John Shrader 19: FLYING VERMIN SCUM!

[turquoise]

12 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

Wouldn't that just burn John's biscuits.  Can you imagine the posts about the attacks of Satan if his wife were stuck in the US for an extended time and he had to take care of the rest of the kids by himself.  

Not gonna happen. The older girls will take care of the rest of the kids (and John) by themselves.

I do hope they will seek real medical treatment for Nehemiah while he's here. And I hope none of them end up getting coronavirus.

[DarkAnts]

8 hours ago, Howl said:

Houston/Harris County are on fire with coronavirus.  There's a mandatory mask requirement in businesses until the end of August. My city is not far behind. 

In the real world, Esther could be denied re-entry into Zambia because of the out-of-control spread of CV 19 in the US. 

Texas had over 8,000 new cases yesterday. 
 

All of Oregon is now under a mask mandate. I hope it keeps us from becoming the next hit spot.

Edited July 2, 2020 by DarkAnts

[Xan]

8 hours ago, Cheetah said:

Wouldn't that just burn John's biscuits.  Can you imagine the posts about the attacks of Satan if his wife were stuck in the US for an extended time and he had to take care of the rest of the kids by himself.  

According to the US Embassy in Zambia website, people coming into or returning to Zambia will have to self-quarantine (and submit to testing and monitoring) for two weeks.  If they show signs of the disease, they may be detained and put in isolation.   I think every country has so many cases everywhere now that it's not practical to try to detain them in government facilities.

[Howl]

21 hours ago, Cheetah said:

he had to take care of the rest of the kids by himself.

He'd go on an extended bed rest/juice fast and leave the kids to fend for themselves. 

[Giraffe]

5 minutes ago, Howl said:

He'd go on an extended bed rest/juice fast and leave the kids to fend for themselves. 

Agreed. No way will he suddenly step up and parent his own children any more than he already does. 

[Pleiades_06]

Who exactly is coming with Esther? And who is paying for it?

Also-they may not be allowed to transit through certain countries. 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Pleiades_06

[Xan]

49 minutes ago, Pleiades_06 said:

Who exactly is coming with Esther? And who is paying for it?

Also-they may not be allowed to transit through certain countries. 

On the church website, they streamed the Wednesday services.  Rick told the congregation that Esther was on her way to Washington with Nehemiah, Alatheia, and Joseph.  He said that she'd gotten tested for the virus and was negative.  He implied that she was flying down to Texas after they got to the states.  

I don't know who is paying for it.  I would guess that it's Rick's church again.  She is going to speak for a "ladies' meeting" at some point while she's there so maybe that's how he justifies the plane tickets.  I'm hoping that they're planning to take Nehemiah for some medical evaluations.  That's the only reason I can figure that he's coming along.  

He didn't mention the plane route.  She's coming at a bad time.  There is the possibility that things will get locked down and she might not be able to get back to Zambia.

John left one comment for his dad's service.  He said he was too tired to stay up and watch the service live so he'd watched it the next day.  I'd like to think he was tired because he was taking care of the children but that's probably being foolishly optimistic.

[formergothardite]

14 minutes ago, Xan said:

There is the possibility that things will get locked down and she might not be able to get back to Zambia.

I suspect if that happens and John is stuck with his children for months at a time he will no longer want to be a missionary in Zambia. 

[Howl]

19 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I suspect if that happens and John is stuck with his children for months at a time he will no longer want to be a missionary in Zambia. 

Don't know why i just thought about this, but they must have spent a staggering amount of money on diapers alone over the years.  Would the next youngest kid still be in diapers? 

[subsaharanafrica]

22 hours ago, Pleiades_06 said:

Who exactly is coming with Esther? And who is paying for it?

Also-they may not be allowed to transit through certain countries. 

I’d guess they’re going through Ethiopia. Their Addis-US routes never stopped. Transiting is fine but you have to quarantine if it’s a longer layover that requires leaving the airport. 
 

ETA: Pretty much everyone I know (myself included) who has travelled from anywhere in Africa to the US over the past three months has gone through Addis. 

Edited July 5, 2020 by subsaharanafrica
Eta

[Howl]

I'm trying to process the cost of round trip tickets from Africa to the US for three -- assuming the baby stays on Esther's lap, and then multiple domestic flights. 

Do the Kellers have enough to help out?  Might some $$$$$ be coming via Duggar Bucks?

[subsaharanafrica]

ET is typically a pretty cheap option but their prices went way up a few months ago as they became the only carrier still flying around much of the continent. So I guess it would depend on when they bought the tickets. 

[Ozlsn]

On 7/5/2020 at 12:24 AM, Howl said:

Don't know why i just thought about this, but they must have spent a staggering amount of money on diapers alone over the years.  Would the next youngest kid still be in diapers? 

Possibly using cloth nappies, which includes different costs. For a long haul flight though I'd assume disposable.

It looks like Esther and children may have to enter self-quarantine when (if?) she returns to Zambia. I sincerely hope they quarantine somewhere away from John and the kids as intra-family transmission is unsurprisingly quite high.

[SPHASH]

Getting caught up on the world's worst missionary.  Damn lot of shit has happened.  Here's hoping Ricky and Johnny Boy get arrested.

[Howl]

It stuns me to this day that the family has been there for so many years and yet truly has no friends among the local populace. None. In other words they have been totally unwilling to integrate into Zambian culture.   Can we say that John's pretentious, overbearing attitude about the "precious"  Zambians is because at heart he's a racist of sorts? 

 There should be people in and out of their house all day long, their kids should have local friends and be fluent in at least one of the languages spoken in their area, there would be people willing to take on helping with the kids, because they are like family. 

[EyesOpen]

Did I hear Rick  say three of his sons were in church on Sunday, including Jared? Is this the same gentleman that had some addiction problems in the past? I occasionally wonder about him and hope he is sober and getting the help he needs... have no idea if being back in touch with his parents is good or bad, I was just surprised when I heard his name (unless I’m completely thinking of the wrong person...)

[DarkAnts]

6 hours ago, EyesOpen said:

Did I hear Rick  say three of his sons were in church on Sunday, including Jared? Is this the same gentleman that had some addiction problems in the past? I occasionally wonder about him and hope he is sober and getting the help he needs... have no idea if being back in touch with his parents is good or bad, I was just surprised when I heard his name (unless I’m completely thinking of the wrong person...)

AA is big on the higher powers and attract a lot of evangelicals and convert lots of people to evangelical Christian. I stopped going because there were too many evangelicalChristians giving sermons on how wonderful God and Jesus when it was it was there turn to share. Smart Recovery is better and based on modern psychology not guilt based psychology from 85 years ago. It's a shame AA has not evolved with science. It might be more effective if it had.

Edited July 7, 2020 by DarkAnts

[Howl]

I can't believe Esther + kids are coming to Texas when there's a epic sharknado of corona virus spreading across the state; however,  white evangelicals have been sociologically identified as the group most likely to pooh-pooh the danger of corona virus, especially any guidelines coming from the feds. 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Howl

[Xan]

John's been busy while Esther is away.  I guess the older children are taking care of the younger ones.  He doesn't say.

He's printed a bunch of Bible tracts that some other missionary was picking up to distribute.  And he's terribly enthused about a project he's embarked upon of redoing the Zambian hymnals.  Apparently, someone translated the hymns for him and he's decided that they're impure and have "doctrinal errors".  Now, he's rewriting the hymnal that they've used for years and years.  I'm sure that's going to make him a big hit with the locals!  Well, those errors have been a "burden" on John's heart for a long time and he probably prefers to write hymns than to cook dinner or help with the laundry.  (He's working on this at 6 PM so I hope someone is making dinner for those kids.)  He's sorry that Alatheia isn't there to document this "landmark day".  I shit you not -- he said this.

The Facebook page is public.  If anyone has a hankering to listen to John sing his hymns in Nyanja, he's posted a video.  John and another man sing as John plays the accordion.  (And why did he feel the need to have an accordion in Zambia?)  

[Howl]

14 hours ago, Xan said:

He's printed a bunch of Bible tracts that some other missionary was picking up to distribute.  And he's terribly enthused about a project he's embarked upon of redoing the Zambian hymnals. 

He's entering a manic phase.  It always starts with a crazy project. 

[formergothardite]

11 minutes ago, Howl said:

He's entering a manic phase.  It always starts with a crazy project. 

Yep. A crazy project he will probably not finish or will take forever to finish. 

[Ozlsn]

15 hours ago, Xan said:

Apparently, someone translated the hymns for him and he's decided that they're impure and have "doctrinal errors". 

Of course they do. They're probably not even based on KJV English!

33 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Yep. A crazy project he will probably not finish or will take forever to finish. 

I'm betting on won't finish. He'll either lose interest or it'll go in the too hard basket. At this point I think he'd struggle to translate "5 little ducks" into any of the local languages.

[subsaharanafrica]

15 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

Of course they do. They're probably not even based on KJV English!

I know, right? I’m having a really hard time seeing how you can introduce “doctrinal errors” to When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.
 

I haven’t read Chichewa in 20 years and therefore am in no shape to track down a copy and see what the heck he’s talking about even though I am sorely tempted to. 
 

 Although that being said, from what he’s said of his understanding of the language I’m still in a better position to detect doctrinal errors in a translated text than he is. 

[ignorantobserver]

On 7/6/2020 at 3:45 PM, Howl said:

There should be people in and out of their house all day long, their kids should have local friends and be fluent in at least one of the languages spoken in their area, there would be people willing to take on helping with the kids, because they are like family. 

For that to happen, there needs to be some kind of reciprocity : if he had invested time and effort to help his community, his neighbors might want to give him something back. Drive people to the market, watch over young children while the mother gets the baby to the doctor, prepare casseroles for families in emergencies, teach the village children some English, start a garden and swap seeds with other gardeners, plant a fruit tree and share the harvest, send his daughters to participate in collective "sewing-and-gossiping"-sessions, or to help young mothers, or his sons to help with farmwork or odd jobs when needed... I suspect none of this happened often enough for John's family to be seen as an asset to the community instead of a burden. For all his talk about the good old days and traditional family values, John has absolutely no idea how to be a good neighbor in a "traditional" setting !

[Botkinetti]

John wants to be put on a pedestal and worshipped as the best Christian who ever lived. I’m sure he wants all the people he comes across to tremble in fear of disappointing him. I’m sure they think of him as a giant doofus if they even think of him at all.