friends,.
in an earlier posting gorby wrote about attending the international convention in utrecht this weekend, to keep the family happy and make some observations.. guests were gb member jackson and his assistent van der zande, a dutch helper of the gb.. 42.000+ attenders and +/- 250 baptisers.. the convention theme about "love" was not bad at all, from a christian viewpoint.. jackson and van der zande made a good presentation with humor.. the colorfull witness from arround the word were nice and nice to see.. typical witness doctrine about 1914, king of the north, being obient when your kingdom hall will be sold etcetera were hard to listen to.. but the love theme was not bad, and sometimes oké.. i see a transformation to an evangelical kind of tv church.. ifthe typical jw doctrine about years, endtime, education, blood and armageddon would be downplayed, gorby could see some positive side of jw-ism.. mainpoint is that jw try to show love but on a forced base, because they are told to do so.. but, not a bad convention, and a good, humble part of jackson and van der zande, did not expect this.. i write some positive because it is, what it is.. see your opinion.. gorby.
Good to know I wasn't the only one there for family reasons.
Sitting there I feel like I read a completly different Bible.
Like David treating Saul so well, even though Saul killed Jehovah's priests. Even making a song in honour for him after his dead. Compare that to the love shown today for disfellowshipped ones...
And all the emotions during the final song at the convention...
the international assemblies are on... and the missionaries are coming home... and leaving richer.. i have, in all seriousness, been told by a co that the missionaries going home have large sums of money hidden in their luggage as they go back to their assignments.
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he related how one couple was almost caught with the undeclared cash as they passed through customs.. this has been going on for quite some time, the watchtower using missionaries are mules.. i bet with all the kingdumb hall sales the pace has picked up..
I know of brothers who smuggled money from a European branch office to the Russian branch when they went for a visit. It was not allowed for Russian witnesses to be funded with foreign money
some hot news:.
last weekend was a convention in frankfurt, germany and 11 other locations.
all were connected to the international convention in berlin.. in sum about 94.000 attended.
What I can confirm is that at the arabic assemblies in Germany, individuals took drums or other insturments and they started playing music during the break, with lots of brothers and sisters participating in singing. It was not as part of the official program, however is was quite huge.
I guess in Germany they have some more traditions. A lot of the preaching has been street witnessing instead of house-to-house, even before the carts. Just standing on the street for hours and counting time.
They have so many old brothers and sisters too. So things are very well over there
wanted - young, healthy, unmarried brothers that do not look at pornography.
of course they should not masturbate too, though we do not mention this requirement specifically.
and they should be honest about it.
Wanted - Young, healthy, unmarried brothers that do not look at pornography. Of course they should not masturbate too, though we do not mention this requirement specifically. And they should be honest about it
since today dutch (ex)jws are asked to fill out an online survey by utrecht university with regard to (child) sexual abuse.as chairman of reclaimed voices i call on all dutch speaking (ex) jws to fill out this survey in case you were a victim of abuse or in case you know of someone else that was abused within the jehovah's witnesseswith your participation you contribute to an important investigation that is carried out.link to the survey: https://usbo.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/sv_4hkmbqjhlm0uhmh
After the special talk this weekend. An announcement was made to the congregetion that victims of sexual abuse or those who know them can participate in this survey.
new episode twenty five - daniel is a pimo jehovah's witness.
pimo – \pee-moe\ noun – short for physically in, mentally out, a person held captive to the cult of jehovah’s witnesses because although they are awake, to let others know would cost them everything they’ve ever known.
they stay in physically to keep spouses, family, friends, the only social structure that they’ve ever been allowed to have.
I am also a PIMO, but I agree withs DOC. Can you give a summary, or a condensed version? Love to learn more, really, but I do not have so much time.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/01/utrecht-university-to-investigate-sex-abuse-claims-against-jehovahs-witnesses/.
https://www.trouw.nl/home/overheid-laat-onderzoeken-hoe-jehovah-s-getuigen-omgaan-met-misbruik~aa9e6840/ (in dutch).
in my ten years as a witness i never read the whole bible end to end, what with four magazines a month, the book study, meetings and talk preparations, there just wasn’t the time.
i knew all the important references to ‘prove’ the various jw doctrines, and the cherry picked chapters that help foster the idea that it’s a good book, but that’s not reading it.
well after nearly forty years out, i decided i would do it.
I read it quite a few times and it helped me eventualy to wake up.
i have not been around much or even cared to dig into jw land.
i been working on moving to a new place and leaving behind my old jw past, even the neighborhood where it all happened.. but something i heard this weekend had me thinking.
my mother in law has a small, run down wooden home near the kh where we used to attend.
Also if a KH has a home connected to it that is to be used by a CO that home has to meet certain qualifications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jcahege9us.
I was looking at the 2018 numbers. The countries where Portugese is spoken still have quite some growth. Angola Brazil and Mozambique. So the English and Spanish are getting informed.... but some are not being reached yet with the good news about ttatt
