Galen

The experience that I relayed happened to me. It was one of my tongues that did it. I dont know about the other people who have experienced this, I am not them. I have heard of it happening, though I have never 'seen' it happen for anyone else. The beleiver who translated my tongue was in our fellowship (his name was Tony) for a few years. Anyone who was in our twig-area knew him. This occured in a fellowship in Flanders Connecticut. We were all of the New London Twig area. Many of us were riding various boats out of Groton. The home in Flanders was a boarding house, where many sailors rented a bed-room. I have lost contact with Tony, as I have lost contact with the over-whelming majority of those whom I have fellowshiped with. Being military it happens. I was stationed at one base for a few years, then at another base, etc. Some of us have bumped into each other again at other bases, some of us have not. (I was amazed a while ago when my mailman recognized me, he and I had lived on a sub together but he did not recognize me until my beard had grown out long enough that I looked the same as I had back then.) In either case, I can not produce for you the same group of people who witnessed the event back then. My wife and I are here as witnesses. Dave Winterbottom sometimes posts here, he might recall the event. Others that we are now in contact with, will not come to GreaseSpotCafe as they find it far too negative and 'anti-beleivers'. You say that I claim to have evidence that I can produce. I can only say that this happened to me, in a fellowship and that others were present to witness it. I have no video, I have no signed statements, I have no 'Learned and Respected Doctors of linguistics' to testify for me. I did not say that I did. I have no evidence in writing, nor on magnetic media. Galen

Hey Jeff, bless you man. I understand that back in 1972 a 'linguist' named: Dr. William J. Samarin 'studied' Speaking in tongues and considered it "other than real languages". Having served on-board various subs as the Protestant Lay-Leader, I have attended training at the hands of Navy Chaplains and I have looked it up in their librarys (Xenoglossia, Glossolalia, pseudo-language. The 'professional' Chaplains certainly don't believe in Speaking in tongues. I have to tell you though, of an experience that I once had. In 1980, after one patrol, I was having doubts as to reality of Speaking-In-Tongues. I went on a roadtrip on my motorcycle for a couple weeks, during which time I spent a lot of time in prayer and Tongues. During that drive I 'developed' multiple tongues, a real fluency in multiple tongues. When I returned to my duty station, and went to a fellowship, I was called upon to Speak-In-Tongues and Interpret. I used one of my 'new' languages. One of the guys in the fellowship was crying when I finished the Interpretation. He started laughing and got up, he was terribly excited. He told us that my tongue was 'Northern Mandarin', a launguage that he knew and spoke. He gave us a word-for-word translation of what I had spoken in Mandarin, and while the Word-for-word did not match, the message did. My 'interpretation' was like a para-phrasing of the exact word-for-word. Overall that cinched it for me. It was what I needed to really beleive that Speaking-In-Tongues is real and from G-d. Our Heavenly Father does different things for different people. He works with each of us differently. This was how He worked with me to convince me. .

I think that as a practical matter it would be difficult to: recall, re-locate and apologize to everyone that may have been offended by my errors from long-ago.

chwester: "Abigail stated it seems wrong to say you cant learn because you cant afford to." I think that we must first recognize that different people mean differnt things when they say: "education". I have known college grads who were in serious need of an education, and I have also known people who were 'self-educated' and yet seemed to have a firm grasp on many various topics. Learning costs nothing. Some families Homeschool their children on zero budget, others spend thousands. Some will read every book available on a given subject and will combine that with On-The-Job Training and they will know a great deal about their area of expertise; while others will attend the finest Universitys and graduate knowing very little. "Education is a service rendered by people who need to be recompenced for their service." It does seem to have worked out much better, in my grandparent's day. Before Public education. Any local parent who themselves had a greater than 6th grade education, could volunteer to be the Head-Master of the local grammar school. The Head-Master would ask for some portion of each family's harvest. Two of my grandparents taught grammar school from 1910-1930-ish. Long before the era of 'entitlement'. " "Being alive" gives no one the right to an education. "Being alive" gives no one the "right" to ANYTHING! If you want something, one must EARN it." I would respectfully dis-agree. Here in America we do have rights. To pursue a better life, to breath air, etc. . .

Is it normal to require the children attending church-schools to be in families that are members of that church? I don't know. I have heard that some do require this. My neices did attend a church-school (Keyes, Ca), though I dont think that they had to become members first, they were members of a sister-church in a neighboring town (Ceres, Ca) at the time. The church (First Baptist, Ceres Ca) that they were members of did require tithing. At tax time, all memebers filed out a form listing how much they earned the previous year and how much they expected to earn the following year. The form calculated 10% of your annual income and then calculated the twelve even monthly payments. At the bottom of the form you signed it, pledgeing to the church to pay this amount each month. And then during the year, they monitored your giveing and if your tithe fell below your pledge amount they sent out letters reminding you. I know that they considered the tuition rather high to attend the church-school in Keyes, but I dont know how much it was.

rascal: "Garth, I`d also like to reiterate...it was not one but two seperate Huntsville City school teachers who strongly exhorted us to home school our children...the teachers IN the system themselves! Up to that point I had never even considered the possibility." As a Homeschooling parent, I also have children attending public school, in various grades. When we meet with the teachers, whether young or old, brand new or experienced; a common theme among them exists. None of them would ever allow their own child to attend public school. We work with the schools. We know the teachers, the secretarys and principals. We argue with them, we fight them and we fight their agendas. We attend the open houses and meetings, the PPts and the curriculum reviews. We currently have children attending Elmentary school, Middle school and High school. Our observation from our experiences is that the over-whelming majority of parents simply dont care, and do not want to fight with the system, to get their children a good education. Apathy is the rule of the day. Ct teachers are NOT under-paid. Not in any sense what so ever. And they have a great union. They know that their system stinks and they would never dream of allowing their own children to be abused and neglected in that way.

Hi there Chas! “*Why did you choose to homeschool or not?” In 1991 our eldest son was in public school (He started schooling in Scotland, though in 1991 we transferred Stateside and he started in a local public school here). He was having a lot of troubles at the bus stop, on the bus and during school with hazing from other children. He had a speech impediment from a hearing disorder (too much sonigrams as a fetus). Anyway we complained to the school, but they did not care about fights and bullying on the bus. My wife began following the bus and taking pictures of the bullying behaviors, but when presented with the photos the local school board suggested that we dis-enroll the child if he could not stand up for himself better. At the time, we knew nothing about Homeschooling. Other than the fact that my grand-parents had taught grammar school to the neighborhood children during the first 2 decades of the 1900’s, and they used a single book to teach out of (? McGruffy Reader ? I think). While my family-line has been in America since the 1790s my siblings and I were the first to receive a government funded education. It is my understanding that the idea of a public educational system was an experiment. At the same time, we were seeing Slick Willy’s effects on the public school system. Locally they stripped our library of books which referenced nucleus family life, or married male-female couples. In favour of Single-parent homes and “alternative lifestyle” homes. There was a local newspaper article about the ‘new’ safe-sex program that was starting at the second grade. Since Hillary insisted that the curriculum be “alternative” Friendly, it had to include safe-sex techniques for lesbians and gays as well as heteros. These changes seemed to Bonnie and myself as a bit too much for children in the second grade. So we decided to try Homeschooling ourselves. We did not know anyone who did it. We did not know any Homeschool Groups. We did know that the Mennonites and Amish do it, so we asked around, and found the Mennonite curriculums. We started using CLE (Christian Light Education) which comes from the same school-system as does ‘Rod and Staff’, in 1992-ish. We buy each grade-level once, and re-use each on the rest of the siblings. Daniel was turning 16 when we returned stateside this last time. He was finishing the 9th grade curriculum and we wanted an outside opinion of his educational level and what areas he truly needed to work on. I took him to the local community college and asked that he be tested accordingly. They give him an entrance exam, and accepted him into college that day. The counselor seemed most urgent that Daniel NOT attend the local public High-school, saying that attending such would only be wasting those years. Apparently many if not most of the High-school graduates they receive still need a great deal of remedial work, so the college would rather accept a child who has honestly completed the 8th or 9th grade. And just avoid wasting those years in a high-school. “*And did you feel you had a choice?” I don’t know. There are certainly many many choices today though. ”*How did you choose a course of study (or whatever it may be called) for your child(ren)?” We looked at a sample. We liked it. They even offered a ‘teaching certificate’ course to my wife, that she could take while Daniel was taking his first courses. Bonnie did and she now has a ‘teaching certificate’. At our next duty-station (Bremerton Washington), as our next child was starting public school, the school board even offered my wife a job as a teacher. Based on the CLE ‘Teaching certificate’. Which took Bonnie about 6 weeks to complete. Courses? We do not pay the extra fee for CLE to maintain records. We went through the course-work available and basically just left out the religious doctrinal stuff. We purchased most everything else they offer for their basic curriculum. “*How did you children adapt to it? How do they cope with it now?” Wonderfully. Even when we have had to Home-school our foster children, they have done very well with it. Our current foster-children are a sibling group, they had accumulated so much truancy in their previous placement that the school system was not recommending that they be advanced to the next higher grade-levels. We Homeschooled them over the summer, and the local school agreed to enroll them in the next higher grade-levels. We continued to work through curriculum at home on the weekends, and again the following summer. The beginning of their second school year in our home, they each tested ‘at grade-level’ or above. They are again attending public school and we are no longer Homeschooling them. “*Do you have any regrets or anything you would change about homeschooling?” No. It is really getter better and better. People feel the need to question Homeschoolers as much now as they did a decade ago. There are support groups, science fairs, legal-aid groups and even curriculum fairs.

None of the above, sorry. For many years I went to sea, submerged in my work for 15 weeks at a time, then I would spend the next 3 months in rotating shift-work; this cycle repeated basically twice every year. During that career I did spend a few years doing Law Enforcement, and I worked significantly less. I commonly had 2 or even 4 days off each month, to spend visiting my family. On the other hand, I retired and began receiving my pension at 42. Now I am 'Mister Mom'.

Flaming Green Dragon 1 jigger Bacardi 151 Rum 1/2 jigger Green Creme de Menthe 1 jigger vodka Mix all three in a short wide-mouth glass, ignite and drink. This one is where you learn to drink while exhaling. Also it is a good idea to sneak up on this one from underneath, never ‘look down’ at the glass and if you have facial hair smooth it down first (as stray hairs will first ignite themselves and then they will ignite the rest). If you have everclear, you can bring the Cr?-de-Menthe up to a full jigger so long as you add a ½ jigger of everclear. The additional Cr?-de-menthe will ‘smooth’ the dragon’s bite. But without the additional everclear, it will also extinguish the flame. I was introduced to this, while serving on-board various subs in Holy-Loch Scotland. If you do not use the ‘smooth’ version, then you may require a cold beer on hand to sooth your throat afterward. When challenged to match someone ‘drink-for-drink’ I usually pick ‘Flaming Green Dragons’. They will often desire to stop the challenge soon afterward. .

I just returned from Maine this afternoon. I spent the past week driving a bulldozer pushing stumps around trying to clear a big enough area to build a house on. I will NOT be able to make it to Unity this year, sorry. I did have a lot of fun last year though. Too bad we missed each other. The Unity Common Grounds Fair is a very nice event, as we make the move to Maine I do hope that we will be able to make the fair routinely. Our children did gather lots of ribbons from the local 4H fair here in Connecticut as well as a Grange fair.

sky4it: "Galen: I would say that the thing with Onan doesn't even qualify, after all he had sex with the woman." I agree. but like I said: "Many would say that this occurance of 'couitus interuptus' was masterbation, and thus unlawful; however a contextual reading of the chapter easily reveals that it had nothing to do with mawterbation but rather greed." The Catholic church teaches that masterbation is a sin and they use Onan as the example of the Bible saying it is a sin. Obviously anyone who reads the context would understand that it was not talking about masterbation, nor does it say that such is a sin. I recall attending a church once in Virginia, I think it was called "The Rock church" kind of Baptist - Four Square kind of thing, a really BIG church with dozens of TV cameras in the balcony to broadcast the services on TV. They were going off about masterbation being a sin as well, and they used this passage as proof. As far as 'un-cleanness' is concerned. Some things are 'un-clean' which is sin to eat or to do. But other things are simply 'un-clean' you and need to wash. A woman issuing blood, is a matter of health; living in the desert without indoor plumbing, I can understand that she needs to wash after the issue and pay attention to how long the issue flows and cleanse herself even after the issue has stopped. As for the man who has seed spilled on his body, duh! WASH. Otherwise he is un-clean. Both Blood and spegma [semenal fluid] can carry disease. Wash. Does that make either a 'sin'? In the case of going to the temple preist, telling him and paying a single turtle dove for him to pronounce you clean again. I see the priest as filling the roll as 'community health and sanitation' department. If you had a strange boil or possibly a spot, you went to the priest for him to inspect it, and he had to declare whether or not you were 'clean'. This is a totally different issue frm that of 'sin'. .

mj412: "where does the bible address masturbation?" Onan He accepted his elder brother's widow [fullfiling Leviticus law], also according to Leviticus law her first son would inherit all that the elder brother had owned. But not wanting her to have a son, he 'spilled his seed out from within her so if spilled onto the ground'. He was attempting to violate inheritance laws. This wife reported the occurance, and he felt the penalty of his crime. Many would say that this occurance of 'couitus interuptus' was masterbation, and thus unlawful; however a contextual reading of the chapter easily reveals that it had nothing to do with mawterbation but rather greed. I have had many debates on this one topic, the most recent was about 2 weeks ago, with another foster parent, she is R. Catholic and her church's doctrine holds that the "Sin of Onan" is masterbation regardless of what Onan did.

vickles: "Well, you could push it back so it doesn't dangle to the front." Hmm, pushing my hose to the back, would push it directly into the flight path of things falling from the rear ejection port. I dont wnat my hose splashed. I dont want my hose smeared with debrie from falling objects. I dont want my hose to rub against the rim. And 'NO' I will not hold my hose up out of the toilet while seated, as inadvertant leakage might occur causing a mess in the bathroom. Is this too much to ask for?

George Aar: "At the risk of following Galen into the land of TMI, the "room" is only necessary when one is seated on the appliance. Personally, I don't care for bumping into the rim of the toilet seat. But, then, that's just me.." I agree, I find it 'icky' to rub, or bump, or hang against the inside of the rim. Afterall in a public facility the previous men may have 'rubbed' against there. . . It is difficult to find models of bowls with sufficeint bowl elongation to avoid rubbing against the front when seated.

Long Gone: "That has nothing to do with what I suggested. A toilet holds water in two places, the tank and the bowl. You raised the water level _in the tank_, which helped flushing by increasing the amount of water dumped from the tank to the bowl when you raise the flapper with the flush lever." This is true. More water tends to help flush better, and to move things a little further down the sewage lines. "What I suggested was decreasing the water level _in the bowl_, thereby increasing the distance from the seat to what you call the puddle, which is what you say you want." Yes, I read that. the fill hose goes into the tank to re-fill the tank. You suggest that it go into the over-flow stand-pipe. To my understanding that would send water directly into the bowl raising the level of water in the bowl. I dont understand how pouring water into the stand-pipe would effect the level of water in the bowl. Could you possibly rephrase?

I found that the water flows dwon from the Water-closet and into a 'ring' within the rim of the toilet bowl. The bottom-side or underneath of that ring is a series of holes or jets that direct the water down along the side of the bowl and they are pointed in such a manner that they cause the water to begin it's curcular spinning motion. When I located a small enough bottle brush to cleanout these holes, I found that things had had washed down and lodged within that ring and were then blocking the wter from flowing out smoothly. A few of the holes had white cotton strings hanging down through the holes, which I pulled through. And at least one item was in there that lodged in a hole that I broke aart with pliers. I still dont know what items exactly had been dropped into the watercloset, but that does seem to be the culprit. 'Someone' has been lifting the lid on the watercloset, and putting things into the water therein; perhaps to 'lose' them in the water. We are very close to simply removing the bathroom door. It does not have a doorknob [the children broke that off a year ago, at about the same time as they broke off the newest door knobs from their bedroom doors].

Oakspear: " " . . . why are others who have NEVER heard of VPW OR his teachings coming to us and saying "you teach EXACTLY what I've believed for years?" " " "Obviously because they are finding something really good." " "Or maybe they're just suckers... :P-->...not so obvious IMHO Galen!" Or Our Heavenly Father has led them to a place wherein they can learn some part of what they need to know, or to do what they need to do.

Billy D: "Greetings everyone and God bless!" Welcome aboard. ". . . in light of some of what has been said here I thought I could shed some light on a few things." Thank you, though to be honest, I doubt it will do any good. ". . . I AM here to debunk some unfair and borderline slanderous things that have been said on this and other boards." Good luck, sir. ". . . why are others who have NEVER heard of VPW OR his teachings coming to us and saying "you teach EXACTLY what I've believed for years?" Obviously because they are finding something really good. "I'm very blessed that this place exists, though I'm often frustrated by the bitterness, cynicism, and anger that I see unleashed here." As am I. "I can honestly say that the people I work with every day (both paid and volunteer) do their best to honor Jesus Christ and serve His Body." I beleive you. Thank you for telling us your point of view Billy, please do come here again. May God Bless you and keep you. Galen

Under my clothing, I am too.

Danny: "But i would of left years before. Not doubt in my mind they were not what they said they were and were abusive." Okay. "Wow if i could only be like you and beleive so big." I dont know about beleiving 'big', we fought battles, we tried to protect our fellowships and our household. Overall I was 'thrown out' 3 times, my entire history with TWI has been posted many times previously. Due to my career we moved around a lot. We never stopped worshiping our Creator, reading the Bible, running PFAL classes, and most of the time when we 'settled' in a new location, we opened shop running a new twig. Not being Corpse, TWI never really maintained any 'list' of who was booted. It is my understanding that the only lists TWI published were of those were got 'booted'. So you get tired to fighting idiot Corpse, you bless them, knock the dust off your feet, and go to another location. Just because local 'leadership' wants to be idiots does not stop us from worshipping Our Heavenly Father and sharing what we have studied. Our eldest son has gone to CES teen camps, he really liked them. I did go on their 'holy-lands tour' in 2000, it was a lot of fun. Recently they had a 'do' in Mass, and I went to it. We get their mailings. We are NOT one of their officaly recognized fellowships, as I am not comfortable with signing a contract and obligating myself to a set of rules. I would not have done that when we were functioning within TWI guidelines either. The only issue that I see with CES is that they seem to lack coordination. Daniel really wanted to go on their WOW program, he contacted everyone about it, but they were very foggy about the specifics. The projected date for commencment was post-poned. We waited six months, and nothing was happening with it, so we contacted the list of everyone who seemed to be in charge of the program, but again nothing was coming together. Postponed again. So we waited some more a few more months, and Daniel enlisted in the Army. Then one day, we got a mailing that the program had started and was running, and a group of young people had been selected and were doing it. Just like that, poof. To me if a devorced man wants to begin dating again, to court a future wife, he should not be forced to leave the ministry to do such; but it is understandable that many of these people and a little gun-shy when it comes to the issue of leadership dating. Other than those issues, I see nothing 'wrong' with CES. They seem great. Daniel really enjoyed their "New Life in Christ" course, as well as a few other things that we have done from CES. Of course Daniel is a grad of PFAL as well. "Lynn has plent of room for you." I am not sure if he has room for us. :-)

Same song repeating over and over- “I do not quite understand your reply to mj412. Are you saying that there are a majority percentage of people who "felt" abused and mistreated and there are a percentage that were "absolutely without a doubt" abused and mistreated? I relate the "felt" part to the remaining portion your reply in regards to "attempts" to abuse and mistreat you.” It does appear to me that most here on GS did feel abused or mistreated, yes. Not everyone feels that way, but yes certainly it does seem to me that most do seem to be reporting that they felt abused or mistreated. “Am I to understand in this reply to mj412 that there is no such thing as "mind control" over a person regardless what happens within ones brain and no matter what type of group that person maybe involved?” There is certainly ‘brain-washing’ and ‘behavior modification’ techniques. I would still question the idea that membership within any ‘group’ absolutely absolves all ‘independent thinking skills’. I think that there will always be some people who can still flourish even within a culture where abuses exist, or perhaps it is stressing a person that enables them to become stronger. Gee maybe I did learn something from 20+ yrs in the Navy. “growth takes change and new ideas and the ability to cope without group think and co-dependency. personal growth takes independent thinking, twi offered none of these avenues of thought and in fact murdered the ability to do such in many” I do agree that growth is helped by change. A person’s ability to cope may be helped by stepping outside of ‘group think’, though I have seen people who insisted that they needed the ‘group’ to survive. A little co-dependency might be okay, though I would tend to dis-like people who are too dependant. “personal growth takes independent thinking” I agree. “twi offered none of these avenues of thought and in fact murdered the ability to do such” I would not usually think of someone who wants to be independent as being a ‘joiner’ and a ‘member’ and a ‘follower together with’; those who I have known who were really independent disdained joining anything.

mj412: "normal as in not being used and abused in a wasted time spent it has NOTING to do with culture Galen. if the culture is abusive and a person is not able to flourish his own self it is a waste and clearly in the "culture" or system of twi personal growth was destroyed and stunted." There are beleivers who live in cultures where they are persecuted for their beleifs. I have known and seen others withing TWI who have been able to grow and prosper, so obviously not EVERYONE allowed being active within TWI to destroy or stunt their growth. Here on GS the appearant majority are people who felt abused and mis-treated. Certainly there were attempts to abuse and mis-treat me, I did not let that stop me. Did I put up with it? maybe sometimes so long as it did not stop me from ministering to others. "maybe for life. growth takes change and new ideas and the ability to cope without group think and co-dependency. personal growth takes independent thinking, twi offered none of these avenues of thought and in fact murdered the ability to do such in many." "independent thinking" skills offered by a group? kind of an anti-thesis. The military does not encourage it either does that mean it is not allowed? No. What happens within my brain is my business. Can a group, or corporation, or ministry stop what happens within my brain? No. If someone was not allowed to think independently, or if someone was required to develop a co-dependency; I think they would be susceptible in any church environment. :-)

mj412: "personal growth???? . . . personal torture maybe." Sometimes those two go hand-in-hand. "I do not agree with the rosy glasses you have on. Many ex-twi and those still involved would have a better quality of life if not for the CULT!" True, though perhaps many others prospered. "personal growth can be accomplished by our LORD and by our own particpating in a NORMAL lifestyle." I agree that growth needs to be accomplished walking hand-in-hand with Our Lord. Does that also require a culturaly 'normal' lifestyle? I dont agree. Many people can 'grow' with Our Lord, even though their personal lifestyles fit in with entirely different cultures. "I try not to think of the cost but I will NEVER dismiss the cost of many that will not be repaired" No matter what you did with 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years; thsoe years are gone. Nothing can be done today to regain those years. Whether you spent that time working for the Peace Corps, or sweeping floors in a factory, the time would still be gone. Everyone who was alive in the '60's and is alive today, has 'spent' the same relative amount of time, 'wasting' decades. Unless they personally have grown. Not one of us, can repair the time that has gone by. We can learn from our past; strive to do our best in the present; and look forward planning for a better future. .

Belle: "We have toll roads where I live and when I'm having a bad day or bad week I give the toll attendant $5 or $10 and tell them to keep $3-$5 for themselves and pay for x number of cars behind me." While stationed in Italy, we maintained a bag of candy in our car, each trip shopping for food Bonnie wold routinely give the tollbooth collectors a peice of candy. they soon began calling her the "Confectionary Madam". We thought it was great. I did not drive the toll-roads as much, but always gave candy to the gate guards and the policia standing in the intersections directing traffic. They loved it.

Wayfer Not!: ". . . My W2 at the end of the year reflected a much higher amount because of the food, housing, etc. which were provided." Very good point, it is common among large corporations to provide 'allowances' which are not taxable, things like: housing, vehicles, food, etc. W-2s can reflect one amount which is 'take-home' pay, another amount which is the taxable amount of that pay, and a third amount which includes other things which you did not get in pay but that were provided 'for you'. A better question is do these amounts indicate how much the BOT actually received in cash, or how much their total compensation was?