Staff Housing at The Way International.

Staff housing for Way staff families normally consists of crowded double wide trailers on Way grounds. Two families per trailer is normal. Children from the two families are often mixed in the same bedroom.

The families will often share bathrooms, have a communal kitchen and dining area, and have a communal style living room.

Housing for Singles and Couples with no children is located in the Founders Hall dormitory. This building currently houses almost one hundred and seventy people. Rooms here are very small. This building (a dormitory) was designed for Way Corps in training but now serves as permanent housing for these staff.

Rooms in Founders Hall are not equipped with running water (communal bathrooms are used), or telephones (non-private hallway telephones are the only telephones that most Way staff have access to) or cable tv (by comparison, Way trustees have satellite tv).

It is normal for a couple with no children to live in a room that measures about 10 foot wide by about 18 foot long (approx). The room will have painted brick walls, inexpensive carpet, and institutional style furniture (metal student desks etc.). These rooms are home to the staff person for the duration of his or her assignment - frequently five years or more.

The rooms afford little privacy for married couples and as stated earlier, have no bathroom / shower facilities. It is common to overhear couples trying to enjoy some intimacy in their room while one might be making a telephone call from the phone on the wall outside their room.

Private conversations are virtually impossible for the average staff person at The Way. Most rooms have inadequate sound proofing and most offices and work areas are shared. This obviously helps keep people in check as they cannot freely speak for fear of being discovered.

These rooms typically have two closets, one which can be used for clothing and  one which many people use to house their toaster ovens, microwaves and mini refrigerators.

Way staffers learn to adapt to these spartan settings by installing shelving units in their closets to turn them into pseudo-pantries, and it is quite common for people to prop their beds up on concrete blocks or five gallon buckets so as to provide more room for storage under the bed.

A very small storage space is provided for each staff person in either the Wierwille Barn or in the Way Farm III barn. Neither of these buildings are climate controlled and so personal belongings are often irreparably damaged. Bats, skunks, raccoons are also to blame for damage done to personal belongings as these buildings are not sealed off from the elements. Water leaks from rain and snow are a regularly occurring event, also leading to damage of personal belongings.

The Way Farm III barn will shortly be sold as a part of the "emergency" at The Way and so the remaining storage at Wierwille Barn will become even more crowded.

The housing dilemma for the staffers will only be made worse soon when The Way sells many of its off-grounds properties in New Knoxville, Ohio. The staff living in these properties will be moved back on grounds and housing will be found for them there.

Currently they are attempting to sell as many as eight of their properties. Among them the Way Farm III at Botkins Road, the Kipp farm (birthplace and family farm to Dorothea Wierwille), the "Airport House" which is home to Vice President Emeritus Don Wierwille.

In a move that further demonstrates that the Wierwille family are no longer in power at The Way, Don and Wanda Wierwille will be moving back in with Mrs. Dorothea Wierwille at the home of the founder of The Way, Victor Paul Wierwille.

Many Way staff are very unhappy with their housing that they have been assigned to. The Way Trustees have reminded the staff that they are on  a "fast" of sorts. They are to be thankful for their housing.

Rosalie Rivenbark at a recent Founders Hall staff meeting reminded the staff that they lived in a beautiful building with many privileges. She then delivered the polite threat, that certain of those privileges would be revoked if the staff didn't take proper care of the building.

It seems that some staff had left on a stove burner accidentally on a couple of occasions, and some unknown individual had defaced a bathroom stall with the famous "F--k" word.

Staff were threatened with the withholding of their cooking privileges if things didn't get back on track.

Way Trustees by comparison live in luxury.

Craig Martindale lives in a multi-million dollar log home set in the patrolled seclusion of the Way Woods. The home has been carefully removed using (digital technology) from the recent Way publication - Pictorial Display Book - which is a photographic tour of the grounds of The Way International.

Martindale's home was built by Ed Hobbs of Grand Lake Log Homes (builder of the Family Commons building in Camp Gunnison).

A visit to the Grand Lake Log homes web site quickly shows the type of home that Martindale lives in. Camp Gunnison is also displayed at the Grand Lake Log Home site.

Martindale had a private office built in 1996 - 1997.

This office is used by him alone. His secretary uses an office in the O.S.C. building. This one man, one user office adjoins his home (where he has another office).

It is widely believed that this office building cost The Way International slightly under $2,000.000.00.

The Martindales had promised all the staff at The Way International a tour of this building upon completion but this never came to pass.

Some staff speculated that they were embarrassed to show the building due to its excessive luxury.

Rosalie Rivenbark lives a short distance from the grounds of The Way International. She lives at: Her home is a beautiful three bedroom home, complete with its own private swimming pool. Rosalie lives in the main section of the home on her own, but until recently allowed two Corps ladies Sharon Crowther and Janet Myracle, to live in her one bedroom basement. In unconfirmed reports, Janet and Sharon who recently (1999-2000) moved away from the New Knoxville area on a Way Corps assignment, have now ended their involvement with TWI and are now living in Florida. Although Way staffers have been asked to cut back on large purchases, Rosalie purchased an expensive new sailing boat in March 1999. She will use it to sail on Lake St. Mary's.

As the newest Trustee at The Way, John Reynolds lives in a single wide trailer. The trailer underwent extensive refinishing work prior to the arrival of the Reynolds. However, it is clear that John Reynolds does not enjoy the lifestyle that his fellow Trustees enjoy. John has impressed many people at The Way with his demeanor and his "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" mentality. John is the only Trustee who is to be seen standing in nightly food line at The Way. The other Trustees have meals prepared for them by their private in-home staffs.