Whitewashing the Hurricane that was near Jekyll Island. Don't complain about it either! We were in the campground that year. Had to sleep in our car for several nights. The campground was flooded. Our tent was flooded. Some tents were blown away. A camper's trailer had a tree fall across it and was destroyed. Dad was worried the water was going to get high enough to come in the car. Yet, this article only paints one person which had problems. Of course, the man was in a bad attitude, hadn't been doing his personal bible study or prayers, and cheated on his 2nd tithe.
Good News; August 1966, article: Is God All Powerful?
"...Let’s go back to the poor fellow who, with his whole family, got rained out during the rainstorm in Jekyll Island. His was the only family that I recall that had any real problem as a result of the rainstorm! Some of the rest got a little wet, but they quickly recovered and had their camp back to normal in a short time.
The poor fellow with the “real problems” spent his time, when it wasn’t raining, complaining! Something was wrong with his tent, it was an inferior quality, the rain was too wet! Patiently, the camp directors and fellow campers assisted this man and his family to become comfortable. The camp director explained that with any sudden downpours of this magnitude the tent needs additional protection.
Even the big commercial tent that we rent for Jekyll Island leaked in that rain. They told him that he needed to “ditch” his tent so that the water would run off away from the tent, not in the tent. He was also told that his tent should have a piece of 10 x 17 plastic over the top, then the tent would shed water like a duck during these abnormally heavy downpours! As a matter of fact, the camp director even offered to drive him over to Brunswick to purchase this inexpensive plastic.
But-he was too busy complaining! '...He didn’t need the plastic and didn’t want to bother to “ditch” the tent. Soon another storm blew up. There was a repetition of the first. He and his family got drenched for the second time! Loving brethren took them in again and dried off the little kiddies.
Again there was peace and calm and then, of all things, it happened the third time!
That was the last straw ! He demanded to talk to the head of “this outfit this tent is worthless.” He got as far as me-still complaining! I gave him his money back!! It was hopeless to try to help him. He wasn’t about to understand or come through with “Works !”
It makes you wonder how far behind in Bible study and prayer this individual was-or whether he had borrowed from his second tithe!..."reprinted with permission from Facebook
I was there that year as a child. I can never forget the amount of rain and wind that hit the island. The tent was actually jumping in the air as men tried to hold down the tent poles and rain leaked in everywhere. The floor of the tent (a parking lot) was a sea of water. We stayed in the campgrounds that year and the tents were flooded out. It did not matter though, you were supposed to take it as a sign of Satan's persecution and buck up and be strong. Campground monitors turned you into the ministry if you complained.
ReplyDeleteQuote from article --- "He got as far as me-still complaining!... I gave him his money back!! "
ReplyDeleteWell, lucky for him, he got a refund! Okay...Im complaining about ALL of the WCG too! ... can I have my money back (all of it!) also! ;-)
That Feast was my last one as a teenager with my family before going to Ambassador College. Our family was a large one, and my parents had rented a house each year at Jekyll Island, but we were not foreign to the concept of camping, as we had done it one year in Texas.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, many of the people who camped at the Feast didn't have a choice. Their financial situations prevented them from affording hotel or motel accommodations. There were some who owned small trailers, but for others, camping in a tent was the only way in which they could afford to keep the Feast. These were the folks who also often had substandard cars which were barely capable of making long trips, and were dangerous to drive. The Feast must have been nerve-wracking to start. Recall for a moment the required church attire for services. Imagine keeping that clean, ironed, and presentable for an entire week in a tent. People who camp throughout the year for non-religious reasons are dressed way down, in comfortable old clothes. Camping during hurricane season, while wearing dress clothing, is an absurd situation to start with, and when you add the proviso that it is a commanded assembly which one is not allowed to leave, and that infants are also subjected to this "wonderful" foreshadowing of the World Tomorrow, you have to question the intelligence of the top leadership, and to ask whether they really had the best interests of the members in mind. I don't care how deep a ditch you dig around a tent, or what type of plastic you put over your tent, it is not going to handle the rains which accompany a hurricane. Also, the large meeting tent was a disaster waiting to happen, especially considering the presence of electricity for lights and the P.A. system.
My best friend's family was staying at the campground, and he ran away in the middle of all of this. Obviously, I was one of the first ones the "officials" came to for help in finding him. I knew nothing of his plans, it must have been one of those spur of the moment things, but we did end up finding him. I remember being shocked at what the family had gone through at the campground. The sad thing is that there was no talk about members with better housing temporarily taking in the less fortunate people, a priority which you would have imagined a loving church group to have high on their list. I also wonder where "the world's" law enforcement was in all of this. I don't recall seeing any police involved, although there was a building with a sign that said "Jekyll Island Authority", if I recall correctly.
Obviously this could have been much much worse than we imagined at the time, and of course the church was going to whitewash and spin it, and to make it appear in retrospect that they had great wisdom and integrity. There had been horrible car accidents in which entire families were wiped out during Feast seasons, and it is quite remarkable that the big tent didn't simply blow away while full of people.
BB
https://www.weather.gov/chs/TChistory
ReplyDeleteJekyll Island was a dangerous place to put any open air convention in the fall on the Atlantic Coastline. In 1898 a storm tide of 20 feet hit Jekyll Island from October 1 to October 3rd, approximately 70 years before the Jekyll Island incident. There was never any excuse - considering ALL the storms to hit the Coastline that time of year, it was not only inexcusable, it was downright stupid and dangerous.
I have a vague memory of it raining so hard at Jekyll that a pocket of water developed in the convention tent, which ripped and the water poured in. I can only imagine what camping was like.
ReplyDeleteVery protective of the 2nd tithe, I see. No surprise there. Meanwhile, back in Pasadena, the 'ministry' is raiding the 3rd tithe fund for important stuff like curtains and furniture...
Well, what would you expect with all these little "Jonahs" in the making present at JI.
ReplyDeleteJust today in California god issued a stern warning to all the fat people, by shutting down airconditioning systems through a 6.4 magnitude earthquake.
I guess god was tired of framing the gays now that they turned "square", with their openly expressed desire for monogamous weddings and marriages, raise families and be productive ordinary citizens.
In the early nineties I remember a storm approach in the south, we were in the tail at Norfolk FOT, praying for the southerly site.
Of course those were the days of houses, motels and ultra large stadiums. Unlike those yonder years that reminded of the tent revival years from before the American Empire.
Christian Woodstock in stockings.
Nck
So if you complain, you are accused of not doing your prayer and bible study. This is bullying the men to be like women. Then the ministers turn around accusing the men of lacking masculinity.
ReplyDeleteThe article has the audacity to state:-
ReplyDelete“It makes you wonder how far behind in Bible study and prayer this individual was-or whether he had borrowed from his second tithe!..."
How’s that for guilty by innuendo and nothing else!!
Because he complained about the conditions, he must be ‘behind in Bible Study and prayer’, no doubt ‘he had borrowed from his second tithe’.
Hopefully our courts need a bit more evidence before making accusations – or they could haul in someone on an armed robbery charge because ‘he looks a bit shifty, and he probably wanted some money’.