CHARITY WORK---WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!!

by Mary 23 Replies latest jw friends

  • Mary
    Mary

    Look at this article below!

    Volunteers Hunt Produce to Feed Hungry

    Mon Oct 25, 7:29 AM ET
    Add to My Yahoo!Health - AP

    By BOBBY ROSS JR., Associated Press Writer

    GOLDEN, Texas - Volunteers fanned across Texas farm fields to pick up sweet potatoes missed by mechanical harvesters, joining a national network to feed the poor with produce that might otherwise go to waste, from California oranges to Indiana beans and Florida squash. In this rural community about 75 miles east of Dallas, the weekend effort is called the Texas Yam Jam.

    "It's rewarding, it's a good gig, just to come out here and glean for the people who might not be able to eat if we hadn't actually done this," said Jay Wilbur, 43, from Panola, near the Louisiana state line.

    The work is overseen by the Big Island, Va.-based Society of St. Andrew, an ecumenical organization with strong United Methodist ties. The ministry, in its 25th year, is named after the disciple who figured in the New Testament story of how Jesus Christ fed 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes.

    The society estimates that over the past quarter-century, 250,000 volunteers have gleaned 461.5 million pounds of food that would have been dumped, plowed under or left to rot ? but instead became 1.4 billion servings of food donated to the hungry.

    "In the Old Testament, it talks about leaving the corners of your field for the ailing and the poor. We've just kind of taken that ancient biblical practice and modernized it," said Carol Breitinger, the society's spokeswoman. This month, for example, Boy Scouts and other volunteers collected green beans from a northern Indiana field that a cannery had rejected because of frost. In Lake Park, Fla., along the Florida-Georgia line, a church group picked up bushels of leftover cucumbers and squash.

    "Our food banks are screaming for fresh produce and this is actually about the least expensive way we can get fresh produce," said Randy Groce, 54, president of the Texas advisory board for the Society of St. Andrew. Groce brought 900 orange mesh bags ? each able to fit 50 pounds of sweet potatoes. Volunteers stuffed them with tens of thousands of roots as small as a thumb and as large as a submarine sandwich.

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    What a complete waste of time eh?? Think of all the wasted hours these "Christians" have spent gathering fresh food to help feed the poor when they could be out in Service trying to start home bible studies and selling subscriptions to the Botchtower and Asleep magazines!! Surely Jehovah will punish these evil, rotten people supporting Babylon the Great for doing such a foolish thing........I mean, they can't even count it as time on a Service Report so why bother??!!

  • xjw_b12
    xjw_b12

    Good point Mary. They do the same thing here where I live, only they provide the transportation, and the people who actually need the food go out along with the volunteers from the food banks to "glean" corn, potatoes squashes etc.

    If these people relied on Jehovah or his witnesses they'd starve to death.

  • a friend in need
    a friend in need

    Is there nothing more you can complain about? Now charity work is a waste too? And someone actually replied in agreement???!!! WOW!!!

  • Mary
    Mary

    friend, read the posts again carefully.........this was all said tongue in cheek..........the subtle point that was being made is that JWs love to get up there and tell everyone how wonderful THEY are, yet they do no charity work and they completely discourage anyone else from doing it because to them it's a complete waste of time. The also lambaste "false religion" for not being "Christian", yet these people are clearly doing far more for charity and feeding the poor just as Jesus did, than what Witnesses do today...........

  • Gretchen956
    Gretchen956

    Mary, A Friend in Need is our current WT Apologist. There seems to be nothing the boys at the WTS can do that is not ok.

    This is a drop in the bucket of what other religions do to help the needy and hungry. They used to tell us that this is feeding them only temporarily but the "good news" feeds them eternally. However I happen to know that there are plenty of other evangelical religions that do a lot of charity work. Guess they work from both ends of the spectrum.

    The way the economy is right now there is a lot of need for this, food banks cannot keep up with the demand.

    Sherry

  • a friend in need
    a friend in need

    How would you know if JWs do charitable (materially) or not? Could it be the left hand knows not what the right hand is doing, let alone the likes of you?

    afin

  • Scully
    Scully

    dear a friend in need:

    With all due respect, speaking as someone who was reprimanded by the JWs for having been seen dropping a box of Cheerios into the local Food Bank bin at the supermarket (the person who saw me apparently was concerned that the Food Bank was being run by a charity of the Catholic Church, but rather than talk to me privately - as per Matthew 18 - decided to run off to the Elders? and tattletale about it), you are full of crap.

    Fortunately, my rationale was rather good, if I do say so myself: I asked the Elders? if Jesus only shared his loaves and fishes with Jehovah's Witnesses, and then asked them when they were going to install a Food Hamper for the needy at the Kingdom Hall so I could contribute to it instead.

    Love, Scully

  • Billygoat
    Billygoat
    Fortunately, my rationale was rather good, if I do say so myself: I asked the Elders? if Jesus only shared his loaves and fishes with Jehovah's Witnesses, and then asked them when they were going to install a Food Hamper for the needy at the Kingdom Hall so I could contribute to it instead.

    LOL@Scully! You Rock!

  • Carmel
    Carmel

    Well sometimes that really is my sentiment! We just spent three hours yesterday doing highway clean up. We do it four times a year and each time I wonder to myself if it's all worth it. Seems it's like washing dishes for the family, they just dirty them up again. Why haven't one of you gals invented self-washing dishes? We picked up about fifteen garbage bags of crud in a one-mile strip of highway 30. Same junk will be there in three months. Then I realize the only ones that appreciate it are those that do the same thing somewhere else. The only time you notice anything is when the junk is so visible you wonder what kind of people live around here.

    sorry for the rant and hijacking the thread

    carmel

  • vitty
    vitty

    Not only do they confine theire uncharitable works to non witnesses, but when a brother was ill in hospital in our congregation, a sister wanted to have a whip round, because he was self employed.

    The elders had a meeting (in secret) as they do, and decided It wasnt a good idea, cos they wouldnt be sure what the family would spend the money on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bills and food I would of thought but no there would have been less money in the box that week I suppose

    This guy was not well off by any means, a some people gave anyway im glad to say

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