For me it was stepping off the airplane and into the warm African sun, taking a deep breath of the tropical air... and feeling like I was home for the first time in my life.
joeblow
JoinedPosts by joeblow
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56
THE MOST THRILLING MOMENT of your life.....?
by Terry inhere is the most thrilling moment of my life.. i got to meet my film composer heroes john barry and miklos rosza at the beverly hills writer's guild theater for a seminar on filmmusic.. i was 30 years old at the time and going through my "you look like clint eastwood" stage.
(i'm trying to explain my crazy hair!).
i chatted with them and got them to sign my albums.. what was your most thrilling moment?.
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23
Did anyone else find this intriguing/fascinating about this year 2011 and the year of your birth?
by StoneWall inby now you've probably seen the following dates tossed around that will happen in this year:.
but something i wasn't aware of and my brother-in-law showed me about the year 2011:.
take the last 2 digits of the year of your birth and add it to how old you are/will be in this year(2011) and it should always equal 111.. to illustrate, i was born in 1967 and will be 44 this year.
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joeblow
It's amazing how many people are sucked into the whole "wonder" of this... I've seen that email being passed around over and over with everyone being all wigged out by the "phenomenon"... but the minute you point out that it's nothing special... just simple algebra they go blank.
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joeblow
My partner makes a steamed chopped spinach that I absolutely love (it's a favorite from the coutnry she grew up in). She chops it really fine, rinses it, and then sets it in cold water for a few minutes, drains the water and drops it all into a hot pot with some butter and salt... it sizzles and steams away for a few minutes (only a couple) and is served immediately... usually with fish. Oh, and it has to be fresh picked spinach... the one with the huge thick leaves, not the baby spinach that the supermarkets always have.
It's simple, but tastes great... especially with the fresh fish.
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How is the transfer from a congregation handled by the elders?
by trevorbv inif any of you were elders how is the transfer from a congregation handled?
how do elders know where to send the proclaimer's file and letter of recommendation?
does it go through the local branch if in the same country?
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joeblow
Interesting that they felt it necessary to note explicitly that there is "...no need to mention past judicial action unless the offense involved child molestation...".
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42
In your hall, how many converted to a JW from door to door in the last 10 years?
by just n from bethel inin mine that would be a big fat zero.. there have been a handful of teenage baptisms of jw children.. one that really was a foreign language group transfer.. but in the last ten years - there has not been one single convert from the d2d ministry.. btw - my congregation has had over 10 pioneers (real ones that actually do d2d, including elders) for the last decade.. not one.
10 x 70 hours a month x 120 months = 84,000 hours ... results = 0.. also most of our pioneers are pretty good at the door - some half way decent teachers.
one is sub co and another often is called to teach ... wait for it ... pioneer school!!!.
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joeblow
If I look at the congregations in the area where I grew up... the one I attended as a child, the ones friends attended (say... 5 or 6 congregations)... exactly zero people came from D2D work. Not in just a few years, but as far back as I can remember... say... mmmm.... 1975ish until today. Some were small rural congregations, others larger city congregations... Congs grew from people moving in... others shrunk from people moving out. Almost all are "lifers" who were born-in. The young people attending are all raised as JWs. The old people who've been there forever are the only ones I know who were brought in from D2D work... Loads of pioneers putting in the hours every month... not even getting any studies. In my "home" congregation, the only studies reported were with family members. Basically fake studies to boost numbers.
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Do you notice a difference in new relationships out of 'the truth'?
by New light for you inits 3 years since i (we) left, we somehow didn't have a committee or anything, but were able to leave with no friends, but still able to have contact with my jw mom.
in these 3 years of "learing" how to get and have friends that aren't witnesses its been quite the learning curve.
how do you meet people?
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joeblow
None of the people I call friends are JWs. I don't miss the "friendship" of the JWs who I used to think of as my friends... I realised that the friendship was purely because they felt an obligation to be friends, and nothing more. When I moved away from where they live, the friendship immedately stopped - they don't even rate as aquantances. Non-JW friends kept in touch, and even now... over 15 years later, they (the non-JW friends) still call to chat, send emails etc.
It takes work to build up friendships.. but like jamiebowers said, the "worldly" ones will last a lifetime
@ele_lux: crashing on a sofa is easy :-) I've done it in several places... China, Uganda, France etc. All with people I've never met before except through the Couchsurfing website.
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Danger JWs, your KH is falling apart in front of your eyes!
by moshe init seems to me that the kh's in many areas have lost the critical mass they need to stay healthy and to expand.
loss of their youth and loss of ministerial servants makes it obvious that these khs are doomed.
maybe not this year, but before this decade is out we will see many closings and subsequent mergers of kh's to the point that it is obvious to jws that they have become a has-been religion.
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joeblow
There are still jobs in the area I grew up in.... particularly manual trades. it's the high tech jobs that are completely missing in the area. Since it's a rural area, you have farming, and the labor industries that surround that... local shops, petrol stations, cattle auction houses, natural resource mining... it's a fairly active area. The funny thing is, with all the activity in teh area... the mining, the farming, the supporting businesses, the majority of the Witnesses there supported themselves as... janitors.
The denial is clear though, and that really hit home when I visited that cong in the city my family lives in.
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31
Danger JWs, your KH is falling apart in front of your eyes!
by moshe init seems to me that the kh's in many areas have lost the critical mass they need to stay healthy and to expand.
loss of their youth and loss of ministerial servants makes it obvious that these khs are doomed.
maybe not this year, but before this decade is out we will see many closings and subsequent mergers of kh's to the point that it is obvious to jws that they have become a has-been religion.
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joeblow
The rural congregation I grew up in has no new members since I was there in the 70's and 80's. It's the same old people... litterally. Pretty much all the younger ones (ie the ones I grew up with) have moved away to take jobs elsewhere, or were DAed/DFed.
That congregation merged with a second congregation nearby (80km between halls) that had the grey hair problem way worse than my former cong... so that bolstered the numbers a little, for a while... until those people literally died off from old age. The area that second congregation covered is now "uncovered" so to speak... no congregation anywhere nearby... its terretorry is unassigned.
My family have moved to a nearby city, and are in a cong I knew well in my youth. As a family we had good friends living in that city,and we'd go visit them fairly regularly, and attend the meetings there. I got to know a lot of people in that cong over the years - this is also in the 70's and 80's. When I last visited my family, they dragged me to the meetings. Since I'm a fader, I went along and pretended as much as I had to, to get through it... what struck me was, the people at the meeting... it was all the same people I knew from my youth... it was all just the people I knew from 20 to 30 years ago... now all approaching retirement age, or well into that grey hair state.
I thought it was just an off day, and I asked about it, asking if this was the whole congregation or if everyone else was off sick. The reply: "No, this is everyone, and isn't it nice to see all the old friends you know?" They totally gloss over the fact that after putting in 40 to 60 years of preaching to people in the area, there has been no significant increase in numbers - in fact there is a noticeable decrease.... I'd say realistically it's half what there was 20+ years ago. No one there notices though... they just go through the ritualistic motions.
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24
Name 3 Movies You Always Watch on TV
by Think About It inyou are flipping the channels......name 3 movies you can't help but watch again even though you seen it dozens of times.. 1. shawshank redemption.
2. my cousin vinny.
3. happy gilmore.
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joeblow
Wow.. I can't believe no one here has mentioned the best movie ever.... The Princess Bride
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Did you throw ALOTS of old WT/AW magazines in the trash while you were a loyal dub?
by asilentone in -
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joeblow
It kind of makes you wonder just how many tens or hundreds of millions of magazines books and tracts are mouldering away in attics, basements etc. I threw mine away all the time... but my family members keep them... they've got years and years worth. An old uncle died and when they cleared out his home, they found thousands of magazines.
When I finally faded completely, I had a nice clear out, and now, you won't find a single hint of that dark period in my life.