I'm not talking about honoring the dead in some abstract sense. I'm talking about honoring specific people who were near and dear to you. Like a deceased former wife.
If it was me, I would probably send her mother flowers every year to commemorate the birthday of our dearly departed. Maybe even put a little note in to remind her mom that once upon a time an angel of light walked among us and the world is a better place because of that.
A more spiritually inclined spouse might come to the conclusion our soul is the part of us that dwells in our future. The phrase "she lives in our hearts" would take on new meaning as he looked around and saw all the lives she had touched. In that moment, he might even find solace in the knowledge that her soul was alive and well even though she dwelt in houses he could never visit, not even in his dreams.
But that is not the way Terry D. Jones of Gainesville, Florida does it. He uses his dead wife's name to give his money laundering operation the versimilitude of sincerity. What kind of sick fuck does that? A sociopathic con artist, for one. Let me tell you about the Lisa Jones House/Haus.
This is not the first time I have written about the Koran burning con artists in Gainesville. WARNING: Money launderers using muslims as red herrings examined how Terry Jones and his current wife, Sylvia, have been operating a relatively successful money laundering operation for several years now. That is how they siphon off the profits from their favorite con game as evangelical preachers.
Keeping up with the Joneses: Koran burning con artists demonstrated there was nothing special about their use of religion to fleece their flock and feather their nest.
They sure as hell didn't invent the idea. Most people would recoil at the notion of using religion to play on the emotions of easy marks, but not Terry Jones. NEWSFLASH: Koran burning con artists couldn't care less! showed in detail why appeals to Jones' patriotism or decency will fall on deaf ears.
As former parishoners have learned, arguing with this narcissist is pointless. He will tell you that he is on a mission from God. Argue with him and you are arguing with God, himself. Small wonder, Der Speigel called him "delusional" in their recent article.
I think calling this con artist "delusional" is a lot more charitable than he deserves. In the Gospel according to Terry Jones, Cologne was "a city of Hell that was founded by Nero's mother." It is an ironic, but excellent example of how this twisted son of a bitch operates. Take a little truth, sprinkle it with lies and spin a yarn out of it to reel in some suckers.
For the record, the city of Cologne was founded as a home for Roman war veterans by the Emperor Nero's mother, Agrippa. She named it "Colonia Agrippina", which means the Agrippine Colony. The Latin word "colonia" comes from the verb "colere", which means "to till, cultivate, or worship." How that turns Cologne into a "city of Hell" is beyond me. I doubt he was commenting on the fact Nero later had Agrippa killed. Given Jones' proclivity for setting the world on fire, it's possible his sense of psychic connection is nothing more than a Freudian slip. With this guy anything is possible. Look at what he did in his wife's name. There's nothing delusional about that. He's just a stone-cold sociopath.
When I started researching this scumbag's operation, I figured this parasite had inserted himself into a legitimate operation so I was careful to give the Lisa Jones House the benefit of the doubt:
Now lest anyone think I am casting aspersions on the work of Lisa Jones House, I am not...There are two components of the Lisa Jones House that need to be separated. First is their primary mission:
The Lisa Jones House reaches out to hundreds of people each week offering free food and clothing to everyone in the community to has a need.
Second is their way of supporting this charitable operation:
We accept Donations of furniture and household goods which are sold inexpensively or given away as there is a need. We offer free pick-up for donations.
I knew Terry Jones had picked up the operations of an existing church and just assumed the charity they were running was legit. I figured he had grafted it into his layer cake afterwards. I honestly didn't tie the surnames together. After all, Jones is a pretty common name. Then I came across a report on his operations in Germany that included this piece of information (h/t sc kitty):
Terry Jones used his powers of persuasion to expand the congregation. By the end, Schäfer estimates, it numbered between 800 and 1,000 people. They had to work in the so-called "Lisa Jones Houses," charitable institutions named after his first wife who has since died, under very poor conditions.
Reviewing this video on YouTube, I came across this:
You don't have to know a lot of German to know that is a sign advertising the church in Cologne and the associated Lisa Jones Haus. Standing outside the Lisa Jones Haus, one of the church leaders, Rev. Rob Robinson explains:
"We have two to three hundred people that line up every morning, every morning. They line up to get free bread."
The report quotes Robinson as saying the various Lisa Jones Houses donate about 5 million tons of furniture each year. The church collects so many unwanted items they had to set up a company to sell them on Ebay. Sound familiar? If you know anything about his Gainesville operation, you would recognize the Cologne operation as a carbon copy. According to the report on YouTube, the church set it up as a taxable for profit company because "German tax laws are so strict, even church bookstores must be taxed." Terry Jones explained it thus:
God has blessed us with so much, we -- we've had to take the money... and invest it.
I guess the Gospel according to Terry Jones borrows heavily from the Book of Hezekiah with special emphasis on such key verses as "God helps those who help themselves" (to other people's stuff). As a story about the Gainesville operation noted:
The real secret of TSandCompany’s success though, is the free-labor provided by church volunteers who do everything from packing, delivering and picking up furniture to collecting food donations from area businesses and even dumpster-diving for discarded packing materials and inventory.
Ex church-members describe 12-14 hour workdays for no pay except room and board on church property which consists of low-income housing bought up by Jones in Gainesville neighborhoods that have seen better days. The Engels, a couple that emigrated with Jones from Cologne, said that for more than a year, they lived in an apartment in Pineridge in northwest Gainesville with their two young sons and worked more than 40 hours a week unpaid. The Engels said they didn’t pay rent for their apartment and that all their meals were provided by the church’s Lisa Jones House, which the church describes as an "outreach to the poor" that uses food from the local food bank.
In other words, people working for the church in Gainesville are also patrons of the Lisa Jones House because that is the only way they can get food. This raises the legitimate question. How many of those 200 to 300 people who lined the streets of Cologne every morning in front of Lisa Jones Haus were similarly exploited members of the Cologne church?
It's testimony to how depraved this guy is that I still find it hard to believe he has the nerve to put his dead wife's name on a sweatshop operation that finances his lifestyle. But then I'm not a sociopathic con man with delusions of grandeur. Thank God for that.