Belle

Wayfer Not! – Isn’t it funny how all those people with copped out attitudes acted more patient, loving and kind than our self-righteous selves? Thank God they are better people than we were. :)--> I also feel like my apologies aren’t enough, but just feeling the love from them and seeing my family’s faces when we’re together tells me that they don’t care if they never got an apology, they’re just glad to have me back. I’m sure your family feels the same way! :D--> Galen – It was painful and I feel more sorry for my ex now that he’s really got no one in his corner 100% unconditionally (that he will talk to). My mom realized I was in a tough spot with her trying to protect her without having to endure the wrath of my ex. Mama’s very tenderhearted and to have to be middle man and then to tell his family that my ex wouldn’t accept any of their communication broke her heart. They say divorce is worse than dealing with a death. A surprise divorce must have been shocking and then to still be living at home and dependent on your parents with all that turmoil…..I just can’t imagine it. It’s hard to believe that they aren’t busting with pride for all that you have accomplished and all the great things that you and Bonnie do for people. *shaking head* All I can think is that you got the best of both sets of genes and learned how “not” to live from them. I think you’re pretty darn special, if you didn’t already know that. ;)-->

Shaz, I have also heard from people personally (and read on here) that people just didn't believe it when people said the truth about the horrible things going on. One girl in my area said she had talked to over ten girls who had told her the exact same scenario about how vee pee raped them. She just couldn't believe that he was capable of something like that. Moneyhands said, at the meeting about lcm stepping down, that he had heard rumblings about it and that people had complained to him and he told them not to bring their murmurings to him but rather asked THEM what they were doing about it! No, Bob, don't try to stop it or "stand in the gap" for people since you're the almighty reverend who signed up to protect the flock! Heaven forbid you should actually pastor anyone. Let them fight the wolves on their own. I can just picture him with his hands to his ears yelling, "LA, LA LA LA - I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" Now we know that the Moneyhands, D0ttie, in particular, knew WAY MORE than they admitted and that they didn't do squat to protect the lives they are responsible for. I'd much rather have had to answer to the BOD or a judge instead of God for not protecting His people.

Chas, you just reminded me of one of the communion services we had in our area. It was when they were being done in the fellowship and we got.....GASP.....permission to invite new people to it because it would be a great time for them to learn the truth and to see what a communion service should be. I had three or four girls from work come with me to the service. My ex was leading the communion because our hfc was out of town. He started talking about how Jesus wasn't some pansy, limp wristed gay fellow like the traditional churches teach and then totally went off on how he confronted the Pharisees of the day and I don't remember what else. I sat there next to him wishing I could shrink into the fabric of the chair. Their faces were astonished, shocked and scared. They politely left as quickly as they could after everything was over. One girl never spoke to me again. She went out of her way to avoid me at work and I can't say I blame her. One girl expressed that she was very concerned about me and asked if I was really happy and if I was really getting what I needed regarding my relationship with Christ. I very boldly told her I was and that all our fellowships weren't like that (yeah, right!). I thought about that a lot afterwards. I think then I was really starting to come to terms with how unhappy I really was in TWI and how embarrassed I was to be associated with them. I remember thinking that if this was "the more abundant life" and these were the right answers, I wish I didn't have them. Another couple in our apartment WANTED to come to fellowship with us and the girl wanted to take the class. Had her money ready and everything!! P@ul Br00ks told us that because they were living together and not married that one of them would have to move out and they would have to live apart for SIX MONTHS and planning their wedding before they would be welcome at fellowship. (I'm glad now that they didn't get involved, but I feel terrible about the girl having so many questions and needing so much love and learning about God. I hope that God got someone kind loving and genuinely good to take care of her and her heart. I'm sure He did because, thankfully, there are people who aren't TWI's kind of christians)

I shoulda left when they told me I was in grave danger living with my little brother and our good friend because they were unbelievers and smoking pot. They were panicked about me living with them and one of the girls wanted me to move in with her until I could find a place. GAWD, I was so stupid!!!

P.O.S. works for me! I think "cult" is going the way of "gay" if it hasn't already. Sure, there's the textbook definition of cult, but ask the average joe on the street and he's not going to give you that definition of "cult". Diazbro, I've wondered about the home fellowship being "the" way to go on quite a few occasions. It seems to limit one's exposure to different people, thoughts and teachings. It also empowers the group to better micromanage your life (and in some ways lures otherwise non-invasive people into becoming overly interested and involved in the lives of others). One of my pet peeves was being hounded and nagged all the time to find places where we could meet for free. Why the full time wc couldn't spend the time doing that, I don't know, but it was always our fault that we didn't have a place to meet. When someone DID find a place, it was filthy (according to TWI standards) and people spent ungodly amounts of time cleaning the place. Most of our branch and limb meetings the last few years I was in were held outside in the scorching heat of Florida. I actually got sick from the heat a few times and told my ex that I was never going to an outside event again if it was scorching hot outside. :D--> I don't know how the old folks in our branch who did attend managed it. Many skipped. I also think, like you mentioned, people are getting to the point where one's spiritual journey is very personal. It's nice to have a spiritual "home" to "touch base" with every once in a while, but the day in and day out mulling, reading, prayer, study, etc. has become more personal. I think, too, that's why televangelists and roaming speakers have become so popular. You can get what and need without being tied down to one religion, church or group of people. Many churches these days have diversified their services and ways to accommodate this kind of individual growth. The church I frequent has contemporary services, traditional services, round-table discussions in lieu of Sunday School, traditional Sunday School, all kinds of classes, all kinds of "hobby" activities, several different outreach groups that operate in very diverse ways. There's something for everyone and enough "room" to let the individual grow at their own pace. Auxano growth.....what a concept!!

My Daddy suggested that I ask to see the books, too. When I told my ex that I was planning to ask about why they weren't public and if we could see them he forbade me to ask. I think he knew what the answer was going to be. Why that seems to be okay with people, I'll never understand. I remember Moneyhands saying at a meeting once that OUR responsibility was to "do the word" (give 15% minimum) and that was it. Our responsibility ended at our giving. What TWI did with our money was TWI's responsibility. (in other words NONE OF OUR BUSINESS!!) THIS WAS IN 2003 OR 2004!

That is by far the most tender thing I can remember hearing come from TWI since my first year of being involved with them over 10 years ago. Sad thing is that they still tie all that to performance based religion. Otherwise, they are starting to sound like all the other churches out there. Pretty soon they aren't going to be able to hide the fact that there really IS something better out there....if not better, at least places that offer the same things with less control, manipulation and micro-management.

So many comments..... :)--> Bear with me while I vent, please. OR skip over my posts, I feel better for having gotten it out of my system. :D--> Regarding the articles in TWI.....from what I remember the WC are "assigned" the task of writing an article and I think some are even given the topic they are to cover. D0ttie Moneyhands wrote an article several years ago and talked to us about the grueling process. Apparently she worked on the article for many months and would send it in for Keith Jacks0n to edit. He would give her revisions to make and she would re-send it to him to edit. He would send it back again with more revisions to make and this went on and on. She sounded exasperated with the process when she spoke of it. With that many revisions I was perplexed about the quality of the articles in the rag, but then understood ever so clearly why the articles all sound the same. I expect that the STS teachings follow the same process. I remember Mrs. de lil*s making a few comments in a teaching once about getting "suggestions" from the fox herself about her teaching. Maybe rosie only works with the women, though. ;)-->

I'd like to say I'm appalled at the order of the impact according to Harvie, but sadly it's not surprising. They've always had their priorities backwards despite what they try to say they teach and believe. Things like this expose the true nature of the beasts that run that group. Did they mention how many they "won to God's word"? Does it count if they spoke to someone and it got them to thinking to the point that they returned to church (THEIR church, not TWI)? Does it count if they didn't sign them up for any classes? Does it count if the person didn't give any dough to TWI? I wonder what the ever changing standard is for them. How many WD's does it look like, House? I know that before I left last year it was required for those going into the WC to be WD's and there were quite a few interim who were sent out. It falsely inflated the numbers since those didn't "sign up" to go WD voluntarily. Also, the fact that they scaled it back to 6 months a few years ago is a testament to the failure of the program. With the ever shrinking membership growing older and with the lack of youngsters, there just aren't that many prospects for WD and the young ones that go have probably been coerced and "guilted" into going by their parents or leadership. There are most likely only one or two people signed up for WD who actually truely want to be there.

It does look like they're making major efforts to eliminate or change the loaded language they've been using, however, advance is till pretty prominently being used and these are still pretty common phrases heard over and over and over and over in TWI II and TWI III: "made and impact" "in the world" "word and deed" "caused great joy" "laborers together" "the body of Christ" (TWI's definition, not God's) We know they lurk here and I would no doubt believe that they are trying to sound more, errr.... normal based on what they've read from us. The problem with this is that by NOT using loaded language and having their own "catch phrases" it takes some of the power of the cult and manipulation away. It's one less way of making sure everyone "thinks the same thing" and doesn't start thinking for themselves. After all, having your own language and acceptable vocabulary is one of the ways groups like TWI keep people under their thumb.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS SONG!! :D--> :D--> :D--> :D--> Been playing it all morning!! Sounds like WE need to talk and catch up, Ms. Waters! ;)-->

Galen, you and Bonnie are some of the most giving people I know. How kind of you to help that young man, support his mother and family as well as serve as excellent landlords. :)--> Include my wishes for Eric to have a safe tour of duty and quick, safe trip home. I'm so glad there are young men like Eric who are willing to fight and defend people.

Okay, I wasn't a good kid. BUT, everything else sounds like my family and my situation. signals, I guess dysfunction is a matter of perspective. Good point. However, some families are seriously dysfunctional while others are merely a little "off" or have a few eccentricities. ;)--> Galen, your family sounds like a trip! You and Bonnie must be just delightful to be around and I can only imagine that there's never a boring day with your family. gc, You make a good point. The words that ring in my ears from growing up are "common sense". My daddy used to always ask us if we had no common sense. LOL! I guess we didn't if he had to keep asking.... I agree that you can't use dysfunctional families as a measuring stick for cult involvement. I, too, was in a broken place in my life and searching for answers to life questions I was having and had been seeking answers to for a good two or three years. I hadn't found those answers anywhere else and the people in TWI that I met seemed to have those answers. I wanted to know the Bible as well as they did......little did I know they didn't really know the Bible so much as how to manipulate the scriptures to suit their end and to b.s. people...

David, thou almost persuadeth me to relocate! :D--> It sounds like a BLAST!! I used to work for Fish and Game Finder magazine and got to type photo captions and stories from the Great White Northern States and it did always look like fun tooling around on snowmobiles and big @ s s trucks in the snow! There was one lodge you could only get to by snowmobile so it was like a little family of regulars all winter. I'm much more partial to cold weather than the 100 degree heat with 100% humidity we get down here. You can always put on more clothes, but there's only so much you can take off before you start getting in trouble. For the life of me I can't figure out how I ended up staying down here as long as I have. --> p.s. ;)--> You know that any self-respecting southern gal LOVES NASCAR!! :D--> :D--> :D-->

In honor of Galen: :)--> My ex's family was, I suppose, dysfunctional because of his parents' eccentricities and inability to articulate their love for him. Nothing he ever did was "good enough" for his parents. I think his mom, at least, realizes that now. They had and idea of how their son should be and anything he was interested in that didn't fit that mold was shunned or forbidden. My family wasn't perfect by any means, but it was loving and most of the bad stuff was really just because my parents were so young and unprepared to become parents. (My mom was 18 when she had me. Daddy, 21 and in college) The pressure to be a good "provider" was immense on my near perfectionist Daddy. Regardless of any disagreements we had in the family, they stayed within the family and we always knew that we were loved and accepted and that we could count on them for anything at all. I was extremely rebellious as most teens are and I hurt my mama really bad with some of the things I said and did, but I'll always remember coming home from school one day saying that everyone hated me. My mom sat there and cried with me and then I really believed her and all the times she had said that when I hurt, she hurt. I'd say my family was mostly normal. Not June and Ward Cleaver, but not dysfunctional really....just more like Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck" kind of dysfunctional. :D--> How about yours?

MOVE??? No way!! Hurricanes are the only natural disaster I can think of that has awesome parties associated with it. People don't have tornado or earthquake parties, but post-hurricane parties....those are THE best! :D--> There's a huge baby boom after hurricane season, too! :o-->

HAPPIEST OF HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!

I can't fight this feeling any longer. And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow. What started out as friendship, Has grown stronger. I only wish I had the strength to let it show. I tell myself that I can't hold out forever. I said there is no reason for my fear. Cause I feel so secure when we're together. You give my life direction, You make everything so clear. And even as I wander, I'm keeping you in sight. You're a candle in the window, On a cold, dark winter's night. And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might.

Did you? What happened? Were you told to? Was it suggested? Or did you just do it because you felt like it was the right thing to do? My ex's parents aren't the most fun people in the world and his dad is rather annoying, but they are his parents and they do love him dearly. During the wedding planning and festivities he was especially annoying to Moneyands. In fact, at the wedding someone was tasked with keeping an eye out and keeping my ex's dad away from Moneyhands so he didn't disturb or p1ss him off. (His dad hated craiggers and disagreed with lots of TWI doctrine and rules.....turns out he was right on almost all accounts!!) Well, after the wedding Moneyhands told my ex that he thought his dad was either possessed with major devil spirits or at least courting them and an effective conduit for them. He told my ex that he was going to have to confront his dad sometime. So.....being the obedient wayfer that he is, my ex called his parents and told them that we needed to talk. We met them at a restaurant and proceeded to "lay down the law" which ended up with the whole relationship being severed. My ex didn't go into the conversation planning to sever ties, but that's what happened. Moneyhands was very proud of my ex when he told him about the situation. We went through years of his parents and sisters trying to contact him and trying to get him to reconsider not speaking with his parents. He eventually cut all ties with every single family member, including his 93 year old grandmother whom he absolutely adored. His family then tried going through my mother to get information to us, like when his grandmothers died and when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and beginning chemo. My ex got p1ssed at my mother for trying to relay information. I had to tell her that she could talk to his family but to please not share anything with us because of his reactions. It put my mother in a heartbreaking and difficult position. My parents began tip-toeing around us and afraid to do or say anything for fear that they would also be kicked to the curb and cut out of our lives. It was tremendously uncomfortable for all of us. Deep down, I was afraid that Moneyhands was going to tell me that I had to quit speaking to my family too. Now that I'm divorced and TWI is shrinking at an exponential rate here, I know my ex has to be very lonely and very hurt. He's given up so much for TWI, even from before he met me. I won't go into details, but "so much" is really a serious understatement. I just feel very, very sorry for him. No one loves him like his family does and like I did.....certainly not Moneyhands and the people in TWI with the excption of one couple. But even that love is not the same as your very own family..... I'm so glad that I did not ever find myself in a position of having to choose my family or TWI. I'm very thankful that they "put up with me" for the past 10 years and never gave up hope or prayers that I would see the light and come back to them out from under the cloud of TWI. Our relationship is so much tighter now, but I would have preferred to not have lost 10 years with them. Grandman said that even when I was there, I wasn't "there" when I was in TWI. Now I'm really "there" when I visit. It's refreshing for all of us. How about you?

This bears repeating. Those who adjust their hypotheses are the ones most likely to leave, like we did.

Mr. H, he probably started it JUST to get to read your posts! :D--> WordWolf: Thanks, I guess I missed that. Moneyhands and my ex along with many other kool-aid drinkers also are cluelessly giving craiggers way more credit than he deserves in the research and teaching department. All those accolades should be saved for the plagarism and theft departments of TWI that he so aptly learned.

:D--> LOL!

Sartori, they do indeed lurk! A wc couple in our area ended up in our area after lurking and realizing that they were destined to be slaves to TWI and screwed when ready to retire if they didn't start making money the old fashioned way.....earning it. They asked to be taken off TWI's payroll and given a smaller area, so they could get a job in the real world. Actually......I know quite a few WC people who have done that. I KNOW that they monitor the site heavily because I was constantly accused of reading and posting on here. :D--> --> HI BOB!! --> HI DOTTIE! --> HI CHRISTINE!! --> HI MARTIN!!--> HI MISTER LINDER!! --> HI DONNA!! --> HI ANGELA!! The library is a good place to go and what good Biblical student doesn't hear something fascinating on a STS that they want to learn more about? ;)--> Just make sure you scope out the area first and choose a computer where you can watch people entering the library....OR...print out the things you want to read and then read those offline. Under Tools at the top of the page you can choose Printer Friendly Format and choose that to either print things out or to copy and paste into a Word Doc to save for later. If you share a computer with someone who IS rather computer savvy, you can figure out where the cookies, history and temp files are stored on the computer and selectively go in and delete only those relevant to your web surfing ventures. Just remember to empty the recycle bin!

WW, they DO have some sort of lame retirement plan now but I think it only matches like 2% of what you're able to contribute from your already measley income (unless you are a favorite full time wc or sleeping with the president). I'm not sure, but didn't someone post a while back that they started pulling out social security again? Regardless, these don't really help much with all the issues you've mentioned. They are basically too little too late and, sadly for those too blind to realize it, that's all they are going to have to fall back on when they really need it because we all know, and experience has proven, TWI certainly isn't going to take care of you.

JustLoafing, Paul was a good guy and had a great sense of humor. When he first got to FL he and C*nnie were very humble and very kind. I babysat for them and just adore their children. They are awesome and smart kids. Once Moneyhands came to town and the intensity of pressure on the wc from hq started coming down he turned into a Moneyhands/LCM worshipper. He is a very instense guy to begin with but that energy was shifted from good to bad with SOME people. He was always kind to me and my ex although a little more rough and/or crude at times when he didn't like something. But that was just his nature. He still has a shovel that was used on "The Fountain of Living Waters", I think. It was used on something that he worked on at hq and it's a token of very fond memories for him. His face lights up when he talks about working up there and the people he got to work with. You must be one of those people. ;)--> I've met quite a few people who don't like him and some who were scared of him. I just feel sorry for him because he was very successful and he basically got screwed by TWI and now he's struggling and nowhere near living the more abundant life.