Broken Arrow

I was involved with TWI from 1974 to 1989 and was a Corps graduate and College Division Alumni. My experience is very similar to Waysider's. I knew there were some adultrous affairs but I thought they were isolated incidents. I DID NOT think for a minute that VPW was involved in any of them or Craig or any top leadership for that matter. I was at Emporia in 1976 as College Division. There was alot of extra-marital sexual activity going on. It was pretty widespread and hard to miss. I never could figure out why Wierwille never took a stand against it. It just didn't occur to me that he actually endorsed it. People were getting hurt, marriages were busting up, nothing from V.P. I was not in the Corps and maybe something was said in the "closed corporation" meetings, but I doubt it. If there was, it had little effect. Now, if someone in the Corps promised to quit smoking and they didn't, they were kicked out on their ear. The same attitude and forthrightness did not occur when one was unfaithful to one's spouse. I also heard some "fishy" stuff here and there about Wierwille's sexual carrying ons, but I never believed them. Frequently I saw him talking with some young lady with his hand on her butt. Now...we WERE taught that was supposed to bless women, and that he was just being kind and loving. I bought into that. Remember, we were also taught that "the first step downward is turning away from the man of God who taught you God's Word". So I quelched my own suspicions. You juat didn't criticize Wierwille and expect to stay around very long in TWI. Not only did you get kicked out, your reputation would get "wasted" in the process. In addition, you would be outside the protection of the Household. Remember what happened to Aaron and Miriam when they rebelled against Moses? You surely didn't want THAT to happen did you? I could have knosn if I had wanted to, and I should've known.

The first thing to go for me was TWI's teaching on Eli Eli lama etc. I can't remember who posted it on GSC, but someone said they learned an alternative translation which, surprisingly enough, was "...why hast thou forsaken me." This same person said she contacted someone from the "Research" Department who said they knew about it and yet no changes were made to any materials, no aerticles in GMIR or the Way Mag...nothing. I e-mailed John S. asking about this translation and he said it was true. I started thinking about V.P.'s vision at the gas pumps, and how God supposidely taught VP the Word greater than it's been known since the first century. Well, God must have blown it on this one or maybe V.P. never had the revelation in the first place. Wierwille taught this so adamantly in PLAF, but now that he was proven wrong, it was hush hush. That started me thinking what else he might have been wrong about. I don't remember the woman's name, but thank you if you're reading this.

That's a change in teaching from what was taught in the 70's and 80's. In the NEW DYNAMIC CHURCH VP said the first thing to go was to turn away from the Man of God. That is also different from what was taught in the 70's and 80's. In CF&S VP taught the original sin was sexual self-gratification. Must've been "new light" for LCM later.

I thought I heard somewhere that when all the Corps was put on paid staff that TWI almost went down financially and LCM fired HA for not saying anything about it until it was almost too late. I could be wrong so don't quote me.

I'm still trying to adjust to people calling him "Uncle Howard". :blink: By the way, didn't LCM fire him? Intermediate Class. I know deep down inside you just had to know.

I knew the couple well that were sent to Idaho Falls. Very nice people, not ambitious, loving, and extremely funny. Not typical of many Way Corps. TWI was becoming more authoritarian during that time. Everything is Idaho is so far away, it was a nine-hour drive for me to go to a meeting in Boise where the Limb was. Yet, every month, but Way Corp butt was there for a meeting. Why? "Because the suggestion of a leader is paramount to a command". Going to the Rock and Corps Week was a major ordeal. V.P. wrote a letter to the Corps saying his heart was broken that so many Corps left prior to the Rock. His words were, "Corps...if you can't stand with me at the Rock, then don't bother coming to Corps Week either. If your job won'e let you to, quite your job!" Then he said something about wavering in our believing. So, to pull that off, one had to get a job that gave you 3 weeks vacation a year. It takes about 3 days to drive from Idaho to Ohio, 2 weeks at HQ, 3 days to drive back. It took money to fly, which meant you had to have a good job, which few of us did. So tell me where a person can get a job that gives them 3 weeks off a year right off the bat. Yet, if one was on staff, you were given time for Rock and Corps Week, plus given two weeks vacation a year. Then one day visiting clergy came to the state. One of the Corps Coordinators and taught a seminar on government. Oooh! Now that's certainly worth a 9-hour trip! Afterwards, he meets with the Corps and asks us why more Corps don't come to Way Family Camps. It was then I realized that TWI leadership was completely out of touch with what was going on out on the field. For the first time in my 10-year involvement in TWI, I'm starting to get disgruntled. Then, to top it off, I received a letter from Donald Wierwille. He's mad because the College Division Alumnae who were also Corps Grads (me) were not attending special College Division funtions. He went as far as to say we had "attitude problems". I worked 12-hour days at the Rock, man, for free! In fact, I paid my own way to get there. One year I sold my car just to have enough to go and listen to "God's Word Served on a Silver Platter" for the like the 15th time. Now here's this guy in his ivory tower issuing smart-assed accusations about something of which he knows nothing. I was ....ed! I was considering writing a nasty letter back and weighing whether it was worth getting kicked out of the Corps over. I doubt I would have had the guts to really do it, but I was on my way. It became a moot point about a week later because that's when Geer read Passing of the Patriarch for the first time. I sort of thought that Dean Don may be somewhat busy at that point. So, there you have it. Was it the final straw? No, but it was one of them. One final not of irony: after all of my struggles to get to headquarters for the Rock every year, I moved to Ohio, about 2 hours away from hq as opposed to 36 hours. Never went to another Rock. I went to a couple of meetings, but no more Rocks. That engendered a lot of guilt like I was outside the Will of God. Lord only knew what could happen once you leave the protection of the Household, you know. VP never actually came out and said to do that. He did say to use one's sex appeal to "move the Word" and left it to us to fill in the gaps. There were many, though, that did not need his admonition to do that sort of thing.

No, I was sent to Coeur d'Lane. However, the lady that would be my first wife was in Moscow in '83/'84.

I arrived in Idaho in Fall of '83. Just as you were leaving. I started in Coeur D'lane and finished in Lewiston. We left in '86 when my daughter was born. We took her with us.

Funny...I recall him saying that if you dreamt you were out of alignment and harmony with God, but I don't recall what he said regarding the Apostle Paul when a soldier appeared to him in a dream and said, "Come to Macedonia and help us." They always wiggled out of that by saying it was Old Testament, different administration. VP, if I remember coreectly, said God spoke to people in dreams back in the O.T. because they didn't have Christ in them so He had to. I don't agree with that, I'm just repeating what he said.

I got involved in TWI in '74 and from the very beginning I was taught that being gay was the "next worst thing to being 'born of the wrong seed'" (whatever that is) So I never remember any tolerance of gays unless what you mean is that we'd let them come to twig as long as they eventually took the class. Good for you!! Wa hoo! That's awesome! Thanks for sharing that!

Father figure replacement, maybe? Maybe that's generalizing but I think that was the "hook" for me. I didn't have a strong father figure in my life and VP appeared to offer that. I was as much scared of him as I was in awe of him. Of course, now I know how misdirected that was.

Thanks for the info. Waysider. How sickening. I would say that having sex with underrage girls qualifies as pedophilia, but I'm no legal expert. I guess definitions are secondary anyway. His actions are sick. And to think we referred to him as our "Father in the Word", or, "the Man of God for our day and time". How sick.

edit: That doesn't necessarily mean he actually did it. But, why would he say these things in front of an entire group of people? I never heard him make these comments. I would just be surprised that he would not have taken liberties with his own daughters and other family members based on how he conducted himself sexually with the rest of the community around him. I have never heard of a pedophile, however, admitting his activities in front of witnesses. That's really different. Then that same group of people would just listen and nod, and say nothing. Wow, talk about spellbound! I believe he could have been arrested if people would have testified to what they heard.

He should've walked when he first heard Donnie Fugit teach at the University of Kansas.

If that's true, that may have been the only time V.P. actually received revelation from God.

Yeah. I remember Limb Coordinators telling people to leave the state, or telling people they couldn't come into the state or whatever. I think maybe a federal judge might be able to tell people that in certain cases and even he's bound by legalities. I believe the thinking was that Wayfers are the only true believers and the earth belongs to them. So they believe they have the authority to tell people stuff like that. I also remember sitting in leader's meetings and listening to a branch, or territory leader say something like, "Yeah, I ran his sorry foot out of town". Talking like he's some kind of spiritual big shot. Pathetic really.

Searching for the break of day.

Now, just how possible is it to measure "spiritual growth"? For that matter, what is "spiritual growth"? Can anyone even define it? I minored in communication in college during my TWI time and I learned all about generalizing and such. When it came to TWI I threw my brain right out the window sometimes! I even remember telling people this stuff. Just parroting what I heard. Man that hurts!

Quinn the Eskimo?

Say...could you tell me where you found that, maybe give me a link?

You forgot alla mah sheenta kah shant-aye. That's 11 words! Accuracy is essential because it all must fit with a mathematical ineptness and scientific derision! It all fits like a foot in a mouth.

Just FYI, Elvis also did the song later, but the original artist was Carl Perkins. I realize it's not part of the rules, just thought you'd be interested to know. I'll now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Now let me get this straight. Your father had just died, and this guy was one of his good friends so I figure he knew you from a very young age not to mention he is a good deal older than you. You send him a notice, just a notice thinking he might at least want to know about your father, his former good friend, and his only reply to you was this b.s. statement, "I have no friends when it comes to the Word?" Gen-2, I don't know you, but that really really p__ses me off! This guy should have been blessed beyond belief that you even thought of him. And I think a drunk on skid row would have enough compassion to at least say to you they were sorry for your loss! The statement you used to describe him actually speaks of him too highly. I won't commit the real description of him in writing on this post or Pawtucket may have no choice but to pull the plug on me. I would like that first of all, I'm sorry for your loss. I lost my father too a long time ago and I know how painful that can be. Secondly, I'm sorry you had to endure this guy's insult. But, as Christ said, "They know not what they do." Peace. Now there's a quote for my refrigerator! LOL!

A JAL-ism, maybe? "Center of God's will" sounds to me like a sort of re-vamp of the "good and best" thing we used to self-righteously proclaim. You remember, "giving to the Red Cross is good, but is it really the best?" So, nowadays if someone isn't standing with TWI, the strategy is not to say what they are doing is bad, or that they're copped out, or even that God isn't blessing them. The question is, "Are they in the center of God's Will, like the 'elite ones' in The Way International"? Then we go our Corps meeting or something and talk about how we are the few who are living at "the center of God's Will." The future of this country and of the Kingdom of God rests on us. Then we all inhale deeply, the lights fade on the podium. The curtain opens as the guitar loudly bangs a major chord while the symbols crash. People in the audience weep as they thank God that they have been favored to be one of those, "in the center of God's Will". The songs ends, with sustained, perfect 5-part harmony while people in the audience have begun to hold hands and a loud voice comes from the stage and says, "God bless, I love you, you are the best!" On we go, back to our rooms and trailers with a new dawn in our hearts because we are at the, "center of God's will".

(oops! Dunno! Lo ciento!)