Dangerous promotion of 'Serving where the need is Greater'

by eyeslice2 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  eyeslice2

  Both the June and July broadcasts featured sections about serving where the need is greater. As I recall, my wife watches them as I hover in the background, India and Thailand have both been heavily featured. Next, I hear some friends talking about how they are thinking of moving to India. Both India and Thailand, however, are extremely difficult countries to get to grips with in terms of visas, healthcare, housing, language etc., the list goes on.

  My experience is that those who do go, are generally genuine, really caring people but are these being pushed into difficult, if not sometimes dangerous, circumstances? Often too, the folks who go, sell their homes and cars, thus burning a lot of bridges should they have to return in the future. They get no assistance from the Society and so it is all done at their own risk.

  I am sure that if you were to challenge the powers that be about this they would brush it of with 'well Jehovah will care for these brothers and sisters and besides they have to sit down and as Jesus said "count the cost"'.

  Another thought, has' serving where the need is greater' become the new 'Bethel Service', given there are no or at most limited opportunities nowadays?
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  zeb

  • Has the wt just sold off the Indian branch office.?
  • and as with Russia the gb will cut and run if you end up on the sharp end of the law in the countries you intend to go to.
    
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  GetMeOutofHere

  There are some really irresponsible ‘need greaters’ on Instagram who travel to these lands as a family with children. Of course the kids are going to say yes to moving to Thailand or India - it sounds so exciting. The reality is that their childhood and indeed their future educational and career prospects are being sabotaged just so the parents can feel fulfilled in this ridiculous cult.
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  LongHairGal

  EYESLICE2:

  People selling all they have so they can go to some poor place to serve “where the need is greater”?? This sounds like what happened in 1975. What happens if they go wherever and it doesn’t work out or they get sick?.. Are they going to come back and be sitting in the back of some kingdom hall with their hat in their hands?..This will add yet more people looking for handouts in the JW religion. Again, glad I’m not there.

  I heard about horror stories of what certain missionaries went through. Sadly, bad news is hidden in the JW religion so the people who need to know won’t.

  GETMEOUTOFHERE:

  I agree with you that the poor kids of these “need greaters” might probably be cheated out of decent educational and career prospects.
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  eyeslice2

  has the wt just sold off the Indian branch office?

  They moved from a place called Pune about 18 years ago to a large facility in Bangalore but I think they have or are in the process of down sizing the Bangalore set up now.
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  tiki

  Imho....prior to moving anywhere unfamiliar one should travel there, spend a couple weeks and get a real picture of what it is like. Not the touristy romantic part but the reality of daily living. Anyone who sells out and moves to a foreign country is taking a substantial risk....better be up to handling the ramifications.
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  hoser

  The Jehovah’s Witness religion took a page from business management 101. Reward your employees with a feel good reward like an employee of the month poster and they will work for practically nothing.
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  WTWizard

  They are trying to get people to sacrifice their souls--send them to somewhere in the middle of Nigeria, and they are stuck there. And, it is usually white people that get sent there--to me, that is a form of racism that is most objectionable because they go in and ruin African or Asian culture. This makes the washtowel, and all those other churches that send people into those areas on missionary work, guilty of a huge hate crime.

  And, what about people that are born in those areas? What happens when you have a white couple in the middle of Nigeria or India, surrounded by nothing but black or Asian people, and they have a baby? What happens to that baby's soul? This is a lousy way to allow such children to develop, and that they are in full time missionary work makes an already bad situation even worse. For both the missionaries and those around them.

  Plus, sending them in areas where poverty and suffering is widespread, with the message ballyhooing such suffering, does a poverty and suffering working for all involved regardless of racial makeup of where they are going. When they are stuck there, it makes such working that much worse. Making the missions all the worse as hate crimes, both for those in the targeted areas and those going.
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  nateboussad

  Check at various systems, not just one, these missions will pop up from time to time (also look at missions you cannot currently do). Remember any missions completed will still count even if you haven't yet obtained the higher rank yet.
  
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  Half banana

  Anyone deluded enough to think of moving to a remote and alien country to raise their spiritual credibility, should first read Amber Scorah's book "Leaving the Witness".