rascal

I think that it is important to understand why we were vulnerable, in order to understand, in order to not feel so stupid.

Dove, I was goofing with you. You are fond of take a single line out of context and claim that we are saying one thing when you know perfectly well that we mean another, and attacking on what you SAY we said...you obfuscate to the point until no one remembers what the actual poster said...it used to be pretty effective....that is until now....you have people that are keeping you honest. It was just supposed to be funny :)

In another thread, as I answered a question asked....I began thinking about this question. I suppose from some peoples points of view and what twi later became, it would be easy to believe that we were all stupid or embraced the evil. Bolshevik, I hope that you don`t mind...but I think that this is an important aspect of what held attraction for us and why we stayed..... This question was asked.... *I don't understand why people joined twi. I don't understand why they point fingers so much at a handful of people. Why they play dumb, why they lie about not knowing twi had problems . . . so and so forth.* I suppose from some peoples points of view and what twi later became, it would be easy to believe that we were all stupid or enjoyed the evil. People who weren`t there in the 70s have to understand. Many of us were around 17 ...many of us came from disfunctional broken homes with no adult to guide us. Speaking for myself, I had basically had to raise myself because my mom was overwhelmed with the 4 young children that she was left to raise. We were lonely, divorce placed us as somehow flawed and broken back then. My family story was the same as almost all of my twi friends...I think lonely teens were targeted. You were invited to a bible fellowship...a bible fellowship for heavens sake...who would have known that there was something wrong with that?? All of a sudden, you had people that cared about you, irresistable to someone whom was starving for affection, you had a new better family...a family with a father that would never leave you. You had someone to lovingly guide you....You had a mission, a purpose in life, God needed you on the front lines spiritually. You were important, somebody needed you, there was a noble cause to fight for. It was exhilerating. Teens were told that you didn`t need a wordly education, you needed to be spiritually sharp to fight for God, yadda yadda...and these are maybe the first people in your life that have taken an interest in you ... So we didn`t go to college, we went wow and into the corpes...quickly seperated from anyone outside of twi.... The people were incredible, I didn`t care what made them so strong, kind, wise, peaceful, I just wanted what they had. No, there were no warning signs...not for me anyway, it seemed a wholesome and healthy group and I was thankful. As a teenager or young adult away at college...as in the case of my spouse...you don`t have a lot of life skills to recognize the danger signs...when you see them eventually (you were carefully protected for a while) you tend to have been taught by then, good sounding spiritual reasons to ignore what your 5 senses are telling you. By the time you reach adulthood...you have had all of your molding...forming of your reasoning processes in twi...you don`t realize that you are not thinking right. The occasional thing that raised an eye brow, was dismissed as a particular person that messed up....Nobody guessed it was rotten to the core ...until you got close enough to see it ...and that took years. I think that is why people have such a difficult time believing it today...unless they saw it personally. I hope this explains that we weren`t just being deliberately stupid or believing that the abuse and cruelty was something we embraced....in all honesty, that this just wasn`t the case. We were lonely kids that thought we had found lifes answeres in a world that had already treated us brutally. Tens of thousands of us left when we saw the true nature of the beast. Many of us wrestled with the consequences of leaving the ministry that we loved and had spent our lives promoting, knowing that all of the bullies were the ones being placed into position over peoples lives....that for some reason they were trying to run off anybody who was kind or decent....and we saw what happened when the good folks were no longer in place, standing in the gap so to speak between hq and the rest of the people.......the evil that the rank and file believers rarely saw came crashing down on them. We did the only thing we could do, tell as many people what we had seen and why we had top go.

Bolshevik, you have to understand. Many of us were around 17 ...many of us came from disfunctional broken homes with no adult to guide us. Speaking for myself, I had basically had to raise myself because my mom was overwhelmed with the 4 young children that she was left to raise. We were lonely, divorce placed us as somehow flawed and broken back then. My family story was the same as almost all of my twi friends...I think lonely teens were targeted. You were invited to a bible fellowship...a bible fellowship for heavens sake...who would have known that there was something wrong with that?? All of a sudden, you had people that cared about you, irresistable to someone whom was starving for affection, you had a new better family...a family with a father that would never leave you. You had someone to lovingly guide you....You had a mission, a purpose in life, God needed you on the front lines spiritually. You were important, somebody needed you, there was a noble cause to fight for. It was exhilerating. Teens were told that you didn`t need a wordly education, you needed to be spiritually sharp to fight for God, yadda yadda...and these are maybe the first people in your life that have taken an interest in you ... So we didn`t go to college, we went wow and into the corpes...quickly seperated from anyone outside of twi.... The people were incredible, I didn`t care what made them so strong, kind, wise, peaceful, I just wanted what they had. No, there were no warning signs...not for me anyway, it seemed a wholesome and healthy group and I was thankful. As a teenager or young adult away at college...as in the case of my spouse...you don`t have a lot of life skills to recognize the danger signs...when you see them eventually (you were carefully protected for a while) you tend to have been taught by then, good sounding spiritual reasons to ignore what your 5 senses are telling you. By the time you reach adulthood...you have had all of your molding...forming of your reasoning processes in twi...you don`t realize that you are not thinking right. The occasional thing that raised an eye brow, was dismissed as a particular person that messed up....Nobody guessed it was rotten to the core ...until you got close enough to see it ...and that took years. I think that is why people have such a difficult time believing it today...unless they saw it personally. Bolshevik, I really hope that you were genuine in your question as to why and not just pointing your finger at the rest of us for being so stupid or believing that the abuse and cruelty was something we embraced. I cannot change your perception of us as stupid or evil, or whiners....but I need to tell you in all honesty, that this just wasn`t the case. We were lonely kids that thought we had found lifes answeres in a world that had already treated us brutally. Tens of thousands of us left when we saw the true nature of the beast. Many of us wrestled with the consequences of leaving the ministry that we loved and had spent our lives promoting, knowing that all of the bullies were the ones being placed into position over peoples lives....that for some reason they were trying to run off anybody who was kind or decent....and we saw what happened when the good folks were no longer in place, standing in the gap so to speak between hq and the rest of the people.......the evil that the rank and file believers rarely saw came crashing down on them. We did the only thing we could do, tell as many people what we had seen and why we had top go. Edited to add: I started a new topic, because I think this is worth exploring.

An honest apology would go a long way....anything less is unbiblical and therefor renders the perpetrators and those promoting the doctrine of the men whom were so harmful to so many ... as not trustworthy. John Lynns letters have told me all I need to know about how he feels about the carnage inflicted in twi. I have no doubt that he and the other leaders really DO wish that we would move on and shut up...who wants to be confronted with the ominous implications of their actions?? My God, how much would it take to apologize...to say I am SORRY that you were mistreated? But hey that takes love, kindness, compassion, understanding...These guys are too busy being tinkling cymbles with their great knowledge and works.

Because they aren`t Christian?

*...and relive day after day any bad experiences in the way....* Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey wait a minute now....is that an actual ADMISSION from Dove that there WERE bad experiences to be endured by participants *in the way* to be relived?????? Golly....you mean that we aren`t all liars and exaggerators, possibly deserving of the treatment we recieved??? I think that you may have made a breakthrough today friend ;)

This is not an anti twi site, I think that is a dishonest statement. What it IS...is a place to tell what happened to us in twi...tell our stories. If twi had been a place of blessing and growth, then that is undoubtedly what we would be writing about here. Unfortunatelty, many of us experienced privation, abuse, and had crimes committed against us....so THAT is what is discussed by those whom experienced it. Gosh....If twi had been the God centered group that we had been led to believe, (and don`t we all wish that it HAD been) we wouldn`t have anything to talk about here now would we? Dove, maybe what you ought to be asking yourself is....Why you would need to come to a site and spend a decade trying to discredit the experiences of other posters. The whole site isn`t a lie, the participants aren`t all liars.... Maybe the error is in your perception of what you understood twi to be. This place is for talking about twi ... good, bad or indifferent....too bad more of us weren`t better treated, the flavor of the place would be a little different.

The thing is...this teaching was well documented and thought out. Scripturally supported. So was submitting to abuse, following stupid orders by leaders, all of this stuff that they forced us to endure was backed up with scripture. It is why I cannot stand scripture and bible today... you can make a bible verse support any damned thing you please. It is a good thing that God is caring enough to work within the parameters of what we can tolerate. I feel like the that love of bible is another thing stolen from me.

I question their sincerity when one of their founders insists on slamming the people whom were abused as *perpetual victims*. Figuring that the people wounded...their biggest problem is that they need to just move on. Well that certainly isn`t biblical. If these guys claim to be christian, I`d like to see some Godly sorrow and repentance...rather than just being ....ed off at the people that won`t shut up and go away so that they can go on pretending to be Christians....that they have some sort of spirituality. I see in ces, what I saw in twi...people who believe that their knowledge makes them spiritual... Sorry, all I have ever seen the knowledge used for is to puff themselves up, to be used to explain why they have no responsibility to follow the sections of scriptures they don`t like. Why they don`t have to come clean about the abuses. That is why, as good as the supposed research is, as earnest as the adherents are....it will never be anything more than tinkling cymbles, as far as I can see. Forever doomed to trying to apply principles .... studying to show themselves approved...never achieving the desired results, and being forced to accept blame for the failures. They will never know the simplicity and beauty of a genuine christian walk, as long as they think it is something that they can achieve through their works.

I understand that Geisha. I know God`s goodness and patience abound....that he has shown me that he can still love and continue to lead and teach. It is something that we have to deal with personally though, one of those things that you just can`t fix or make all better or change. When it dawns on you that you no longer believe twi`s first breath teaching, when you realize that you were deceived into believing that God required this of you...your world comes crashing down. When decades later you feel a child moving and kicking inside....you know... I have spoken to others here at gs who were told the same thing, who were taught ... most feel like they have done something that has had life long impacting consequences. Some were damaged , and never able to have children after, they are left wondering if that was God`s punishment. Some have overwhelming regret, some are outraged at the betrayal, that we were required to do this for God....We wonder what having that son or daughter in our life now would mean :( It was a horrible thing, and regardless of God`s mercy, grace and goodness, his compassion and understanding...it is we whom submitted and allowed our unborn children to be ripped from our bodies, all in the name of service to God .... we who have to live with the consequences of our choices.

Well said Ham, *not caring what their actions produce*. TWI doctrine made it excusable and acceptable when vp was drugging and raping....on the leaders when preying on and stealing from and then turning their backs on the very people they promised to help....and now decades later in the tactics engaged in the attempted cover up of the sins and crimes committed....The doctrine even gives them God`s seal of approval. What a legacy.

Well Garth, you can`t be right a hundred percent of the time. We will excuse this little lapse in judgement this time ;) Just playing with ya, you make good points.

Then stop interfering with allowing us to form our own opinions based on the evidence presented here by the first hand accounts of so many.

I guess I figure that Kristin Skedgell`s book is documentation enough....It corroborates what the posters here and on messiah 7 have posted of their experiences with VPW.

Yeah...sigh It must have been in the fine print that when you applied to go into the corpes or wow that you were entering an unbreakable commitment to God, an irrevocable vow :( SO glad that you stood up to your leaders Jeff...I didn`t...after being shown that record..... I just sucked it up and did what was necessary in order to remain in the center of God`s will/protection. Kill your baby or God can`t protect you any more...I have said it before, I don`t think twi was much better than the mayans (or was it incans) that sacrificed their children to appease their Gods.

I haven`t been to a fellowship, spouse gets their materials though. They will undoubtedly be just lovely to you ...I am sure that they will be enthusiastic about their product. They will be genuine in their enthusiasm.... But so was twi....and that is where stfi has it`s roots... I have heard that there are some good folks involved, I have heard of some really bad folks... There are sub forums at the top of the page that tell of a lot of the drama that has been going on there in the last couple of years....it ain`t pretty.

That`s cool ClayJay, it WAS bull crap for sure. What my problem is ... is that twi leaders showed me IN the bible where I WAS required to obey leadership, where I WAS required to do as they directed, what the consequences were for not obeying, not tithing, not submitting...how we weren`t supposed to take a brother to court..how we were to cover for one another`s crimes lest the ministry be blame...lock box...why adultery and fornication were ok, why you could do whatever you damned well pleased in the grace administration as long as you could handle it...why it was ok to turn your back on a brother or sister.....the list is endless... Yeah, the bible told me so ... that was why we permitted and endured the evil THAT`S why the leaders got away with the crimes.

What about being in marriage *counceling* and told that IF my husband ever hit me...it was my fault for not being spiritually sharp enough to know when to shut up? Who could you go to if you not your minister? Something tells me that the questioner didn`t REALLY want to know about the crimes that I or anybody else witnessed while in twi :(

What about sexual harassment? What about being told that if you didn`t abort your child you might die like annanias and saphira for lying to God? It always seemed like do this.... give that.... put up with anything ....endure outrageous treatment...or God would not be able to protect you from the adversary who was out to kill you... That seems like extortion and a crime to me :(

Those pictures were awful, I can`t imagine showing them to my minor children :( So many things take on a different perspective now that I have kids that age, daughters that have grown to the age that were pressured to have sex with the mogs. Sons whom are old enough for the corpes and wow field ....to think of them being screamed at, immasculated by bully leaders....to think of them treated the way we were just makes my blood boil.

WAVER?? Not freaking likely. It is you who have the rediculous standard of requiring folks to only address that which they personally witnessed. Prefer that we not mention it without documentation.... It is you whom claim the unreliability of what our friends tell us. Therefor, it is according to YOUR rules that we shouldn`t discuss anything that happened 2nd or 3rd hand. You have called folks liars for years, presenting yourself as one whom has credibility. For someone whom has never been in the wow program or way corpes or a woman, or a child in twi...someone who always lived in one small area ... .to think that they have an idea of what the rest of us went through....and to call into question our treatment and the teachings used to enforce obedience, to call into question our integrity and honesty on this basis is laughable. Please, address that which you experienced without calling others liars. Anything else that comes off of your key board(according to the rules you want to play by) is undocumented and unreliable 2nd hand info, and as wrong as what you decry in others.

That is calling me a liar when referring to my experiences and testimony. Your silly word games don`t make it any less an insult to those of us whom have shared our experiences. Though your word games are a little more clever now, the loop holes that you find in the rules to obfuscate and call into question a persons honesty and integrity are not any less offensive. Some of us actually got a life and developed some character after leaving the snake pit of twi. I don`t give a darn whether you approve of my pronouncing the criminals of twi guilty or not...I know who I am I know what happened to me, what happened to my friends...I know that many of the accounts here of abuse have been corroborated ...and these are given by people with a whole heck of a lot more credibility than one who never left the safety of their protected little cocoon.

Oh and thanks Geisha :)

:lol: