Hourglass 2 Outpost

Eden 2
Outpost

My longest stay was when I was stricken with rheumatic fever and I had to
stay for 9 months in the hospital.
It was at that point that I began to see just how different I was from the
other kids. They would get visits from their parents almost every day and
I got a visit by my grandparents about 3 or 4 times in the whole 9-month
stay. Some of my aunts and uncles cared but I still felt rejected.
Eventually, my uncle came home from Germany and he got my bedroom, I was
moved into the unfinished cold, damp, basement where I was constantly bit by
all sorts of bugs and spiders.

When I asked why I had to move into this unlivable place my grandparents
then dropped a painful bomb shell on me; I wasn't their son, I was
illegitimate.

LONGING FOR JUSTICE
Though ashamed and shy as a result of these experiences I longed for a
solution and applied myself in various ways. I did pretty well in school.
My favorite subjects were history and current events. I subscribed to 11
different magazines, which included Time, Newsweek, U.S News, World Journal
Tribune and others.

I joined The Young Democrats and campaigned door to door for LBJ and caused
a big family uproar when I marched for civil rights. Being Indian, and
having pretty good marks in school (I took an aptitude test and I scored the
highest that the proctor had ever seen in her career). I was beginning to
make new friends but I came across a religion that caused me to leave my
family and friends and career by the wayside.

CONVERSION TO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
I befriended some JWs at school and I began to attend JW meetings. I was
taken in by their love bombing. At the first meeting 26 people came up to
me smiling and shaking my hand. They would look at me and smile during the
meeting. Little did I realize that this 15 minutes of fame lasted only
until baptism. I thought I was now developing true friends that seemed to
care so I quit The Young Democrats and decided to study with the JWs when I
was 16 years old.

US vs THEM
During my Bible studies (in retrospect Watchtower books study) I was told I
was special and that Satan would be angry and use all nonbelievers to oppose
me on my Christian course. I began to distance myself from family and
friends.

My grandparents were so upset by my decision that they tried talking me out
of it by what I thought was lies. When that didn't work, one day while I was
at school, an Alaska State Trooper came and removed me from school (which
was quite embarrassing) and took me to the juvenile magistrate where they
began to list my misgivings and especially because I was joining this
religion against their will.

The magistrate told me to try to show respect and obey my guardians, but as
far as my religion, this was completely up to me, as long as I didn't break
any laws. The JW US vs THEM mentality seemed to make sense after this.

NO HIGHER EDUCATION, QUITTING GOOD JOBS
I was baptized in 1967, and graduated in 1968. I was told I could go to
about any college in the country. My Jehovah's Witness friends however told
me how foolish this would be since The End was so close. I moved out of my
hometown in 1969 and moved to a bigger town, where I got a job at the post
office. The postmaster took a shine to me, but I didn't have seniority to
get time off to attend a district assembly. An elder told me that I would
be going against Bible principles if I didn't quit my job on the spot and go
to this assembly, so I did what he told me.

Upon returning home I found myself jobless and homeless and was in desperate
straits. A brother took pity on me and took me to our local kingdom hall
and asked the presiding overseer who lived in the kingdom hall apartment, if
I could stay for the night in the extra bedroom. The presiding overseer
became very angry and told this brother that he would let me this time but
told him " DON'T YOU EVER DO THIS AGAIN!!"

This stunned me. Here I was in need because I sacrificed my job to attend
an assembly on the advice of an elder. Fortunately, a nonJW family let me
rent their garage until I got on my feet. I then moved to Kodiak, Alaska and roomed with a couple other brothers and eventually worked my way up to ministerial servant. I got a job with a
brother helping him to clean his contracts. I eventually formed my own janitorial business.

I lived there for 10 years, before it I needed a change of scenery, and
moved to Anchorage, where I eventually met my wife to be in 1981.

MARRIAGE
I met my wife at a Mexican brother's house and later when an elder asked if
I could help her move her things to across town. We hit it off right away,
but when we asked for people to chaperone us no one would, they did
everything in their power to keep us apart and almost succeeded. The
congregation split because it was getting too big and LuCinda moved again
and no one would tell me where she was or what congregation she was in, nor
did they tell her where I was.

After I had been struggling spiritually for sometime I longed to find her
and little did I know she felt the same. I decided to go browsing at Sears
in the hardware section, but low and behold to my surprise there she was
working at the cash register! It seemed like God provided. Right away we
picked up where we had left off, me with this young woman, to which I was 13
years her senior. Again we approached people to be our chaperones, but
again no one would. So we told an elder of our dilemma and he told us just
to stay in public places until we could get married.

LOVING BROTHERS?
I was puzzled when LuCinda wanted to elope but I found out later why. I
convinced her that a kingdom hall wedding would be more honorable and so we
waited. After we married we lived on the West side of town, and the
congregation there seemed very accepting of us but I thought we should move
back in the old congregation and convinced her to make the move. The
reasons for her apprehensions became evident as we walked passed the elders
and ministerial servants that were all congregated in the back of the hall.
She tried to engage in conversation and say a kind greeting but none of them
would even look at her or answer her; they shunned her. I was stunned.
I asked her what she did to them and she said nothing " I just can't keep up
on all of the studies, and make all of the meetings".

WE MOVE TO MY HOMETOWN
We eventually went on vacation and I took her to my hometown. It is
isolated and the only way to get in or out is by boat or plane. She fell in
love with it and we decided to stay. We found some work and stayed with my
aged grandmother, who was now in need of constant care, so we took care of
her for about 3 years until she became invalid and need professional care.
During this time both my wife and I got more active in field service and we
both Aux. pioneered from time to time. LuCinda has a bubbly personality, and
loves to cut up, but unfortunately this began to cause us to be marked by
the congregation.

Things took a bad turn when my wife got cancer in 1987 (*refer to her bio*)
She was in and out of the hospital for several days at a time for over a
year during her illness and I was left to care for my grandmother and 2 year
old son. So I couldn't go to work and fell in need but help was slow coming
if at all and during her stay in the hospital I was surprised that she
didn't get any visitors but one.

EXPENSIVE ALASKA ASSEMBLIES
We remained under the poverty line for several years, but yet we were had to
buy airplane or ferry tickets to go to all of the assemblies. From where we
lived, we had to spend 14 hours on a seagoing ferry and then drive 700 miles
up the Alaska Highway to go to assemblies. If we traveled by airplane it
cost about $3,000 including airfare, hotels, car rental and food. We would
scrimp and save to go to as many as we could but there were times the money
just wasn't there so, we were criticized by the elders and friends in the
congregation for not borrowing money, yet they wouldn't loan any. JWs in
Alaska were supposed to help those that were coming from the rural part of
the state because of the high cost of attending assemblies. An elder that
moved in our congregation was the person we were to apply to for housing.
He refused to let us apply because he thought we didn't deserve it, even
though we weren't making very much money at the time. We called the AK.
Branch overseer and he said "something isn't right there" but he refused to
pick up the phone and call to set the elder straight.

FREQUENT FLIER PROGRAM OF GUILT TTRIPS
We used to enjoy going to the assemblies, until the WatchTower Society made
it clear that we were not supposed to be going to the assemblies with the
idea of shopping. Where we live it is very expensive to buy clothes and
many other items, so when we went to the assembly it was a good idea to get
things we couldn't afford to buy here. This was one of many guilt trips
that were laid upon us. We began to feel the pressure from the constant
prodding for us to do more and more and there seemed to be less and less
personal choice, we began to feel as if we joined a "frequent flier program
of guilt trips!"

I was teased and was the brunt of people's jokes because I couldn't afford
to buy nice suits. Once an elder came up and remarked "Nice suit Dale!" with
a cheese eating grin. I knew what he was getting at because it wasn't a
nice suit. I was disheartened by their lack of sensitivity, but I remained
loyal. Finally we got a big break and landed some really good contracts.
We just got to where we could hire a few people and live above the poverty
line. An elder demanded we give our contracts to friends he talked into
moving up. We tried explained that we needed all of our contracts. This made
him angry and we were in his sights for the duration of his stay for the
next several years.

We treated others the way we thought we would like to be treated, we were
generous with our money rarely did we ask payment back.
The new elder loved being in the spot light, and seemed to have a charisma
that would make people fall at his feet especially traveling overseers. He
would awe them with his hotel and nice boat that he often took them out on
but not the poor, widowed or orphaned in the congregation. He enjoyed
making rules and controlling others.

MORE IMPORTANT TO PREACH THAN HELP BROTHER'S IN NEED
When we learned that our 2nd child was autistic (this was in LuCinda's bio
that was published) and possibly retarded most in the congregation didn't
have any compassion. We requested someone to study with our 6 year old son
and help us with the house cleaning and caring for our autistic son, but the
elders wouldn't allow hardly any assistance (including to study with or son)
even though my wife was to stay in bed for 6 weeks to prevent a miscarriage.
We had a small congregation of about 40 or 50 people at the time; the
elders and servants were more concerned with the number of hours in the
field service not helping each other out of brotherly love. We had to pay
my cousin airfare to come and stay on top of all her monthly expenses
including rent.

After our 3rd child was born my wife had lots of problems with infections.
She called me in late in the evening because she had gotten very ill and
needed to go to the emergency room. I called several of the Jw's but no one
would come and stay with the kids or help me with my job so I could take
her. I had to call a "worldly" employee to come relieve me so I could go
home and put my wife in a cab and send her to the hospital while I stayed
with the 3 sleeping children.

"LOOK AFTER WIDOWS AND ORPHANS'?"
We had one really good JW friend that we both knew for many years, move into
town while she was going to college. She was a widow, with 2 young
children, who seemed to have a lot of problems. We rolled up our sleeves and
helped as much as we could. The congregation was very critical of her for
attending college and missing some meetings from time to time. She needed
help getting her kids ready and taking her to the meetings and since we had
our hands full with our autistic son, the elder told us to stop picking her
up for the meetings that he would get someone else to do it. After a while
we began to notice that she wasn't at the meetings until the WatchTower
study started. No one would help her to get her kids ready like I did.
She was always running late, so they would leave her then she had to walk.
I once again started picking her up. The elders got very angry with this
and scolded me and said I wasn't to help her because she should help
herself! In a sarcastic tone I said, "Show me a Scripture that says I am
not supposed to help the widow and the orphan, and I'll quit."

SHEPHERDS ABUSES MOUNT
Soon we weren't allowed to take our autistic son to the hall because he was
too disruptive and they wouldn't read any literature on the disorder or
listen to anything we had to say. We were not allowed a telephone tie in even
though they were instructed to give us one. No one but the widow would call us
or come by all the while we couldn't go (it was too hard for my wife to care for a
small baby and the autistic son alone).

We began to get harsh criticism for the problems with this son. We were
accused of just being bad parents and lacked proper discipline. There were
times that raising him was so emotionally draining that all's we could do
was cry on each other's shoulders. It got so bad that we began to consider
putting him in an institution. At this point we were able to get help and
respite care through the state. Even though we qualified for assistance
the congregation still minimized the problems with our son. When an elder
over heard my wife telling about how our son scored really low on these
tests and he jumped in and bluntly said "those test don't mean a thing!"
LuCinda rebuked him for his insensitivity.

This sort of things went on for years, the congregation saying mean spirited
things without any repercussions. My wife began to defend herself by
bluntly telling people to mind their own business. Of coarse the elders
came down on me to control my wife, which started wars at home.
We continued to put up with the psychological abuses and still tried to our
best to maintain our Christian personality, although it was becoming harder.
We still helped out as much as we could, taxiing people around, giving
money, babysitting etc. All the while we found it difficult to get anyone to
help us (although we did have 2 brothers help us out with expensive
electrical & plumbing for little or no charge; true Christians!)

CONDEMNED FOR GOING TO COLLEGE
Then the year came that our best friend (the widow going to college) moved
North for her finale semester. She couldn't find a place to stay in
ANCHORAGE. So she moved to the Matanuska Valley and stayed with some JW
friends there. It wasn't long before the elders told this couple that she
didn't belong there and told her to move into ANCH. Even though she had no
money or friends to stay with. She was forced to live in her car with her
kids in subzero weather. She met a man that was studying with JWs, and on
the poor advice of an elder they married. He turned out to be abusive, so
she got a restraining order against him. He threatened to kill her and in
spite of us pleading the elders in the area, and sending a letter to the WTS
Branch complaining about the elders lack of concern, the overseer just sent
the letter to these very elders.

Well on July 6th 1995 Her husband kept his promise and murdered our friend.
We were on vacation for 6 weeks and were staying on the property next to
hers. He ambushed her, raped and killed her. We learned this at 2am and
had to tell her 2 boys.

While we were on vacation we automatically paid the 2 ministerial servants
that we entrusted our contracts with every two weeks like clockwork. When
we called them and let them know what had happened, you would think that
they would have spiffed the contracts up, but what we came back to was a
nightmare! Our contracts were in such bad shape we feared losing them.
The elders did nothing even though we had proof and could have held these 2
brothers liable and could have sued them. The elders refused to even read
the information we asked them to read. We complained that they lied,
cheated and stole from our contracts and us yet the elders didn't care.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING!
We began to be spied upon; people were running to the elders about anything
we may have done in the "gray" area. One sister told us she needed to cut
her relationship off with us because she was getting pressure from the
elders to spy on us. We began getting quizzed on our loyalty to the WTS.

MOUNTING STRESSES
To say the least we had enough but we didn't want leave Jehovah's
organization.
With one last chance, we went to the 1996 assembly with knowing what would
happen could make or break us. We were giving the "truth" one more chance.
We made arrangement s to stay with an elder and his family that we were
paying to take care of our travel trailer. On our way up we had our tie rod
break in the van about 50 miles from the Valley, on the steepest and
windiest part of the journey. I slowed down to 20 miles per hr. and managed
to get us safely to our destination. I dropped my family off and drove
into Anch., it couldn't be fixed for a few days, so I drove back to the
Valley and didn't get in until 11 p.m.

I was in for the shock of my life when this elder came out in a tantrum
(because he just had words with his father about putting us up without
clearing it with him) and told me to pack my family up and leave
immediately. I tried to explain about the unsafe condition my vehicle was
in, and it was too late in the evening to find lodging in the Valley so I
would have to drive slowly into Anch. And by that time it would be hard to
find a place with someone to check us in, but that didn't matter he just
wanted us to get out right then!

He didn't even to bother to call anyone to see if we could stay somewhere
else, or get someone to hitch our trailer up and help haul it. So I went
and woke my family up and told my wife we were going to have to pack the
kids up and leave immediately. At this point she told me to just take her
and the kids and drop them off at the airport, she was going home that she
was going to wash her hands of this abusive, manipulating, hateful
organization. He was stunned at her response and in a condescending way
said "you are going to through away life forever in paradise because of
this?!" I responded "if this is a taste of spiritual paradise, than I
certainly wouldn't want to live forever in it with you hypocrites!" This
shocked him so he allowed us to stay a couple of days. We then had to stay
in a hotel for the rest of the 10-day trip (which ended up costing us quite
a bundle).

I had to unload our van because we were warned that was more that was about
to go wrong with it so we traded it for what we could and financed a new
van.

After returning from the assembly we got back to the Haines ferry terminal
we met up with a lot of JWs on their way home too. Talk about jealousy! We
had Jws flocking around our shiny new van looking at it with sneers and
snide remarks. We had one elder even down right tell us that we were being
over materialistic even though we told him of what happened to our other
van. On the way home we felt heavy hearts because we knew this was an
answer to our prayers and that was not the "TRUTH". I had finally accepted
that the love bombing I had received at the start of my association with JWs
would never return in my lifetime. This is reality once you are in the JWs
for awhile.

END OF OUR JW LIFE
We began doing research on historical points and read all Ray Franz's books
and were astonished at the proof of Watch Tower Society bungling and misuse
and abuse of their power. The Internet was very eye opening and a real
relief. I found myself laughing at what was hidden for years. How people
were railroaded out because of knowing too much and doing Bible studies
without using the WTS literature! It was then we come to realize that we
had been involved in a clever cult that used Jesus as a mask, all the while
promoting themselves in His place. We were able to find a release for all
the penned up stresses.

NO HONORABLE WAY OUT OF JWs
My wife was eventually disfellowshipped for being accused of apostasy in
1998.
After this happened to her I knew I was next for I shared the same views so
I wrote a letter to the editor about this cult, the elders never contacted
me, but by the way I was being shunned I knew something had gone down.

BEGINNING ANEW
It has been a long painful road. I have given the prime years of my life to
Jehovah's Witnesses. I am thankful we pushed ahead in some ways, like
buying a home. Some witnesses we talked to on our way back from our last
assembly begrudged other JWs who bought homes because they sacrificed and
rented apartments in order to pioneer.

One day I received a call from a member of the local Sitka Tribe
Council. He wanted to know if I would be interested in filling a vacancy.
He was impressed that I was an Alaska Native that had his own business. It
was a boost. It seems like God lifts you up when you least expect it. I
am finding my Post JW life to be more fulfilling. We took a ferry, car
trip to Yukon Territory, Canada. It was our 1st such trip without going to
an assembly. My wife and I celebrated our 17th anniversary on August 6,
2000 and we seem happier than we can remember.

* My wife's (LuCinda Williams) biography was published in Free Minds
July-Sept 2000,and is on H20 biographies under cowgirl*.

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