This video portrayed an elderly widowed sister who was a former pioneer and now reduced to submitting field service reports of 15 minute increments. She was also portrayed as quite frail in that she ambulates with the use of a quad rollator frame. She was very neatly attired and groomed and what the video showed of her apartment conveyed everything perfectly tidy to a level which would have relaxed an OCD sufferer. Her attire and domicile also suggested that she was financially secure, despite her (and I think her husband’s) many years in pioneer service.
The video was exploring what role such an elderly and frail sister might pursue in her congregation within the limits of her functioning. The camera focused on a young sister at a pivotal point in her life. She had envelopes with papers pointing out for the camera. One such was an application for university, the other for pioneer service. Such a dichotomy from the WTBTS / GBoJW didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that the video then identified the role of the elderly frail sister in persuading the young sister to forsake an education and pursue pioneering.
This veneer of a paradigm might have been attractive to some in the audience. It avoided the possibility (some would say likelihood) of financial difficulties later in life by portraying a picture of an elderly and former pioneer who seemed financially secure. It also legitimizes and puts a nice face onto the WT’s nihilism about further education. Many an individual at the age of that elderly sister would perhaps extol a higher education, affirm the youngster for considering such, and help her to honestly examine the pro’s and con’s of whatever decision she decides to make. But no such balanced approach in this video. Using the extolled silver hair and wisdom paradigm to put across the WT’s disdain of further education is truly heinous!
The reaction in the audience of the local kingdom hall – flat, blank, vacant, glazed. No, nobody seemed impressed or encouraged in the slightest.