by enoughisenough 11 Replies latest jw experiences
In reading about the 54 year old man being shot, I was wondering if any of you were ever shot at, or threatened with a gun.
I was in a car group where a woman came out waving around, telling us to get off her land. In another situation a man told the car group to turn and leave or he was calling the cops.
Just the usual 'f*ck off' and stuff like that. I remember one guy ripping into my father because he was 'dragging his kids around in the heat'. It was in Queensland and a tropical 36 degrees celsius at the time so he probably had a point.
When I was a gungho pioneer, I went up to a house and a man in his 20's got out of a truck on the property and told me that no one was at home.... in an angry tone.
There were two other garage apartments on the property, so I just said ok thanks, and walked toward the other two residences on the property. He got irate and started screaming, "They are not at home either!".
Something told me to get the hell out of there. So I did. I can still see the fire in his eyes. He was ready to throw down for sure. Musta been 35 years ago.
Poor fellow. Probably lost his momma to the cult like I did several years later.
Remember some uncorfortabke moments in FS, someone let us in and locked the door behind us.
G.
This would have been in the mid 1990s. Went to a door, 2 young boys about 10 years old answered the door, we asked to speak to their parent's, they said they weren't home, then one boy told the other, go get the gun, he disappeared into the house, and we decided it was time to walk away too.
No gun threat as I am not living in the US. Some announced some punishment if we were not to leave, but we never tried that out.
Some years ago witnessing nearby on the vineyard properties me and another brother were confronted up a driveway by a man who i thought had a rifle but must have put it down somewhere when coming down his drive and grabbed us by the shoulders and pushed us at the same time back out of the property.abusing us .
Two occasions had dogs set upon me when pioneering.
One occasion walking to a house on a property a german shepherd stalked and attacked me several times on the back of my legs ,had to beat him off with my witnessing bag and told the owners when I got to the house and they were disinterested.
At a household gate one time a woman set her pit bull on me and it latched onto my hand and she waited a while looking me in the eyes before she told it to release.
Out in the bush in the middle of Australia in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy I was witnessing with a brother from another congregation (did'nt know him well) and he made a silly comment about the war troubles in the home owners country and he went for his rifle and suddenly an Aboriginal woman who looked distressed burst out from amongst the men there and ran out past us at the door. It took a while to calm the men down while this stupid brother just looked sheepish. That time I thought I'd had it and the rest of the morning my heart was pounding ,we had been told to not wear ties as the locals would think we were Police. That same day someone let off a bomb outside the Police station.
Not all country territory was bad ,one time with a carload of pioneers doing a farm I drove up to the farm house and the cows came up to to our car and proceeded to nudge it and one even chewed and ripped off my outside rearview mirror ,we all laughed like hell.
I guess we got lucky, considering how many years we went door-to-door in the South Bronx and the projects in the 70s, 80s and 90s. No guns, no threats of violence. Well, one pair of boys confronted me one time, but they didn't really seem like the type. One of them mugged and postured, and I just kept staring at him, unimpressed. His partner slapped the back of my head and both ran away, giggling. They were young and not intimidating, so I just sighed and went on my way.
Another time, we knocked at a door and waited a minute or so, then left. As we were walking away, the homeowner came out, waving some magazines and complaining that we wouldn't leave him alone. Apparently, some pioneers had worked that block during the previous week, and I guess the extra visit was one knock too many. He didn't do anything aside from yell at us, so we left and decided to work another area that was hopefully not as recently worked by careless pioneers.
Other than that, we had the occasional door slammed in our faces. But I was never in a situation where I felt frightened or intimidated.
Usually, in the past, people ran away from someone holding up JW literature or hid when JW rang the bell. Except youths, they could be dangerous. Back in the day, Jewish neighborhoods were the most dangerous for FS even for a Jew who was JW. I remember reading in JW literature about mobs of Jewish fanatics attacking and maiming JW—even JW females. JW could get hit with a stray bullet in poor neighborhoods but I never felt unsafe in a poor neighborhood while holding up the mags in fs. Just let them see the mags and people clear the sidewalk. Things have changed now because people have changed about how they view religion. Dogs, guns, fanatics, youths is fs danger nowdays and mags don’t stop them.
JWs were for years taking chances with their own lives and the lives of their children---just to try to CONVERT people who have their own ideologies (religious and/or otherwise) for a PUBLISHING/NOW REAL ESTATE corporation which is also a CULT. IMPHO (plus the PHOs of other former dubs), don't really believe that most of the leadership had to experience the atrocities/hardships the majority of the Average R&F dubs had to deal with. Engaing plenty of activities for this organization is UNHEALTHY (mentally, physically and spiritually, yes spiritually) on sooooooo many levels! 😫🤬
