came around a couple of years ago.
They (esp. her) kept pressing me on issues like Creation/Evolution ('God made everything, so you must believe in Jehovah being the creator and thus the truth being the truth' kind of reasoning).
I gave incrementally more direct (and apostate) replies to their 'probing questions' untill the devestating logic of reality and reason and sanity (I'd just read Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker) meant they couldn't maintain the conversation (except to say 'Jesus loves you' or some such nonsense), and I haven't had a JW call since!
However I just came across a JW I knew who was very excited to hear where we're living now coz their friend is now the head honcho Elder here... No doubt I'll end up getting a call... I didn't give my address, but it is a small town...
Cheers, Max
You asked if the local Congo would have a record of where you live being a 'former study'... Probably not. Usually that's something that the individuals who knew you (your Study Conductor, their Group Study Conductor, any friends you had etc) know, but isn't generally recorded in the Congo's files (maybe a former Secretary may correct that point?).
A Study Report is completed each month but as far as I recall the name was on it but not the address - maybe I've remembered that wrong, it's been some years since I completed one!
Formally, if you move from one territory to another and the local elders thought there was good reason to let the new Congo know you were around (say you have a habit of picketing the KH, or writing to JW's telling them how bad the WTS is or somthing), then they may write a letter to the new congo telling them the score. That letter would be filed and you may end up being recorded as a Do Not Call (DNC).
Informally, most of the elders in a city or region know each other and they may just discuss 'the situation' surrounding an individual. That may end up with a DNC being recorded too.
Recording a DNC involves adding your address (but no other details) to a slip of paper kept with the Territory File and being read out in the Meeting for Field Service before the group worked that territory. As I recall it, the Service Overseer kept a file detailing with the reason a DNC was recorded, maybe it was a DF/DA person, an apostate, or someone who was 'hostile' and was likley to abuse the JW's if they called, and that was reviewed by the Body of Elders periodically.
In practice, DNC's seemed to get nearly as many calls as anyone else. The elders are supposed to go to the house once a year to make sure the same person is still living there and to check if their 'attitude' has changed. It was always a change to the routine to make those calls, although as I was an MS not an elder I only got to go to the 'Hostile' DNC's, not the DF/DA/Apostate DNC's!!
I might have learned more sooner if I had of gone on those calls!
Cheers, Max
I've had two types of calls: one by phone (maybe `98) from an elder who invited me back (it was a cordial conversation) who said they were reaching out to all DF'ed people, and once in person. After I told them I was DF'ed no one's come by since--umm, maybe once--left an Awake! Usually we don't answer the door to anyone anyway
I live in one town but go to the KH in another. No JW in this territory knows I live in this town. 4 years and no calls and I am usually home on Saturdays (no calls on the neighbors). I think the problem is that in some congregations the brother assigned to territories does not have a clue how to manage them. It used to be that only the territories least worked were offered to the publishers. Now they whine so much that they let them take whatever they want. JWs are reluctant to work in bad neighborhoods (translate that black neighborhoods for some), want rural territory so they can spend most of their time driving around. Some hardly ever work door to door on Saturday mornings scheduling their bible studies and return visits for that time which used to be an absolute no-no. Saturday was reserved for the magazine door-to-door work.
If you want the magazines, I would go where they do street work as ask for the current magazines. When they ask for your phone number/address, give them a fake one (or your real one if you want them to call?!).
Oddly, I am never "offically" called on .... but I am friendly with all seeing I see quite a few on a daily basis.
hawk
