yesterday i was looking to share a pic with a friend of mine, and i swore it was in my photo albums (i have 3).
so i start going through them, and i see so many jw pics!
i had a huge group of friends when i was 'in', and so there is just pic after pic of assemblies, dinners, game nights, rbc projects, my family and the house i grew up in, people from the hall, etc.
I have a lot of empathy for you.
I realized a couple of days ago, that as a 4th Generation JW, I grieve the life I left behind - I grieve all the negative things that happened to me, and I grieve losing all the good things - for me, it was not all good or bad. In this last year, I've just started to fully see the damage done by being a JW. At the same time, there is a lot I miss about my family ...
It's very complicated.
Be gentle with yourself, and proud of your progress.
a european jehovah's witness, who served in an important branch, has sent me the following rumor.. some serious sources are mentioned.
it clearly shake my perspective of what is going to happen in the coming months.. i'm totally shocked !.
the law firm managing all the interests of the wt has studied the problem in europe on data protection and actions on files and protocols of child abuse.
@TheFallGuy in the States, board members of non-profits usually elect for the organization to carry "Board Insurance" due to the fact that board members are individually liable for the decisions and actions of the non-profit corporation.
There is so much WT could do that would not compromise their Two Witness Rule:
Their inability to think out of the box, or to do what is best for the people in their care is becoming increasingly blatant. That is not to say that there are not good men there who sincerely care, but they are so ignorant and uneducated that they have been causing real damage for decades. It is time to put a stop to it.
the trial transcript of nunez v. watchtower (426 pages) has been made available from scaars which is the acronym for a new a 501(c)(4) lobbying corporation, sexual child abuse - advocates for reform and safety (scaars).. .
the scaars corporation was formed october 3, 2018 by barbara anderson and former elder, roger bentley and his wife, karin.
on the home page of the scaars website, scaars.org, you will find information that explains the goal of the movement - scaars: "changing laws - changing lives.".
They don't have to give up their 2 witness rule in order to report child abuse to the police. If a parent or child comes to them with that information, that is not a confession and should not fall under the cloak of clergy privilege... they need to act like mandatory reporters and call the police. The. End.
Let the police notify the congregation that an investigation is being conducted so people are warned...and put on notice....
it is not that hard to NOT protect child molesters.....
2018 service year report of jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.
see details of the global preaching work of jehovah’s witnesses from september 2017 to august 2018.. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/2018-service-year-report/.
average publishers preaching each month: 8,360,594 (2017 - 8,248,982).
From a business point of view, this is really flat. As was pointed out, their congregation numbers are down - we know they've been consolidating. Interesting too, is their publisher numbers - if you take the number baptized and add it to last year's average publisher number - it would be 8.5m publishers. This year's actual number is 8.3m which means at least 170k people died, became inactive or were disfellowshipped.
Flat. Flat. Flat. No wonder they needed to cut spending. They are outspending their growth with no new revenue streams to develop. The main "growth" is in poor countries that cannot afford to support the organization. Developed countries with all the sexual abuse scandals are experiencing a mass exodus and drop in donations.
They've got themselves in a pickle.
posted on another forum:.
c/o spoke about the israelites compliance when travelling in the wilderness.
each time the pillar of fire/smoke moved, the israelites had to pack up and move.
It's getting a little tough for survivors to track down documents and elders who have been shuffled around. Difficult to investigate congregations that don't even exist anymore.
I think this is an important point, and not something I'd really considered. They could consolidate congregations and sell off KH without doing as much shuffling around. It would seem it serves several purposes: make the KH look more full, sell off KH not needed, dissolve and/or rename congregations so they can destroy records, shuffle around elders so they cannot be tracked down....
i have to say that i’m not enjoying the xmas season.
i have no emotional ties and i’m spending money that i have not set aside for xmas during a slow work season for my trade.. i’m not happy about it, because it’s foolish to spend money when you aren’t making any.
then i feel like i’m expected to do all this, and to be happy about spending money and time on persons that i’m not that involved with.
I do not celebrate Christmas. I thought about it, but my friends don't care and it is just too damn expensive. I occasionally get someone a gift at Christmas time if I see something they really want and it is a good deal. Otherwise, I'm very generous all year round and I don't feel obligated by Christmas.
That said, the thought did occur to me that I could wait until after Christmas when all the good deals come out and get presents then....
SO many bigger fish to fry...
i was just wondering , why would my jw husband return to been a full blown baptized jw after 20 years of fading?.
he has spent 20 years of his life been a worldly person , with a worldly wife & kids & worldly friends .... to joining the borg full time , to getting baptized , to getting new brothers & sisters .... and to writing off most of his worldly friends (some his known his whole life ) , to trying to convince me & our children how wonderful this org is ......and anyone else who will listen :(.
has anyone ever experienced this ...... oh and he seems to be in it 110% and no-one can say anything about this crazy org or show him proof that it all bs...... his such a clever independent , successful guy , why on earth would he go back to this , after been out for so many years & change into this domineering , opinionated fool ..... oh and his entire family also went back ... father , mother , brother & sister .
1) He wasn't attending, but he never really left.
2) Peer pressure. His family went back.
so our family fade is well under way.
we changed congregations as regular attenders and left in good standing with those giving hugs and kisses simply knowing we "needed a change".
we moved to a neighboring congregation that is out of our original region knowing we would see no one and the two boe's wouldn't really have immediate dealings.
when people ask me what congregation I am attending, I say, "I'm not attending right now." If they press it, "I say it's complicated." and don't elaborate further. I remain silent, look away and or change the subject by asking something about them.
It's works. Sometimes its awkward, but it works.
i guess every jw has a different conscience on the matter, and i don't believe any jw publications have ever specifically mentioned nudity in film as being off limits.
of course genitals are out of the question because that's usually relegated to r movies which most good jws don't view.
female toplessness is condoned but not spoken about, as most jws i know have seen titanic and many own it.
my JW family watched a lot of foreign films, and they had nudity in them. It depends on the context. Does it move the story forward? Is it someone taking a bath, or is it porn? It's a continuum. I'm hard to offend, but I still don't like gratuitous sex or violence just for the sake of it. It needs to be part of the story and in the appropriate degree.
Europeans in general have a more relaxed view of nudity than Americans. We do come from Puritans and that has carried through to the general immaturity and repression Americans display around the subject.
Whenever I talked about it to any JW that was offended, I'd always ask, "you know you're naked under your clothes, right?" that usually made them stop and think...
