Dillards 43: Tweeting for God

[Jaeniduggar]

 

 

Jill is hanging out with a woman wearing a head covering. Cross church student ministry is busy converting people.

[BundleofJoy]

 

Jill looks relaxed and happy here. It's a nice picture of her. It appears that she brings Sam along with her quite regularly when she goes to C3, but I feel like we see Israel less often. Do we think he's also there somewhere or is he with Cathy or perhaps at the TTH playing with his cousins?

[Satan'sFortress]

^ I can't help but snark on the "Let us know if you want to be apart!" instead of " . . . if you want to be a part!"

Yes, Jill and Derrick, I would very much like to be apart from your ministries!

[Georgiana]

14 minutes ago, Satan'sFortress said:

^ I can't help but snark on the "Let us know if you want to be apart!" instead of " . . . if you want to be a part!"

Yes, Jill and Derrick, I would very much like to be apart from your ministries!

My thoughts exactly! I read that, and my first thought was "No thanks, I'd rather be whole."

Kind offer though. Really showcasing what you should pay them 12k for.

[Elvis Presby]

47 minutes ago, Satan'sFortress said:

^ I can't help but snark on the "Let us know if you want to be apart!" instead of " . . . if you want to be a part!"

Yes, Jill and Derrick, I would very much like to be apart from your ministries!

Yes, I would like to be apart!  SOTDRT.

[llg1234]

I don't understand this. Is she just praying for random international students? I'm so weirded out the focus on foreign students.

[Sister Mozz]

2 minutes ago, llg1234 said:

I don't understand this. Is she just praying for random international students? I'm so weirded out the focus on foreign students.

 

This comes across as dehumanizing. Afghanistan is misspelled, and it certainly appears as if they are seeing these students as numbers rather than living, breathing individuals. Wait, do the Duggars even believe in living, breathing individuals?? 

[VelociRapture]

1 hour ago, Satan'sFortress said:

^ I can't help but snark on the "Let us know if you want to be apart!" instead of " . . . if you want to be a part!"

Yes, Jill and Derrick, I would very much like to be apart from your ministries!

In their defense, the Dills didn’t write the caption. But yes, I think we’d all like to be apart from their ministries. 

1 hour ago, BundleofJoy said:

 

Jill looks relaxed and happy here. It's a nice picture of her. It appears that she brings Sam along with her quite regularly when she goes to C3, but I feel like we see Israel less often. Do we think he's also there somewhere or is he with Cathy or perhaps at the TTH playing with his cousins?

She does look very natural and happy. I think being closer to their support network is doing her a world of good. 

We haven’t seen very much of them at C3 events. They advertise them a lot, but don’t really share photos or video that much. I would guess that sometimes they bring both boys and sometimes Izzy hangs out with family instead. It probably depends on the specific event. Samuel may need to be close to his mother right now if Jill is nursing on demand. 

4 minutes ago, Sister Mozz said:

 

This comes across as dehumanizing. Afghanistan is misspelled, and it certainly appears as if they are seeing these students as numbers rather than living, breathing individuals. Wait, do the Duggars even believe in living, breathing individuals?? 

I’m not really sure about the prayers. I know the event on Tuesday was an international fellowship opportunity, so I would imagine she’s praying for people she likely met at the event. 

[HideousGreenShirt]

Derick always seemed kind of  fragile. That was one of the reasons I believe JB picked him for arranged marriage. He saw a weakened young man who was desperate for guidance/a father figure (and yeah a wife and some of that reality tv $$$). In JB's eyes, Derick was probably an excellent, easy to manipulate candidate for a son in law. However, what we've seen recently seems to show that he has become a hateful, judgemental, social-media poison to the Duggar brand. He lost his father whilst in college, likely at a time he was figuring out who he was. His mother was struggling through cancer during his courtship. Immediately after the wedding Jill is pregnant and then the Smuggar's first scandal comes to light. Add to that the sudden fame/cameras trailing him, unexplained (and possibly unsuccessful) jaw surgery, their flip flopping between their missioncation and Arkansas, Jill's dramatic deliveries and her apparent struggle to adapt to Danger America. All of it in his twenties.

 He's had to deal with a lot of strong and mixed emotions during incredibly stressful situations. I can see how the progression from dorky, sweet Derick to viciousnutcase4jesus happened.

[karen77]

3 hours ago, BundleofJoy said:

 

Jill looks relaxed and happy here. It's a nice picture of her. It appears that she brings Sam along with her quite regularly when she goes to C3, but I feel like we see Israel less often. Do we think he's also there somewhere or is he with Cathy or perhaps at the TTH playing with his cousins?

Is it just me or does Sam have some major drool going on???! 

[PennySycamore]

Yes, he does, @karen77!  I can't say anything because yesterday, I drooled on my neighbor's bull terrier when I bent over to say hi to him.  Sometimes I just have too damn much spit!

[Bad Wolf]

No kid could drool more than Wolf Boy. Trust me.

Quote

 

 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

47 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

No kid could drool more than Wolf Boy. Trust me.

Hmm, I dunno. My firstborn was quite the drooler until she was about 2. I had to pack 3 or 4 extra bibs when we went places.

I guess there's no way to have a drool-off when Wolf Boy is all grown up and mine is in 3rd grade! 

[Georgiana]

6 hours ago, Sister Mozz said:

 

This comes across as dehumanizing. Afghanistan is misspelled, and it certainly appears as if they are seeing these students as numbers rather than living, breathing individuals. Wait, do the Duggars even believe in living, breathing individuals?? 

I've known Collegiate Christian leaders that did something similar, but they used names. It wasn't just a tool to pray for someone, it was also an exercise in learning their name and remembering them. They would look at the name, try and call up the face and anything they had learned about that person, and then say a prayer. GREAT recruitment strategy, honestly, because it really made people feel important and wanted when the leaders really remembered them.

This is the exact opposite feeling. Yikes.

Jilly Muffin, maybe it's time to start running posts by Jessa before you publish them.

[Icea]

19 hours ago, Fundie Bunny said:

@Icea what do yo mean that they don't celebrate christmas? They have never said such thing

Not as in "they don't acknowledge it" but haven't they stated that they celebrate it more as "Jesus's birthday"? I'm pretty sure that at some point it was discussed here that they had a christmas tree even though the Duggars had claimed or inferred that they didn't because they didn't celebrate christmas that way? Or maybe I've mixed them up.

[Lurky]

So how much do we want to bet that the Campus ministry is wandering around and anyone who looks or sounds "foreign" has them running up to them and starting off being friendly, "come to an international students event!" without disclosing what it's about?

I know, I'm probably being BEC, but an ex of mine was targeted by the Moonies in London in the 90s in this way.

But it does make me wonder what they do if they see a woman in a hijab, and zoom in on her, and she's "just" an American, how they handle that?

ETA I went to a big, well-known university with a lot of student involvement in societies and student politics, and this kind of thing - deliberately targeting people from different faiths, to try to convert them - would NOT have gone down well. I'd I'm pretty sure any church that tried it would have been banned from campus, because it's super offensive.  There was a big enough ruckus when one of the Jewish societies was trying to get secular culturally-Jewish students to be more religious, and that came from within a student society.

Of course, we don't have religious universities in the UK - in my experiences universities have multi-faith centres, with chaplains from different religions working together as well as supporting students' spiritual needs - and there are religious societies as well as secular.  And churches near campuses might target students, but it would be in ways like putting posters up on campuses etc. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

20 minutes ago, Lurky said:

I'd I'm pretty sure any church that tried it would have been banned from campus, because it's super offensive. 

I went to a secular university (in Arkansas), and we were frequently bombarded with Gideons handing out those tiny New Testaments (with Psalms and Proverbs). There were also on-campus buildings occupied by various faith groups:  Baptist Student Union, Wesley Foundation, Muslim Student Association, Catholic Newman Center, etc.

[Carm_88]

You know what makes me mad about all of this? If someone who is Muslim, Roman Catholic, Jewish, or any of the other religions in this world, tried to talk to Jill and Derick about their religion, I doubt they would get the time of day. Yet, these same people are expected to sit and listen to Jesus time. All o these people know about and acknowledge Jesus in some way. It's again the stupidity of being on a mission to convert Catholics. This is the way I see the Central America trips going. 

Dullards: Let us tell you about Jesus. 

Person from Central America: I know Jesus. I'm Roman Catholic

Dullards: No, you don't know Jesus. You're not Christian, let us tell you about the real Jesus.

Person from Central America:  *Internally screaming* 

[Lurky]

1 hour ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I went to a secular university (in Arkansas), and we were frequently bombarded with Gideons handing out those tiny New Testaments (with Psalms and Proverbs). There were also on-campus buildings occupied by various faith groups:  Baptist Student Union, Wesley Foundation, Muslim Student Association, Catholic Newman Center, etc.

Yeah, this is why I think it's different in the UK to USA, and could be specific to, for example, the big Russell Group universities. 

[VelociRapture]

5 hours ago, Icea said:

Not as in "they don't acknowledge it" but haven't they stated that they celebrate it more as "Jesus's birthday"? I'm pretty sure that at some point it was discussed here that they had a christmas tree even though the Duggars had claimed or inferred that they didn't because they didn't celebrate christmas that way? Or maybe I've mixed them up.

I think this article from 2014 is what you’re thinking of:

https://www.google.com/amp/people.com/tv/19-kids-and-counting-duggar-family-celebrates-christmas-video/amp/

A few things -

1. For Christians, Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth. So I don’t think it’s odd or weird that the Duggars choose to make that the main focus of their celebration. 

2. The article states that they don’t have the kind of “enormous Christmas tree” you’d expect a family with so many kids to have - not that they don’t have a tree at all. I didn’t see a tree in the video, but they did have what looked like mini tree decorations in some places. 

3. In the video, Josh mentions that the family did have a big Christmas tree for several years when he was younger. It appears they may have stopped doing a big tree like that partly to focus on the Christian meaning of the holiday and partly because there was a constant flow of little kids who would knock the tree over. 

So they don’t appear to celebrate exactly like other families do, but most families differ in how they celebrate. They do seem to do a lot of things other families do - like having a big family dinner, opening presents, going to Church, and enjoying holiday music.

The Duggars did have a normal sized tree last year, per a video from Jessa’s Instagram:

 

[HarleyQuinn]

I can't look at those photos of Jill and even compliment her on looking relaxed because I think she's just trying to convert brown people. 

[VelociRapture]

1 minute ago, HarleyQuinn said:

I can't look at those photos of Jill and even compliment her on looking relaxed because I think she's just trying to convert brown people. 

If they ever write a memoir or tell-all they should just title it, “How to Suck at Converting Brown People - The Dillard Chronicles.”

[Hashtag Blessed]

13 hours ago, Sister Mozz said:

 

This comes across as dehumanizing. Afghanistan is misspelled, and it certainly appears as if they are seeing these students as numbers rather than living, breathing individuals. Wait, do the Duggars even believe in living, breathing individuals?? 

It is incredibly dehumanizing and predatory. It reminds me of a friend recently talking about Scientologists having big recruitment force out in their mostly immigrant neighborhood. They're preying on people they know are in a vulnerable position. Far from home, away from family and support networks, in a stressful season of life. I'm sure they think they're helping the vulnerable, but they most certainly are not. 

1 hour ago, Lurky said:

But it does make me wonder what they do if they see a woman in a hijab, and zoom in on her, and she's "just" an American, how they handle that?

No such thing. Even if they're born here, they're not white and thus must [something]-American. Even if their family has been here for generations. 

53 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

If someone who is Muslim, Roman Catholic, Jewish, or any of the other religions in this world, tried to talk to Jill and Derick about their religion, I doubt they would get the time of day.

THIS. This exactly. It is the same as all the people who think teachers should be allowed to preach at public school students. If they were Muslim and trying to convert their public school students to Islam, there would be an UPROAR. It this the reason so many fundie parents send their kids to those fundy universities, they don't want people trying to convert them away from their cult. Shame they don't realize their hypocrisy. 

[singsingsing]

There's a right way to minister to international students. I may be biased, because this is how my own church does it, but I think it's good. First of all, my church is very welcoming to international students who are already Christians, or who are actually interested in checking out church/Jesus/Christianity. We advertise events and social meetings and meals and so on and are explicit about what they are (i.e. 'Curious about Jesus? Come on out on Saturday night for a friendly discussion and free pizza). So no one's getting bamboozled. 

Second, we do a lot of outreach, free meals, food cupboard, student yard sale, etc, where we serve anyone who feels like showing up and make no attempt whatsoever to convert them to Christianity. We don't hide that we're a church, if someone asks someone why they're doing this they can totally say, 'Because I believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ', but there's no bait and switch. They come for a meal and get a meal, not a meal plus an unexpected sermon.

I also find it really, really confusing that these people with heavy Calvinistic leanings are so obsessed with aggressive evangelism. What's the point? God's already chosen who he's going to save, according to them, so you'd think they could relax a little.

[cascarones]

@singsingsing That's a really lovely way to go about it. Mr. C's parents were international graduate students when he came along, his Dad was attending a church with his mentor, his Mum wasn't interested. The church gave them most of his baby things and his Mum told me she tried to give them back, because she wasn't Christian and it felt like cheating. They were having none of it, she's still grateful to this day they took all that time to help them without pressure and especially for the car seat. She'd never even heard of a car seat, but they showed her how to properly get him secured, so grateful because she hit a deer when he was just a few weeks old.