My Bethel experience

by new boy 58 Replies latest jw friends

  • Dogpatch
    Dogpatch

    My favorite! Working in the pressroom has advantages, you can cut and paste a lot of things!

    alt

  • Dogpatch
    Dogpatch

    My pressroom scrapbook with pics:

    http://www.freeminds.org/bethel/scrapbook.htm

    My favorite story, our assignment in the pressroom with the "atomic scientists":

    http://www.freeminds.org/bethel/toons/convert1.htm

    Randy

  • mcsemike
    mcsemike

    Somehow it "rings all too true" as the movie said. Very believable. If the elders act like Nazis in the local congregations where the public and everyone else can see them, it's no surprise that some of the people at Bethel would be worse where they thought no one would report them or dare complain.

    It sounds like a lunatic asylum. And the patients who were the most ill ran the place. Sounds like a good theme for a movie.

    I went there once in 1977 for lunch and played the piano for some Bethelites in the lounge. It doesn't appear that I would have wanted to stay any longer. My deepest sympathies to any and all who were hurt by their experiences there.

  • truthsearcher
    truthsearcher

    Does anyone know what it is like at the Canadian Bethel in Georgetown?

    Also, was Patterson Bethel this bad 10 years ago?

  • new boy
    new boy

    Randy my friend...............God bless you!

    People ask me what the big thing about going to bethel is.............and I say "nothing" all bethel does is give you the same experience in 4 years that anyone would get being a JW in any KH in 20 years. No difference, just fast forward.

  • Anitar
    Anitar

    Hi NewBoy. Your story is incredible, and you tell it well. I could talk for hours about the hypocritical Jehovah Witnesses and the closeted gay people at Bethel. I've said to my mom many times that for someone who hates gay people, she sure keeps some strange company.

    Instead, I will comment about how you said the food was at Bethel. Forgive my candor, but right now I am laughing my ass off. As a sophmore in college, with several years of grad school ahead of me, I can say that I get the best food in the world. It's basically anything I want, anytime I want. True, I pay for it eventually through my student loans, but I have never been healthier in my life. To all the JW lurkers out there, I advise you to go to college, get the hell away from Bethel, and everything else to do with the Watchtower. The food is great, the people are fun, non-judgemental (not to mention alert and awake), and you don't have to feel like you're a prisoner at Auschwitz. Oh, and there's the added bonus of getting a degree and a decent job.

    Anitar

  • jaguarbass
    jaguarbass

    I work in a jail and everybody gets a full plate of food every meal.

  • jayhawk1
    jayhawk1
    I work in a jail and everybody gets a full plate of food every meal.

    Once upon a time, so did I and there is no doubt inmates have it better than Bethelites. The local congregation had a young man who went to Bethel. We was so excited when he returned, because we all expected great stories about how Jehovah's House ran. Instead we got back a broken young man who had nothing good to say about his experience.

  • Alligator Wisdom
    Alligator Wisdom

    Dogpatch,

    Damage control as many leave...

    From your cartoon that you posted "God's people leave Bethel", I noticed the name Jim Bauer. I remember him. Tall, lanky single brother. He once was a visiting speaker at my former congregation when he came over to stay with an ex-bethelite who was an elder in my congregation. They were long time friends. Considering that Jim Bauer was a long time Bethelite and a "heavy" there, all the members in my former congregation hailed him like a god from Mount Olympus Bethel.

    Had dinner with him once when he visited. Seemed like a nice person. Rather mild and quiet. I forgot what his duty was at Bethel. Did you know him personally?

    Alligator Wisdom (aka Brother NOT Exerting Vigorously by WTS standards)

  • Alligator Wisdom
    Alligator Wisdom

    By the way Dogpatch, your site "Freeminds" was the first anti-JW web-site I'd seen. I went through it with a fine tooth comb.

    Nice!

    And thanks!

    Alligator Wisdom (aka Brother NOT Exerting Vigorously by WTS standards)

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