OK, here's my last story, and while it is a story about two same sex attracted guys, that fate in the form of Nathan and his bunch of organisational geniuses, managed to place together in a very difficult and lonely assignment, it is also a story that tells you how little the WTS will support those who serve in difficult assignments.
I guess it is also a story that illustrates clearly that the claimed all-seeing, all-knowing, YHWH/JESUS combo god knows nothing about what is happening inside his disorganisation.
I know of this story through two sources, first my good friend another XJW who is gay (here in Sydney) and second another gay XJW (Living in NY) who I got to know on another xjw board.
Back in the 1960s, a young man,from a prominent South Australian family (and there definitely is a very influential and long established Parson family in Adelaide, South Australia), began to study with a JW. As he progressed his family began to oppose him. When he submitted to baptism, they disinherited him. That did not deter him (as was true, for so many of us) so he eventually started pioneering.
His experience started to be told at various assemblies and that's probably where I first heard of him. My Sydney based gay xjw friend, believes his name was Roland Parsons, and heard of him and his story through his father-in-law who was serving as a circuit overseer in the Adelaide area.
So in time Roland gets invited to Gilead, a sign, I guess he thought that YHWH was blessing him, That was likely important to him, as Roland had a secret. Yes! you guessed it, he was attracted to guys. I have no idea what experiences he had sexually before becoming a witness, but I think we can all realise what a battle it must be to resist such a fundamental thing as sexual desire.
At Gilead, Roland would have become acquainted with another student named Gregory Rogers, (and that's where the New York based XJW also met Gregory Rogers.)
When they graduated, YHWH holy spirit acted on the GB (n the form it existed then - smile) and both were assigned to a small S.E.Asian country. And, that's where the sources differ a little. My NY source says they were sent to Laos, my Sydney source believes it was Cambodia.
What happened in their assignment is not known to me, but it was not very long before one of them got sick with some infection and died.*
And, since that part of the world lacked the sort of facilities we have in western countries, the surviving brother had to buy some wood, hire a trolley, and cart the wood and body, to the location used to cremate the dead. As you will see, this must have been a terrible thing for him to do. But worse was to come. Missionaries do not get much money. There was no local branch to support them. The survivor had to light a fire,stack the wood up (not much experience at that either), place the body on top and wait until it was consumed. Problem was he had not bought enough wood, and the body kept slipping out of the fire and he had to keep pushing the body back into the fire.
Not surprisingly, he had an emotional collapse ( we heard of it in Aust. as a 'nervous' breakdown). And, back in Adelaide details of his life started flowing to my gay xjw friend in Sydney from his father-in-law on the South Aussie circuit.
The HK, (I presume) branch took a while to organise someone to visit and terminate the lease on the missionary home premises. But when that person got there, he found some gay magazines in a cupboard. And, that's when there were likely some urgent phone calls around the world.
Neither I, nor my gayxjw friend here in Sydney, ever heard any version of what happened with Roland and Gregory in their assignment. But clearly at some point, they must have discerned same sex attraction in the other. And, at some point they had to start to act on it. And presumably, once you reach that point, its hard to go back. And whether love comes before or after sexual activity, sex increases the oxytocin in your body and love follows or deepens. Which makes us appreciate what a terrible task for the survivor, pushing his lover's body back into the fire must have been so traumatic.
All this makes you wonder, what made them stick it out in their assignment especially when they had got to the point where they could buy gay literature? And, if sex had become a regular thing between them, why stick to the stupid religion?
I recently talked to a friend I used to work with years ago, he'd been living in Cambodia for a number of years. And, he claims that its very common for young men to live together (in a sexual relationship) if these two guys had been calling on guys like that, it would have made it difficult to resist their own personal attractions.
And if YHWH/JESUS controls this organisation and his holy spirit directs everything. Why assign these two young men in such a lonely (lacking other JWs), unsupportive assignment?
Maybe it was the news of this disaster that started me thinking (and of course 1975). It took a few more years, but by 1990 I was free from the clutches of YHWY/JESUS. Not that it was as easy to leave, as it is to write now. It cost me everything I had, but I survived, while my family and former friends are still blinded captives.
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*My NY source says it was Roland who died (his source was an American/Chinese family with many daughters who all went to Hongkong as pioneers and married local brothers. At that time the HK branch looked after S.E.Asia.). But my Sydney source claims it cannot have been Roland, because as you will see he returned to Adelaide.
