Nothing. My youngest is fifteen and I know a number of his friends well. Most of the one he runs with are decent kids - no drugs, no trouble with the law, polite, doing well in school etc.
It helps that his mother and I don't care if his hair is purple.
in response to the commonly-repeated myth that all ex-witnesses are bitter angry people with nothing better to do then attack their former religion, i thought we should set the record straight.
where are you in life right now?
are you doing things that you always wanted to do, traveling to interesting places in your free time, making great new friends, generally enjoying life?
Been out since 1989. My wife and I left together and we are both doing well.
Spriritually: we go to an independent Christian church and love it.
Jobs: I'm an accounting manager for a real estate syndicator (apts and commercial bldgs). Relatively small company and I really enjoy the work. It does offer opportunities for advancement. My wife is starting her eleventh year of teaching preschool. She teaches kindergarten in the weekday school at our church. She is also the school director. Anybody know a JW woman who does anything more ambitious than help her husband with the janitorial company?
Twenty-five year old son is trying to start his own company. Twenty-four year old daughter is in Oz at the moment. She's done some acting, one national tour with a small production, some work as an extra in TV and movies. Fifteen year old son is doing well in school, dyes his hair purple and drums in a heavy metal band.
Yes, life is good out here.
i voluntarily dissasociated myself about 5 1/2 years ago.
i did not know anything about the things on the internet i just had a feeling that something was not right and i needed to exercise my right to be free and make free decisions.
how happy i was that a year after i dissasociated myself i got on the internet and found a wealth of information and a heck of alot of encouragement.. anyway my question is to those who have been out and free before the days of the internet.
Wife and I left in 1989. We had done about a year of old-fashioned research at the library. We joined a support group run by a pastor who had been protesting ourside district assemblies for years. That led us to the church we now attend. I've given some talks at the church, and met from time to time with people who want more information.
"this good news will be preached for a witness to all the inhabited nations and then the end will come" nobody else is preaching any good news as far as i can see?
what do you think?
There are several large organizations that help send Christian missionaries all over the world. These are supported by churches all over the world. My church, being very large, supports a number of missions in various parts of the US and other countries. Additionally (typically in the summer)we send out teams from some of the and other groups on special assignments.
These missionaries are not trying to bring people into our church. They can't in most cases, because we are an independent church. But since we regard all Christians everywhere is being in "The Church" that is relevant. Besides just preaching our missionaries provide true charitable work, bring in food, medical help etc. Last year the Jr. High group built a school in Chile.
The WTBS has never done any of these things.
i was just wondering what everyone's username meant.
i have my own guesses (sixofnine, silentlambs, slayerlayer-i'm almost afraid :o), amazing-enough said!,mommy, fredhall-is that your name?, ozziepost-from downunder, and the list goes on!
please share!!
When I first started going to message boards (mostly military/history/political)a few years a ago I just used my real name.
which is better in your estimation?
hit the borg with a d.a.
letter or do the slow fade.
I think the key is do what works for you. In our case after a year or so of study, we sent off a long letter to the society stating that we were no longer witnesses and why. (As always if anyone wants a copy e-mail me at [email protected])
We, however, did not have close friends at the hall at that point, nor did we have a lot of family to deal with. And we'd gotten enough hints to know that the elders were going to be coming after us soon. So getting it our up front that we had reasons for leaving was important to us. Had we been DF'd who knows what rumors would have gone around.
I've been out since 1989, so I can't say anything about policy.
I do have to say this: I am profoundly disturbed by what happened to you. In my opinion the men who DF'd you are as much criminals as the man who attacked you. I don't normally wish ill of people, but I wouldn't mind having five minutes with all of them and a baseball bat.
I hope the support here as been helpful to you.
no, peter, unfortunately -- it's a shot of debra messing from "will & grace.
" i'm not skinny (much more curvaceous than she) but i have the hair (and i'm a natural redhead, thankyouveddymuch).. maybe someday if you all ask nicely, i'll post a real pic... .
reagan posted this in one of the threads, so i figured that if we all ask very nicely then she would post a picture for us to see.
Me too.
Since I don't watch Will and Grace I had been hopeful that was really you.
Oh well.
she is studying with one of jws.
she has a study with her teacher, and then she comes here and talks about it.
she learns that the wts teaches one thing to new ones, but something else entirely to those who are already baptized.
If anybody is having trouble trying to discern the difference between the "publishing company" ie the Watchtower and "Jehovah's people" presumably the faithful and discreet slave here's a simple test.
Go to the KH on Sunday. About half way through the WT study stick your hand up and when called on say something like "This is a load of crap written by some failed janitor at Bethel not the faithful and discreet slave."
I've got money says you're DF before lunch.
today's study topic included disfellowship.
i'm a little confused i was told that the only way you can be disfellowshipped was if you did something you knew went agains jehovah and would not repent for it.
but the only person you can repent to is jehovah......... then i was told that the elders can however "keep the flock pure" b/c if jehovah is not happy with the congregation he can take his holy spirit away.
When I first started studying that was me. Soaking it all up like a sponge. It was all new and fun and not having any other Bible training I didn't know any better.
I don't really have regrets but I sometimes kick myself for not doing my own research. I was a college student at the time, the library had 2.5 million volumes in it, and I never once thought to go look up Jehovah's Witnesses.
Tatoogirl keep asking questions. Its good for you. Hell, its good for all of us.
