JeffSjo

I often times find that it is worthless to argue with some people over points that do not apply here like sophmorically missapplied legal standards. But I do remember what I do when I perceive that several thugs are trying to make one woman shut up. Do you remember White Dove?

Speaking strictly for myself Potato..... ^_^ MWWWAAAHHH HA HA HA!

Dear Geisha, His name is Victor Caleb Barnard. At HQ he was part of the group that were assigned to be with Mrs. Wierwille and that is where he says he learned to take care of women. I guess when those two gals had their heads on his shoulder while their husbands just stood there is somehow tied into his taking care of Mrs. Wierwille. <_< JALvis was the best man at his wedding too. When I was kicked out they were making themselves feel better about themselves by likening themselves to the 153 fishes that the disciples caught in their net. I'm not sure if there was a few less than that or a few more. Now they are near the town of Finlayson in east-central Minnesota. Actually when they are being nasty and destructive they mock Minnesota nice. When they love bomb people they seem to understand Minnesota nice very well. But it's just pretense IMO. (edited for spelling)

You remind me of one thing Ham! Wierwille said that in order to really believe in the Trinity someone had to be possessed. Dear Brushstroke, I'm wondering how they'd respond to you asking them if they feel that is true. You could say,"Am I possessed because I believe in the Trinity like Wierwille said?" But you seem to more than capable of deciding how you want to handle it to me.

Dear Jim, Once all this started coming together for me it messed me up pretty badly. I'm still looking for friends and also looking to get my life back together. Dear Bolshevik, Before I got kicked out a common phrase on the lips of the believers was Barnard is "a true son of Wierwille." Of course now I believe that he is a true son of Wierwille. Just a son of the sick and twisted parts of Wierwille. So I suppose it would be accurate to say that he's spiritually a son of Wierwille. Dear Geisha, This thread is an attempt to help those who still believe that because of TWI that they are "more than conquerors." Or those who think that TWI produced the most capable believers of all time. Or those who feel that their Way Corps training alone made them God's best. Or those who feel that because they were taught to manipulate and to destroy the misfits and malcontents they are winners...... etc. etc. In this case I feel strongly that it's likely that many of the TWI losers are most likely to be counted as the winners by the Lord Jesus Christ. But for the unbelievers who still saw TWI for what it truly was, I'll give then credit too. Besides, based on your next post you already seem to have a pretty good feel for where I'm going with it.

In order to maintain their self-deception my former splinter group had to destroy anyone that had an opinion different that the leader. Not just myself, but before I left their were five divorces among the believers. I remember another man who was willing to stand up to Barnard. Even though nobody was foolish enough to say to him that Barnard was the cause of his divorce he knew darn well who moved his wife to file for divorce. This happened about a year before I was kicked out I think. I'm sad that until after my expulsion I never really talked to this man to hear what they did to him. He told me later that he cried every night of his night security job for about one year during and after his divorce. All the while Barnard was saying things to the believers like the locals were blessed by God just because we were around. and the youngest seem easiest to believe the false estimations of themselves that Barnard has taught them. The young believers are programed to believe that Barnard has made them world-beaters. But Barnard is best at crushing people whose lives are in his control. Once I saw him lying on his back in a new tent that let him look up at the stars through a nylon mesh. Two married women lied next to him with their heads on either shoulder. And the two gals' husbands had to stand there and watch this. One was the wife of the thug who moved my wife out of my house and the other was the wife of the man whose oldest daughter came to twig and said,"I'm married to the Christ in Victor." This man's wife was the one who told him that Barnard was his daughters' real father, being their father in the Word and all. Of course for some stange reason both men didn't seem to mind what happened to me. All they have to do IMO is to continue to let Barnard castrate them. But then Barnard is sure to let each one know that they are somebody now, thanks to him of course. IMO this is strictly undeserved excellence. But they sure seem to be willing to believe they are big men now, thanks to Barnard rescuing them from the Way Internationals mistakes, and being as he bills himself as Wierwille's true son.

Dear Rascal, We were all taken in to one degree or another. You've done real well for yourself since those days and if I really knew you I'm certain that I would be proud to know you. I've not done well with my new start so far, but the fat lady isn't singing yet. There is still hope. I get those sentiments from Ecclesiastes, but they seem to apply to me right now. My splinter group leader was trying to convince one of my friends to give his baby up for adoption once. The baby was retarded and my friend almost gave him up. But he told me, that at the last moment that he couldn't go through the adoption as he planned. All I said to him was that I thought he made a good decision and then the property coordinator told me that I wouldn't be back there ever again or some such thing. This was not but a couple of months or so before I got kicked out. I helped at the butcher shop during deer hunting season and got kicked out toward the end of January. I haven't seen my friend since that day I gave him my support. What I'm certain of is that they considered me to be the bad guy for giving my friend words of support for his prayerful and hard decision. In the end I considered Barnard and his toadies to be the equivalent of the central American tribes that did human sacrifice too. Wrong reason and wrong god for those child sacrifices for sure. After a group of acceptable children went on a camping trip with Barnard the same thug that moved my wife out was proud to report that it was to God's glory that everyone seemed so healthy and strong. As I listened to this thug I could see why Barnard wanted to get rid of the retarded child. I felt like I was listening to a Nazis promoting their master race back in the day. And the fact that Barnard couldn't even manage to talk about my friend's baby at that time seemed to confirm my fears. After they kicked me out I found out that my friends butcher business had been shut down. All the folks knew at the retail centers that carried some of my friend's product is that they were told the shop was shut down because of mad-cow disease. WHAT A CROCK! IMO Barnard is more than willing to manipulate my friend into a position where he'd lose everything as he did to me. It is how he rolls as the Apostle/ Word in the Flesh.

Dear Rascal, Thank you for saying that it was o.k. to re-post this one of yours to start a doctrinal thread. This way anybody can click on the arrow to see the conversation that inspired this thread. I know this thread might seem like a moot point to you. I might feel that way if anyone thought that handling a few scriptures could make up for a nightmare experience in my life. But it does also relate to my splinter group experience, so once again, thank you. Acts 5 (Tyndale's NT- 1985, Yale University Press doesn't have the verses in it.) A certain man named Ananias with Saphira his wife sold a possession, and kept away part of the price (his wife also being of counsel) and brought a certain part, and laid it down at the apostles' feet. Then said Peter: Ananias, how is it that Satan hath filled thine heart, that thou shouldest lie unto the holy ghost, and keep away part of the price of the livelyhood: Pertained it not unto thee only, and after it was sold, was not the price in thine own power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied to men, but unto God. ____________________ If I recall correctly, at the time my splinter group leader was spouting this scripture the group was facing financial pressure. They at about that time had to sell a camp that they had bought and the leader even said once that we wouldn't like life very much if we had to sell his camp. At that time I told my wife that these verses were not an exhortation to give everything. I told her that they exhorted us to be honest about the things that we had in our own power. I also told them that if I gave to the ministry it was my decision because as this record states, my giving is in my own power. My wife was not happy, and neither was leadership. I did not change my mind. I found these verses enabled me to resist my splinter group's will. I think that anytime they are used to enslave people they are twisted and misused. And as Rascal shared, they were used to abuse her. They were used to abuse me too. If I recall rightly it wasn't long after this I came to twig. We were waiting for Victor Barnard to show up that day for fellowship too. As I walked in the sweet oldest daughter of the thug who later moved my wife out of my house said out loud, "Here's the Victor!" when I walked in the house. Her mother just quietly led her away. Nobody ever said anything to me about it later.....scmucks. (edited for spelling)

Hi Jim, Barnard is a 14th Corps grad who runs my former splinter group in Minnesota. I lived in and for that group for about fifteen years and had a pretty hard time of it, it seems. I recently quoted a number of things about that group; River Road Fellowship; and put it together in the "My Story" section. It looks to me like TWI leadership managed to deal with their own sins completely and utterly disasterously while managing to use the bible to sell many people on a number of myths and misperceptions. (added in editing) Hi Potato!

What you say Bolshevik sounds like some kind of addiction. Darn near an addiction to a hallucinogen. But usually the addicts don't destroy folks' lives when they are told that they were just hallucinating! Do they? So TWI and my former splinter is actually worse than a hallucinogenic addiction.

Voctor Barnard....."air of arrogance and know-it-all-aloof-attitude"!? You have no friggin idea ;) I think that my new quote/post/thread speaks to this directly. And it is once again, part of my story. Thank again Dave.

I've been thinking about excellence for a while. It's not that I have any excellence to boast of that I can think of, but I'm happy to say that my conscience is clear as it pertains to TWI and my former splinter group. But I know that for myself that boasting about my own excellence is often followed by me being put in a place with more humility. I like when relearning this lesson is easy, but some of the times where it has been hard for me to relearn this make for some petty fun stories. I've been aware from my early days with TWI that it was common for Wierwille and Martindale to boast of their own excellence. And I was aware to that one of the methods of teaching people and leading them was to convince their followers of their own excellence. These people seemed to become committed followers IMO. And of course I remember Wierwille controlling people by telling them that they would be nothing without him. Martindale's own big mouth about the Greasespot statement was calculated IMO to play once again on their own perceived debt to TWI and this perception of excellence that was part of the bread and butter of TWI control, and the related sentiment of, without us you will be nothing, as well. But the thing is, that while my former splinter group puffed people up in the same manner, I was often pointing out that for their own perception of excellence that they were in reality only mediocre or even comical. They did not seem to like this! But as I was trying to keep them in a healthier form of reality than the one that Barnard was leading them into, I fear I only managed to earn his hatred. I can tell you all, that after a while it was kind of sad in this respect. I found bursting their bubble became like shooting fish in a barrel, I mean all too easy. But every darn time Barnard would tell them how great he was, or convince them once again how great they were and how bad I was. It was easy to take them down a notch, but they would over and over again climb to the great heights that Barnard convinced them to live in. That is as long as they in every respect give him the preeminence of course. Once one of his thugs and his wife brought Barnard a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, and Barnard reproved them for bringing him the bread and the wine, because as the Apostle, Barnard provided the "bread and the wine." You see, he told them they were stepping out of line because of Barnard's exalted position. This same thug moved my wife and son out of my house and told me that I was no longer welcome at fellowship until this shameful situation was resolved. I think that Barnard teaches people to be just as harmfully and stupidly exalted as he is. That is as long as they remember to kiss his butt in almost every way. Otherwise he will be willing to destroy what he himself built in them and made them. Now I find that seeing TWI perceptions of excellence for what they really are. Those perceptions of excellence that are built on the same perceptions of excellence that Wierwille led people into tend to not be the reality. They are just unrealistic because what they were in truth was one of Wierwille's main carrots in his manipulation of people. Of course the "stick" that went along with the "carrot" sometimes came out as people being told that without them they would end up as "greasespots" or some such thing. Sometimes now I have to remind myself that the easy thing, to take them down a notch, is just a reflex on my part. I remind myself to think and pray. Reflexes sometimes backfire and can do more harm than good.

I hope you don't mind me responding to this post once again DMiller, Once again, I am soooo very glad that you walked that day. When I first read this post of yours I was relieved. I was already thinking that going public with my former splinter group might be overdue. But then once I saw you post I had no reservations whatsoever about connecting these dots in our past. I guess this thread in this section of the site is to help me connect the dots, along with anyone else who might be comforted or warned perhaps from seeing my testimony and some of the conclusions that I've reached because of my experiences. If nothing else, I will take another look at these things and see how consistent I've been in my sharings.

If I have any insight into this next category of doctrine at all, it came from my splinter group experiences.

Well it's a new day today! I think that after I finish telling my story in this format I will just look it over for a bit. Thanks all for bearing with me. I'm including this next one even thoough I don't focus on my former splinter group, the things that I'm applying to the here and now came from resisting my former splinter group practices. I already shared that the leader has spit on two people that I knew for sure. And he certainly had a habit of hiding too, so who knows the fulness of his abuses? But it is by these scriptures that I became certain finally that he only wants the preeminence and the glory. He would not turn his back on TWI leadership practices. His blood is not on my hands, he had his chance to turn! As far as that last conclusion, I'd rather be wrong. But he would have to eat soooo much crow, change his entire life, commit to fixing all the damage he's caused, tell his ten maidens that he's virtually ruined their lives, give up the ministry, and go back to being a husband to his wife. I don't think so!? (A little added for clarity)

I'm adding this next one not because it relates to the thread, but because it relates to my mood.