according circuit overseer, brother splane will visit spain branch, in ajalvir (madrid).
the objective is to sell the factory and the 450 apartment complex, how much money?
more than 1.000.000.000 euros!
Nah - I heard about this, the land around Madrid is highly zoned, I think 100 Million€ was what I head.
however, with Splane coming, he is coming here to put the positive spin on it, rather than the fact that they took the good years from an awful lot of people, and are now pushing them out with no social security.
all in the name of progress :D
we have read threads where statistics show that 2 out of every 3 people raised as jehovah's witnesses eventually leave once they get in their 20's to 30's and out on their own.
my children and my nieces and nephews are between the ages of 21 to 35 .
out of those 8 people - 4 of them have completely stopped attending meetings .
From personal experience.
The ones in my hall that i grew up with - out of 8 of them, 6 are gone now - some are successful, some have made a hash of their lives, but that would be the same if they were worldly or not
The ones I went to college with, are for the most part no longer active and have successfully faded 3/5.
Here - the congregations are FULL of elderly ones, my local hall has to import brothers from 20 KM's away as there are not enough young ones up and coming. Going to a DA is like going to Jurrasic park.
The overwhelming number of witnesses here in spain are elderly - there are perhaps 3 or 4 young kids in our hall, about 20% are in their 40's 50's and the rest are above 75 and with an average of 1 funeral a month.
The english congs have a younger demographic, but they are full of 30something single pioneer sisters wanting to "expand" their ministry.
so with the watchtower on sunday, and the no3 talk last night - it got me thinking.
both the watchtower and by default the talk last night spoke about how "christians" view life on earth as transitory, and waiting for their reward in heaven.
the tone was "how stupid are they".
So with the watchtower on Sunday, and the nº3 talk last night - it got me thinking.
Both the watchtower and by default the talk last night spoke about how "christians" view life on earth as transitory, and waiting for their reward in heaven. The tone was "how stupid are they".
Then it hit me - aren't witnesses doing the exact same thing? Life in this system is transitory, we aren't to get too attached to things, but put off education/family/fun things until the "real life" in the paradise comes, then we can do whatever we want. For instance at the district assembly this year, a girl whom i've known since i was a child gets up on the platform with her "experiece". She went to art school, lived away from home and went a bit "wild" - moved here and started to regular pioneer - now she doesn't even paint or do photography, as it would distract her from her pioneering. She can paint all she wants in the new system.
How depressing! The feeling that you have to put EVERYTHING off, until the new system comes.
Glad i'm on the way out - and taking of advantage of the life I have now.
welcome fall!.
please describe autumn in your community.
its feel.
here where I am, we don't really have a fall. Right up until last week it was 22ºc in the day and 15ºc at night (still beach weather :D)
now it is gone to 14ºc in the day and 5ºc at night but glorious blue skies and lower humidity (finally) - much better than freezing fog and rain that I used to have.
elders love to counsel people.
it feeds their ego.
over the years, you must've been counseled on different things.. when i was almost of age to become a ms, an elder counseled me for my "lack of seriousness".
1. I should never defend going to college, as it was "defending the indefensable"
The gobshite that said this to me was wanting to move up the chain in the body of elders - cocky piece of work , was doing the nasty with the woman his wife worked for.
The wife initially kicked him out, the guy lost his "position" but was repentent. He went through a real depression, came out the other side a hell of a lot more humble and despite his infidelity, likable guy (who's wife forgave him and they are happier than I have ever known them - you can tell the way they are when they think no one is watching). I heard the other week when i back in my home city that he just started........AT COLLEGE. :D
2. I've mentioned it before on here, but i was counselled against using too many worldly quotes in my talks - if i must quote, i should find quotes from faithful people through the WT and awake. To date I have used Mother Theresa, Ghandi, woody allen, Martin Luther, JFK and Frasier crane :D
As the PO's son, when I was growing up i was able to avoid most "counsel"
it's funny that when you seperate yourself from the cult, you see very few people care about the witnesses.
as jws we were always told how the governments were going to turn on religion and then try to obliterate us and how jehovah would step in, in the nick of time, and save all of his people.
how delusional!.
Even when I was "mentally" in , i always hated it at assemblies when the speaker would "challenge the governments" etc. Also resolutions were passed (unanimously of course) as if there were reporters scribbling everything down in shorthand and then phoning their papers to "stop press, the JW's have just said something")
The icing on the cake is the backslap-a-thon of the AGM - things are said that matter to about 6 million people, and even then most don't hear what actually is said, just what they want to hear.
I work for a company where the press releases go out - and every major newspaper around the world has it on the their sites within hours.Not that it has any more relevance to the every man than the WT, but at least it has global reach :D
pioneer hour change is legit.
letters are being mailed out soon to all congregations for announcement in early october right before the tract campaign starts.. .
elimination of circuit overseers.
The only notes I got were a quick email from someone that was there who said they would elaborate later.
New songs were sung and there was some light about the Generation, aside from that - i have nothing else at the moment
google is not my friend anymore, it seems, i cant find a thing.. i was searching for the audio file where john may, the elder from dublin, tells his story when he traveled to brooklyn to find out the truth about the ray franz incident.
i do not mean the talk of his that you can find on 4jehovah.org or 4witness.org, this was a different audio testimony where he just basically tells what happened to him and to his irish elder friend merriman when they wanted to discuss the rf issue with the gb.
i had this file once but cant find it anymore.
ooops
Sorry - was away for the weekend. Have just replied
before some of the long time members here say to me " tell us something we don't know flipper " - please hear me out on this one.
some of the newly exiting jw's may not know this info - but need to be made aware of it.. as a young man i was raised in the cult jehovah's witnesses and remained from birth until age 44 .
i was never, ever asked by my elder father in all those years the question, " son, how is your relationship with jehovah doing ?
I was appointed an MS at 20, and turned it down - purely to make a point. By then I was a year into College and was starting to see through things, though i still played the game.
I was blunt with the elders, and said that I was having a hard time with certain things, and would feel hypocritical if I was on the platform teaching something i wasn't so sure about. The elder's reaction? " You know you have 1 shot at this, if you turn it down, it will follow you - suck what ever you're feeling up, and eventually it will all make sense to you".
He was right about one thing, it did follow me - when I moved here, I got a shepherding visit after they recieved my letter - asking me what my "spiritual problems" were - by then I was actually "doing OK" and was enjoying being a pleb - however they said if i didn't want a position, i must be "unspiritual and unloving towards my brothers". It even got the point when my wife and I were getting married that an elder pulled her aside and said "you know he refused an appointment.." I knew right then, i was never going to play the game again.
google is not my friend anymore, it seems, i cant find a thing.. i was searching for the audio file where john may, the elder from dublin, tells his story when he traveled to brooklyn to find out the truth about the ray franz incident.
i do not mean the talk of his that you can find on 4jehovah.org or 4witness.org, this was a different audio testimony where he just basically tells what happened to him and to his irish elder friend merriman when they wanted to discuss the rf issue with the gb.
i had this file once but cant find it anymore.
I really don't know about Merriman, though when I listening to the tape I knew a lot of the names (Some a little too well)
The ones he said where great, still are. The ones (With 1 exception!) that he stated were jack asses, still are.
