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FYI In case you were not aware there are updated versions of the following publications available for download on jw.org. Good News From God - October 2013 printing. Contains updates to some of the scriptures from the revised NWT, including on page 2. The white box showing John 17:3 has been updated. Who Are Doing Jehovah's Will Today? - April 2014 printing. This brochure has been updated on an almost monthly basis to keep pace with all the recent organizational changes. Quotations have been updated to match the revised NWT. Page 2 now states "239 lands". Lesson 11 has been updated to include the new duration and terminology related to assemblies and conventions. Lesson 14 has been completely updated and renamed to "What Schooling Is Provided for Pioneers?" Lesson 19 contains updated related to the Faithful Slave. Lesson 23 has been updated to indicate 700 languages. Lesson 25 has been updated saying "they are built with donations to a central fund" and "kingdom hall construction groups" instead of RBC's. Lesson 28 has statistical and minor updates. Page 32 adds the QR scan code and the updated JW.org logo with the dot. Keep Yourselves in God's Love - February 2014 printing (with further updates 4/21/14 the date of the latest QR code). Quoted scriptures throughout the entire book have been changed to match the revised NWT. Chapter 9 has been renamed "Flee From Sexual Immorality!". Additionally specific scriptures are now listed as read just like in our Watchtower study articles. References to the YPA book now indicates volume 1 or 2. Some changes to text and other material have been made to keep up with most current light. Back cover includes jw.org logo and a QR scan code. Was Life Created? - March 2014 printing. Adds QR scan code and jw.org logo to the back page. Quoted scriptures throughout the entire book have been changed to match the revised NWT. Would You Like to Know the Truth? - November 26, 2013. Adds QR scan code and jw.org logo to the back page. Quoted scriptures throughout the entire book have been changed to match the revised NWT. Listen to God and Live Forever - November 2013 printing. Quoted scriptures throughout the entire book have been changed to match the revised NWT.

Ouch, that's a terrible thing to happen to the family. I don't understand why the article mentions that they are witnesses, what happened had nothing to do with our beliefs or activity.

MFW someone start a debate again on the "Generation"

Yes, this IS me.

I llke Cheese and Crackers myself. Perhaps with some of the really good chicken salad. I generally prefer to bring a bottle of water to drink. Add to that some fruit ( a peach, apple, orange or a banana or even grapes. ) That for me is a great lunch and does not leave you feeling so drowsy for the afternoon session. GStorrs46

a "man bag"? that means i have to suffer the fact that my wife didn't buy me an lighter iPad Air for wedding anniversary? okay, my iPad, my weight

His Name is Tommy. He is from a city just outside Shanghai China. He is an MD in China and came here to take courses in advanced gerontology. He is going back sometime end of june to middle of July. He has to present his thesis to the hospital he is working in. That is in Shantou City in Guangdong Provence. He is not far from Hong Kong but would require a permit to travel there. My wife and I are very proud of Tommy. He has become an unbaptised publisher and has done 3 bible readings in our hall. He brings us so much joy to have studied with him to this point. We are just about done the bible teach book and will work on completing the last chapter and then complete the rest of the brochure on the organization. I will be getting in touch with the Local Chinese Congregation to see what the easiest way would be for him to contact the brothers there. I think he is kind nervous about being able to contact them. I will be going to a regional with him in the middle of June so that he won't miss it. There is one in Hong Kong but again he would need a permit to go to it. That may be easier than he thinks it is. I am not sure. He asked if we could do his study over skype. Of course we are willing but I emphasized to him the need of personal contact with the brothers there. Jehovah has certainly blessed us with this study. My heart swells with appreciation for the opportunity.

No. Not a consideration. We don't ride now, the boys are surviving, the time involved would cut into pioneering, and I can't dig a hole in my back yard without digging up a dead dog. Lol Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk

If they had been any other religion, this article would never have been written!

Very interesting. Thanks for posting that article.

The bible teach book got updated in September 2013. Not sure of what's been updated inside but the outside back cover now tells people to ask for a bible study, has a JW.ORG logo and a QR response on the back of it.

he national body charged with overseeing a safe blood supply to Australians says more evidence is required to support the use of PBM programs. Source: Supplied THE WA Departmentof Health has paid almost $4 million to two Jehovah’s Witnesses, neither of whom is a medical doctor, to roll out a statewide program to cut blood transfusions to thousands of patients being treated in public hospitals. The Sunday Times can reveal the two men, Axel Hofmann and Shannon Farmer – whose religion is vehemently opposed to blood transfusions – won the lucrative five-year contract in 2008, with an American associate, without having to bid for the job. The contract was approved by the Health Department for exemption from the usual open-tender rules because, according to the department, the trio were the only ones with the skills to plan and implement a “patient blood management” (PBM) program in WA. The aim of the WA PBM is to identify patients “at risk of transfusion” and implement a management plan aimed at “reducing or eliminating” the need for transfusions using donated blood. It also aims to reduce the potential risks to the patient and cut the costs associated with transfusion. However the national body charged with overseeing a safe blood supply to Australians says more evidence is required to support the use of PBM programs and the WA Health Department has failed to provide conclusive data that confirm the program has proven health benefits across the whole patient population. The Sunday Times can also reveal: The man who championed the introduction of PBM to WA was the former Chief Medical Officer, Dr Simon Towler, who has known Mr Farmer professionally since the early 1990s. The PBM rollout was given the go-ahead by the Health Department after receiving presentations from Mr Farmer and Mr Hofmann in 2007. The department told The Sunday Times the religion of the two men was “known to the Department’s State Health Executive Forum prior to contracts being rewarded (sic)”. However, Dr Neale Fong, who was WA Director-General of Health and head of SHEF at the time, told The Sunday Times that he did not think he was told that the men were Jehovah’s Witnesses. “I don’t believe so,” he said. “You’ve surprised me by mentioning it. I think it should have been declared.” Shannon Farmer. Source: Supplied However, Dr Fong said it probably would not have made any difference to the decision. “If they are just motivated out of their own religious background, well, that just goes to the motivation, but the issue should still be able to be adjudicated on its own rights,” he said. “But I think from an ethical point of view it would have been useful for them to declare it.” Dr Fong said Dr Towler was the sponsoring executive of the program, which meant he was responsible for the policy related to it and for making sure “all the ducks were lined up” and that it made sense. Dr Fong said the PBM proposal had made sense in terms of health economics and he had been very pleased to support it. He stressed that the key consideration for any initiative was the welfare of the patient. “Patient safety is always the highest issue here,” he said. “It’s not savings or efficiencies, it certainly is always a case of patient safety, always.” When told that the consulting doctors’ orders for blood were sometimes overridden at Fremantle Hospital, Dr Fong said, “I would have some concerns over that.” Dr Fong stood down as Director-General in January 2008, three months before the contract was awarded. “God knows what happened to (PBM), I don’t know,” he said. The contract was for the “Implementation of a System Wide Patient Blood Management Program to the Department of Health” – the first time in the world, it is claimed, that a PBM program has been applied across a whole taxpayer-funded health system. According to the Health Department, PBM is now operating at Fremantle, Royal Perth, Sir Charles Gairdner and King Edward Memorial hospitals. The Sunday Times has established that the contract was awarded on April 10, 2008, through an Austrian entity called “Medicine and Economics” (M&E), which is owned by Mr Hofmann, a health economist who has a base there. Under the contract, M&E was paid $3,901,703. The money was paid into a bank account in Austria, according to the Health Department. It is not clear why the contract was awarded to German-born Mr Hofmann’s Austrian business entity, since he does not appear to have had any previous experience in establishing and operating a PBM program. He does not have a degree in medicine but he has a Master’s in economics and a PhD in health science. Dr Simon Towler. Source: Supplied Mr Farmer, who has no tertiary qualifications, and a California-based associate, who also is not a medical doctor but has degrees in economics and health science, have been involved in implementing such hospital programs, even though on a much smaller scale than the statewide program in WA. Mr Farmer was the co-founder of a “bloodless” surgery program in 1990 at Fremantle’s Kaleeya private hospital. During the term of the M&E contract, it is also apparent that Mr Hofmann and Mr Farmer received payments as consultants or guest lecturers from the pharmaceutical companies that make the often expensive drugs used as substitutes for blood transfusions. Mr Hofmann has declared payments or travel support for consulting or lecturing from at least 14 pharmaceutical companies. Mr Farmer has declared that he received lecturing or consulting payments or travel support from at least six pharmaceutical or related companies. The Sunday Times has tried to contact both men without success. Dr Towler, who has long been interested in alternatives to blood transfusion and has published articles on the subject in peer-reviewed journals, told The Sunday Times that he commissioned the strategy document for the WA PBM program. “It was my idea,” said Dr Towler, who is now the clinical co-lead at Fiona Stanley Hospital. “It was a completely legitimate project. We chose to engage people with substantial expertise in delivering hospital-based programs.” Dr Towler referred questions about the tender and terms of the contract to the department, but told The Sunday Times: “Through PBM, we have saved more than we spent on the project.” Chief Medical Officer Gary Geelhoed Source: News Limited Current Chief Medical Officer Gary Geelhoed said the M&E contract – which was awarded several years before he came into the job – had undergone due diligence and had been given a formal exemption under the tender rules. “This concept was so new,” Dr Geelhoed said. “They got selected because there was no one else around in Australia.” However, programs along the same lines had been operating in hospitals in the US and western Europe for years before the plan was put forward for the WA health system. Asked why an Austrian entity was awarded the WA contract rather than tenders being sought from around the world, Dr Geelhoed said, “Well, I could not comment on that.” He said the five-year contract was not renewed last June 30 when it expired because the consultants had fulfilled their role, which was to spread the PBM concept across the health system, introduce the idea to clinicians and hospital staff, give lectures, produce written material, and provide a “blueprint” of how to implement the program. “The outside consultants educated people. They got people onboard,” he said. Both Dr Towler and Dr Geelhoed argued strongly that they believed Mr Hofmann and Mr Farmer’s religion was irrelevant to their getting the contract. Health Minister Kim Hames told The Sunday Times he was aware of the circumstances surrounding the PBM contract because questions had been raised in 2012. The questions were raised by one of these reporters. “After then reviewing the information on the program, I was fully satisfied with the way it was implemented,” Dr Hames said. WA Health Minister Kim Hames. Source: News Limited “I remain confident that there is nothing inappropriate about the nature of the contract or the program itself.” The program officially started in WA in July 2008, but the rollout of PBM across the whole hospital system was not announced until April 2011, with a brief media release quoting Dr Towler. There was no mention of the involvement of any external contractors. The Sunday Times does not suggest that Dr Towler, who is not a Jehovah’s Witness, obtained any financial benefit from the PBM contract or was motivated by any other factor other than a genuine belief in the project. The WA PBM initiative has been promoted, at international doctors’ conferences and in medical journals, as being a world leader. However, there has been no mention that Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religion not only prohibits transfusions but also bans blood donation by members, have been key players driving the WA PBM project or that millions of dollars were spent on their services. And the results of the introduction of PBM, in dollar terms or patient outcomes, have not been published in any of the WA Health Department’s annual reports between 2008 and 2013. There is not a single mention of it in the Health Department’s 2012-13 annual report for the Metropolitan Health Service, which includes Fremantle Hospital. Dr Geelhoed told The Sunday Times: “It’s been a very successful program and saved a lot of money. The program pays for itself. I’m happy to say that.” In March, The Sunday Times asked Dr Hames whether he believed the $3.9 million M&E contract was “value for money” for WA taxpayers. The Minister has failed to respond. Fremantle Hospital Source: News Limited The Patient Blood Management (PBM) program has resulted in improved patient outcomes such as fewer complications, reduced length of stay, fewer infections and reduced usage of red cell blood products, the WA Health Department claims. The Sunday Times asked the Health Department on March 28 to provide the results of patient outcomes from more than five years of PBM initiatives in WA. More than five weeks later, the department provided four graphs on superficial (skin) infection rates and hospital length of stay. There was no rationale provided to show how superficial infection rates might be caused by blood transfusions. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical establishments, superficial infections involve the skin only. The four graphs showed data from 2008/9 to 2012/13 in selected patients. Two graphs showed the superficial infection rates along with red cell transfusion rates in hip and knee replacement patients. The graphs showed superficial infection rates generally went down as transfusion rates went down. But both graphs showed superficial infection rates in one year went up as the red cell transfusion rate came down. In another year, superficial infection rates in knee replacements went down as transfusion rates went up. The two other graphs supplied showed changes in length of stay in hip or knee replacement and heart surgery patients. The graphs show that the length of stay was higher in patients who had a blood transfusion. There were no data to show how blood transfusions directly affect length of stay, including whether patients who had a blood transfusion had a longer length of stay because they were sicker. In all graphs, no actual patient numbers were given, only percentages, so it is unknown how many patients in these select groups were included in the statistics. The department did not produce any results for “fewer complications” apart from the superficial infection rates. The “reduced usage of red cell blood products” is not a patient outcome. The department also did not provide any data on whether patients who were refused a blood transfusion or received a restricted amount of blood under the PBM program suffered any adverse effects or were readmitted to hospital. The department said it would not be commenting further on the issue of the PBM program. In an online medical journal article last year, the WA PBM team reported on the implementation of the PBM program from 2009 to 2011 at Fremantle Hospital, in which some requests by doctors for blood for their patients were refused and some patients were given restricted amounts of blood. The only specific patient outcome reported for the three years was that in some patients undergoing knee surgery, the average length of stay in hospital decreased from six to just under five days. The main outcome reported was that there was a decreased number of blood transfusions. There were no reported results on whether patients’ health benefited or was adversely affected by not being given a blood transfusion, or by being restricted to a single unit of blood at a time. The article’s conclusion was that the PBM program “likely improved outcomes” by reducing patient exposure to donated blood transfusions. http://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/how-two-jehovahs-witnesses-were-paid-millions-to-restrict-wa-blood-transfusions/story-fnii5thn-1226921294173 .

He knows he has been going out with the brothers in the chinese cong. He says its easier to learn in English but tell others in Mandarin. We are so proud of him. He absorbs everything we can throw at him. Instant application with deep appreciation. I could not of asked for a better student. He will be back in October for a couple months to defend his thesis. Then he is hoping to stay here in Canada. We shall see what Jehovah blesses him with.

That's really nice, Lloyd.

You done good, Jerry.

I am hoping they'll update the Bible Teach book like they did the God's Love book. Update the quotations for the revised NWT and put definite read scriptures in the chapters.

Crikey!

So much "pushing" these days !!!! interesting !

Very valid points, Maureen. Inattention to the present minute, or moment, can have terrible impact on those near. Actually I am finding todays world, aka satan's world, is the perfect breeding ground for all kinds of troubles for us humans.

I agree Maureen, we are responsible for the things we do. I have been told that if something happens, it was an accident, but if we don't take of the necessary things and be careful, how will Jehovah view it? Accident or Negligent?

WOW! What a world. I wonder who is really running things??? His evil is so easily seen. I just don't understand how so many don't see it. 2 Cor 4:4

My Grandfather was disfelowshipped for smoking in 74. He tried and tried to stop smoking. When the watchtower told us to stop associating with DFed family we faithfully followed the direction we were given. I was very proud when my Grandfather decided enough was enough and he quit. He started studying with an elder. A year later he was reinstated. I was so excited to be at the kingdom hall with him. He got to meet my wife and told me how great she was even before we got married. He was at our wedding in the front row. He started going down hill about 10 years later. Alzheimer's robbed him of his cognitive ability. He is asleep now waiting for Jesus call. I miss him a lot. So much it hurts sometimes.

I will be taking my ipad but I have an ipad carry satchel with shoulder strap and will not be leaving it at my seat because not everyone at our conventions are brothers and sisters. Since I will be attending the AT&T Center in Arlington, Texas (Cowboy Stadium) it will be easy to see/use. It is exciting times as our International Convention is the last of June. Next Month!!!!! Just the shot in the heart we all need to continue determined, steadfast, and energized to carry out the work at hand...come what may!!!

That's my wife purse... LolShe always carry my stuff... wallet, tablet, car keys... everything She does that because I'm a very distracted guy and if not for her I would have lost all of the above several times ;)

Most wives have a big enough purse for the kitchen sink We keep those with us at all times. Lol

I will be keeping mine with me at all times, Peer. As these are public events, they tend to attract thieves and pickpockets so it is not safe to assume that all people there are brothers. There are brothers assigned to security on the watch for these things, but the wise move is to protect your own belongings. Welcome to the forum, by the way. i was in Munich a couple of weeks ago, where in Bavaria are you from? Chris

I remember when these changes where made. We have one dear sister whose husband smoked and had only been coming to the meetings somewhat irregularly. After that he stopped for many years. ( He had a number of other issues I later learned that went along with it. ) Finally several years later he came back into the truth. We were all happy to see this as we all loved him greatly. GStorrs46

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Sometimes when I'm on the WOL.

South Florida. We go to the Convention Center in West Palm Beach. JW owned, renovated about 12 years ago from an arena. (Basket ball I think?) We have about a 45 minute drive.