Citrine
Well-known member
With all the recent changes I can’t help but relate this experience and my thoughts. We work with many witnesses and non witnesses in our business. As PIMI for our whole life we always felt we had the moral superiority over the non witnesses of course. Like most of us on here we have family, friends, and many many others we heard about get involved in wrong doing at a young age and the out come is usually someone gets DF’d. I’m not saying every time but it’s by far the most common case or at the very least a public reproving followed by a humiliating Local Needs talk.
One of the non witness women we work with was chatting about her family plans for the weekend. I complimented her on how polite her children are and how close they all are. She thanked me and said her and her husband have worked hard to raise them by the Bible principles and to have faith in Christ. This is an adorable family, loving cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, all together all the time. She says she’s so grateful to God for her family as it almost didn’t happen. She told me that her and her husband were high school sweethearts and she got pregnant at 17 with their first daughter. She was a scared teenager with all the usual stuff that comes with an unplanned pregnancy - embarrassment, shame, uncertainty, and they were completely unprepared for a baby. She was considering an abortion out of desperation.
She had been raised in a local nondenominational Christian church at the time. Her mom took her in for “counseling” that the church provided. She was assigned to a mother in her 40s (seemed old to her at the time
) that volunteered for the church. The first thing she did was reassure her God was loving and human mistakes are part of learning and that likely most humans born were under similar circumstances. She told her what’s done is done and the most important thing was to get her and the baby’s father prepared to be ready and good parents for the baby. They went to several more sessions at the church that focused on practical things like helping him get his first job, how to care for the baby, household responsibilities, etc. They had the baby and married when they finished high school that year. Fast forward to today they are successful with a beautiful home and three children. She is so thankful for the kind and practical support they got from the church to give their little family a good start. Her oldest daughter is her best friend and she can’t believe she considered ending the pregnancy.
Of course not everything was easy and they had the typical hardships of being young and inexperienced. My point is what would have happened with this similar situation in the witness world at the KH. Did we ever reach out to teenagers in this situation to help them out? Of course not! We would make it very clear this was unacceptable and make them publicly humiliated. There is zero programs or life help that happens in the KH. Sit down and study WT publications with us or we won’t have anything to do with you! I’m not saying any other church has the truth but dang where does human kindness come in? Which course is more Christ like?
One of the non witness women we work with was chatting about her family plans for the weekend. I complimented her on how polite her children are and how close they all are. She thanked me and said her and her husband have worked hard to raise them by the Bible principles and to have faith in Christ. This is an adorable family, loving cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, all together all the time. She says she’s so grateful to God for her family as it almost didn’t happen. She told me that her and her husband were high school sweethearts and she got pregnant at 17 with their first daughter. She was a scared teenager with all the usual stuff that comes with an unplanned pregnancy - embarrassment, shame, uncertainty, and they were completely unprepared for a baby. She was considering an abortion out of desperation.
She had been raised in a local nondenominational Christian church at the time. Her mom took her in for “counseling” that the church provided. She was assigned to a mother in her 40s (seemed old to her at the time
) that volunteered for the church. The first thing she did was reassure her God was loving and human mistakes are part of learning and that likely most humans born were under similar circumstances. She told her what’s done is done and the most important thing was to get her and the baby’s father prepared to be ready and good parents for the baby. They went to several more sessions at the church that focused on practical things like helping him get his first job, how to care for the baby, household responsibilities, etc. They had the baby and married when they finished high school that year. Fast forward to today they are successful with a beautiful home and three children. She is so thankful for the kind and practical support they got from the church to give their little family a good start. Her oldest daughter is her best friend and she can’t believe she considered ending the pregnancy. Of course not everything was easy and they had the typical hardships of being young and inexperienced. My point is what would have happened with this similar situation in the witness world at the KH. Did we ever reach out to teenagers in this situation to help them out? Of course not! We would make it very clear this was unacceptable and make them publicly humiliated. There is zero programs or life help that happens in the KH. Sit down and study WT publications with us or we won’t have anything to do with you! I’m not saying any other church has the truth but dang where does human kindness come in? Which course is more Christ like?
