i've been a lurking by-stander of this forum for approximately 6 months.
i think this forum's best moments can be attributed to the involvement of actual jw's in doctrinaire discussions and to heated (though not always dialectic) debates.
I an intrigued by your comments and look forward to your thoughts. I do feel As Loubelle that after much reading, there is no need to prove anything, unless of course you are trying to prove something to yourself.
As to suggestions for what you should read---Start with The faithful and discreet slave. Enter the term in the search engine and start reading. You will be amazed at the wealth of information from educated members of this board.
I do want to commend you for bucking the organizational trend and coming to place such as JWD.
to the mod, if this is posted in the wrong place please feel free to move it to wherever is appropriate.. so here is another lurker turned community member.
i might write up a life story at some point, but for the sake of time here are the abc's of me.. raised a jw.
I have a number of letters in a drawer that I wrote in th early days of my "awakening". Sometimes I have these imaginary dialogues between me and some elder. Then I get back to reality and do nothing. Why? because as most have said it accomplishes nothing with these people. You might as well tell it to the door.
Six pages Hhmmmmm mm. It probably very therapeutic to write everything down. I don't suggest that you give the elders such a long letter. Most have a brain the size of a pea.
from nigerian newspaper via google alert a few minutes ago;.
entire family, 20 others die in fatal accidenttragedy struck weekend in akwa ibom state as a man, his wife and all their children, as well as more than 20 others, all members of the jehovahs witness church, perished in a fatal road accident which occurred, friday, along the utu etim ekpo road in etim ekpo local government area of the state.. forty other members of the church sustained varying degrees of injuries following in the crash which occurred on their way to the jehovahs witness annual convention ground in ikot ekpene local government area of the state.. thisdays gathered that more than 70 members of the church had hired a lorry to convey them from ukanafun local government area to ikot ekpene for the annual district convention which began on friday and billed to end today (sunday) but the journey ended half way with many members of the church dying on the road in the accident.. eyewitnesses alleged that the driver of the lorry conveying the church members to the venue of the convention lost control of the vehicle when he got to utu etim ekpo, the junction opposite the local government secretariat, and hit the stone used to construct the roundabout, thus resulting in the lorry somersaulting, leaving many of its passengers and others wounded.. the corpses and those injured in the accident were said to have been taken to neighbouring hospitals and mortuaries.. one of the eyewitnesses, mr. friday john, said the people who died may have been more than what was seen because a whole family including parents and their children were all trapped in the accident.. we were all here discussing when suddenly the lorry appeared and was looking like the driver had lost control of it.
then the lorry drove straight and hit the stone and somersaulted into the gutter.. many people died, more than 18. in fact, we couldnt count the number because there were many corpses, including husband, wife and children and they were all taken to the mortuary in various hospitals near etim ekpo here, john explained.. in another narration, a secondary school teacher in eka uruk eshiet etim ekpo, mr. ndipmo nkanta, said the lorry boarded by the deceased and the injured passengers was not meant for passengers but goods only.. he blamed the accident on poverty , arguing that if there was a better alternative, such casualties wouldnt have been recorded, especially as they were going to worship god.. the public relations officer of the federal road safety corps, frsc, in the state, mr. godsgift uwen, blamed the incident on over-speeding and overloading by the driver of the lorry.. he said the lorry was not supposed to carry any passenger as it was a meant for goods only but the driver stubbornly used it as a passengers vehicle, which led to the sad incident.. he advised against rush and drunken driving, especially in the yuletide, noting that these are some of the major causes of accidents on the roads.. culled from thisday".
Home schooling can be challenging. But it can work provided the parent(s) has an education background, takes advantage of all the resources available, and collaborates with the local school board. This entails following the local school curriculum and arranging for a qualified teacher, from the local school baord test the child(ren) periodically. In Canada this is important because in order to graduate and get a diploma- a student must have a set number of credits(28) volunteer hours and a second language.(core French).
From my experience with the home schooled children in my area, few have been able to attain that provincial recognized diploma. No doubt this is because GB has hounded parents that education is from Satan, and since Jw are the most educated people on earth they can teach their children far better. (some may remember the talks that reading the awake of six months was the equivalent to a college education.
I also know of a number of witness families have used the society's literature as a curriculum basis. One sister used the Daniel book as a basis for teaching history :(
Another aspect that I have noticed is: ones that have succeed have taken much longer (one to two years more). For example there are 5 homeschooled children in the congregation I loosely attend aged 19-21) All of these children are still picking away at their high school credits, while my children of the same age are in university.
From my own personal experience, I'd say: continue doing what you are doing. I know that it hard fo you, but please don't flood her with too much. Let her put two and two together, she will get it in time.
I believe once she realized that the governing body is not guided by holy spirit and that these men are not God's spokesman, then the house of cards will fall for her.
When I was at your wife's stage, I would complain about things in the congregation and blaming the local brothers . My husband would say : do you think its a local problem or systemic? Do you think the local brothers are to blame or are they acting on suggestions from the governing body.? This type of reasoning helped me to see the bigger picture. Once I realized who the Wizard behind the curtain was--everything fell in place.
"...jonathan holt, 24, a neighbor of heichel and a member of the same jehovah's witness church, appeared via closed-circuit television in clackamas county court wearing a suicide smock..." read cable news report of full story complete with photographs.
very excellent investigation.. http://abcnews.go.com/us/murdered-barista-whitney-heichel-raped-shot-times/story?id=17534209#.ujvk-w-hk8b
