I'll start with the Post Office. Yes, they provided a living for 20 years. They did not respect me, ever, as a vendor or as Ron's wife. When Ron could be active he liked to work and they would get upset at me for "making" him as he saw it. I would tell them "Go tell Ron" and they did, once, he shut them down real quick. I think it's started with "I'm not a f*cking baby" and went downhill from there.
It wasn't a good relationship; I see that now. Working last night I was off at 7, it was very busy. Not one but three coworkers, on their own, rallied to me and made sure that happened without my even asking. That's a good place to work. I bitch about it sometimes but Walmart is good to me and worth the bus ride.
When Ron was living in Silicon Valley in the 80's, he had the JW's come by periodically. He liked the whole "no hell" thing they were selling and they gave him a braille copy of their pamphlet "You can live forever in paradise on Earth" which he showed me.
Side note to Christian evangelists: we need to be inclusive in our ministry as well. Do we have Bibles on USB drives? I don't but I should. I'm going to look into that. Do we have braille material? Ron had braille tracts he handed out a few times. Other languages? World Missionary Press (www.wmpress.org) has free Scripture booklets in 400 some languages so I have English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Arabic. I don't have a lot of the last 5 but a few of each I take on Handouts.
One awesome Bible Handout a man rolled down his window. He said "You don't have anything in my language!" I recognized his features as we have a lot of Vietnamese in Houston and I handed him a booklet. He shouted "What?!" and almost went off the road, drove off.
Where he ends up is between him and God. I love what I do, I sow seed as Dad phrases it. I don't see the crop until I'm dead.
So I believe JW's are wrong, going to hell, and in for additional stripes before God for false teaching as God hates that passionately. That said they're pretty much the only other people I see out there trying to share God as they see Him.
So we had a guy at the Post Office. His name was Leroy, he was from Louisiana. He had been raised Catholic but met the JW's about the same time he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church. He was always "preaching" at work.
We had a book exchange area in my work area. I would bring cases of Bibles, one at a time, write "Free" on the box and put them out on Leroy's days off, the other Postal workers would take them. He would get so angry if he came back and found a few left, he would be doing the whole "corrupted" lecture which actually led more people to take them. At the time we had a Christian (evangelical) plant manager and I had a free pass. She was only there a year but I was able to do a lot in that time.
Because of that, Postal workers also knew (this would have gotten Ron and I fired from the vending program but he's dead and I work somewhere else now) they could ask me for a Bible or two and I had them with a smile.
Leroy didn't hand out literature but he would lecture. He had been trained to be a very attentive listener so people liked him.
We were like the angel and the devil (you decide who was who!) on their shoulders.
Leroy got kidney cancer which eventually killed him. It also killed a friend's husband this year.
In the meantime I had both Mormons and JW's coming to my house. Ron invited a team of Mormon (male) missionaries into the house one day when I was gone, I came home to find them sitting around. I was not happy. One of them had given Ron his phone number and Ron called him a lot basically asking "Why did God allow me to get run over?" and they actually told Ron to lose the number and leave them alone. I am apparently off the list as a result. I get a few of the lady missionaries chatting me up at work but they don't come anywhere near my home.
The JW's were more persistent. Long story short I believe a Metrolift passenger heard gossip Ron and I were "rich" (nothing farther from the truth), went to their church, and told them about us. We have had a steady campaign of them ever since.
I just say "Read James 1:5" and tell them to go away. Their religion teaches you have to have an "expert" lead you through the Bible as you can't understand it on your own. The Bible verse clearly states God will show you Scripture if you ask Him for help.
My denomination (Presbyterian) hands schoolchildren their own Bibles when they're old enough to read, in a lovely church service I wish I could duplicate for my recipients. I still have mine, it's one of my treasures.
So they came by this morning when I was bagging up candy. Asked what I was doing. I told them, they literally recoiled. They are taught that "Christendom" (their version of NWO) is out to "get" them and tools of Satan I believe.
I wonder what they would have thought of my black cat?
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