by UnshackleTheChains 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I was in the Polish group here in Liverpool
Pale emporer
I guess the point my colleague was trying to make was how the polish witnesses knew she was polish And specifically went to her door.
But from what I'm gathering is that it's either as you say going to a polish community area or they fill in a slip and give the details to the Cong secretary if they come across someone who speaks another language. All legit and above board I guess.
Does she have any identifying marks where she lives? Is her Polish name on the door-bell? A Polish flag or other stickers on her front door, the windows - or anything on her car?
I understand that the WT has stopped using the S-43 Please Follow-up Form in a number of countries
I believe the encouragement now is to let the 'interested' person to fill in and submit the form themselves here:
https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/free-bible-study/
Nowadays there are a lot of foreign language search using the Carts with posters in the language being searched for, such as this recent example
BoE letter October 23, 2015 - Re: Foreign-Language Field
Paragraph 10. The search work is often a key to growth. As noted in the article “Before Preaching, You May Need to Search” in the July 2012 Our Kingdom Ministry, pages 4-7, the search work involves making inquiries to locate those who speak a specific language. This article gives detailed instructions on how to succeed in organizing and carrying out the search work. Becoming thoroughly familiar with and implementing the suggestions in the article will lead to a more productive ministry in the foreign-language field.
Does she have any identifying marks where she lives? Is her Polish name on the door-bell? A Polish flag or other stickers on her front door, the windows - or anything on her car
Darkspilver.
Funny enough, I asked her if her name was on her door, but she said she didn't.
Thanks for the information you gave. I will research the km later.
Thanks
I used to attend a foreign language congregation in the New York area. It depends on the area. So if it's an area with a high concentration of that language group, then witnesses just pretty much start doing door to door to investigate who speaks that language, and start keeping records which then become territories, showing the houses of those people.
If it's an area with a very dispersed language group, then it's basically by referral, or i've seen instances where Jdubs used to look at the phone book, to try to find people's names that align with that language. And when they find someone they ask if there are more in the general area that speak that language.
I am going to suppose something here. Cannot say it as a fact.
And as I suppose this, it is possible that the situation is only localized, despite my sureness that it is not.
Ok, so all that code is important to remember as I go along.
Suppose a foreign language congregation has some children that belong to schools where "worldly" people also speak that foreign language. Some parents get lists of other parents' addresses. Suppose some congregation members belong to various aid-groups for people within that foreign language culture. They might also obtain lists of addresses.
Such various lists would be technically "illegal" in many cases to share with others outside of that group, no doubt about it with school lists. It certainly would violate the intent of those who shared it with the foreign language JW to begin with.
So suppose a congregation just incorporates those lists into its database and destroys the original lists they came from, therefore allowing every single member to say to the 'householder,' "No, I don't know how your name and address got onto the list. I do know that you live in an English-speaking neighborhood, so perhaps our English-speaking Witnesses made note that you were [not English-speaking]."
When I was in a foreign-language cong back in the UK, we used to go through the phone book and look for the foreign surnames that sounded as if they could be speakers of that language.
Do BT still do a hard copy telephone book and pop it on your doorstep along with the Yellow pages?
As a side point, here in Spain, loads of the JWs make a big deal about being an English SPEAKING congregation and NOT an English congregation, to which I reply "well it's registered as an English congregation with Bethel and not English speaking so take it up with them!" Maybe it's just a non-Brit complex a lot of them have here in the English congs.
AverageJoe1: Do BT still do a hard copy telephone book and pop it on your doorstep along with the Yellow pages?
Yes and no
Yellow pages to stop next year:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/01/yellow-pages-to-stop-printing-from-january-2019
BT phone book, yes, and you can order replacement here too:
https://www.thephonebook.bt.com/HelpAndSupport/RequestReplacement/
Regarding the phone book, I would imagine the more hard lined determined zealots would possibly take time to do this. My colleague doesn't have a land line and therefore rules this out.
It was actually quite good to get feedback from her about this though as many who are called on in the foreign language field will be thinking how on earth they got this information.
Sparrowdown, my fondest wish would be that, if they did have a slip to fill out when they find gay householders, they would at least send an attractive brother my way so we could "study" together in private. 😜
Bear in mind that.... they where looking for Polish - they then called on your colleague who is Polish - she is Polish, thus in her eyes that's a 100% hit rate - but actually the JWs may have called on assorted houses before and after, spead out all over the neighbourhood that your colleague did not see, and found no other Polish.
The other, easy, way is via the electoral roll or poll book - surnames listed by street in numerical house number order, thus easy and quick to scan down and pick out the possibilities.
