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What's the story with international prostyletizing and the JW? I was in the Peace Corps living in the middle of nowhere in the Dominican Republic, a really lovely poor rural town on the border with Haiti. I was surprised to find that there were other gringos in town: a variety of JWs: a German, American, Canadian, and Norwegian. The ones I talked to seemed pretty laid back and honestly didn't bring up their faith. They seemed to be financing their own missionary work through savings and side jobs. There were local Dominican converts as well. It seemed like lots of small towns in the country had a JW meeting hall (or whatever it's called). Despite the really lovely buildings and shanty towns everywhere, you'd often see a perfectly maintained, identical JW building when passing through a town. I was impressed by their grass roots work, organization, and level of integration with the local community. That Watchtower magazine gets around--there weren't many printed materials in the area, but there were always shiny Spanish and Haitian Creole copies of their magazine (I'd cut the pictures out to use in activities with kids.) Those dudes were sharp dressers, too. They seemed fairly successful in getting converts, which I imagine is a lot easier in a poorer, more chaotic area. They went out of their way to learn Spanish and Haitian Creole to win people over. Everyone assumed that I was some sort of missionary, which was kind of annoying, but at least the JW foreigners had a good reputation. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 20:01
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 18:45 |
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