Posts by jschwehm

27

Im getting married in approx 12.5 hours and i cant sleep

by Es in

jw
friends

.

hey all its 2:26 am here and i cant sleep .

es

jschwehm

Congrats Es, here is to many happy years together with your new husband.....I will say a special prayer for you both today.

Jeff Schwehm

www.catholicxjw.com

4

Did your parents find you dates?

by Virgogirl in

whe i hit 19, i was living at home and working, secretly saving up for a tiny apartment so i could fade.

i was showing no interest in finding a "suitable marriage mate" in the truth.

suddenly, there started appearing at our sunday meetings eligible young brothers from out of town, and they seemed to be meeting up with my parents stranger still, they had been invited back to our house afterwards for lunch!

jschwehm

The only dates I got from my parents were 1975 and 1984.....;)

One thing that was always interesting was when I was a single pioneer.....Sometimes I would sit next to a young single, sister mainly because that might be the best seat in the Hall or one of the few that were left. However, by the next meeting, I was not only dating this sister....we were engaged to married shortly....

It always amazed me how those things happened so fast.

Jeff S.

www.catholicxjw.com

7

Ex-JW Mousepads and Clocks

by jschwehm in

jw
friends

i thought you guys might like to see these.. jeff s.. http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25478092.

http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25453733.

http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25477569.

jschwehm

I thought you guys might like to see these.

Jeff S.

http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25478092

http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25453733

http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25477569

http://www.cafepress.com/catholicxjw.25504625

34

Elders School Part 4: Beat, er, I mean shepherd the sheep

by sir82 in

jw
friends

talk # 13: shepherd the flock of god in your care, part 1 - brother bethel-coot.

synopsis: jesus told peter to feed his little sheep, so elders should shepherd the flock.

elders should be sincerely concerned for flock, approachable.

jschwehm

Hi VM:

Well when I was at Bethel in the late 1980's it was made clear to us that if we got hurt on the job that the Watchtower Society would assist us in paying any initial medical expenses but if there were long term problems that was our problem. It took a while for us to finally get the message and to be honest we got the run around quite a bit. So, I asked my JW father to take out a catastrophic health insurance policy on me. He did it since we could never get the Society to tell us what kind of coverage we had with them. When some others heard that I did this, they did it too. One of my friends mentioned that they were getting their folks to purchase health insurance for them...the Bethel elder got mad and said that we had no faith in the provisions made for us by Jehovah and his organization. I was a construction work at Brooklyn and regularly hung outside of bldgs that were 10 or more stories above the street and they did not have any insurance on us. And, I saw it happen all of the time where a young guy would go to Bethel have a health issue created by the work at Bethel and then be asked to leave.

Then, when I got mugged in front of 124 Columbia Heights and the cops came and interviewed me. I was told by the Bethel security people to cooperate at first. So, I went the next day and looked at photos at the police station. When I got back, I was called into a meeting with one of the members of the Factory Committee...Ralph Walls is his name....a bigtime heavy. He told me that they were worried that this was some type of gang related activity (and the cops did tell me that they had been targeting our neighborhood lately) and they were afraid that if the gangs found out that one of theirs could ID them then the Society's properties would be vandalized. They also said that they would not be able to guarantee my safety if I got actively involved in the case and IDed these people who had been harassing the entire neighborhood for weeks. Oh, and by the way, I was not the only Bethelite that got mugged and beat up over that time period. I suspect all of us were given the same song and dance....In any case, it was at that time that I realized that bldgs and property meant more to them than anything else.

Jeff S.

34

Elders School Part 4: Beat, er, I mean shepherd the sheep

by sir82 in

jw
friends

talk # 13: shepherd the flock of god in your care, part 1 - brother bethel-coot.

synopsis: jesus told peter to feed his little sheep, so elders should shepherd the flock.

elders should be sincerely concerned for flock, approachable.

jschwehm

Another opportunity to thoroughly condemn higher education. At least as much time was spent on relating the foolishness of pursuing universtiy education as was spent on figuring out how to get persons to want to be elders or ministerial servants.

When I was first leaving the JWs, I got into an argument with my parents over this one. I said why does the Society have to prop up pioneering and full-time service by tearing down those who decide to go college? Why can't they prop up pioneering and full-time service based on the benefits of that career instead of saying it is better than the this?

Well, after years of pioneering and time at Bethel, I knew why the Watchtower Society has to approach it in this way. They have to scare the little dubs with eternal destruction if they go to college so as to make the life of a full-time servant in their organization bearable.

"The world uses people up and throws them away when they are done with them. Jehovah's organization is not like that."

Also, that comment above really irked me as there is no organization on earth that I have been associated with that does a better job using people up and throwing them away than the Watchtower Society. I made this observation to my parents after coming home from Bethel. As usual, I was the one with the major problem and the Society can do no wrong.

Jeff Schwehm

www.catholicxjw.com

5

Higher Education Story

by onesong in

jw
friends

here's a sad story of what happens when we take man's advice on the education issue.

my ex-wife ( we went thru a very amiable divorce after 13 yrs.

and leaving the borg) is(was) a third generation jw.

jschwehm

Yes, it sounds like the JWs are turning back the clock to the 1980's.

A friend of mine who went to a neighboring congregation was marked for attending college. I was the goodie goodie pioneer who went to Bethel. When I left Bethel, I had no skills to support myself or my new wife. Finally, my JW parents allowed us to live with them for five years while I went to college. I eventually got accepted to graduate school and got my doctorate in Biochemistry and now I teach at a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. I am not making tons of money but I am doing something I love and I am making enough money to support myself and my wife. (And it gives me time to expose the Watchtower in my spare time.)

In any case, when I first started going to college I go the looks from the local dubs. As I learned more about history, it became harder for me to be an active JW as my doubts about what the JWs had been teaching me were confirmed. My wife and I left the JWs in the mid 1990's and I credit my liberal arts education as a major contributing factor to giving us the freedom and knowledge needed to make that healthy break.

My sister who is about 15 years younger than me, grew up in a totally different environment. By the time she was a teenager the anti-college bias in that congregation had died down considerably. When I would tell her the things I was told my our parents and the elders about going to college when I was her age, she would not believe me. I wonder what she thinks now that they are trying to put the cat back into the bag.

It should be noted that my sister went to LSU on a scholarship (full ride) and even got to live on campus in a dormitory. That would have been unheard of for me. She once called me after going to a lecture in her sociology class on cults and said "the way my professor described cults it reminded me of the JWs"---smart girl! Needless to say she has nothing to do with the Watchtower but still has many of the wounds associated with being raised a dub.

By the way....out of the five kids my parents had.....4 of us have college degrees....(and the one without the college degree is doing very well because of his natural street smarts)...however none of us are practicing JWs....my parents consider themselves major failures because of this. Crazy isn't it.

Jeff S.

www.catholicxjw.com