yes, according to richard bivins, vice president of the albany, georgia convention and visitors bureau.
he did a study last year on the 3 weekends of jw conventions held there and says it brought in $2.7 million to the city.
scroll down to "visitors bring big benefits" at.
They hit the bars too.
Oh yea. I remember traveling to the District Convention and staying at THE hotel of choice by all the dubs. After the session and then dinner, everyone ended up at the hotel bar. We'd be there till well after midnight. I remember several of my friends would be pretty much sloshed each night by the time they headed off to bed. Good times. I couldn't tell you anything about the convention but we sure had a good time in the hotel bars.
yup!
red squirrels by the dozen at center parcs, cumbria, where hl and i + 15 family members spent the last 4 days as guests of her 2 brothers.
i'll post pics asap.
Them's good eatin'
i'm amazed the watchtower hasn't started one of these, a guaranteed way to sucker in the youth of the borg.. with oral roberts university as successful as it is, how long to the jw's start one ??????.
what do you think the classes would be called ??????.
- new world translation 101.
Application was made to the U.S. government for foreign students to be admitted under nonimmigration student visa provisions. In response, the U.S. Office of Education gave recognition to Gilead School as offering education comparable to professional colleges and educational institutions.
Does this mean that if one were invited to Gilead School they, if a sincere JW, would have to turn down the offer because they have been trained their whole life to not seek higher education?
the memorial this year was the first one i've been to since being df'd.
when they were passing the emblems they missed out the row where me and another df'd brother were sitting.
the other person said it had been happening for the last 5 years he'd be going back to meetings.
When they were passing the emblems they missed out the row where me and another DF'd brother were sitting.
So they skipped a whole row of people so as to not offer the bread and wine to a "judas"?? What about the "non-judas" people on the row? Were they not worthy of being offered the bread and wine? It never ceases to amaze me...the stupidity of the things I keep hearing.
personally, i find catholicism too weird and if followed properly, just another "cult".
if i was not raised as a witness, i probably would have been a "home baptist" or something like that.
what do you think you would have been, religiously speaking, if you were not first a witness?
agnostic. at best, unaffliated.
i layed awake last night thinking this through, trying to understand it..... a congregation needs to build a hall.
the money for this loan comes from donations from the worldwide brotherhood.
so in effect, the congregation is borrowing some of its own money back.
There was a thread I saw yesterday about how the WTS loans money to congregations to build halls and then receives the deed to the hall. I layed awake last night thinking this through, trying to understand it....
A congregation needs to build a hall. They go to the WTS for a loan. The money for this loan comes from donations from the worldwide brotherhood. So in effect, the congregation is borrowing some of its own money back. The WTS loans this money with interest. A good interest rate compared to banks, but interest nonetheless. The congregation uses this money to buy the materials to build the building. The congregation provides, free of charge, labor to build the building. The congregation then turns over the deed to the property back to the WTS. And now the congregation has a mortgage with interest that is owed and has nothing to show for it. They borrowed money from a lender so they could buy property for the lender and now have to pay the lender back. And on top of that the borrower pays for all the upkeep and maintance of the property for the owner/lender.
What a scam. How did I never see thru this before?
how is it seen if a single adult brother sits right next to a single adult sister at the kingdom hall?
rumours get going, right?
one thing i never liked in the jw's was that you just couldn't be good friends with people of the other sex.
I remember an elder saying one time, and this is almost word for word, "If two people are sitting together at the hall(male/female) then we should be expecting a wedding announcement soon". I kid you not.
I remember sitting at a district convention with a group of friends and I got to sit next to a girl I had a crush on. I was 17 and driving myself to the meetings and assemblies and it was suggested to me after being seen sitting next to this girl that maybe I should sit with my parents.
I remember coming in late to a meeting and I saw a cousin of my best friend visiting(a girl). So I sat next to her since I didn't see her that often. You'd have thought we had sex right there in the hall during the meeting for all the commotion that it caused.
If they would lighten up on this opposite sex stuff and let parents raise their kids with proper morals, the witnesses would probably have less problems with fornication. It's like the old thought, if you think someone is bad and expect bad from them, they will go ahead and live up to your expectations. Same if you think good and expect good from them.
i was reading swordofjah's post about a young lady who went back after 8 months and got reinstatedthis past tuesday, a young sister (21 years old) was reinstated after 8 months.
she was always very nice and upbeat, but made a few wrong turns in her life.
i talked to her a bit after the meeting and she was telling me that before being disfellowshipped she had been consumed by her actions, just didn't feel any joy in serving jehovah.
They have "no place else to go". They NEED family and friends and CAN'T make it on their own. They MUST have this support.
That's it exactly. They don't know any other way. Especially for people raised in "the truth". Cut them off from it and they are completely lost. Then they feel they must come back to have that support.
when a jw, i began to get seriously into mountaineering / rock / ice climbing.
somehow i escaped being counselled about it, by talking to an elder in advance of their finding out, and having a fit.
statistics prove that more persons die from unroped "scrambling" than mountaineering with ropes).
Roller coasters? Good God.
Racing go-karts and riding motorcycles was frowned on by a couple of the more conservative elders. You never knew who would react how. One elder though was down right envious of my motorcycle. He said he wanted to get one, but his wife wouldn't let him. Guess that headship arrangement wasn't working out. Another elder questioned the safety of riding and was concerned because the youth in the congregation were fascinated by the MS(me) and his motorcycle.
Snow skiing and water skiing were never outlawed from the stage but there were certain elders that would make snide comments about it when possible. Full contact football was counseled against. We had to start playing tag or touch football. We actually had more injuries from tag and touch than we did from tackle.
the terrorist threat level is now back to orange (high) again.. what do we do this time?
last time we were told to go out and buy duct tape and disaster supplies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/a15503-2003may20.html?nav=hptop_tb.
Invading Iraq was supposed to make us all sleep better?
I'm not a big Bush supporter. I'm not big on "pre-emptive" war strikes. But President Bush did warn that attacking Iraq and winning that war would not stop terrorism. He warned that there may be retaliation from extremist groups. No one can say that we weren't warned before going into this that this could happen.
People think differently about war and violence when it hits closer to home. Us Amercians are so cocooned and sheltered. We don't know what war or terror is. Except for war verterans and now New Yorkers. Our leaders say "war!" and we all jump on the bandwagon. When they raise the terror alert level to orange, we freak out. On the bright side though, we may argue and bicker amongst ourselves and whine and cry about things but when or if the disaster hits, Americans put all that aside for a while to take care of business. The city of New York proved that.
