Skinned and Thrown About..... (page 4)

sparky1

Richard Oliver, did you ever 'serve' (I hate that word) at Bethel? If so, would you scan and post a copy of your acceptance letter.

schnell

And the Borg has said to put our eggs in one basket: Theirs.

OUTLAW

When Watchtower..

Retires/Fires You After Years Of Loyal Service..

They Give You a "Go Away!" Gift..

Tech49

Response to JookBeard's comment about "something doesn't seem right" (maybe you should not be so quick to respond in the negative, just sayin...):

Just to clarify: The couple I mentioned sold their home and business. But they were so heavily mortgaged and in debt that they came out in the end with very little to play with. They had already filed bankruptcy about 10 years earlier.... see a pattern? They made more selling off their furniture, vehicles, tools, etc at fire-sale prices, in order to have money to play with. Yes, they were definitely banking on the short-term glory of being Bethelites, with no concern for the future. 2 years of spending cash with no income, and you can burn through quite a bit pretty fast. Thats what came around to bite them in the ass. That's exactly what the wife and I tried to warn them about before they left (thank you OUTLAW for pointing out that WE were the ones that spoke to them, their friends, realists, not WT), but they couldn't see the forest for the trees.

In the end, I dont feel bad for them one bit. They had ZERO long-term plans, other than momma WT taking care of them, forever. Firmly latched to the teat, until the end of days. They knew what they were getting into, but flat out refused to accept the reality of the situation until it was too late.

And yes, in response to someone elses comments, I hope that some lurker out there reads this, and stops to think about what it is that WT is really holding out to you.... NOTHING. They take take take. And when you are used up and broken, or they dont need you anymore, you will find yourself in a ditch along the highway of life, with nothing but the shirt on your back, and the wind in your face.... and its raining...... and cold....... and you're hungry........and you lost one shoe....

New day

We have a couple in our hall who are trying to put on a brave face. Special pioneers for years. Then deleted. Now struggling on low wages. But he is on the platform all the time. Nice, genuine guy. I wonder how he feels inside. But still ultra loyal. The whole facade is crumbling in front of me and it's not a pretty sight. I have been a witness for over 35 years and only in the last 3 have I 'seen the light.'

ToesUp

Oh, how I wish my spouse and I could tell you our families story. It is playing out just like the folks in Tech 49's story. They have put so much into WT but have made grave mistakes finacially (always hoping for the end...you know...just around the corner). Their world is falling a part.

On day...I will be able to share what we are witnessing in our own family. So incredibly close to the couple Tech is speaking about. It IS happening. The sad thing about it, is they have openly criticized us for the decisions we have made. Today...we have a 401k, we have paid our taxes, we have kids that are educated, working and going to college, we are able to pay our mortgage, etc. BUT....WE ARE WEAK! Little do they know...we are actively fading and WE ARE STRONGER THAN EVER!!! The story is playing out as we speak.

The dominos are falling people! These glorious ones are not so glorious anymore!

ScenicViewer

they can flip to Malachi
Seems an odd choice of book to me as it's easy to find, being the last one in the OT. Not that I remember it ever being quoted from.

I took JWdaughter's reference to Malachi as a general reference to any of the small prophet's or difficult to find books in the Bible. JWs are usually pretty good at finding any obscure passage, and to some it's like a badge of honor to be able to do so.

Malachi itself is rather easy to find since, as pointed out, it's the last book of the OT and comes right before Matthew. But the reference could have been to any other small book - Nahum, Micah, Amos, Obadiah, etc.

When JWs, such as the ones in the opening post, are dropped from voluntary service by the Organization it leaves them with basically nothing to fall back on except the ability to find an obscure scripture in the Bible.

'Try living on that' is the humorous reference I got from her post.

life is to short

I really hate ones like RO and when they spout off stupid things like he did on this thread, he really does not have a clue what he is talking about.

I am torn between feeling sorry for them and thinking that they got what the deserved. My husband and I lived on nothing and served where the need was great and where there was also no work, it was hell. We barley had enough to pay the gas it took to drive around aimlessly so the angles could watch and approve that we were at least trying to do what Jehovah demanded of us, I always knew it was crazy and so I worked, two to three jobs. I was super depressed and could not understand why I was so depressed that I honestly thought of suicide.

Then we got called to Bethel, where we took a vow of poverty. Even with that, it was better then where we came from, we did what that first couple did expect we did not have anything to sell, also I am driven to support myself, I refused to take anything from the government. When we left Bethel I worked again 2 to 3 jobs at a time to make it.

Was it easy no way, did we get any help from anyone NO! We had no family, no one in the hall to help us, we did it all on our own. What I am bitter about is one of my jobs would have paid for me to go to collage to get my AA but one of the old sister's in the hall threw such a loud livid fit that I would even dare to think of such a horrible thing as to go back to school that my husband who was an elder told me to just stop.

Also I wanted to open Roth IRA's instead of traditional and again since we were using a elder who was a CPA to do our taxes he threw a fit and asked where my faith that the system was ending was. What good was a Roth IRA since I would never grow old.

As far as RO's commits that all "bethelietes have known for the last gosh 12 years that bethel is no longer the place you grow old and die at. There are some older ones that are taken care of but this is no longer a permanent assignment, you have to prepare yourself to leave at any point. Many take advantage of the skills they learn at Bethel either in construction or something else."

We left in 95, when we were there we were flat out told that if you were accepted that it was for life, period. As far as learning some great skill that you can use outside like RO said very, very, very, very, few learned anything that could be used on the outside. It just burns me up to hear ones like RO who know doubt lives in his parents basement spout off such nonsense.

When we left we asked for a letter saying that we had been at Bethel so we could at least explain our years of not working to any new prospective employer. Bethel did not want to even give us that. We had to beg and all we got was a letter saying we had served from 1990 to 1995, nothing about the kind of work we did or anything just extremely, extremely generic. I was ~~lucky~~, fortunate that the first job applied at thought that JW's were nice people and was impressed that I believed so strongly in my faith that I would go so far as to take a vow of poverty to work for them, my husband was able to call his overseer at Bethel and he gave my husband a good recommendation. My husband's overseer was not supposed to have done that and could have gotten in trouble with Bethel for it but he knew how hard it was to get started over again.

Contrary to what RO said I knew of very few couples who left and were able to use any of the Bethel skills on the outside.

Also I was never on an assembly, or interviewed even at our hall about any of the things I did or went through. It seemed like most of the ones in hall hated us and were upset that we went at all, like the sister who was so ticked at my taking college classes, or the elder who did our taxes, both of these people worked great jobs and saved for their retirement but when it came to me doing the same they had huge opinions about what I should do.

We in fact after we left and my husband was still an elder we had ones in our hall dumped on us to help. I will never forget we had been out of Bethel less than a year and were really struggling. The brother who was the speaker brought all of his 5 kids and they brought friends with them also, so there about 10 in their family. We did this feeding the speaker through the book study. When it was husband's turn I always did a crock pot and had the speaker and all the book study over, I could feed a lot of people for about $25.00 and no one ever offered to bring anything it was just assumed that we would feed everyone. Well it was not our turn but the elder who's turn it was took off and made no plans for this family so a MS's wife took it on herself to invite this speaker and all of his family to a restaurant that was about $10.00 a person and then came up to me as we were leaving my not knowing anything about any of this and told me that since my husband was the only elder left in the hall we were taking speaker out and feeding his whole family and they had already left to go to the restaurant. We had no money. I had a charge card. We put it on it on the card, well over $100.00. I was sick not knowing how I was going to pay for it.

Things like that happened to me all the time. All the time I spent in the full time service only once did someone fill up our car with gas, we never got invited out to eat, we never got anything period expect to be dumped on. So as far as glory I never saw it. I am so glad that many think that is the only reason anyone does this is for the praise and to be looked up to. I did it because I honestly thought it was the truth. I guess I was just stupid like Landy on this board call's me.

LITS

jookbeard

thanks for that Tech49, it makes it seem clearer

Skinned and Thrown About.....

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