igotout

Probably happened because of advice from their lawyers. Lets see if they allow ex way believers and especially ex-Corps into their STS or allow them to come visit friends on staff or family members. How about allowing an ex-believer to attend a fellowship without being a member? They ought to, but I wouldn't hold my breath expecting that. Yeah, I can see them letting John (CFF) S. visiting his long time staff brother at grounds and allowing them to attend a STS on a Sunday afternoon. What's that phrase about a cold day in hell?

I am too nice sometimes. But it seems unusual to post someone's email on the Internet for scrutiny. I suppose it's not the worst thing that could happen. I would rather try to help someone one on one without criticism. I have even encouraged a few to stay in TWI. Funny thing, when they eventually leave, as almost everyone does, they feel they can approach me. A few have told me that it was some kind words at a time when they were torn that helped them make the difficult decision to leave or stay. And SOCKS......... That is my website....not yours.... how dare you steal my name. :D--> :D--> You are the funniest man on the Internet. We miss you and the family. Live long and prosper. JR Yes... the real JR

I am far from perfect and have made my share of mistakes in dealing with people. But here is how I might have responded, for what it's worth: "Dear??, Thank you for taking the time to email me. Obviously you have been looking at my site and perhaps other sites as well. I respect the fact that you are still involved in TWI. In fact I would like nothing better than to see TWI succeed as a true Christian organization and not one who abuses or takes advantage of its members. I only hope that you also have equal respect for some of us who either left TWI or were kicked out of TWI. You should endeavor to be objective and find the true meaning of scriptures, not just the interpretations that you have been taught. In my opininion, because of all the damning evidence that has existed in TWI to this point, it is important to re-evaluate everything you have been taught from an objective point of view. The Internet is a good tool for this task. You can now find excellent viewpoints on many biblical subjects from a variety of good sound godly teachers. Do you honestly believe God would limit himself to one man or one organization? I know all the counter arguments but we can discuss those in another email. May I have permission to share your email and my response to it? If not, I would respect your privacy and no one need know that we are communicating. I will consider your suggestions for my site and am always open for dialogue, especially from those who decide to remain in TWI. I, too, want to be objective. I would enjoy staying in touch with you. If there is anything I can personally help you with you may contact me at any time or even call me. I wish you and your family the best and truly hope you find happiness regardless of your involvement or non-involvement in TWI." Sincerely, My email and phone number

What is Windows 95? :D--> :D--> Been so long I think I forgot.

Data sticks, pen drives, USB keychain drives.... damn I wish they would standardize on a name already. :D--> Those are awesome, a breakthrough invention. It is really catching on. I have been using them for a couple years. They make them up to 4GB now! Some day they will have 20 GB ones, you know it. But beware of those too. They are not infallible like I thought they were. You data can get corrupted. Though they have no moving parts they can go bad. As always, back up if you store sensitive data on them. You can lose it. Floppys are dead. Dell does not even ship floppys anymore. Why even install one in a computer? Just leave them out. One less thing to break. Obsolete, as are Zip drives. If you think you may need a floppy some day just do like I did and pick up one of those external floppys that you can plug into a USB port. You can use it from computer to computer.

Hi Royal! Good to see you again. How is Orlando? We have to get together again one of these days. Where do you go for fireworks there? I agree with Just Thinking that WAP is all but dead. It just does not work and does not bless in my opinion. Furthermore I believe that PFAL is dead. It is old, moldy, teachings that we have heard over and over again and again. It is getting to be boring to wayfers and ex wayfers alike. New people are tapped into the Internet making it all but impossible to get new recruits. They see the Teachers's tarnished reputation and that of TWI in its current state. Nothing new. No power of God in action. No fun. The material had its shining moments at a certain place and time but even VPW in a meeting I was in once said it has to be replaced with something more current and someone needs to re-teach the class in todays terms. That was in 1978. Royal, I think they have been forced to allow people to order materials for years. I remember hearing from a leader one time that a cop out minister ordered something like 2 dozen copies of PFAL book. He said TWI was required to comply but he said what they do is "lose the order" or make it difficult if not impossible to actually get the material." This was in pre- lawsuit days. At this time I would imagine they will send you anything they are selling with no funny business like they used to do. Love to your family. John R in Tampa PS - GOEY, your website is taking shape. I hope it continues to develop. :D-->

I was there too, in my 1st year in res! Where were you? I am certain we might have passshhhhed easssssh other (burp)in the nearest bar. We could have guzzled a few. Those bible thumpers came to the ROA the following year too. They were scary. They got harassed by loving believers. Like when Del Duncan (God rest his soul) threw crap at them. Ha! (Off subject - Hey, x how anout those Tampa Bay Lightening. Want me to get a Jersey in a very small size for someone? What size? Contact me.)

Ex-con, Do you mean with ex-TWI members? Absolutely. But that does not mean we can not have awesome relationships with others as well. It is just a different part of life. We usually throw a huge Christmas party. We invite ex-twi as well as friends, aquaintances and neighbors. It is an interesting mix. The twi-ers do not hang together. In fact we all co-mingle quite well. At other times we have had get togethers with only ex-twi folks. It is quite comfortable and barriers are already broken down. Our common ground is some of our experiences in TWI. In fact, sometimes that is all we end up talkikng and laughing about. But I think it could be that way with other groups, college fraternities, platoons, missionary groups, or work groups. Being from a large family with many brothers and sisters, I also experience a closeness and comfort when we get together for family reunions, much similar to the ex-twi closeness that can prevail. I really do not have anything else to compare it to. I think the main thing is to be reaching out and making or forming new friendships throughout our lives.

I really do not know. I think part of it in the latter 10 years was that we always seemed to get top leaders in this area. KEpt thinking things would change. Did not want to "miss out" on things happening internally. Felt the need to be a part of something. Some of us die hard Corps fools thought we could change things from within, get TWI back like it used to be again. Sadly it kept getting worse and more harsh and smaller. By design, I believe. I did not leave. I was asked to leave. The prevalence of the Internet has made it very easy to leave today. No one need feel left out anymore unless you stay in TWI. Today it is as if the tide has turned. The outsiders are those still in. This includes those still in tiny spin off groups that they really do not enjoy but remain out of obligation or habit. John Richeson Tampa, FL

THis link does not seem to work and has not worked for a while. Please insert a live Hyperlink URL in your message so people can just click on it. Like this one below: A work in progress Its rather easy on these posts. Just go to the littel icon at the top of your post that says URL. It allows you a place to insert a Link.

Well my first computer that I actually purchased was a Radio Shack Color Computer, Bluzeman, for which I paid $750 used. THey were affectionately know as "CoCo's." No hard drive, of course but you could put stuff on cassettes. I believe it had 1MB memory (or was it less??). Those were awesome at the time for use home users. Played a lot of games like Pooyan and Pac Man and Frogger on it. I later sold it for $500. I shoulda kept it. And Zixar, I do not have unlimited funds, really. Its just my hobby. Otherwise I would have something like This in front of me, all 21 inchers. But I fear I would never move from my chair. (Over $10,000 just for the monitors). 6 monitors using two Matrox cards and custom stand Herbie. I do not know much about booting from a Windows 98 ME CD but you do not want to install that anyway. Ditch it in favor of Windows XP. Windows 98 is ancient by now compared to XP. With Windows XP you should be able to simply insert the CD. Then restart your computer with the XP CD in the tray. If all goes well it will do just about everything for you step by step. You can also go on the Internet and get ample info on how to do a fresh install of XP.

Well my first computer that I actually purchased was a Radio Shack Color Computer, Bluzeman, for which I paid $750 used. THey were affectionately know as "CoCo's." No hard drive, of course but you could put stuff on cassettes. I believe it had 1MB memory (or was it less??). Those were awesome at the time for use home users. Played a lot of games like Pooyan and Pac Man and Frogger on it. I later sold it for $500. I shoulda kept it. And Zixar, I do not have unlimited funds, really. Its just my hobby. Otherwise I would have something like This in front of me. Herbie. I do not know much about booting from a Windows 98 ME CD but you do not want to install that anyway. Ditch it in favor of Windows XP. Windows 98 is ancient by now compared to XP. With Windows XP you should be able to simply insert the CD. Then restart your computer with the XP CD in the tray. If all goes well it will do just about everything for you step by step. You can also go on the Internet and get ample info on how to do a fresh install of XP.

Bluzeman: "When I got my first 100 meg drive, I said I'd never use that much space." You youngster. I feel old now. I have a receipt where I paid near $776. to have one of the hot new 20 MB hard drives installed in the early 80's. Most of us did not have hard drives, you see. I just had to get one. I also remember paying over a grand for another of the latest and greatest that came out. A honest to goodness 15" COLOR CRT monitor made by NEC ($650) and a 1 GB enhanced graphics card ($447). After years of Green and Amber it was awesome. But I had to draw the line somewhere. I mean you can't have it all. I just couldn't bring myself to pay $3000 for the new HP Laser printers that came out. It was so much better than dot matrix.... I was tempted. I still have my first real PC in the attic, an IBM PC XT which after all the tweaks and hardware cost me over $5,00O. It had 384K of memory. I paid $108 for a mouse but I never used it. I just wanted it for the coolness factor. Windows came out shortly after by a relatively new company that had recently gone public called Microsoft. Speakers were not dreamed of yet except for the little one inside. Who needed speakers? Now look: BEst computer speakers in the world

Yeeeeessss Come on over Tom....... you'll like this shiny new cult....... Just click here to look at all the wonder and glory that you are missing out on..... Samurai and here Shiny glittering lights :D-->

If you "drove yourself" to become better at speaking in tongues by way of "practice sessions", going through the alphabet, slowing down speeding up, LOUDER! softer! more vowels! more consonants! eyes open, eyes closed ........ you might be in a cult which believes that SIT is not made up. *Yes, my lovely Hope told me the story years ago and made me laugh and laugh. I know it really happened, cuz she was sitting near this .... poor committed disciple. He received her wrath and I think a dry cleaning bill. Ha! . Just keep speaking in tongues for her and I am sure she will appear on this thread eventually to enlighten us further.

Unless it is a SATA one, which I doubt. Consider 120GB minimum hard drive. Damn! They make them up to 800GB now! I am in favor of partitioning. You can use a program like Partition Magic to do all kinds of things with partitions such as resizing them. Then you can use Drive Image to make a backup mirror image of your entire C partition to you D partition.

Highway - very funny. Glad I did not live in the 250 mile radius. That would have been the end for me. Your statement about going to the bathroon reminds me of a true incident of a guy who was in the 6th Corps. He actually DID .... in his pants in the Emporia chapel soiling others near him in those wooden church pews as well! When asked why, he said he did not believe it was right to interrupt LCM's teaching. This is not made up! You might be in a cult if ...... you .... all over yourself and others and you are not an infant. Ha! We shoulda known somethng was wrong somehow....

"But whether a group is genuinely Christian, nominally Christian, non-Christian, anti-Christian, or incarnate devils is not an issue in this matter." I think you are wrong on that point, Long Gone. TWI has a bad reputation. In fact they have a reputation for harming people in my opinion. Do not think that decision makers and judges will not be swayed by those and other matters in TWI.

I wish I could have a refund of my donations to The Way from the last 6 to 10 years I was in and have it given to The Way International Ministries. I feel as if I was defrauded and deceived into donating money to the one group while the other group seems to really be doing some genuine good works. One group seems to me to have hurt and destroyed the faith of its followers through legalism, and immorality while the other group seems to be expressing genuine Christian love and helping people, not kicking them out. I do not mind contributing to The Way International Ministries or helping them prevail in their lawsuit. I think TWI should leave these innocent Christian people alone. Let them keep picking on their own followers like they usually seem to do. John Richeson Tampa, FL Former member of TWI for 26 years.

Oh, no. That is a shock. I will have to get in touch with Margie. Just saw them last year! He was such a good man.

Goey - Ha! that is a very interesting site. I hope you expound further. Looks like it has all the beginnings of something big. How did you make the link look like a domain name different than where it points to. I know it is probably simple but just askin. John R.

ExWayDaryl, don't you ever pick up that gun again! False doctrines have already caused enough harm. Don't add to the suffering that your friends and loved ones will experience if you are gone. Bless you, and I mean that in a good, non-cult like way. Ok, from glancing over at the wall of my office where a few things from the past still linger I have a few. If you were in a regimented leadership training program for three years but your graduation certificate says it was "four years of dedicated service"....... you could be in a cult. If "going forth as leaders and workers in areas of concern, interest and need" only includes areas of concern of one group, the interest of the same group and the need of that group................ you might have graduated INTO a cult. John Richeson Tampa, FL

Ok - to be fair and balanced ...... If your best friends are people you have never met and you only know them by their screen names or If you hold the record for the most posts or Your entire social life revolves around a web site You might be in an Internet cult. Yikes! I need some deprogramming!

If you worship mineral sprinkler stains on the side of an office building that have been there since the early 80's which suddenly "miraculously appeared" when they trimmed back the palms away from the building after many years, and I know because we used to clean the windows on that building back then and "she" was there all along but nobody but us window cleaners noticed and "she" can easily be cleaned off with Bio Kleen because we removed part of her years ago before she was a shrine because the previous owners wanted a section cleaned :D--> :D--> ........ then you just might be in a cult. Mary Queen of Sprinklers Madonna of the Mineral Deposits

If your job description includes string and chairs .....you might be in a cult.