Twinky

Can I offer you a coffee while you're waiting for those answers, Skyrider? you'll be waiting for a long time.

Is he installed as Prez now? Nothing on their website, which indicates RFR as "Chairman", and other directors (or whatever they call them) are JYdL and J Rupp. At least there's no bloody awful celebratory video. Actually, there's hardly any current info at all, although their copyright is dated 2017. I've no interest in making a serious rummage around their site.

That would have been hilarious, Skyrider, had you (and all those devil spirits that you were possessed by) had the nerve to rock up as Mrs W's escort. I hope you did something really enjoyable and family fun filled, instead.

I found - abject misery. I was committed to TWI, they weren't committed to me, and threw me out with max ignominy and slander. Lost everything - everything that I hadn't given up previously, to follow the dictates of TWI. What did I find? After 10 years, I found GreaseSpot Cafe. And then - I found out about the lies, deception, ill-treatment, and that the way I'd been treated was nothing to do with me or anything I'd done - it was merely the modus operandi of TWI. And then what did I find? I found healing, peace of mind. Joy in life. Hard times, but I could thrive in them. Great friends, some of whom had "been there" all the time for me. Restored relationships. People who were kind and gentle, and truly loving. Freedom to love and serve. No condemnation. Daily, I find something of the years that the locust had destroyed, being restored to me.

Are these kids' parents there? Good lord!

Sky, so pleased you are finding it helpful to tell your story. You will be facing fears you didn't know you had, paranoia that you did know you had - it all evaporates and you can LAUGH at it all and you revel in your freedom. I know when I found someone to share my story with - with real fear (but why?) - someone with no knowledge of TWI but a strong interest in safeguarding - just telling the story has led to such release and lightness of heart. I thought I was okay until I started talking about it. Only took 20 years to open my mouth... :( I wish you well for the future. You and Mrs Sky and your kids have a wonderful exciting and free future ahead of you.

The fear of getting away... My WoW family witnessed to a young man, early 20s, with a wonderful heart to serve. He was lovely, open, really loved being with us, and could be relied on to help out at the drop of a - telephone. One call, and this young man was there. Actually, he liked being with us so much and was so enthusiastic that it was hard to get rid of him. Salt of the earth type; never had any qualms about him. He went WoW immediately after our WoW year ended. A few months later, I heard that he'd run away from his WoW family by climbing through the bathroom window in the middle of the night. WOTTT? Climbing through a window? Middle of the night? This young man had had an abusive upbringing and was molested by an older adult family male, as a young child. He found safety and security with us, perhaps for the first time ever. I suspect he might have spoken about his history with someone when he was WoW, his Family Coordinator or some such, and had had such a grilling about himself that his fragile recently constructed life couldn't handle it. This was in the era of the homo purges. No way this young man had those sort of leanings - and he wasn't to blame for what had happened when he was a small child. I never heard anything of him ever again. I often wonder how he went on. I feel somewhat guilty and to blame for "leading him astray" into the clutches of TWI, to be further abused.

Eph 4:32 " be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted..." 1 Thess 2:7 "But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children..." Ellicott's Commentary (available via Biblehub): "Among you.—Rather, in the midst of you, making the gentleness still more marked. “Her,” in the Greek emphatically her own. The contrast is drawn between the charlatan, licentious, sophistical, fawning, greedy, vainglorious teachers, to whom Greeks were well accustomed, and the Apostles, sitting familiarly like mothers amidst a group of their own children, folding them for warmth to their bosoms “Keep a mother’s heart for men,” was the advice which made Henri Perreyve’s life so winning (Méditations, p. 87)." You can really see how the Lallys and other leaders took this deeply into their hearts :) Good heavens, sneaking away in the middle of the night? Whatever was he afraid of? It's amazing any of us made it out alive... some of us were barely crawling.

Steve, your posts are always challenging and thought-provoking. Totally agree that we have to think with the background of the time in mind, and not with our this-year (and worse, Western) understanding "preventing" us from seeing things as they were then, and extrapolating where necessary. In fact, we need input like yours to enable us to "pre-vent" appropriately.

Great performance from a kid that really needs a box to stand on!

Interfering beggars, Bolshevik. I've heard the expression, "It takes a village to raise a child," but this appears to be, "It takes a Branch to raise a child." Parents not required. :(

Yes 1994 it would have been. Only AC ever run in NZ. Big show made of it and people came from Australia and a couple came from USA representing HQ: Bru-ce ?? and his wife, can't remember their names. Everyone went up north for a week, to a nice location on the beach (of which there are many in NZ). Big push getting people ready for it. HG, you told me privately who's still around and most of those people took that AC class and so have had very little to do directly with HQ except perhaps (decades ago) having gone to RoA, which was hardly representative of what long-term living/being involved with TWI was like.

Think it might have started as an accidental by-product, but rapidly became a means of working. Like the accidental discovery of Pyrex, for example. Quickly became desirable in its own right. Like the opportunity to "soften boundaries" and crack the door ajar, ready for abusers. My church meets in home groups, about a dozen or so people. I have been in several housegroups. Most meet in the home. And NONE of them have indulged in over-intimate hugs, kisses, touching, backrubs or like physical contact. A chaste kiss on the cheek, a handshake, a quick hug if you know someone quite well but without close body contact ... that's as far as it goes. I cannot imagine the TWI-style close contact greeting going on in any housegroup I have attended.

But Skyrider, surely you knew how important it was to take care of and return those horns of plenty and rolls of fax paper! Gotta take care of things, you know, and be a good steward. /sarc/ Never mind the stewardship of one's primary resource - people! Never mind guarding people's hearts, souls, lives. But things...! Echo LKG's sentiment and Rocky's thought - would have been good to tell 'em to come and pick up when you'd had time to sort through in your own time. But I completely understand the "jump to it" mindset. I'll tell you for a fact - when CG was ordered to return all the PFAL materials that were in Scotland - he took months if not years about doing that, and only when he'd recorded his own class based on those materials. The stuff, such as did arrive (not everything) didn't come back until 1991.

Yes, I think they might be. Another useful vehicle for VPW's ego-trip stolen class. Private homes where hippies smoked dope and engaged in free sex... wow, what a draw, what a model, for a person like VPW. Uncontrolled and unregulated activities with no responsible overseer (like a church minister).

You've got it, Chockfull. Violation of pretty much all boundaries. Grooming for all kinds of mischief. Grr!

Been reading here lately and in correspondence and thinking a bit. It's all very well having meetings in the home - "home church" - good idea, keeps things intimate. Too intimate. I imagine the original idea was to avoid shelling out $$ for meeting rooms or building places (like church buildings!). But meeting in the home had a dual purpose. Think how lovey-dovey everyone was. Greeted with hugs and kisses, despite not knowing the greeter well and perhaps despite one's own personal reservations. Everyone squished on couches or chairs during fellowship, and again after fellowship when things might be more relaxed. There came also more hugs and the back rubs and shoulder rubs, in sympathy or whatever. All this can be nice, can be friendly. It was a sort of enforced intimacy that could be manipulated by some. Everyone wanted to be round a charismatic leader. But what if that charismatic leader had other ideas? In the "group hug" on the couch, ostensibly putting arms along the couch back, perhaps, then allowing them to stray onto the shoulders of young women? Seeing who shied from that touch and who didn't. The occasional "accidental" brush of the hand in an inappropriate way. A too-long hug when people were leaving. And then, at bigger fellowships, everyone was used to this behavior because it had become the norm. So on coming into contact with the more rapacious type of leader - well, the softening up had already taken place. Rather than "promoting harmony in the home," I'm coming to the conclusion that meeting in the intimate home setting, where people's guard is down somewhat, was the start of the grooming process for the sexual abuse for young women. A lot of this unwanted touching just wouldn't have got started, would have been rejected earlier, if meetings had taken place other than in homes. Who smooches up like this in a church? In a meeting in a public room at the library or town hall or school hall? In a park or beach meeting? Thoughts, anyone?

If you weren't an "energized minister," Sky, don't know who else would have been. Oh wait... energized? You'd given it all up. No more energy left to give. Mrs Sky too, most likely. I remember working to prepare for the AC Special. I was working 18-20 hr days, about a week of that, no time for "personal things" like doing laundry and scarcely time for things like showering and "getting ready." Totally exhausting. But you were doing that for far longer than a week. Incessantly "on duty" even when you weren't. Unreal. Illegal, probably. Tell us how Mrs Sky was coping.

And that would be God being kind to them... Chocky, your "news footage" well represents the wreck of Wayfers' lives after TWI and the "road to Damascus" that opened our eyes to the evil of TWI. Clearly JYdL hasn't had that epiphany yet. I knew JY and liked him, knew his wife a bit better, lovely lass. But I think the only way I could take JY seriously now, would be if he posted a public repentance on the TWI website in a prominent position, and wrote a letter of apology to people here and on other exWay sites. Not holding my breath for that.

A cat is a "large pet"? I have two and maintained them even though for a couple of years I was on unemployment benefit (less than "need" basis). Litter and food cost me about £4pw and IT WAS WORTH IT for the companionship. (no insurance on them, though. Illness... vet bills... might have been curtains. Thankfully, not happened yet. Skyrider, I know this pet policy is only a very small point in your narrative. The whole of what you have posted on this thread is just so enormous and intrusive that I have no words to express my own resentment at your treatment! How are you supposed to live, with your wife and two growing kids, on $27K? Wouldn't be so bad if you knew that the trustees and their own "needs" were being curtailed too... hahahahahaha.

Think I burned mine. "Crook book," LOL!

"Wilkinson," I think, not Wilkins. Think it was a way of getting CG out of the hair of the trustees in the USA. RW was a good guy, but didn't want more responsibility than he already had. He was trying to run his own business, as well as run his twig, or run the country, as well as doing "voluntary" work for CG. Eventually he was doing so much that he had to ask Chris to put him on FT paid staff, and had to mothball his business. I'm not aware of the details, but without warning RW disappeared from view and some new people were designated as country coordinators. I think maybe that would be at the time the trustees finally put their foot down and M&A'd CG.

Oh, and WELCOME to the cafe. Enjoy this one on me while we have a yarn:

Higherground, I am most interested in what you have to say about TWI-NZ. I'd love to know where some people are, what they are doing now... There were some good folks and some real horror stories. If Allan is Public Enemy No.1, I might be No.2. Maybe we know each other, but probably not. PM me, please :)

An old thread, this, but some may have no knowledge, so it may be of interest. Bear in mind that Gartmore was supposed to be the European HQ. As such - why seek a place in the farthest north, most remote part? Scotland isn't at all close to Italy, Germany, other locations. Not too far from Scandinavia, where there were quite a number of believers, and Ireland, likewise - but England would be just as accessible for those people and MUCH easier for any overland travellers from Europe - and probably cheaper in airfares for those who flew. Europe has, and had at the time, fantastically good overland networks. Great rail through many countries, great wide roads and motorways, no border controls once within the area... You would think somewhere in France or perhaps Germany might be more appropriate. With a national to lead the ministry. But HQ was keen to get rid of CG, and a European HQ anywhere other than the UK would require CG to be completely fluent (rather than just "good") in one or more European languages - or rely on interpreters - heck, he wouldn't like that loss of control Ego. It was all about his ego.