Oh lordy, at yesterday's Botchtower Study, paragraph 17 (I think) asked what we personally found "encouraging" about the 2004 stats that are listed by country in the WT. Well the conductor asked the question and there was an embarassing 30 seconds where NO ONE put up there hand! Finally, the conductor said "...maybe there's nothing encouraging in there?" I almost burst out laughing and wanted to say "what was your first clue?!"
Anyway, someone finally put up their hand and remarked about how wonderful it was to see that Ethiopia had a 5% increase......ya, I guess if you're starving to death, who wouldn't want to hear that paradise is right around the corner. One bro put up his hand and actually mentioned the fact that there was 0% increase in virtually all the industrialized nations, but that we "shouldn't let that discourage us". Riiiiight. Millions of hours were spend in service and you get a zero percent increase and you're not supposed to get discouraged? What the hell would it take for them to get discouraged? Maybe a 30% decrease overall??
Anyway, the conductor quickly moved on to paragraph 18 to avoid letting anyone think too long about paragraph 17......what a hoot!!