They just changed the CASH DONATIONS link. Now it goes straight to WT in Brooklyn. Did the flood reach all the way into New York?
WTS--APPALLING lack of humanitarianism & hurricane!!
by rebel8 25 Replies latest members private
-
-
Honesty
I have just talked with the WTBTS Service Department at 718-560-5000 on 9/2/2005 at 12:55 PM EDST.
You can contribute for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts through your local Kingdom Hall and put your donation in the contribution box marked for the World Wide Work. You may also send donations directly to the Branch Office... to the Brooklyn address. Donations should be marked for the World Wide Work and not specificically reserved for relief efforts. This allows the brothers to use the money in the best way they see fit. Again, mark donations for the World Wide Work and not specific to the relief efforts.
"What efforts have the brothers got going on at the moment?"
The situation is still being somnewhat assesed and uhmmm.... being coordinated. But brothers that have been evacuated are being cared for in the areas where they were evacuated to or where they are staying with other friends or relatives. In the disaster areas the brothers are trying to assess damage to Kingdom Halls and to homes and to things like that so that's still kind of ongoing. So, we'll probably have some more complete information soon but it's still a little sketchy right now.
Anyone having professional technical expertise in data transfer methods may PM me so that we may be able to 'Get the Spoken Word' out for all to hear.
-
rebel8
Notice from jw-aid website:
As announced at our congregationKingdom Halls destroyed: 8Kingdom Halls damaged: 23A Disaster Relief Committee (DRC)is coordinating the relief effort. Convoys with relief supplies are already on their way.
Also here is a notice on the official WTS web site. The “embed page” function is not working, so here’s the link:
http://www.jw-media.org/newsroom/index.htm?content=/region/americas/usa/english/releases/humanitarian/usa_e050901.htm -
sf
http://www.whois.sc/jw-aid.com
Email Address: [email protected]
-
rebel8
So Jesus is the webmaster then, LOL.
UPDATES RECEIVED FROM JW-AID.COM yesterday:
It was announced today at the Public Meeting in the local
Kingdom Hall that so far no loss of life has been reported
among Witnesses. 23 Kingdom Halls have sustained heavy
water damage, 8 are completely submerged, 2 are partially
submerged and 1 was completely destroyed. Various disaster
relief committees along with Regional Building Committees
(RBCs) are coordinating the relief effort in their
respective zones.
Note: Emails circulating on the Internet often contain
dubious, false or confidential information. We will only
pass along basic information officially released or readily
available to the public.
Daily World newspaper,
Originally published
Housing evacuees adds stress
By Jacqueline Cochran
[email protected]
and Lisa R. Faust
[email protected]
The shelter stories dominate the news casts, but there is
another group of displaced people you don't see or hear
much of on TV - the thousands staying in the homes of
friends and relatives, and in some cases, complete
strangers.
"It's been interesting," said Ben Newton of , who
took in a family of five Saturday.
and his family, members of the Jehovah's Witness
Hall in Melville, are part of a network of Jehovah's
Witnesses taking in others of their faith forced from their
homes because of the storm.
"Our congregation has about 35-40 people. As a group, we
have taken in more than our congregation population,"
said. "It's part of our faith - we want to show love
to people, to help them in the best way we can."
had picked up his newfound family Saturday around
.
"The parents hadn't slept in so many days, they were
exhausted," he said. "I'm watching the kids now. We're
adjusting."
Whether it's strangers or family you've known all your
life, opening your home to a host of new people can put a
significant strain on family dynamics when frayed nerves
and disrupted routines begin to clash.
Shouldn't your brother-in-law, for example, know his dogs
are not welcome in your home?
Should you have to say, "Please smoke outside."
And, should you really have to tell someone to rinse out
the tub after they shower?
" 'Should' is the problem word," said Pat Andrus, a child
and family studies professor at the University of
.
People naturally assume, and when you start combining units
of families, you are going to come up against many
assumptions, Andrus said.
"I have students coming to class to get out of their
houses. They have lost their privacy, their quiet routine,"
Andrus said. "People's resources are being taxed and
incomes spread further. You must say, 'In order for all of
us to get along, well, let's see if we can find some common
threads, a neutral ground.' "
Andrus said if you need to shower early in the morning to
be able to make it to work on time, then ask others to wait
until you finish.
"Establish what's going to work best for the group," she
said. "It's not about compassion. These are not visitors,
they are co-habitants."
When speaking with your guests, be gentle but clear, she
said.
Those playing hosts to evacuees also are experiencing
change, Andrus said. With the addition of new people, there
is the need to reorganize, and that's where time and effort
must be balanced.
Andrus said those who just left ravaged areas and those
waiting to learn if they will have anything upon returning
are frightened and stressed. "It's, in part, about
regaining control in a situation that doesn't seem
sensible."
"The first thing is to help those people to recognize they
have been in a crisis situation. A situation of highly
stressful and serious events causing a traumatic impact on
daily life," she said. "Suddenly, they are faced with
changing values and a lost sense of the natural world in
which they've been operating. Their whole life seems out of
control and they need to acknowledge it."
Andrus said it is important to encourage displaced guests
to tell and retell their stories.
"Through repetition, they validate for themselves what they
experienced," she said. It is also important for them to
have an attentive listener. "Listening becomes incredibly
important, validating for the evacuees that we, as the
non-evacuees, see how difficult this has been for them.
"No one who has not been there during the last days can
imagine how time was spent," she said. "These people have
been through hell."
Web link:
www.dailyworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050904/NEWS0
/509040314/1002
Some evacuees see religious message in Katrina.
Sun Sep 4, 2005 5:18 PM ET
By Adam Tanner
HOUSTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - In the last week, Joseph Brant
lost his apartment, walked by scores of dead in the
streets, traversed pools of toxic water and endured an
arduous journey to escape the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina in his hometown New Orleans.
On Sunday, he was praising the Lord, saying the ordeal was
a test that ended up dispelling his lifelong distrust of
white people and setting his life on a new course. He said
he hitched a ride on Friday in a van driven by a group of
white folks.
"Before this whole thing I had a complex about white
people; this thing changed me forever," said Brant, 36, a
truck driver who, like many of the refugees receiving
public assistance in Houston, Texas, is black.
"It was a spiritual experience for me, man," he said of the
aftermath of a catastrophe al Qaeda-linked Web sites called
evidence of the "wrath of God" striking an arrogant
America.
Brant was one of many refugees across Texas, Louisiana and
Mississippi who gave thought to religion on Sunday, almost
a week after the floods changed their lives, perhaps
forever.
At the Astrodome in Houston, where 16,000 refugees received
food and shelter, Rose McNeely took the floods as a sign
from God to move away from New Orleans, where she said her
two grown children had been killed in past years in
gunfights.
"I lost everything I had in New Orleans," she said. "He
brought me here because he knows."
Nearby, others looked for a different kind of higher ground
and smoked marijuana in the shade outside the Astrodome.
Inside, Gerald Greenwood, 55, had collected a free Bible
but sat watching a science fiction television program above
the stands in an enclosed stadium once home to Houston's
baseball and football teams. "This is the work of Satan
right here," he said of the floods.
The Bible was one of the few books many of the refugees had
among their possessions. Several Jehovah's Witnesses walked
around thousands of cots to offer their services.
THE WAGES OF SIN
The Salvation Army conducted an outside religious service
that included songs such as "What a Friend We Have in
Jesus."
"Natural disaster is caused by the sin in the world," said
Maj. John Jones, the group's area commander. "The acts of
God are what happens afterwards ... all the good that
happens."
Others took a different view, including Tim Washington, 42,
who on Saturday waited at the New Orleans' Superdome to be
evacuated. "God made all this happen for a reason. This
city has been going to hell in a handbasket spiritually,"
he said.
"If we can spend billions of dollars chasing after (Osama)
bin Laden, can't we get guns and drugs off the street?", he
asked. Washington said he stole a boat last Monday and he
and a friend, using wooden fence posts as oars, delivered
about 200 people to shelter.
The Salvation Army's Jones was one of many trying to
comfort victims in Sunday services across several states.
At St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, several
hundred local parishioners and storm survivors attended
Sunday services. "I wish we could take your broken hearts
and give you ours," Rev. Donald Blanchard told the
gathering.
Some people walked out of the church in tears mid-service.
At St. Francis Xavier Church, a black Catholic Church in
Baton Rouge, the mood was a mix of frustration, bitterness
and profound joy. As evacuees stood one by one to introduce
themselves, parishioners clapped and cried, celebrating
their guests' good fortune in simply being alive.
"For those who were alone in the water, alone on the roof,
you might ask 'What did we do to deserve this?'" the Rev.
Lowell Case said. "A lot of us think being black may have
had something to do with it, being poor and black in New
Orleans."
Churches in many states have taken in evacuees and
organized aid for people who in many cases had lost
everything. But at least some bristled at the role of
religion in helping the afflicted.
"We're getting reports of how some religion-based 'aid'
groups are trying to fly evangelists into the stricken
areas and how U.S. Army chaplains are carrying bibles --
not food or water -- to 'comfort' people," Ellen Johnson,
president of American Atheist, said in a statement.
"People need material aid, medical care and economic
support -- not prayers and preaching." (Additional
reporting by Jim Loney and Michael Peltier in Baton Rouge
and Mark Egan in New Orleans)
Web link: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID 133556
-
rebel8
JW Aid website to be shut down: