retroHelen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6eaDOV6irw I would like to see the old City of David/First Temple period again. It was not as extensively excavated when we went last time. Many wonderful things have been uncovered showing the sophisticated/civilized life the Israelites had compared to other nations round about. Other videos show and extensive water system for the city dwellers that was started by the Jebusites only using the natural underwater channels and then the Israelites tapping into them to create bathing facilities not just in or for the temple area. The large pool of Siloam was not excavated when we were there, neither was the amazing discovery of the beautiful patterned/different coloured marble tiles that decorated the floors of the temple courtyards. The finding of the golden bell from the fringe of the garment of the High Priest in the street drain of the steps on the ascents up to the temple that have been excavated, so you can now walk in the way of the worshippers up to the old temple mount whilst they were singing and rejoicing in their worship and carrying their offerings on their best plates or leading the best of their flock.

Jehovah knows how we are created. We are creatures happier in routines and some panic at changes more than others. He kindly and gradually introduces us to the changes subtly over time.Jehovah only expects what we can give not what we cannot give, so we do our best with what abilities we have. I remember it was announced for our midweek meeting demonstrations that we didn't need to stick rigidly to the presentation outline, it was even saying we need not use the suggested scripture or 'toolbox tool' if we felt that it was not as relevant as another for those in our territory. The words 'having a conversation' were starting to replace 'presentation', especially by the Circuit Overseers. Then we have been prepared with small step by step Watchtower study articles - that now visually more resemble the lessons in the ELF book to get us to realise more and more to try to apply what we are learning, just like we expect new bIble students to do with their ELF lessons. These articles have so much practical advice and good appreciative reasoning to get us moving onwards - even articles about being patient with ourselves with the moving forwards. Also, more emphasis on doing everything we do out of love for Jehovah rather than comparing ourselves to average hourly requirements and then there was a step onwards by making the hourly requirements ever more flexible, so many more could share and feel part of the organisation's work - whatever they could do. Letters were blended with ministry and other forms of witnessing and using our different media/videos, to be more inclusive with the less abled and less abled to express themselves. It is a wonderful thing we are doing, unlike any other organisation in the World. It may seem like a big overhaul, but it will continue to be brought to us with little steps and lots of support over many months and we won't be just starting it all in January. We will get more talks and information to think on and practice with as we go on improving, just flow the best you can with it - you will blend old with new until 'new' is easier and support each other verbally in pairs on the ministry more as well.

Food prices have increased, Fuel here - Petrol is £8 a gallon and diesel fuel is more. Roads have also been very icy and local councils cannot afford to put salt down on as many roads as they used to, so we have to think carefully about going on long journeys and not using unsalted lanes on motorways or dual carriageways. The cost of electricity is so bad that many are living in houses with temperatures below zero and unable to afford to heat them. One utility company has sent electric over-blankets to vulnerable customers to help them have some inexpensive heat source. We have all been encouraged to wear extra layers - warm yourself rather than the room where it is healthy to do that. People are saving cooking costs by using their microwaves or air fryers rather than putting on ovens that have to heat up first and cost a lot to run. When the prices for electricity and gas went up suddenly, most of the low price utility companies went bankrupt, so customers were transferred to more expensive ones. If they paid a fix fee monthly, these new companies sent them ridiculously increased monthly tariffs that many could not afford. To help with the subzero temperatures here at present, we were also told to tape extra layers of bubble wrap at our windows;People were encouraged to use dehumidifiers more as it is very damp here as well. Condensation freezes on windows overnight and then thaws to pools on windowsills in the day, so people were filling old long socks with kitty litter or trays of sodium chloride/salt to absorb it or just wiping it up every day to mitigate against toxic black mould growing on damp windowsills and walls. We are putting foil covered cardboard sheets down the backs of any working radiators to reflect heat back into rooms and not absorb into walls unnecessarily. It is so unfair that electricity and gas companies charge twice the Kilowatt hour and standing charges for using gas or electricity in businesses/shops, so our shared shop had it's gas supply totally disconnected as we cannot afford even to leave the heating off with such high standing charges still ticking over. This is on top of our very high business rates/tax; and our shop rents - no wonder so many shops are closing, we may even end up doing that ourselves, but would miss it greatly - we have many good customers and enjoy interacting with them. Many high streets have boarded up shops now - looking derelict, the once thriving market towns. We changed all our lightbulbs in the shop and home to LED lights. Even lighting rows of glass shop display cabinets with LED string lights (also called fairy lights in UK) instead of the old halogen spotlights they had before, to save money. I even have them at home in the kitchen under my overhead kitchen cupboards as the old spotlights cost too much to run. Need them here with such short days and it going dark after 3.30 pm. A customer came into the shop and could not afford to buy what he wanted. Then he said how he had felled trees on his land that were felled 5 years ago - too many to burn on his fireplace for years. He offered that if he sawed up 2 car boot loads of wood would we take that instead of cash - like barter. We agreed and took a box of goods to him and filled our car boot and it's back seats with wood for 2 runs. We have a multifuel stove at home that heats 7 radiators and the hot water system and buying fuel in has become expensive as the smokeless fuel was from Eastern Europe , local domestic fuel mines are closed and not re-opening. The smokeless fuel has tripled in price and bought kiln dried wood logs has doubled in price.

We love it. WE feel we are getting to know the specialist repairers quite well and also learning so much about how to fix up different things rather than just throw them away or put up with them broken. Jay Blades, the host of the show is dyslexic and never learned to read at school and has just done a program about his latest struggles to learn to read as a man in his 50s. Fascinating insight into a skill that most of us take for granted when we learned to read as little children, when our brains were more flexible and not afraid of making loads of mistakes at first.

I have been in the Truth since the mid 1960s and I always knew that the gravemarker was for all who served at Bethel and Russell had his own separate one. I was also told that it was pyramid shaped because it had 4 faces looking throughout all sides of the graveyard - over the burial areas of all the Bethelites and the pyramid shape would stand up to weather better than 4 straight sides with hollow or filled area atop of it. It seems pretty irrelevant that it may resemble a shape in an older book called the Divine Plan of the Ages. If anything - re: their beliefs back then - it more resembles an arrow pointing to heaven where they all regarded themselves as going at that time.

Seems to be folks mostly in areas where dry summer is coming on, when viruses don't spread as much in the atmosphere and/or where people are double vaxxed and it's still within the 6 months before booster is needed. I suppose this might alter when winter comes on again/new variants emerge and damp weather helps viruses spread and boosters haven't arrived and infection rates start going up again. Wonder if we will have a chance in the Lake District UK where we get rain regularly on odd days all year round that keeps the Lakes filled and only briefly get out of damp weather ever! Getting my booster in a fortnight. Infection rates here are among the highest in the country at present now winter is coming on. It's our flood season here - evacuated from our shop and told to go home while roads were not too flooded in the torrential rains last Thursday afternoon!

An elderly couple in our congregation had 2 bereavements in their family. They inherited from both members and felt they would like to share some out. They had an idea to cheer up a few in the congregations they knew who live alone and have been a bit isolated in the lock downs we have had for nearly 2 years now. Quite a few eating places around here do deliveries of food. UK has a time in the afternoon called 'High Tea' or 'Afternoon Tea' when people socialize, but don't eat a meal, just snack with a cup of tea at home together or in a cafe. It was the fashion from the 1700s when tea was an imported luxury item for just when socializing, to set up High Tea as an opportunity at about 2/3pm to invite friends around and get out your best china tea service and decorate the table with your best linen cloth and napkins/serviettes and serve tea from a pretty teapot with cream/milk in a matching jug and/or sugar in a matching bowl and with it a tazza or stacked/tiered serving-plates with sandwiches on the bottom; scones in the middle; cakes on the top tier. You serve the scones with small pot of butter; small portion of jam/fruit jelly and a pot of clotted cream. The elderly couple found a little hotel in the Lake District near us that did 'Afternoon Tea' but because of lack of trade because of Covid, could provide individual teas to be delivered in individual boxes. They asked 23 people who are alone in our congregation and some 'alone friends' from other congregations to meet up at 2 pm Saturday afternoon (via their zoom connection) , when most are at home. A paid for tea box would be delivered to most of them for that time. All they were to do was get their best cups out and set out a nice display at their table as if meeting up for tea and chat in reality. Those with special dietary requirements that can't eat bread/cakes/pastries were asked to provide their own food and were sent a lovely bunch of delivered flowers instead. They also asked my elderly Dad (86)- he isn't a JW, just a favourable spouse who, in her declining years, wheeled my faithful mother to meetings in her wheelchair and been coming to meetings for Sundays since my mother died. Dad doesn't have internet, so I set the table at our house, with an inherited china tea service from my Grandma that he would recognized and we provided our own food for my husband and myself, so Dad had his box of goodies for himself. 23 zoom screens of old folks who are living alone were all there sharing and chatting. We were also divided off afterwards into smaller breakout rooms. They reminisced about what it was like in wartime - 2nd World War, not just about being Witnesses as children, but things my Dad understood - food rationing, being evacuated, hiding under stairs or in bomb shelters from night-time bombing raids. Dad was evacuated from his hometown as a child because Barrow was a shipyard town that was heavily bombed during that war. Then they discussed how people entertained themselves before TV and internet took that over. We showed each other what china cups and saucers we had that were often inherited and mostly just displayed in glass fronted china cabinets or hidden in attics in boxes because most use coffee mugs to drink with these days. It was a lovely afternoon and there was so much food for Dad in the box that he could take home and keep in the fridge to nibble at further in the week. We all sent thank you emails to the couple for a lovely time and we sent a bag of apples off our tree, so they've enjoyed apple pies since.

We had someone in this position. She likes to comment rather than just hear a meeting. Our congregation co-ordinator went on JW.ORG website and looked for the congregations in a larger area around us. Some shared Kingdom Halls, not so far away had still got later meeting times listed there and a phone number. They rang the number and found one that still had kept to the later meeting time and the overseer - with permissions from ours' - gave the sister the zoom codes for them, so she could comment and be part of breakout rooms as well as hearing the meeting while in hospital.

These atrocities are not new. It's also not just against us. I read in other news reports of Russian people going to their local governments to beg to be moved from their government owned apartments near certain Police stations/prisons because they were suffering PTSD and sleep deprivation from endlessly having to listen to the authorities beating and torturing prisoners of all kinds there day and night. They seem to have had centuries of history of brutal authoritarianism against their ordinary citizens or earlier on - peasants - going unchecked. Pogroms of the past are still going on! Brothers and sisters suffered similar atrocities in Malawi in the 1970s. It was shocking. I find now though that back then it was commented upon in the media and we had letter-writing campaigns that seemed to have more effect. These days the media rarely reports anything that might support a religion. Even human rights charities that used to stand up for us are too embroiled in LGBT+2...etc and likely wouldn't be so interested in helping an organisation that didn't support similar views, even though we don't militate publicly against others' lifestyles. We can only pray that the King of the North & allies gets to "pushing" too far very soon. Their carelessness for their own citizens and surrounding nations they want to annex, shows also in their uncaring unsustainable destroying of the planet/environment in their race to be top nations and that's the part that is not going unnoticed - what they are doing is threatening the whole planet.

I have learned so much about life and benefited so much from others' research coming on here. The site has a goodhearted atmosphere of fair sharing, encouraging and caring. I was on it when it was a different format/website style and my old PC couldn't cope with the new site at first and I did miss coming on here until I had sorted my more up-to-date devices with the help of PC specialists on here that we did not have in our congregation then. I was a bit perturbed by the fact that the threads of information disappeared after a set time, so I saved what I could of people's useful comments on the old site or threads and bookmarked the interesting links to refer to again - a wealth of knowledge I didn't want to lose. I got ribbed a bit for resurrecting old threads to add posts of extra research on them, but I wanted to save the useful stuff to use/share again. It's great hearing news firsthand from people on here who actually live in the countries the events are occurring in. It's been an insight into other cultures and how they survive/endure in their environment. May it continue as long as it can.

September in UK an average of 138 dying per day - This is only counting those who die within 28 days of a Covid test - usually in hospital, so there are more dying at home who have not had a recent test but not counted. Delta variant is the majority now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-announce-alliance-with-britain-australia-tech-cyber-defense-politico-2021-09-15/ https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/15/biden-deal-uk-australia-defense-tech-sharing-511877 As the King of the North's ally China has been trying to take over the World trade route of the South China Seas, pushing against and threatening the peace of the Philippines; Taiwan; Japan and Australia, President Biden has reached out to the British Prime Minister and UK's ally in the British Commonwealth =Australia to help Australia gain nuclear armament strength in it's seas with British and US technologies. He states that he wants to come to the aid of UK & Australia because he wants to keep the South China seas free for secure World trading and Peace and Security to the countries in that area from the threat from China and it's allies. After a time of wondering what had happened to the Anglo-American alliance as each country suffered through pandemic, economic problems, political upheavals, cyber attacks from China and Russia, and internal troubles making them seem weaker, we observe if they now realize the need to show a stronger alliance against the building of fortified islands and increased military strength threatening them in the South China Seas.

Here is a photograph of my great grandmother Annie Ellen Hartley nee Hargreaves - the young lady stood up in the middle. She started in 'service' (as a servant) in the kitchens of Sir Thomas Storey who was Lord Mayor of the city of Lancaster UK. She worked up until she was his head cook and she had to organize large gatherings for state meals in the city and every year she was asked to organize a dinner for all the senior citizens in the city - 900 people. She would organize the menservants in Sir T's household to prepare a big fire-pit in a town square and then roast hogs and an oxen to feed them all. Sir Thomas Storey was a kind employer - devout Quaker - compared to most factory/mine and mansion owners, so was very interested in welfare of the city citizens. She and her sister - Aunt Maud - helped him (he was a widower, so no wife as support) with many philanthropic ventures that he was able to fund. She helped set up sports teams in the city that still exist today and the mechanics institute and schools that her own children were among the first to attend. Her training, at his home meant that she was brilliant at organizing big parties and events in our large family in the past. These parties and her cooking were legendary, so it would be great to be part of one of her big parties in the resurrection. She lived and died years before I was born, so I only know her from my late Gran and Great Aunts & Uncles talking about her and all she did.

I want to see your lovely dear mother Rosilla as well. She could also see the family of a sister in our congregation that she first Witnessed to when she was in the Maternity ward having your sister. This other woman became our sister in the congregation and the daughter she was having at the same time as your Mother, I believe is the sister in our congregation married to one of our eldesr with 3 children grown up in the Truth now as well.

I thought you meant which of our Watchtowers and Awakes over the years were most significant to you - in your own top 10. If that was the case I would have said some of the special issues we had in 1970s. One that I remember causing a stir in the science community was a detailed special issue about the faults of Carbon-14 dating that had been dating archaeological discoveries, especially many Biblical finds, as thousands of years earlier than they should have been. Jericho finds were dated to over 10,000 years too old. The article was very good explaining why such errors were occurring and was very useful when we had so much critical documentaries about the Bible on TV at the time. Another later magazine also had a good explanation of the faults of 'geological dating' of finds by pseudo-sedimentary layers around the finds - -as if everything just sits on the ground when it dies and dirt just builds up over it neatly in easily dated layers - which it doesn't, so things were dated millions of years old that likely weren't. There was also another special magazine in the 1970s about the United Nations and how they had clauses in their laws in place that could affect religious freedoms in the future - tying it to what they could use when Babylon the Great is brought down. I placed a hoard of special Awakes at school that were featuring the American Bi-Centennial in 1970s as it was a big topic for study/projects/essays at many schools even in the UK at the time. I left a few copies a day, each week in my locker and lidded desk at school too. This was because the classroom you started the day in was not the room you spent the day in. After initial registration, you went to different rooms for different subjects throughout the day, Other people would come into your first classroom for Mathematics or English Literature classes, so theft by other students using the room where your desk or locker was, was so common at school, I was guaranteed to get them taken, which was exactly what happened. Great way to make placements!

I remember there were 2 calendars depicting the 3 Hebrews in the fiery furnace many decades apart though. Both times we had none-JW workmen at the house who raised eyebrows that those depictions!

Yes I still revert to the old songs if I am tired and not concentrating! We had an elderly sister who played the piano for the songs at the Circuit conventions in the 1960s. The piano was usually already in the corner of the stage of whatever community Hall we had hired for the occasion. If she was playing a song she was not particularly fond of, she tended to play it faster, to 'get it over with' and we would all be pretty breathless by the end of it! ☺️ It was so much better once the orchestral recordings were available, but the little musical interlude before the last verse often caught newbies out - glad they dropped that! What I liked about the old songs was learning where they were written and the circumstances. This was discussed in some old magazine articles for the 1966 songbook. The songs written by brothers in the Nazi camps that helped them endure. The widow of Brother Harold King - the brother who spent years in solitary confinement in prison in China - brought the tiny manuscripts of the songs he wrote that we still sing (or sang - as some have been dropped from our later songbooks), over from Hong Kong to our meeting one week. We learned to sing the one he wrote 'From House to House '( used to be song 10 in the Pink songbook) in Chinese, which works so well in that language. However, they changed the tune and I cannot get used to the new way of singing it. If I am remembering correctly, it may have been changed because Bro King was hearing Chinese Propaganda broadcasts while in prison, with bits of their tunes and may have inadvertently used some of the musical phrases in his works, so they had to change or be dropped?? When you know the original country of some of the songs, the tunes do make more sense as you recognise the influence the music of that culture has on the tune. It also makes you realise that the song has been translated - sometimes not too successfully and makes more sense/sounds or flows better in the original language. I love many of the new songs, but only having a 'lead sheet of music', rather than a proper score with melody and harmony, for many songs is a little disappointing. I am not such a good piano player that I can guess what the left-hand harmony should be when I to try to play them on my parent's old piano or my little keyboard.

When I saw this it instantly brought to mind Jesus’ illustration of the workers in the vineyard. (Matthew 20:8-16.) Jesus describes a householder who pays the same amount of money to all his workers, whether they worked the whole day or just one hour. There are so many ways to view this. People who come into the truth near the end of the system have the same reward as those who faithfully served for years. What we get from Jehovah is undeserved kindness - who ever we are, we are all sinners needing Jesus' sacrifice price, we cannot work for that. We should not compare ourselves with others in God's service - we are unique and He drew us, just do all we can manage, not in comparison to others but to Jehovah out of love. He knows our hearts. This is what we have to imitate in Jehovah's congregation. Everyone there is drawn by Jehovah, so we should not discriminate by age, experience, culture, background and place value on anyone - that's not our authority or right to do.

During the pandemic 'lock-down' last year and when the weather was very wet/raining, I looked at the 'Good Land 'brochure and went on to Google it to see what the places look like now and found some interesting archaeology going on there & Youtube footage of the places that I wasn't so familiar with. We did join some virtual Bible tours and I did find some more on Youtube to bring what I was reading to life. I also Googled some of the old Bible Manuscripts to see what their museums had to say about them and how they obtained them. Dead sea scrolls have a strange history of a made up story of a shepherd finding them in a cave which seems to have been a lie to cover the fact that some parts of them were illegally bought in a market, so the buyer got to follow up where the rest of them were discovered, so he could make up a story around the authentic place where they were found, that did lead to some better finds. Then I researched the interesting story of the opening and preservation of these ancient delicate repaired scrolls over many years of work, which was very interesting. The Siniatic manuscripts were also a tale of a Victorian scholar going to the monastery and asking to see them to translate over a period of time. He systematically tore out pages and smuggled them out. He made up a lie that the monks were using them to light braziers and he had done the World a great service when he rescued them. It was not until years later, that these isolated monks realised there were pages missing from their library Bibles and what happened to them and have been angry about it since. However, though it was theft, at least it got publicised the importance of these very early manuscripts that these monks were not reading nor wanting to share, just keeping to themselves chained up on shelves in their library. For artistry, my favourite old Bible Manuscripts are the Lindisfarne Gospels. Hand-written and decorated by Irish missionaries of the 'Celtic Christian' faith before they were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism. They are so so intricate and have such beautifully patterned pages between each different gospel, that they are called 'carpet pages' like the patterns on Persian/Arabian carpets. These missionaries left their Irish home for a while and first went to a lonely Island of Iona to write and decorate this section of the Bible. There they built little conical huts & a kitchen garden, to be self-sufficient whilst working quietly to finish this Bible. Then they moved to Lindisfarne Island. Irish missionaries often did beautiful books like this, with leather bound covers with semi-precious stones inset and fancy gold hinges and clasps to give, by way of a 'Witness', to rulers as worthy gifts for them to read and learn from. This was why they were often a target for Viking raiders who were not yet 'Christian' and just wanted to steal the Bibles for their rich covers off the travelling missionaries. Such Bibles have been found in old Byzantium, now Istanbul, and in ancient ruler's palaces and tombs in Russia. Early writings indicate that the missionaries did head off to what we now know as China with some of these Bibles, but only traces of ancient 'Christian' settlements seem to remain. The Chinese are not keen on people discovering evidence of early Christianity there because it tends to indicate that historically, they jealously guarded their Buddhism traditions and preferred to stamp out any other 'foreign' religion before it could spread anywhere.

We also have Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick in UK. He has regular documentaries on TV showing his large animal hospital where he does prosthetic feet for many types of animals, as well a complicated spinal surgery on animals who have catastrophic back injuries after road accidents. check him out on YOutube - also known as the Bionic Vet. He is a Veterinary surgeon, but also is quite an engineer and has combined the 2 to make the devices to hold critters together or help them walk again. Much of his pioneering work has been taken up by other surgeons now.It is amazing to see how prosthetic feet are actually attached to remaining bone and poke out through the skin, yet do not harm the animal and it learns to walk with special clip-on rubber boots on the steel ball shaped feet of different types. Other surgery involves providing a 3D created web to stitch into a lost area of bone to act as scaffold for new bone to grow onto. It's amazing stuff, yet as Noel says himself, it is all based on the fact that animals, fed well, and living to a good routine, are great healers with better immune systems than most humans and have an innate ability to want to get well. He is just helping the healing process along. = Owner feeds & waters; Noel helps set a course back to health in the right direction, but, if they have caught things in time - God has put the recovery process there to get going in the getting better.

Don't like to seem like a party pooper, but the cockatoo shouldn't have been let loose among so many cats. It isn't "trying to fit in" it is using it's God-given defence mimic strategy to save itself from harm as prey to the cats and is a bit scared as his crest is raising and he daren't turn his head from them and is eventually trying to back up and find a way to get higher above them for safety. I felt sorry for the poor cat in the last video - definitely scared by the 2 dogs. The person should have saved the cat from being scared/distressed by the dogs not filmed it's fear response for fun.This looks cruel to God's creation.

Yes the Jet-Pack paramedic man is working around the mountains and hills in our territory where it is hard to get and ambulance or helicopter to an injured person hiking or working up in the fells above the Lakes.