Posts tagged as “religion”

By Jamie Parker | News Editor

Anessa and I first became friends at a family reunion in 2011. She was only allowed to come and join us for one day. This was all her father’s side of the family, and her mother did not approve of Anessa being around so many people who were not Jehovah’s Witnesses. But we immediately hit it off. We had not seen each other since we were about four years old, but you would have thought we talked every day. We decided at the end of our fun that it was an absolute necessity that we stayed in touch. We both downloaded an app on to our phones that would allow us to talk to each other without her mom knowing. After that, Anessa and I talked almost daily for years. We even managed to get back together for about a week one summer, because I went and visited her grandparent’s the summer after the reunion, during the same time she did. We were some pretty conniving fourteen-year-olds. After that visit, we continued to talk until her mom found out. read more

By Jamie Parker | News Editor

They come to every neighborhood now and then, knocking on your door, and then asking if you have accepted the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now we all have different reactions to this question. Some of us are polite and honest, some are rude, and others lie to get the process over with. But what we never really consider is, what it is like to be on the other side of that situation. Well over this spring break I interviewed my cousin, Anessa – an ex-Jehovah’s Witness – about what it was like to be part of a religion that not only is so involved with how their message gets across, but also how different it was to be raised in that type of environment. However during our interview, I found out much more than that. I found out what it was like to be raised in a very isolated, strict, and overall suffocating environment, and what it is like to leave something like that.  read more