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I was in the Ministry from 75 onward, knew you as the Trunk coordinator, I know that when his sister and brother in law Elaine and Troy Watkins left the ministry around 86 John and she were not talking and that yes, he shiite talked a lot of people and was all hard arse. It was a very hurtful thing to Elaine that her brother treated her that way. Once he walked out on Corps night, he approached his sister and apologized and made up with her, and they were reunited, and she and Troy started attending the CFFM services. I'm not an attendee of theirs, as I said I was there when it started, but it started getting that rah-rah herd mentality and I didn't really get into it. I did see an epiphany in John though, you could see remorse in him for drinking the Kool-Aid. And unlike Lynn, and Finnegan, (who as far back as 2000 was spouting that he could counsel people on how to rid themselves of the spiritual causes of being overweight and PTSD, etc), or Dan Moran, (who I was dragged to his house and it was like being in a 1974 time warp where he collects money and that's how he makes a living), with John starting the ministry wasn't his idea and it wasn't about the money. Like I said, he had a real job. I don't know, he probably had a Rolodex of people to apologize to, really. I'm not rationalizing what he did, it was wrong. I did spend enough casual time with him in real conversations with him though when he was brutally honest about F ups that he regretted to know that he realized that he had bought the farm and had a lot of soul searching to do.

I listened for less time then you but continued to believe it for longer, i.e. around three decades. My waking up on this subject, as on a few other things, started with my best survivor friend's account of a very caring friendship she had had in the past. This friend eventually died of AIDS. But I quickly learned in real time that her testimony, and her friend's caring, was real., mainly thrugh other friends I met through her. And, even before my mnd was really changed, the seeds were planted, unintentionally, by the hate spewed in LCM's rants.

I was led to believe in the Way and Way Corps that gays and lesbians did not have the capacity for real care and compassion. I was very wrong. I see lots of it, and benefit from some of it.

The journey to realiization of self outside Christian Fundamentalism and Twit has been long and arduous for me. This site has, again, proven invaluable. DWBH, unbeknownst to him, has helped me tremendously on the finding of the Authentic Self and by mentioning other concepts to which I was CLUELESS. I truly thought I left the Twit outlook on life years after 1986, but the last ten years showed me I had not. I essentially cocooned me, myself, and I (ALL of US) for the last 1 1/2 years to investigate where my behaviors and actions, beliefs, and so forth, originated because my life was still a true mess. Worse than ten years ago. Oh, and my sisters deserve credit for saving my life: they told me that they thought I had some kind of PTSD or something (in addition to one vice I've struggled with since '86), and that IT , that Thing, was from Twit! That was 3 years ago my sisters told me. Shocking what I have seen. I have felt like I was one of the engineers in Chernobyl (HBO) who, so well "trained" in the Soviet- Communist doctrine, that they could not believe the reactor blew up. But, there it was: blown up. Denial. Why could they not wrap their heads around it? Well, all the information in the studies proved it couldn't explode, plus, it was Soviet made, and therefore the BEST, and THIS reactor type CANNOT blow up. Check it out. Don't want to spoil it. The cognitive dissonance term I've seen around here was in full view on the actors faces. What a fine job those actors did. And, my goodness, it's a really bright world out there. WOW. Might what I am experiencing here of late perhaps be compared to Helen Keller's first understanding "water?" An awakening? One step was going back to my science. That's in another thread. Genesis 1 "became" (hah) allegorical to me and not literal. If Fundamentalist folks don't like that, well, I'll just say Revelation is mostly allegorical and symbolic, yet you chose to make it literal, right? So, why, based on your approach, can't I take your literal and make it allegorical and symbolic? I investigated myself because I knew Twit had affected me, but how deeply? How much. What could I not see? What did I leave unfinished? Sisters said trauma??? So, off I went. Why was I erratic? Where was my happy personal life? The doctrine and abuse from Twit and corpse did traumatize me, and the fact that it was force fed and with a good helping of abuse there really f'd me up. As I see it, the introjected regulations, beliefs or actions that do not agree with my Authentic self and that I "integrated" these into my "self" as good. They were not good at all, caused severe conflicts. I was not aware how PERVASIVE the "trauma" went inside me until lately during my sabbatical. And, it's mostly Twit/corpse junk, and I know when the first "shudder" went through me, and who it was- a 3rd corpse..close to VPW. Summer 1974, West Virginia, 2 months in, at the limb house for a meeting w/ fellow servants, all local believers- a great bunch. I was so happy to be there. So happy. All open and vulnerable. Limb Coor walks in to the front of room to the podium, but we remained seated, then we got a 10 minute reproof session to STAND next time he entered the room out of RESPECT for the word of god that is inside of him. Severe reproof. Blindsided. Mortal Sin stuff. We were all scared (fake reverent and humble). Then, a few weeks later, I HAD to see him about something (?), and when I sat down in his office I was so scared that I was literally shaking in my chair. He saw me shaking. Shaking like a wet dog in the freezing rain. The first trauma to self had occurred, IMO. More to follow as I get led in. Because of this path, I was able to formulate a much better view of all this for me. This question of homosexuality is not too hard for me to handle now. I now say that each person has the right to be who they are, no matter what that is. They have the right to be their fully beautiful (hopefully?) selves....their Authentic Selves. Their struggle to find their Identity and acceptance and place in this world is, undoubtedly, much easier for a heterosexual person like myself, and that was confusing enough time for me. I was in NYC this past April with my family to see "Hamilton." Yes, I loved it, and because my sister gifted me the ticket I don't get any Christmas presents from her for the next 10 years! OK!? TEN YEARS! But, our waiter at lunch before the play, a slender 30'ish year old man of Oriental extraction, had a remarkably beautiful, soft, and feminine voice. Later, my sister, more advanced than me having never been in Twit, mentioned that he might be transitioning. I was happy for that person if that's what it is. Finding themselves. And, being themselves. I am heterosexual, and I do not understand the attraction at all, not one whit. Therefore, I find that world unappealing, and, to me, repulsive. But, in all honesty, if I think for a moment of sex between couples I know, well, that really super grosses me out, too! Like, gnarly, dude. Go away. So, I ask you, do you really care what goes on in someones' bedroom? I don't like a local Market with just potatoes (Lo Shonta or Russet) , but one full of the Variety of foods and colors of all shapes, sizes and kinds, and different flowers and aromas, and rocks. M'OK?

spam? That's an interesting one. I had made a modesty lengthy post that vanished. Let's just say for now I forgot to enter the post, though I am awfuly sure I did. No, I became involved in TWI in 1975, entered the 8th corps, and my sexual assault happened in 1979. I just fully recalled it in the fall of 2017, though I began to remember it as a "minor event" around the time Kristen Skedgell published he book and when, for a couple years, I was by far the most prolific poster on her blog, "Thriving Reality"' A bit later Kristen moved beyond talking about her Way time publicly, but I came across a wonderful non-Way non-cult person who took her place as my best survivor friend,.In the last year and a half I have acquired plenty of recovery resources so I'm not appealing to anyone to take their place. In fact, my recovery resources are intentionally non-Way, because I see little compassion for the hurting among those who promote and/or teach the "love of God" the same "way" as was done in The Way. That includes the "splinter" groups; do any acknowledge Wierwille's misdeeds without passing them off as irrelevant to them?

I just found this in my email spam folder. If you were talking about me I am no longer involved with CFFM and have not been to their fellowship center since 2006 as I stated. However if you're currently being sexually abused I would definitely encourage you to report it to the police if it's appropriate.

Ditto for FellowLaborers. There was a clause in the agreement that specifically stated that marital status could not change while in the program. "Rules for thee, but not for me"....VPW

Kathy.......here are a couple more tidbits to ponder [bold-face added]: Victor and Dotsie married on July 2, 1937......secretly eloping to Kentucky. On page 28, Dotsie explains: "We felt that there were two reasons to keep our marriage a secret. For one reason, Vic could continue playing college basketball, since that privilege might be taken away from him if it were know he was married. Another reason was a rule that pre-seminary students were not permitted to get married before completing their seminary training. But by December of his senior year, Vic was securely positioned on the basketball team and felt safe that he would be allowed to complete the season." Skirt the rules, ignore the rules, damn the rules........modus operandi of slick vic. Hey, I wonder what would have happened if I secretly got married on my interim corps year........and then, in my final year of in-residence made it known that I had LIED and BUCKED THE F-ing RULES and did my own thing? And, yeah.......Dotsie stayed silent all those years about "twi's founding in 1942." What a farce!!! They were struggling along in that small church in Payne, Ohio in 1942.....and there was no way that vpw had visions of a class-based ministry (twi) just because six kids were singing in a Youth Choir. Sheesh. What a fabricated LIE that victor ginned up and Dotsie went along for the ride. EVERTHING CHANGED......when vic sat in Leonard's class in 1953: Vic saw that with a class-based ministry (from Leonard)....he could operate outside the framework of denominational church boards. Run classes.......strongly mandate the faithful tithe; Foundational.....Intermediate......Advanced Classes. Advanced Studies Classes..........Renewed Mind, Defeating the Adversary, The Way Tree, CFS, etc. Class Photo after each class (just like Leonard always did). In-house publications, sanitized way magazine......control the messaging ALWAYS. Dotsie, Ermal, Dorothy, Harry, Howard, Emogene, etc........enablers. All got their little fiefdoms. Dotsie was the "First Lady of The Way." Ermal, in the early years, supervised construction efforts. Harry added investment and business acumen. Howard drove the bus and guarded vic's drunken exploits and sexual predation. Emogene sat in her office watching afternoon soaps.....yet, commanded the title of Queen of The Way Bookstore with tentacles reaching into shipping, receiving, warehousing, limb bookstore training and rock of ages bookstore recruitment. The enablers were given power over these fiefdoms for their loyalty to wierwille. .

Seagulls? Oh that is too rich. How perfect. Talk about the perfect animal to have on your family crest to exemplify your behavior. Just two days ago I was warning a friend of mine who is visiting Catalina for the day not to walk around with food in her hand. At the Jersey shore, seagulls have been known to steal an entire Philly cheese steak right out of someone's hand on the boardwalk. Wow, the only thing missing from that family crest is a poop emogi.

And.........So It Begins. This R&R splinter group is sanitizing (censoring) the comments of others. And, those 896 members (cough, cough) are still in the nest.......because they haven't learned how to fly. But the time is nigh.....when many will stretch their wings, jump from the nest and fly away. Maybe, in all their research ability.........they will research Mrs. Wierwille's book and find: Mrs. Wierwille sanitized the life and history of twi's founder, victor paul wierwille. The wierwille bloodline and history took great liberties (tweaking details to fit vpw's narrative). Wierwille coat of arms was three sea gulls......not three doves. See how easy it is to tweak history!? Clearly, vpw plagiarized (stole) Leonard's class in 1953.....and deceptively, taught it as his own. The 1942 myth of twi's beginning was to preempt the questioning of wierwille as "founder." The Way Inc. was a SPLINTER GROUP.......from Leonard's research and work. In twi-lore, the India itinerary was heralded as "the great Christian Minister Dr. Wierwille visits India." Yet, Dr. I. S. Williams was president of the All-India Federation of Churches and pastor of the St. Paul's Hindustani Church in Byculla, Bombay and devotee of Indian history ..... was host to the wierwilles and opened the doors for vpw to speak. Respect was given to Dr. Williams.......not the American pastor. Wierwille resigned (fired?) from the Van Wert Church in August 1957.......and the church board unanimously accepted his resignation. Twi began its first independent undertaking on Thursday December 19, 1957 [p. 219.....last paragraph]. Money, money, money.......wierwille calculated that he needed 6 more families to tithe faithfully to pay his expenses [p. 228]. From 1957-1967......people did not stick when wierwille taught those LIVE classes. WHY? After 45 years of twi..............why can't questions be asked? Why are people black-listed for ASKING QUESTIONS? What are they hiding? Why is wierwille given a free pass and sanitized at every turn. Could it be that it was stolen valor from other great ministers who did the work and walked the talk? Yet, wierwille came riding in on the coattails of others and heavy-handedly purged those who questioned him and soft-talked the masses at big events. Mrs. Wierwille's book......even though heavily-sanitized......exposes the myths and mystique of victor paul wierwille to anyone who researches the details. .

I will make a short version of y reply which was in here. But I know my main sexual assaulter is one of those who ignores hurts and carries on with wonderful sounding words and prayers in the one she is in.

I entered Nursing School in 1990, and began working as a GN in 1992. I went on to get certified in Wound care/Ostomy (WONC), Nephrology (CNN) and Psychiatric Nursing Pharmacology. I was also an OR RN. Best educational and career decision I ever made!

If there's a moderator who can move it, then I have no objection. In retrospect doctrine did not even blip on my mental radar because being agnostic/borderline atheist, science is the basis for my thinking so I don't take doctrine into consideration unless I am comparing doctrinal views within a particular religion; i.e., Satmar Judaism vs Chabad Judaism, etc. Like you though, I don't believe that devil spirits are the cause of the aforementioned maladies and don't believe in their existence either, but believe them to be a fabrication that are a convenient machination used for the purpose of manipulating and controlling people through fear. Hey! We can be a tag team!

Thank you Kathy Niclaus for an honest and informative post! i knew John Shroyer well. I was the Midwest Region Coord. from October 1977 until I took over the funky trunk in May, 1980. During that time, Jim Milne was the LC of Ohio, having followed Howie and Lynn Yeremian (2nd Corpse). I was in the 4th corpse with Jim and Nancy, and lived in the same trailer with them 3 different times. Jim was a wonderful, kind-hearted guy. However, he wasn’t the “sharpest tool in the shed” so to speak. Nancy, OTOH, was quite a smart and disciplined, well-educated person. On their Interim year, they were assigned as College WOW coordinators under Bill Winegarner and Dr. John Somerville. It was Nancy who had the smarts and the acumen to run everything and anything they were ever assigneded to. Jim was the affable and personable front man. But, he was a desperate alcoholic. Concealed well for a long time, but it became painfully obvious during Jim’s tenure as OH LC. When the 4th corpse came back for it’s “sabbatical” year in 1979-80, Jim’s “problen” was “comfronted” by dickhead Dave Standage, nominal 4th corpse coordinator. Upon completion of that year, Jim and Nancy were assigned as limb coords of RI. I was the newly assigned trunk guy, and was really rooting for Jim! Unfortunately, Jim was unable to beat his alcohol addiction at that time, and I was forced to replace him as RI LC. It was not a pleasant experience, since, as I said before, i had lived with Jim and Nancy for 18 of the 24 months we were in- Rez. I chose Bob and Kathy Mirabito, 6th Corpse Cleveland Area coords to assume the limb responsibilities, and they did a good job, imo. Honest, faithful, reliable, and good communicators. Jim continued to spiral downward, and, unfortunately, he and Nancy wound up divorcing. During all this, John Shroyer and his wife were the Sidney Area Coordinators (HQ Area) of OH. They had been mainstays there for years. John’s family were all on staff. His mom, Miney, and his brother Danny, were long time staffers when i arrived in 1973 for my first in-rez year. His sister Elaine was married to Kurt Fiser and in the 3rd corpse, my “elder corpse”. I spent lots of time in the limb of OH when Jim M. had his troubles. John was an integral and important part of the TWI OH operation, and had been for a long time. I got to know him and Marilee well, and enjoyed a number of good fellowship times with them. Genuine salt-of-the-Earth, compassionate, dedicated, and faithful Christians, held in deserved good reputation amongst all the believers. However, when I resigned and left HQ in December, 1986, John jumped on the slander, hatespeech, and lying bandwagon the HQ hierarchy under the control of Geer demanded. Personally, that was as hurtful as all the other “good friends and colleagues” who hypocritically and foolishly towed the TWIt company line. When he went to FL, his toxic rhetoric and “company man” persona garnered him a deserved crappy reputation. Eventually, he grew tired of spewing the BOT BS, and denying the facts of their spiritual, corporate, and psycho-emotional abuse, and stood up against them. The formation of CFF followed as recorded above. Not long afterward, Wayne and Fern Clapp tesigned their lofty position as Indiana Campus and Family Corpse Coordinators (and Wayne as “research assistant” to da forehead). As funky trunk guy, I had the joy of working with Wayne when he was the LC of Iowa. His assignment to that position had been a matter of intense disputes at placements in 1980, between myself and John Butler (newly assigned North Central Region Coord) and Da forehead and Beence Fiinegan. Butler and I were highly in favor of assigning Wayne and Ferne as IA LCs. Martindale and Finnegan both mocked Wayne for being a big “wuss” for ‘crying all the time” at moving moments during his ministering/teaching to the believers. They also derided him for being a grad of the Harvard Theological Seminary, casting that bigoted TWIt bias against “the denominations” at the BS “phony intellectual seed-boys” at Harvard Divinity. But, Butler and I were adamant, and we stood up with a pretty fiery defense of Wayne’s “emotional weakness” and demanded that our request take precedence over the in-rez corpse coordinator critics. Butler and I prevailed, and Wayne and Ferne put IA on the TWIt map solidly for the first time. However, when I resigned on 12/1/1986, I was kept under “house arrest” with my family in our trailer for 14 days, until Geer and the Board Of Morons could figure out “how to handle” my resignation and departure from HQ. During all that time, and up through the founding and expansion of CFF, Shroyer and Clapp were vociferously and maliciously slandering and libeling me along with TWI and the other offshoots, as being “a seed boy”, “the worst adulterer the way has ever known”, and all the other sordid bullshit Geer and the Board of Morons were spewing daily. After all the time and stress we went through together in OH, and after all the heartfelt advocacy Butler and I put forth for the Clapps to be IA LCs, their lying and slander and unfounded personal attacks against me were most offensive and disheartening. John died and never apologized nor spoke with me about the part he played in TWIt’s organized and vicious campaign of character assassination and defamation against me when I resigned. However, an opportunity presented itself for me to personally and privately confront Wayne on a number of cruel and unbiblical behaviors he participated in against me with the BOT. Surprisingly, Wayne accepted responsibility for the things I brought up, and, in an act of rare honesty and genuine humility, admitted to his errors, and apologized to me, and then resigned his position as the 2nd head of CFF. To this day, this courageous and true Christian act is the single finest example of authentic Biblical repentance I have seen on the part of ANY former TWIt leader. I will always respect and admire Wayne for this, and extend my sincerest regards and appreciation to him to this day. During that same time frame, I had several long, honest, and rewarding conversations with Kevin and Sarah Gigou. I had known Kevin since my Interim year as Western Territory Coord of NC in 1974-1975. He was 16 and living in Valdese, NC, and TOTALLY AND BEAUTIFULLY “on fire” with God. Sarah was assigned down there after she graduated the 8th corpse, and they met and married. These conversations, along with the conversations with Wayne, are what prompted me to end my public campaign against CFF. As far as I was concerned, Wayne and the Guigous have fully met the scriptural requirements of the public and private repentance Jesus Christ himself taught and commanded in Matthew chapter 18. I remain respectful to them for this righteous action and grateful to them for their personal courage and dignity. Selah. i do not agree with CFF on much of their espoused Christian doctrine. But, that’s true of my relationship with lots of Christian churches and denominations. However, because of the Righteous personal conduct of Wayne Clapp, and Kevin and Sarah Guigou, I have “declared a personal truce” toward CFF, but I remain adamantly opposed to their ”companion offshoot” in MS, SOWERS. So, Kathy Niclaus......thanks again for your post. It inspired my recollection of the things I posted above. Though John Shroyer severely disappointed me, and died before we could restore our fellowship together, I have fond memories of the man I knew and worked with from 1977-1986. R.I.P. John. See you then.

It all makes sense now.