quote from the OCT 22/04 AWAKE!

by in a new york bethel minute 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  in a new york bethel minute

  page 15 states: "Valentina married and moved with her husband to ingelheim, germany, in 1993. they have three children, who are all baptized witnesses of Jehovah."

  does anyone find this statement a little strange? even if they had their first kid right after being wed, he/she would still only be 11. and THEY ARE ALL BAPTIZED... there is a picture of the family... there are no triplets in the picture, and they are all young... so the sentence means how it reads. ALL BAPTIZED. i thought the watchtower at some point in space/time stated that they do not allow or at least do not encourage minors to get baptized... wasnt there a watchtower -written no doubt by one of the lawyers- talking about how it is not a practise among Jehovah's Witnesses to allow children to be baptized? the youngest member of this family could be no more than 9 years old. might as well have baptized her when she was an infant.

  actually the whole article is pretty stupid... take the time to read it and get the full gist of it. and then get as mad as i did

  bethHOLE
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  CeriseRose

  Is it a second marriage for either and the kids a result of the first one? Maybe they're older.
  
  The article may not even say but 2nd marriages where I am, among JWs, is pretty high.
  
  Just a thought.
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  TheOldHippie

  They moved to Germany in 1993, but nowhere is it stated that the children were born AFTER they moved. They moved. They have three children. It could quite as easily be stated that they have three children, and that they in 1993 moved to Germany. The two statements are independant of each other.
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  in a new york bethel minute

  yes these statements could both be true cerise and hippie... but the children in the up-to-date picture are very young... hard to say, but the wording seems to me to suggest that both the marriage and the move happened in 1993, and the photograph gives me the same impression
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  Happy Guy :)

  Well let's remember it's an Awake magazine - the one intended for Public consumption (as opposed to the Watchtower which is not usually circulated to the unbrainwashed public).

  My first impression was that this riddle was easily solved by the fact that they moved sometime after being married and having the children. Since you are reading it directly along with the photograph of the family and you say the impression is that the children are young (as young as 9), then I would have to guess that it was designed to give the unbrainwashed public an impression that Jehovah's Witnesses baptize at a young age. Probably one of their many efforts to deceive the public into believing that Jehovah's Witnesses are main stream and deflect notions that they are a cult.