TheOldHippie

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Posts by TheOldHippie

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  20

  Interview with an apostate: Bruja-del-Sol

  by Bruja-del-Sol in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  tell us a little about yourself and your family.. im a 45 year old female.

  married age 18 to another jw (pos son), became the mother of two wonderful children, girl and boy (now adults), divorced and dfd when i was 33 years old and since 2008 married to my first love who used to be my classmate when i was 16 (but got kicked out of my life by my dad b/c he wasnt a jw).. were you a born in or a convert?.

  my grandmother from fathers side, my parents, 2 of my 3 sisters and their husbands (one is an elder) and kids, my brother and his wife and children, and the wifes of my two uncles are all still jw (uncles both have faded, but their cult personas are still intact, unfortunately).

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  TheOldHippie

  Very sad to see how small personal disagreements can lead to such tragic results .............
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  10

  Just a little note now that Nelson Mandela's will is read

  by TheOldHippie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  nelson mandela shared with his first wife, evelyn, a passionate commitment to a cause.

  evelyn, who has died aged 82, was a jehovah's witness with no interest in politics.. as mandela wrote in his autobiography, long walk to freedom: "when i would tell her that i was serving the nation, she would reply that serving god was above serving the nation.

  a man and woman who hold such different views of their respective roles in life cannot remain close.

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  TheOldHippie

  Nelson Mandela shared with his first wife, Evelyn, a passionate commitment to a cause. Unfortunately, it was not the same cause. Evelyn, who has died aged 82, was a Jehovah's Witness with no interest in politics.

  As Mandela wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom: "When I would tell her that I was serving the nation, she would reply that serving God was above serving the nation. A man and woman who hold such different views of their respective roles in life cannot remain close." Nevertheless, they were married for 13 years and had four children, one of whom died in infancy.

  Apolitical though she was, Evelyn continued to pay the price of being a Mandela: the apartheid regime denied her a passport so she could not accompany her children to their private schools in neighbouring Swaziland. It was also Evelyn who had to find the money to pay their fees.

  Born Evelyn Mase, in Engcobo, in the Transkei, she lost her father, a mineworker, while still a baby. Her mother died when Evelyn was 12, and she was sent to Soweto to join her brother, Sam, who was living with Mandela's great friend and mentor, Walter Sisulu (obituary, May 7 2003). Evelyn's mother and Walter's mother were sisters, and the families were very close. After high school in Soweto, Evelyn trained as a nurse.

  It was in the early 1940s that she caught the eye of Mandela, then a frequent visitor to the Sisulu home. "She was a quiet, pretty girl, who did not seem overawed by the comings and goings," he wrote. They were married at the native commissioner's court in 1944, with Walter and Albertina Sisulu as witnesses. The wedding was a spartan affair because the couple could not afford a feast. Nor could they afford a home of their own, living first with her brother in Orlando East and then with her sister. Their first child, Thembi, was born a year later.

  As Mandela became more involved with the ANC, he spent less and less time at home. Martin Meredith, in his biography of Mandela, claims he had affairs. In 1952, Evelyn spent several months in Durban training to become a midwife, while her husband's mother and sister took care of the children. Meredith reports that Evelyn returned to find Mandela's secretary installed in her home. Evelyn, a tough woman, threatened to throw boiling water over her and the woman left the house, but the affair continued.

  Evelyn was never reconciled to living in Johannesburg. She wanted the family to return to the Transkei, where Mandela could take his place in the local Xhosa aristocracy. But it was her religious activities that caused the most trouble between them. The loss of her first daughter, Makaziwe, devastated Evelyn, and when another daughter, also named Makaziwe, was born in 1954, she took it as a sign from God and became a Jehovah's Witness.

  The house became a battleground between religion and politics, with the children as cannon fodder. Evelyn took them to church and made them sell the Watchtower magazine around Soweto. Mandela lectured them on politics. Sisulu tried to intervene, but was told by a furious Mandela that he no longer loved his wife.

  Evelyn gave him an ultimatum: choose between me and the ANC. It was no contest, and she and the children moved out. Shortly afterwards, Mandela met Winnie Madikizela, who became his second - and much more high-profile - wife in 1958.

  Evelyn returned with the children to Cofimvaba, in the Eastern Cape, where she opened a grocery store. Tragedy struck again in 1969 when her oldest son, Thembi, was killed in a road accident. Mandela, by then serving life imprisonment on Robben Island, wrote of his pain at not being allowed to attend his son's funeral. He wrote, he said, to Evelyn, to do his best to comfort her.

  She remained a Mandela until 1998, when she married a fellow Jehovah's Witness and retired Sowetan businessman, Simon Rakeepile. She is survived by her daughter Makaziwe, and her son Makgatho.

  · Evelyn Rakeepile, born 1922; died April 30 2004
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  10

  Candace Conti

  by zebagain in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  the case of cc v the wts and subsequent judgement against the wts would have to be the greatest boost for victims of paedophiles ever.. does anyone know the outcome of this case please?.

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  TheOldHippie

  I strongly guess there will have to a trial before you can talk about an outcome ......................
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  42

  Annual meeting. Greek scholars please help!

  by DATA-DOG in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  below is a statement from gb member gerrit losch.

  notice what is said about the fds.

  is this true?

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  TheOldHippie

  Funny, after so much bashing, that Gerrit's argument was not mentioned in the WT articles ..................
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  33

  Rosemont Cemetery-Masonic Temple-Catholic Church CONNECTED

  by NeverKnew in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  yes, by land transfers - connected.. .

  first - masonic hall property.

  the parcel now known as the land owned by the mason's appears to have been consolidated some time ago to form one huge parcel.

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  TheOldHippie

  So for dummies: What exact is the problem in owning a plot in a cemetary?
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  35

  We Pray For The Governing Body...

  by jw07 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  at the meetings i've noticed over the past 2 years or so brothers asking for 'special blessings' for the governing body.

  it was everyonce in a while at first.

  now it is almost at every single meeting!

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  TheOldHippie

  Our CO prayed for them.

  And he prayed for the single mothers, the elderly, the young ones, the sick, those in trouble.

  So the prayer was for many. Including the GB. But he specifically mentioned, in many sentences, the single mothers. I found that nice.
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  48

  What do Baptists believe?

  by quellycatface in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm thinking about going to church again because i'm really interested in god (today)!!.

  sometimes i'm so confused and feel like there is no god, other days i do and want to try and get to know him.. i guess i'm scared because of all the bs that went on in the kh.. there is a local baptist church near me that seems nice.

  i'm in the uk.

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  TheOldHippie

  i think they believe you have to be baptised.
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  20

  Yearbook Chart Re-posted - Math explained. Top 7 countries account for 50% growth

  by Westenddave in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  sorted from high to low.

  net increase in publishers2013 ave. pubs2012 ave. pubsincrease/ decrease in publishersincrease in pubs cumulative.

  % increase cumulative columnabcde =a-b mexico (g-31)777,429749,58527,84427,84417.47%legend united states of america (e-32)1,167,7231,156,15011,57339,41724.73%red: latin/spanish landscongo, dem.

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  TheOldHippie

  Nice chart, but THIS is utterly wrong:

  "the net increase (ie baptized less Df'd)."

  Baptized and df'ed can NOT be compared to net increase. You need not be baptized to be a publisher, and the number of baptized publishers in some countries make up perhaps 75-80 % of the total number. So you must not mix the two groups together, you must not compare one with the other. Also, number of deaths is seldom commented. 1 % of a population die during a year, so that number would also have to be included in your statement - but as said, even then it is not correct, as they are incomparable.
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  16

  2012 & 2013 MEMORIAL ATTENDANCES LOWER THAN 2011: Strategies for Beefing up the Numbers

  by steve2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  worldwide attendances at the witnesses' annual memorial in 2012 and 2013 were lower than in 2011. in 2011, 19,374,737 attended, whereas in 2012, 19,013,343 and in 2013, 19,241,252 attended.. true, attendance does fluctuate from year to year - but it is less common for the numbers to show decline for two consecutive years.. given the memorial is touted as the most important "display" meeting on the jw calendar, what additional push will be exerted this year to get the numbers up?.

  reports of attendances at meetings, memorials, district conventions are incredibly vital to the organization's image of itself as a successful answer to christendom's allegedly nominal membership and poor attendance.

  when you criticize other religions in terms of their reported apathy and/or state of decline, you've got a lot of money on your own religious "health" - as shown by numbers, numbers, numbers.

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  TheOldHippie

  Last year, 2013, the talk was way better than the couple of years before. And also, you have to consider the day of the Easter week. If on a weekend, more will attend, if mid-week, fewer will, as the not-so-hard-core-ones make up a large proportion of the attendance, and they tend rather to go vacationing than listening.
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  40

  2014 Yearbook Stats - 7 Countries account for > 50% growth

  by Westenddave in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i thought i'd share the 2014 yearbook stats.

  i converted the file to excel format & sorted the increase in publisher's column from largest to smallest.

  as i suspected, the growth is limited to a very few # of "lands.

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  TheOldHippie

  Before you make way too much fuzz over Slovakia - the figure is totally and utterly wrong! The decrease is 38. Check the YB and you'll see. So no -10,038 but only -38.

  So a lot of pet theories will have to be stovced away, I am sorry. :-)

  A thing infrequently mentioned, is the massive exodus of particularly men aged 20 thru 40 from all the East European countries to Western Europe in search of jobs. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria in particular lose a lot of their male and young population each year.