Interesting place for a KH. My thoughts

by joe134cd 6 Replies latest jw experiences

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  joe134cd

  Yesterday I happened to be driving through a rural town where I made an observation. First let me describe this town. It’s almost a shadow of its former self. I guess this would be a result of urban shift. It is poor, with mainly an indigenous population. Massive problems with the cultivation, manufacture, and usage of drugs. Apart from a grocery store, petrol station and a pub there is absolutely nothing to do. This could be one of the reasons for the high consumption of drugs and birth rate. There has also been issues with gangs. Anyway, you get what I mean.

  Here is what really stood out to me. The only 2 churches left in this town were the KH and the LDS. The lds building was impeccably well kept. Although the KH wasn’t to the standard of the lds, and probably more reflected the economic situation of the community, it was still passable. Both buildings were probably of a higher standard to the area they existed in. Telling indeed. Make what you like of it, as to the environments these 2 groups flourish in, and their standard of membership.
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  dropoffyourkeylee

  A KH in a place like that is hard to sell, so they are probably not in a big hurry to close the congregation like they are in more affluent places.
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  GrreatTeacher

  Interesting. The Mormons might be better at shifting money from central to individual congregations.

  The JWs have pretty much left finances up to individual congregations. If the congregation can't afford to repay a remodel, they won't do it.

  When folks are poor and hopeless, these kinds of religions can appeal. I have often seen poor areas fill up with storefront churches unaffiliated with larger denominations. The Ebenezer Tabernacle of the Rising Salvation Circus and similar do brisk business in poor neighborhoods. They'll drag their podiums right out to the street corner and preach to passersby.

  If that's the only person who has spoken to you with kindness recently, you might go inside. Especially if you're cold.
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  Sea Breeze

  First let me describe this town. It’s almost a shadow of its former self....

  The only 2 churches left in this town were the KH and the LDS.

  Makes perfect sense to me. Destroy the families and the drugs and gangs shortly follow.
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  jwundubbed

  It’s almost a shadow of its former self. I guess this would be a result of urban shift. It is poor, with mainly an indigenous population. Massive problems with the cultivation, manufacture, and usage of drugs. Apart from a grocery store, petrol station and a pub there is absolutely nothing to do. This could be one of the reasons for the high consumption of drugs and birth rate. There has also been issues with gangs.

  You got all that just from driving through the town??? I find that difficult to believe.
  
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  ShotWhileTryingToEscape

  jwundubbed, It doesn’t seem implausible to me that joe134cd would come to the assessment in the OP. Maybe l am assuming that he has driven through that rural town before but my experience with the dereliction of rural life in general makes his thumbnail sketch ring true. Add to that joe’s one single sentence “It is poor, with mainly an indigenous population.” and one can nearly guess at the rest.

  Joe could tell us where in particular he lives. I gather it is Australia?

  Like the U.S. the policies of Australia toward their indigenous populations have undermined and demoralized their families and traditional lives. But it goes on worldwide. The cost of progress paid by those who never asked for it on the first place

  When I read this thread and just googled these words” plight of indigenous people.” this scenario joe describes is abundantly represented ( without specifying the presence of churches).

  Here is a short random yet relevant piece below.

  https://youtu.be/H41kZfvQss0

  As to the presence of the Mormon church and the K Hall? It would be interesting to find if either serves any function that would provide a reason to clean up and show up for mutual support and purpose.

  Frankly l hoped for support and purpose back in the day from church.

  It is a pretty sad situation.
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  ShotWhileTryingToEscape

  Toward the end his excerpt from a much longer article describes the human desolation joe writes of in his OP:

  ‘Nothing has changed’

  The 1967 referendum gave us the right to be counted on the census, but it didn’t give us anything much else

  Today it’s a community of 5,000. But there is an acute housing shortage: an estimated 700 more homes are needed to accommodate the population, which is largely welfare dependent.
  

  Yarrabah has the social and economic issues – teenage pregnancy and child removal, alcohol abuse, poverty, unemployment, health problems, petty crime, inadequate housing – that underscore life in too many Indigenous communities but escape the notice of the rest of Australia. There have been three suicides in the past few months; one just a week or so earlier.

  “There’s no jobs in Yarrabah. If you want a job, you have to leave,” Marrie says.
  

  Along the way, she points out massacre sites such as Skeleton Creek, where the white men cut off the Jidindi’s heads and put them on sharpened stakes that lined the waterway as it meandered up into the hinterland. We cross Blackfellow Creek, also a massacre site and an old Aboriginal camping ground, before heading up the valley.

  “The ’67 referendum gave us the right to be counted on the census, but it didn’t give us anything much else. It was just words on paper that had really no meaning. Everything we got after that, we had to fight hard to get – and nothing has changed.”