Relief Work and $$$

by allyouneedislove 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Julia Orwell

  Is it the same in Australia? I remember a couple of years ago just after the Brisbane floods word went out to the SE Queensland congregations to donate supplies and labour and that. It was all to be taken to the assembly hall just south of Brisbane. That was just the charity sort of stuff and tools, but I don't know about the labour.

  I know when I lived in another disaster area, this time in far north Queensland (the pointy bit at the top of Australia) brothers and sisters with chainsaws and bobcats went down to the destroyed town and freed trapped JWs from their homes. I don't know about the repair to the homes because it can take up to a year for insurance moneys to be paid. Usually, insurance moneys are paid straight to whoever does the building and repairs, ie the insurance pays for the repairs rather than giving the money to the householder to spend as she/he sees fit.

  How do they then scam the Australians?
• 

  JakeM2012

  I always thought this was interesting that brothers would show up with their families, pay their own ways (transportation), sometimes provide their own shelter and food, out of the goodness of their hearts. But WTBTS was there with an open hand to harvest the money. I wonder how long they would continue the work if no one donated anything to help them. Perhaps suppliers in these disaster areas need to be given a heads up of different true charitable organizations.

  When Houston flooded a few years ago, I know they went through many "committees" on the RBC's that helped in the restoration. It ended up taking years. I just asked one on the committee when he was visiting my area, "why don't you just help put blue tarps on the houses and then make sure the brothers are not conned by some traveling construction company. Let the world fix it, it would have been done a year sooner. No answer, I got up and got him another beer.
• 

  GLTirebiter

  if you have to pay ... well whats the difference between the RBC and any other worldly building company?

  The "worldly" building company is (at least, should be) a licensed, insured contractor. They will pull the required permits, pass the inspections, and there is somebody to stand behind the work.

  If a volunteer gets hurt on the job, who is responsible? If there is no insured contractor involved, I doubt there would be workman's compensation coverage.
• 

  BackseatDevil

  The "worldly" building company is (at least, should be) a licensed, insured contractor. They will pull the required permits, pass the inspections, and there is somebody to stand behind the work.

  If a volunteer gets hurt on the job, who is responsible? If there is no insured contractor involved, I doubt there would be workman's compensation coverage.

  You are absolutely correct. And that is the point. Now, with Kingdom Halls, that's a different matter. No one person owns a Kingdom Hall, the Kingdom Hall will not sue members of the congregation for faulty repair work. But for individual brothers, that is not the case, EXCEPT in places where people have nothing but hollow cinderblock walls and sheets of tin for a roof... THEN there is AMAZING reconstruction work being done, in record time.
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  Julia Orwell

  And the congregation has to pay back the money! i never knew that. When I was in Myanmar in 2009, part of the Bethel tour there had a display of the before-and-after shots of the Burmese kingdom halls. The old ones were shabby things made of bamboo like most of rural Myanmar, while the new ones looked nice and were made of brick and stuff. I thought, wow, this is where our contributions are going! It wasn't until recently I found out that those impoverished Burmese congregations had to pay back loans. I mean, these are people who slog their guts out 6 days a week for a dollar a day. These are people who sometimes can't even buy rice for their kids. Heartbreaking.
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  AndDontCallMeShirley

  And the congregation has to pay back the money!

  And, when the Kingdom Hall is finally mortgage-free, it automatically becomes the property of the WT Society. The local JWs never get to keep, or have a say, in what they actually pay for.

  Menlo Park, Ca. and Bonham, Tx. are prime examples.
• 

  cantleave

  Yep that is indeed how the society works. Free Labour, Free donations and but still insist the Insurance cheque is made out to WTBS.

  It is a scam folks, as are the assemblies, conventions, kingdom halls and literature arrangement.

  Jerkyhoover needs your money.
• 

  Heartofaboy

  The mighty $ seems to reign pretty high in the minds of the WT head honchos.....
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  BackseatDevil

  @Julia Orwell You are correct, but that is not just in impoverished areas. For Assembly Hall builds where millions of dollars are needed, the Society will do some sort of dollar-for-dollar loan program. I remember for our local Assembly Hall, we kept getting announcements at the congregation level that we needed at least $3 million before the Society would grant permission for building to start on the (at the time) projected $5-7million dollar building. Some of the outlying congregations complained since there was no guarantee they would even use the Assembly Hall due to the distance from it, and yet they were still asked to donate. After building was completed (at a cost of $12-14 million dollars) then talk goes to making sure everything is balanced out. I cannot verify, but I think I remember it took less than a year or so, and that building was paid for.