You Could Be Stuck in a University When Your Parent Dies. Convention Day 2 Video (page 5)

LongHairGal

Hi LV101:

Of course the affluent Witnesses aren’t going to give up their toys and cliques! Like you said, it’s 95% show of a theocratic veneer. Most of them are probably happy with their social lives there.. Whatever.

As far as the young JWs :: I am happy to hear they aren’t forfeiting scholarships nowadays. I saw this foolishness on stage at assemblies decades back. But I was not swayed and kept on working.. Anybody with one ounce of sense only has to look at the predicament those older pioneers are in today!

And so it goes in the JW religion that keeps reinventing itself. But I am glad to be Out.

blondie

DOC, "My elderly mother just said a recent WT spoke of them sending a young guy to law school." (Judah Ben Schroeder (son of late GB Member Albert Schroeder) was sent by WT HQ to Columbia Law School. Not sure if he graduated. But here is a documented example straight from a WT publication.:

Philip Brumley "" To my surprise, I was assigned in January 1982 to serve in the Legal Department at Bethel. Three years later, I was asked to attend law school and to become a licensed attorney. I was pleasantly surprised to learn during my studies that the fundamental freedoms that most people take for granted, both in the United States and internationally, were strengthened by legal victories won by Jehovah’s Witnesses. These key cases were discussed extensively in class.

In 1986 when I was 30, I was appointed as the overseer of the Legal Department. Since I was so young and barely grasped the complexity of what lay ahead, I felt both privileged and overwhelmed.I qualified as an attorney in 1988..https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/watchtower-study-july-2025/The-Battle-Belongs-to-Jehovah/

NotFormer

Just out of curiosity, what happens at Bethel when a Bethel worker has a family emergency? Is it easy to get compassionate leave, or is it a bureaucratic nightmare?

Just askin' from the cheap seats.

LV101

Longy -- I didn't know many that were affluent but they did have brains to continue working. Yes - their friends/social circles were very important. Always will be JW 'freeloaders' (ha ha ❤️ your term - hadn't heard it in yrs.) who will expect handouts while they waste time and use pioneering as an excuse to be lazy.

Wonder if there are many disadvantaged, elderly, JWs, today - very sad. If so, they're surviving off of taxpayers and doubt it's much. Have heard of ones self-employed as housekeepers, handymen, and the economy has to be challenging for some these days.

Freeloading in a bad economy can't be that much fun.

LongHairGal

LV101:

Even JWs who might be inclined to give money to freeloaders in the congregation might be less generous in a bad economy.

As someone not raised a Witness and brought up by hardworking and thrifty people, I was appalled by what I saw were just plain deadbeats in the religion.. However, there were also very responsible people there who wouldn’t ask anybody for anything.

I wondered why there wasn’t a denunciation of these freeloaders. Then I realized the religion wouldn’t want to discourage these people because they were in the full time ministry.. So there were ‘hints’ that people should ‘help’ them.. Not me. Not after I was treated like an outcast for working! I wasn’t giving anybody there a damn thing.

The eighties era had a great economy. If only these Witnesses didn’t throw good jobs away with both hands and arrogantly scoff at me for working. They might be in decent shape today…instead of something I would run from.

hoser

LongHairGal:

It is expensive to be a Jehovah’s Witness in good standing. Maybe this is why so many failed to save.

1. You need to own a 4 door car, suv or minivan and make it available clean and ready to use in door to door. If you are eager to please others your car will be used to drive the farthest on the worst roads.

2. You need to own and maintain the Jehovah’s Witness uniforms. Dress clothes, dress shoes and boots and winter wear.

3. You are limited in your employment opportunities. You can’t work shifts that interfere with “spiritual” activities thus limiting you to a 9 to 5 monday to Friday job that are usually reserved for those with some academic training which you can’t do either.

4. Your friends keep you poor. If you are a good jw you will have good jw friends that will discourage you from topping off your 401k or rrsp or any other savings. You won’t think about the future as they don’t . You will be involved with the ldc in doing Kingdom Hall building and repair and you will have to pay your own way there and back and it will take up a lot of you weekends that you could be earning money elsewhere or just spending time relaxing.

5. The circuit overseer keeps you poor. I’ve seen this one play out countless times. When the kids leave home and you are in your 50’s, maybe you just paid off your mortgage and are in a good place at work the circuit overseer will want to love bomb recruit you into need greater work.

This of course means you and your spouse need to quit your jobs, sell your house and move to some remote failing congregation and prematurely spend your money doing all of the above. This is the big mistake. When the money is gone, your house is gone and you are out of your profession for 10 years it is over. You can’t go back to your job and your house and you are too old to do good paying work.

LongHairGal

HOSER:

You are so right in all of these areas.

A Jehovah’s Witness is simply set up for financial failure if they follow the ‘rule book’ and listen to the stifling culture there.

As I mentioned, I was not raised in the religion so certain things you said I never would have done. For example: “your good JW friends will discourage you from topping off your 401K…” [This confessing mentality and having everybody know your business is absurd and foreign to non-JWs. That would be like me telling the man on the corner my business!].. Witnesses are fooled to think they are in one big happy family. They aren’t.

As it was, even though I wasn’t raised a Witness, some of the dysfunction still rubbed off on me. The tendency to daydream and let time slip by is almost fatal.. I could have done MUCH better for myself.. Thank God it wasn’t worse and that I at least did what I did and worked! 🙏🏻

Ugot2bekiddingme1

My non-Jw Grandfather summed the The Jw's up well, " They are takers, but when you need help, it is screw you!" That's from the top down.

LongHairGal

UGOT2BEKIDDINGME1:

Your wise grandfather was right. The Witnesses are Takers and Users. Yet, they criticized responsible working people. Go figure.

I left ages ago and am glad to not be around these old pioneer critics now who didn’t prepare for retirement - in addition to various other people kicked out of bethel. 👎

NotFormer

I'd better ask the question again, as it seems to have gotten lost: is compassionate leave a thing at Bethel? Is a family crisis easily attended to by a Bethelite?

I'm asking because if it isn't, then you're going to be just as "stuck" at Bethel (if not more so) as at uni.

You Could Be Stuck in a University When Your Parent Dies. Convention Day 2 Video

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