Sail Away

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Posts by Sail Away

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  40

  Wife is Awake

  by freemindfade in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  following the news of stuckinarut2, over the past few months my wife has completely mentally woken up.

  i've been meaning to post but haven't had the time.

  i saw stuckins post and i figured i'd add my news too.

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  Sail Away

  How great is this! ! ! Fantastic news for you and your wife, freemindfade!
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  10

  Forever Young

  by AllTimeJeff in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey everyone.

  so this is what 10 years out feels like.

  employed, paying bills, and watching the slow demise of planet earth.

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  Sail Away

  Jeff, nice to see you here! The indoctrination of young minds that you describe was very much my experience. None of my family ever became JWs, but my father accepted a study for the family at a very unstable and vulnerable time for us all.

  I was nine years old. By the time I was 10, I wanted to get baptized. I just wanted to do what was right. My non-believing dad finally allowed me to get baptized when I was 16. I had already spent several summers "temporary pioneering" by then (75 hours a month). I turned down several college scholarships to "full-time pioneer" (100 hours a month) in the rurals of North Dakota. I was married to a MS by age 19.

  All in all I was in for 42 years. It was a painful, slow awakening for me, but I walked away when I was 52. I'm so impressed and happy for those who figure things out at a much younger age. Enjoy your freedom!

  Diane
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  11

  HULU's - The Path

  by babygirl30 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this show is a.m.a.z.i.n.g!!!!.

  ...anyone that has been in a strict religion.

  ...anyone that has been in a high control cult or movement/organization.

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  Sail Away

  I was impressed with season one. They were able to portray the cult atmosphere accurately, sometimes without words. For example, the total lack of boundaries was depicted by people in authority bursting uninvited into a room (even a bedroom) with a closed door. Apparently, there are no locks at The Path's compound.
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  46

  Mom died, How and When I found out

  by 3rdgen in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hi friends,.

  it's been awhile since i've been talkative.

  thought i'd give you an account of my latest family dysfunction.. a brief backstory is that i am an only child whose parents were born in jw's.

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  Sail Away

  3rdgen, I'm so terribly sorry for the pain you are experiencing. I know what it is like to be a caregiver for an abusive, aging parent. It does drain your last bit of strength, both phyically and emotionally.

  Just know that you did the best you could by your mother, and please try not take her clearly deranged behavior personally. Mental illness and dementia can be among the most demanding illnesses on the family. JW crap only adds to the pain of the situation.

  Please take good care of yourself,

  Diane
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  19

  How long does it take to get a response from the branch office?

  by Homer notsimpson in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does any one have any experience with writing to the branch office?

  i know they're busy, but while reading through the shepherd textbook, it says to write to them quite a few times.

  so if a body of elders write to the branch office, whats the usual wait time for a response?

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  Sail Away

  Back in the days of the Isaiah book, I wrote in to question their dates/timeline being off. I got a 6-page letter back which defended their erroneous dates. My then P.O. asked if I understand the answer. I said yes, meaning I understood that it was B.S.

  I later wrote in because my husband was a permanently "inactive" JW. They wanted me to appoint a JW as my Healthcare Agent on my DPA. I wanted to be able to write on the document that my Healthcare Agent was only to make decisions regarding "non-blood medical management", and my husband was to make all other decisions. Of course, my elders couldn't advise me directly. I watied nearly a year with no answer. I sent a copy of the original letter with a new cover letter saying that this was an urgent matter.

  One afternoon within a few weeks, I got a call from Bethel asking for Sister Sail Away. It scared the hell out of me. He gave me the go ahead for my plan. I still wonder if they just didn't want to put their answer in writing.
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  40

  Sisters running microphones?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so our sunday meeting was on the 25th (christmas) and my active jw wife and i were out of town enjoying some family time with relatives.. apparently there were many others in our congregation that missed as well.

  so few were there in fact that sisters ran the mics.

  (actually it was a sister running one of the two mics) a friend of my wife commented to her about how the brothers just aren't stepping up and it "makes her want to cry.

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  Sail Away

  tepidpoultry
  I was just wondering if somehow they could build that hedge
  trimmer incident into an Assembly demo (I hope everybody was OK!)
  :0)

  Hahaha, tepidpoultry! Actually, the this dope of a pioneer/elder who butchered the hedges was the owner of a landscaping business-- ya just can't make this stuff up! No person was harmed, but it took years of gentle pruning for the bushes to recover.

  Lol, Rebel8!
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  40

  Sisters running microphones?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so our sunday meeting was on the 25th (christmas) and my active jw wife and i were out of town enjoying some family time with relatives.. apparently there were many others in our congregation that missed as well.

  so few were there in fact that sisters ran the mics.

  (actually it was a sister running one of the two mics) a friend of my wife commented to her about how the brothers just aren't stepping up and it "makes her want to cry.

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  Sail Away

  In my former congregation two other sisters and I were assigned to divide up the territory and make new maps.

  One sister did the job of Accounts Servant until her teenaged daughters went off the rails-- one got pregnant, the other DA'd herself.

  I was assigned to shred old files. Of course, I was instructed not to read them.

  Also, I was the defacto person in charge of food service during our second KH renovation turned rebuild during midweek work. The RBC only came on the weekends, and the pioneer/elder they appointed was incompetent, so he recruited me.

  I was also in charge of trimming bushes, because the same pioneer/elder mauled them with a hedge trimmer. Toward the end of my time as a JW, I enjoyed my gardening chores, because I did them in the mornings while the other sisters went out in service.

  Apparently, the Holy Spirit appoints incompetent brothers to take the lead, while sisters did the job.

  Diane
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  14

  A most interesting Christmas present

  by JeffT in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so our daughter gave my wife and i a very nice family album of photos from the course of the year.

  as we opened it, she said it had a surprise hidden in it, so we're watching for something to fall out.

  about 2/3 or the way through it we hit an ultrasound print of a tiny baby.

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  Sail Away

  Congratulations! Being a grandparent is the best! We are spending the holidays with our daughter, son-in-law and two-year-old grandson. He just started calling us both Grammy! Our second grandson is on the way and is due in April. He will be born in Guatemala just like his big brother. Two Irish-American boys born in Guatemala.
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  23

  MERRY CHRISTMAS

  by jhine in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  l don't visit very often now , but l wanted to drop in to wish all you folks a merry christmas and happy new year .

  as l cannot find a thread already started for this l have started one !

  in the immortal words of chuck berry ( l think ) " come on everybody " join in wishing your fellow posters a merry christmas , happy holidays etc .

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  Sail Away

  Happy holidays and Feliz Navidad from Lake Atitlan in Guatemala!

  Diane
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  14

  Update to: As a Matter of Conscience, I Am Resigning from the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Sail Away in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i just had a two-hour doctor's appointment (treatment for branch retinal vein occlusion) that requires screenings, scans, dilation, anesthetic and injection, etc.

  this makes it necessary to spend a lot of time in the waiting room..

  my former p.o., book study conductor and later field service overseer was there and greeted me in a friendly way.

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  Sail Away

  millie210
  

  There is a sub message these days among some of the brighter Witnesses to take a softer approach.

  It sounds like your friend is one of those who has internalized that message.

  Good for him and you. I hope it makes his life a little easier in the Org and it certainly made it easier for you!

  Hope your eye is doing well sailaway!

  Vidiot

  
  

  Sail Away - "...Apparently, the congregation is growing (20% increase) and has lots of children now... I just don't think this can be called growth..."

  Neither do I, considering two thirds of 'em will be out within the next couple of decades.

  BTW, from reading the rest of your OP, I suspect this elder friend on yours might know a thing or two about the TATT.

  Millie and Vidiot, my wish for him is that he has a few years of peace ahead of him. He seems happy and rather well compared to when I saw him last-- over 5 years ago, relaxed and happy. I do hope he and his family are awake to TTATT. For him, I'm sure it's just a matter of it's too late to change. He is 69, and this has been his life. His daughter and son-in-law are born-ins. It is an older congregation, one of the first in the area. They are dying off-- old age, cancers and strokes. One former elder has dementia, but he was always a little nuts-- made for interesting comments at the meetings.
  

  PS Thank you all for you kind concern about my eye. The occlusion happened just over a year ago. At first I had to go for treatment once a month. I just got moved out to every 7 weeks. I regained my peripheral vision (driving with one eye while legal, is a nightmare), and my vision corrects to 20/20, there are just holes in what I see due to tissue damage that won't regenerate. I am unable to do full-time work on the computer anymore, but that's not all bad! I'm taking a year-long teacher training in teaching Mindfulness Meditation. Researchers are working on a time-release medication that would mean only one shot a year, but that is down the road a bit. Could be worse, some go blind from this.

  Sail Away

  aka Diane