Sorry folks, I tried to get it stopped and edited--couldn't do it somehow.
not a captive
JoinedPosts by not a captive
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not a captive
(Sorry I get this stuff mixed up--) My neighbors in my apsartment complex drove off to Baltimore on Friday.The Man's name was something like Tao. He was about 40 years old or so. Spoke good English --I would know because on the night of the Presidential elections my husband wanted me to come up and watch election returns with him even though I wasn't even thinking of leaving the JWs at that time--But I was in a rush, it was dark I was late and I backed into a nice latemodel Toyota with my ratty old red Isuzu. The other driver was a Chinese Student --couldn't speak much English. Suddenly there were chinese students every where. In the middle of it I recognized this guy cause I saw him alot walking a toddler or moving other student's furniture, or showing some neo phyte how to change the sparkplugs or change the oil on their old car. Tao materialized from no where and got everyone on the right track . Things worked out . He made it Go Well.
Our acquaintance grew incrementally. Later when vandals broke out the window on his family's immaculately maintained van he saw me in the alley and woefully told me what had happened. I saw him sadly sweeping up the mess. He was so kind to everyone that I got a cheap, bright bouquet of cut flowers and knocked on their apartment door with a note--"Because something good should happen today too. And a P.S.from the book of Ruth:" May you receive a perfect wage from God.""
I used to put our surplus garden veggies by the Apartment mailboxes,in the shade. Tao's apartment was nearby. I figured out that he never took more than his share but this guy was all about making sure everyone who needed any got them.Our land lady clued me once about a chinese fellow who recycled all the odd furnishings left over from ex-residents through the tiny Chinese Christian Church around the corner from my Apartments.I knew who it was: Tao.
He and his wife had another kid last year. Wife is a Graduate student--Tao never said what he was doing now --I think he was tha at-home dad. He told me once when I aske dhow come he spoke such good English and could fix cars (sorry--most of thse Chinese students can 't even drive very well). He said he drive cab in NY City for awhile some years back.
When I was leaving , wasn't going to meetings but hadn't sent my letter in yet, I saw Tao one Sunday morning rushing round the back alley parking place that I actually consider my front entrance. He was walking, I was driving .I rolled my window dow.."You're a Christian, aren't you?" Yes. When are your church services? I asked. Bible lessons at 9:40am, worship at 11am. He was just hurrying to take some students there that he had brought from the airport the night before.
Thanks ,I said. I'll see you soon.
I went the next week. I can't tell you ina few words how great it was. I kind of choked once during a song.They sangit in chinese but Iknew the words from my wicked church-going days and sang with them. They had a radio thing an a you woman translater. They alternated Engish and chinese and asked at the end for visitors to introduce themselves. Afterward we had a meal in the basement . I had become a "Rice Christian".
She graduated this month. I knew it was coming because I ran into Tao in the laundry facility a few doors away. He did the laundry. I told him then how much my few visits to his church had meant to me. I told him that I had been going to a church that would have thrown mwe out if they had known thatI was there.
It was as though his English failed him at that point. He just stared at me. I told him. "I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses" He didn't understand. I went further --Don't you know about So-and-so? she is one of Jehovah's Witnesses who talks in Chinese to many students--surely you know her? No, Tao didn't know about the constant pressure this consciencious sister plied against the false religion he practiced.
And all of a sudden I just loved the whole thing. Tao didn't know about the Witnesses. He wasn't making war on them or any other religion. He just followed Jesus. I told them I would miss them very much. He said they'd be back.
I didn't tell him that I was moving too. But I knew we all would miss him.
He packed the household out. By Friday morning they were gone.
Yesterday doing my laundry I looked outside their apartment. The final and very clean items that they didn't tale wer under the portico entrance of their apartment that used to have the little bench and the wagon and trike for their kids. I went close and saw clean whit paper with writing on it clipped to the items. "Take them they are free"
He didn't do the customary sit them by our alley dumpsters for adoption--and rain sometimes messes that up- and he didn't make youfeel just alittle like a crook for just hoping or assuming they wer up for grabs--no he offred them to the anonymous takers. Even people who would not know him , the new ones moving in from far away.
I do believe he was a Christian.
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58
Do People Just LIKE You?
by snowbird ini find that wherever i go, people just gravitate toward me.. is that your case?.
syl.
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not a captive
Oh, do people just LIKE me?
Generally, yes.
But they think I am a little over-the-top about what they call "religion"
But it isn't "religion" I'm interested in!! "Religion" is destructive.................
Uh-oh! There she goes again....
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Do People Just LIKE You?
by snowbird ini find that wherever i go, people just gravitate toward me.. is that your case?.
syl.
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not a captive
If you said" When you star violating your standards quicker than you can lower them then it is time to go away.."then I like you, RR.
But I'm there, too. Jesus loves me.
But I've discovered that I like myself more the further I get from the cult cloud.
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Elders manual on ebay
by why144000 inhi, i have just put a couple of books up for sale on ebay.
one is the elders manual.
should i expect any flack for selling it?.
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not a captive
I love it.
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38
What questions JW's can't answer?
by XPeterX incan you mention any or a list of questions?wanna right them down and ask a few jw's....curious of what is going to happen....
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not a captive
You kill me Outlaw.
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What questions JW's can't answer?
by XPeterX incan you mention any or a list of questions?wanna right them down and ask a few jw's....curious of what is going to happen....
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not a captive
Rev. 14:4"They follow the Lamb wherever he goes."
This refers to the 144,000, the Anointed. They say that they follow thw Lamb. But ask them how they can follow thw Lamb if the FDS reqires every one of the Anointed to follow them if they are Anointed and not a member of the Governing Gody?
How can you serve those two masters without hating one and loving the other?
They also have the problem, as this Generation thing goes along, of having Anointeds following regular old sheep. The Old guard dies off and so they can't even say that they are following anointed FDS class.
This house is built on sand.
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Why do you visit this site?
by exwhyzee inif being one of jw's is truly behind you, why do you visit this site years later to discuss the subject ?
i know why i do but am curious why others do and how long it will continue.
when will enough be enough?.
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not a captive
At first I thought it was great just to have a place where others understood the soul-violence of having the "Brotherhood" slowly squeeze the life out of you with its white velvet gloves. Softly, gently until one day, blue-face and bug-eyed you begin to resist.
I sent a DA letter and started learning to breath on my own.That's when I found this discussion board.
The people on this board did something amazing:As soon as I regained any strength, they can tell. It turns out that one sign of recovery is that you begin to voice--not just an opinion--you voice your opinion.
That is precisely what was choked out of you--your own voice generated by your own thoughts and experience..
They give you a trouncing if they disagree with you. But it's usually fair play. And, if it's not, you or someone else will call them on it. No one has to change their mind and conform to anyone else's point of view. But facts are valued her, they are given the reverence due them. Everything is debated.
The FDS took this from us.
Over time the scripture "always learning but never able to come to an accurate knowledge of truth", the dread that drove some of us to search in the first place was used against us. Now all we did was learn. But the FDS made it clear: you will neve understand until we tell you you do. We never got to search and question any more. And what small satisfaction we had in being attached to the only true channel to "accurate knowledge" was destroyed at erratic intervals. Because what we thought they/we understood could be taken from us at a moment's notice at the next publication or next convention.
A better translation of that verse at 2 Tim. 3:7 is "ever learning but never understanding or recognizing the truth". The FDS had the self-delusion that they could have accurate knowledge. How would they know? They are not God.They have persistently had and diseminated inaccurate knowledge. And beaten their fellow slaves every time they have been wrong.
The best any of us can do is make a good faith effort to recognize that we are on the right track and humbly and honestly do self-correcting as we will. As we try to do God's will.
If there is a true God, he'll help us.This board has helped me do that.
Is this board an agent of the true God?
Now there's a post that would get some lively action.
Maeve
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How can someone be sure that he will survive in Armageddon?
by XPeterX indon't know what to say...most jw's i asked looked down and said in a bit silent voice that they don't know or that it doesn't depend on them.another jw said that if "i die in armageddon so be it.
"what do you believe?.
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not a captive
If God is a being that loves us then we have nothing to worry about.
If you believe in a loving God and you have plans to be a rotten s.o.b. all your life, then you have something to worry about.
If you love God and he loves you you just don't have a problem.
Jesus knew lots of his followers couldn't read. So it doesn't make alot of sense that he would have a lot of obstacles to you or myself finding the right scroll and the right translation.
Follow Jesus the best you can. And don't get mixed up with the Witnesses.
They'll only make you crazy.