John & Esther Shrader 22: Now with An Enforcer!

[Coconut Flan]

That brought me a much needed huge smile today.  It's wonderful.

[Giraffe]

Omg that's hilarious! John's getting a taste of his own medicine. I'm guffawing over here. 

Edited September 20 by Giraffe

[yetorno]

I found Kafue Times on FB. It gives a picture of the region.

[Howl]

On 8/11/2024 at 4:24 AM, Bluegrin2 said:

How can a Church that has American missionaries in these poor countries not have food drive giveaways or have a breakfast and lunch together eating. Especially with the sermons lasting for hours on end and having to earn a Bible. 

Well, Bro. John, uh...Well, there's simply no excuse. The main thing is that Bro.  John's an obnoxious white guy with zero empathy for his fellow humans; he doesn't have a selfless bone in his body. 

When he first got to Zambia, he claimed to not want to create dependence in the local populace to cover the fact that he isn't capable of humanitarian activities, and he'd come up with all of these grandiose projects. The very first thing was "Da plane, da plane".  The chicken farm, the seminary, the library, whatever the current manic fever dream was. Am I missing anything?  Meanwhile this obnoxious "I'll never ask for money" **** expects other people to support him, his wife and his bazillion kids.  There's what, 14 total Shrader mouths to feed on a daily basis? That's a LOT of food. 

Sadly, he's been pretty successful so far.  People donated printers, cars, trailers...big ticket items and there is $$$$ coming in every month.  Wade has a military pension; I'm sure he and Vickie are self supporting. 

[NoneIsEnough]

Another boring update from Wade. Guess we're only going to get quarterly updates now from him.

Spoiler

 

[Pleiades_06]

34 minutes ago, NoneIsEnough said:

Another boring update from Wade. Guess we're only going to get quarterly updates now from him.

  Hide contents

 

Interesting reference to Timothy. He’s 19 now…I wonder how he and his older siblings feel about their lives? 

[KnittingOwl]

Vicky teaching them crochet might be the most useful thing any of them have done recently! I don’t know that she needed to order hooks from the US - you can make your own out of wood - but you can crochet a ton of different materials. I’d love to see what the women have been creating. 

[thoughtful]

I have returned to the Shrader thread to tell you all that, after a year and a half, I have finally had my ice maker repaired.

John is still a mess, I see.

[Ozlsn]

John's put up a video newsletter.

Most of the update is that they are putting walls and windows on the church and upgraded the slab (not sure how necessary this was given they've been open air for how long?) John mentions all his sons and Wade who are working on it by name, no introductions to any of the locals. No daughters on it either, although Esther cooked food.

Then we have John baptising people - five of them, not sure they were introduced either - before some singing, some photos of all the Shraders at Vic Falls and everyone saying thank you.

His church looks to have a reasonable crowd, but there is obviously no plan for it to go forward with a local pastor, which makes me wonder about succession planning.

From the post with the link he may also be in a new manic phase:

Spoiler

 

[gustava]

No succession planning needed.  John will never die.

[Giraffe]

A succession plan would be antithetical to his white savior narrative. He's not in Zambia for Zambians, he's in Zambia to be seen as an especially godly colonialist to anyone on his mailing list. 

[Howl]

He's up at 3 am and cranking along until 11 pm is definitely a manic phase.

John has an extremely sweet deal going in Kafue and I think he's passed a threshold - he has more of substance to show the folks back home, there are people actually attending an actual church, he has enough money coming in to consistently feed and house his enormous family.  He's in the prime of life and healthy, and could easily crank along for another 40 years in Zambia unless he gets kicked out. He knows he has no future in the US, where he would have to W.O.R.K. 

Looks like Wade and Vicky are settled in and staying for now, so that's another milestone. 

And yes 

24 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

A succession plan would be antithetical to his white savior narrative. He's not in Zambia for Zambians, he's in Zambia to be seen as an especially godly colonialist to anyone on his mailing list. 

Local people coming to church will never be key players in John's passion play, be given important roles or personalized to the folks back home because, well, see Giraffe's post above. 

John may also remember the early converts who saw through his bullshit, arrogance,  hypocracy and ill temper and called him out big time on social media, and he doesn't want to take any risks. 

I'm thinking the best case scenario for the older boys would be to go to some Bible college in the US and get some kind of degree in something.  

 

[postscript]

7 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

there is obviously no plan for it to go forward with a local pastor, which makes me wonder about succession planning.

I think he assumes one of the sons will take over. They do t appear to be doing anything else with their lives. 

I would like to hear about what the kids and Esther are doing. Even Jill Rod tells us if her kids have hit a milestone. The oldest kids should be developing careers/ministries/skill sets of their own. In this culture, they should be considering marriage partners. If this is happening, we see none of it. All we see is the kids as appendages of John, leading the locals at church. 

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, postscript said:

I think he assumes one of the sons will take over. They do t appear to be doing anything else with their lives

It would have to be one of the younger ones to avoid falling out - I wonder if the "plan" is for the older sons to set up new churches outside of Kafue under John's "leadership". Even that is a bit fraught as at some point at least one son is going to get sick of John giving him orders.

7 hours ago, postscript said:

I would like to hear about what the kids and Esther are doing. 

As long as it's John writing the letters it will always centre on him and his Glorious Achievements. In his mind they're not real people, just NPCs.

[gustava]

Have the older spawn gotten legal permission to stay in Zambia?

[Xan]

John will be in charge of that church until he dies.  He'll be like Daddy Rick and he'll make the big decisions and control the money.  He might let some of the sons do some of the preaching but John is the founder and will always be the one at the top.

I don't think John wants the kids to have any kind of separate lives.  They only exist to serve him and his beloved church.  He doesn't particularly care if they marry or not and he certainly doesn't want them to get educations.  As long as they live in Kafue, he has an instant flock and, if either he or Esther get sick or need help, the children can step up.  He will stick around and play great, white, Christian missionary forever.  John probably imagines that people will write books about him and his long years of struggle to bring IFB churchiness to the Zambians.

As for myself, I hope John and Esther are just a footnote in some Zambian history pamphlet that talks about when they were kicked out of the country.

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, Xan said:

I don't think John wants the kids to have any kind of separate lives.  They only exist to serve him and his beloved church.  He doesn't particularly care if they marry or not and he certainly doesn't want them to get educations.

I don't think it occurs to him that they have any lives apart from him. He probably wants at least one son to marry - got to pass on that Y chromosome! - but only to glorify him. 

It could be difficult for them to marry though as he undoubtedly wants veto over approval based on the potential in law's beliefs, skin colour and perceived deference to him.

7 hours ago, gustava said:

Have the older spawn gotten legal permission to stay in Zambia?

That is of course an interesting question. Legally they will age out soon of "family" type visas which makes you wo der what on earth benefit they are perceived as bringing.

[Ozlsn]

Meanwhile time passes and things change, whether we want them to or not. John is moving into a new season of life, worrying about aging parents. Rick might need a pacemaker.

Spoiler

I wonder if any of the older children will be despatched to help their grandparents.

Edited November 22 by Ozlsn

[postscript]

Sending some of the kids to Texas, where they can experience the world outside of John's super-narrow white savior bubble, might be a good thing for them. They're not likely to make drastic changes in their belief system, but they would be doing more useful work than John's latest bright idea, and they might start thinking about a career and/or a future spouse.