The Disaster Relief Committee at Patterson organized 3 meetings this past Memorial Day, Monday September 5, 2005. The meetings were held in Lake Charles, Louisiana; Bossier City, Louisiana; and Ball, Louisiana. Over 1,200 elders were in attendance from Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. I took horrible notes, but want to share a few things.

The elder opening the meeting emphasized the importance of confidentiality. All cell phones were to be turned off, except their's in case they received a call from Patterson. Confidentiality was stressed, they don't want family members or publishers to know the details of this meeting. WTS will release reports later through the proper channel.

WTS Disaster Relief called the meeting to inform local elders of what the current situation is and what will be happening in the future.

8 Regional Building Committees (RBCs) are working together as a Hurricane Katrina Relief Committee (HKRC). Patterson is in contact with this group at least twice a day every day planning and organizing.

Day one after the hurricane a few brothers from the HKRC went into New Orleans/Slidell area and began assessing damage to Kingdom Halls. The elders divided parts of southeast Louisiana into zones, my notes are sketchy and memory missing a few points, but in one zone 5 KHs are gone, 2 heavily damaged. Around Lake Pontchartrain 7 KHs are gone, 7 moderate damage, and some with light damage. On day two the brothers did more assessments, but martial law was put in place and they had to leave.

The elder handling one of the parts was very critical of Red Cross. He said the HKRC was going into shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi to identify and get JWs out. At Red Cross shelters they encountered problems, Red Cross officials wouldn't let them in. The brother said Red Cross gets money for every person they shelter so they didn't want JWs leaving the shelter. The elders dressed as if they were evacuees in order to gain entrance into the shelters and then once inside they put on their district convention lapel badges and walked around the shelters. The elder was very proud of this deception, and several elders in attendance seemed satisfied with the ploy. All of the JWs that were in shelters are now in JW homes. There are 3,000 - 4,000 displaced JWs, there are 8 missing from New Orleans. Patterson wants elders to get the name and home congregation of displaced JWs that begin attending KHs in new locations. This point was stressed. My thoughts are that WTS can't afford to let any JWs use this as an opportunity to fade or stop attending meetings. From the way the point was made to get publisher information and report it to WTS, methinks they are more concerned with losing members than members' welfare.

100% of Spanish JWs are accounted for because they were at their district convention, while only 90% of English JWs are accounted for...no doubt because they weren't at their convention. I don't see how those percentages match up to the numbers of missing they gave. Again, I think they are just trying to use this as another means to guilt people into going to the meetings and assemblies/conventions.

WTS says this is the biggest thing they have had to deal with. They need the cooperation of all congregations for Jehovah's glory. The HKRC will organize 40 departments working out of Kenner and Metairie. Patterson has a Communication Center setup in Tulane and 5 satellite offices (30-35 people per office) around the gulf area. These 40 departments will have a total staff of 500 personnel. There is a wireless computer hub being setup in Houston. At this hub, they are developing software just for Katrina relief, and they also have a dedicated line to Patterson. When construction begins on KHs and JW homes there will be approximately 5,000 - 7,000 construction volunteers used. No mention of where these volunteers will come from. My guess is perhaps workers from KH construction and Branch construction.

They concluded by telling us to prepare, offer, and wait for direction. They repeated getting names and congregation info of displaced JWs. And they told us to tell know one of the details of the meeting, and reports will be released through the proper channel.

And so there you have it.

For crying out loud----what is with all this secrecy???? Aren't all attendees to this high mucky-muck meeting all properly cleared ad identified? It's not as if they are the CIA meeting with the FBI to discuss how to take out terrorists! Talking about "how best to serve the brotherhood" is supposed to be the focus isn't it? Why is THAT secret?

"Proper channels" always sounds so needlessly selective and more suspect than the ones running this dog and pony show.

 

 

Note that their only interest was in helping JWs. All others are part of this "evil system of things," and will be destroyed at Armageddon anyway, so why bother to help them?

what if every religion was so picky about who they would help

Fascinating! I hadn't thought of that before. Imagine, dozens of congregations where publisher cards, judicial files, etc. are completely obliterated. Bethel only keeps track of elders, MS, and regular pioneers. A fader's dream come true! It would be most intersting to see how many take advantage of this opportunity.

The image I have in my mind is an SUV or airboat full of well-dressed elders whizzing throught he flooded streets, zooming from one Kingdom Hall address to another, while dozens of people are calling out for help on rooftops as they pass...

Clueless idiots, I'm sure there was loud & long applause at how efficiently the brothers worked out the proprty damage, while scarcely a soul thought more than 2 seconds of the suffering poor left behind...

property?!!! that was first on their agenda?!!! My god can't they ever place people first?

And they are so concerned about the Red Cross getting a few bucks for providing emergency shelter. Notice of course that the WTS itself is not providing shelter for the evacuees. They "place" them with other JWs and I just KNOW who is and who is NOT picking up the tab for that.

and of course we all know who will eventually be paying off the repairs or rebuilds of the halls.

Interesting...

Phase 1 - assess the property damage to the buildings you are financing...

Phase 2 - locate the individuals who are still making payments on same said property...

Regards,

Jim TX

I tell you all, no boubt, the WBTS has one heck of a plan when it comes to assisting their own.  It's just outstanding!

If they get their way, without fighting all the red tape, JWs will probably be the first ones to be rebuilt and carrying on with life as usual.

My hats off to the WBTS in this regard. 

Did you all know now there's a new arrangement in which there will be a superintendent to oversee the needs of the elderly in each individual congregation?  I mean, that's awesome!

It's all wonderful.  Just wonderful what they're doing for their people.

DY