leafytwiglet

Exactly.... I think that is why so many people wanted to deny it... the Irony of it was so stark. and becasue if Weirwille was doing these evil things what does that mean about their own beliefs and walk. For me it helped me to recognize some of the niggling questions I had carried around in my head and tried to ignore because obviously I needed to renew my mind... Now I just think I was a total naive idiot... but hey I was in great company. at GEN2 Snerk!

I'd add my two cents but I was blissfully unaware really of the amount of adulterous encounters with leadership...now there was plenty of premarital sex going on... but there was plenty of sex going on everywhere, not just in TWI... it was the height of disco .... and the majority of people in TWI were in the under 30 age group. my time in 1979-spring of 1983. But I do know now, after the fact, and long since I left TWI that one of my leaders who was a 6th Corps gal probably was one of VP's conquests... Not from something she told me, but from something my WOW brother told me... that he knew stuff that would Blow my mind and that I was not spiritually mature enought to handle it, that it innvolved threesomes and sex.. when I questioned him about it he said stuff between her(The leadership) and other believers, he intimated sexual stuff but didn't come out and say what it was in so many words. I know she was very close with Weirwille from stuff she had said. And she would go to see him privately when he was in our Region. When I read about it on here I finally put the pieces together and realized what had been going on... and that she had been corupted by VP and was corupting her own TWIG with this stuff. Not us lowleys but who she saw as leadership potential This WOW Brother went on to be in the Corps. As did my WOW family Coordinator who then left Corps after less tahn one year in it. TO be honest if I had heard what Weirwille actually was doing I would have fled the ministry... I endured sexual abuse through my childhood... so I knew what evil lurks in this kind of sex. So yeah I obviouslky was not "spiritually mature enough to handle it"(to my mind I was more spiritually mature because i would have seen the evilness of it.)And it saddens me now to think one of my WOW brothers knew of this stuff and thought it was okay. Most of the Corps people I knew did not have extra marital affairs. and it was not at that time taught to the masses. But it obviously was going on in Weirwilles life for his entire adult years. And in order to make himself feel superior he was teaching it to those surrounding him. In fact most of what was taught to the "joe believers" was the opposite, it seems to me... when you went WOW you were told to keep your wanger in your pants and girls were not to spread their legs... but to this day I find it interesting that most WOW families were made up of both men and women, two of each. You can imagine what kind of situations that caused when you have a house full of 20+ year olds together. I would also like to point out that I was not near head quarters except for Rock of ages.. My time in TWI was spent in Colorado Montana and Idaho.. Far from Head quartes. I think much of what people knew or didn't know depended on where they lived and who they were around.

Not that it matters and well I am enjoying all of your jokes but I believe Brass was chosen because at that time through the 80's Brass was what was in, as far as all the decorating circles.. If you had a high end home you either had brass fixtures or you had Brass accessories. in keeping with their outward appearances are mega important i am guessing this is what was the real reason Brass was chosen.

NO he doesn't those are homes that are listed in the office he is in or in a group of offices that his broker has... I work in Real Estate I know how these things are worked. his web site has a crawler that pulls in all the listings for his office. IT is standard Procedure Uless you go on to the actual lisitng service and look at each listing you won't be able to tell whose listings they are. IT will show in his web site as his listings.

The first TWI belief to go... for me there were two of them, and they went before I left TWI. They were part of the reasons why I was ready to leave TWI long before all the Dung hit the fan.. The first one, which I never bought from the day I took PFAL, was the belief that the Ministry had all the answeres and I didn't need to study my own bible. That I needed to just take their word for it, and believe every thing they said, oh and study the class material, Weirwille had done all the work already I just needed to study the PFAL material.. this always seemed sucha contradiction from the bible verse they hammered into us about study to show thy self approved unto God, a workman rightly dividing the word of truth. The second one was the notion that all my Abundant Sharing needed to go to the mInistry only .. that somehow I had no Idea how to share my abundance with the believers and that only Head Quarters knew really where my money needed to go.. and God couldn't possibly be inspiring me to give my money to someone I saw who needed it.. Next to go, when we actually left, was the notion that if we left, we would be walking out from under the protection of God by leaving the ministry.. Yeah Right.... Really... I am still living and much happier and healthier. I am sad to say it has taken me much longer to eradicate the rest... all of which I attribute to Grease spot and all the information here that has helped me find out the truth about The Way International and its lies and detrimental practices. By the way I never bought that whole teaching that "when it comes to the word I have no friends" Malarky, and when I heard Weirwille touting that doctrine along with the whole notion that Gods word would seperate me from family and friends, with my own ears, I sholud have run away.... and I kick myself now. Edited for Clarity

Wow we missed each other by Months and I have no doubt I would have known you. I have to say the believers in Idaho were really awesome...I do mean just the plain believers not talking about the Corps ... Also Twin Falls Idaho was like hell on Earth but Boise was wonderful. At least while I was there. NOT sure how it changed after we left.. Like I said things were starting to change. OR maybe I was just waking up to what they really were like all along... as now I was technically a corps person... (spouse Corps... so I got to see it in all it's ugliness)

Perhaps not the best choice of wording... Lets see I took the class in spring of 79 and there was of course the whole teaching about how it was an abomination but there was also you could get delivered or healed from it.. in fact at the very first Word in the Arts Conference which was I believe spring of 81 when VP brought the subject up as one of the presenters was supposedly delivered from the gay lifestyle. Vp talked about how you could be delievered from it, he was very matter of fact about it and was very respectful to the gentleman on teh stage. I kind of felt sorry for the guy being put on the spot like that but he was very open talking about his so called deliverance. Then on to how he applied the word in his art work he was in advertising. There was actually quite a group of people in TWI that weere involved in the Art world at that time. Perhaps more of my perception of how TWI treated Gays as I lived out West .. Far from headquarters and with minimal Corps to regular believers ratios. In Idaho we actually had several in a TWIG and one of them was running the TWIG.. Right about the time we left it seemed the Ministry was changing their stance on Gays.. The limb leader told the guy he couldn't be a TWIG leader any more.. there was quite a fight. I think fromthat point on I saw more and more anti gay teachings. NOT sure what changed actually.. the only change was that it was about the time that Martindale was taking on more responsibility at Headquarters. Plus we then left in early spring of 83

What a wonderful tremendous Idea Old School think of all the wonderful tremendous things we can do on this tremendously wonderous day. THe birds are tweeting tremendously and the sound is so wonderous that I just melted in my chair as I looked out the window at their wonderous antics in the tremendous tree outside in my wonderfully tremendous yard. Wandering off now to hhork up a tremendously wonderous lugey and take some wonderous asprin for my tremendous headache from playing this tremendously wonderful and wonderous game!

Okay so I am gonna scratch that one out, as maybe my understanding of what they were saying was wrong!

True but I think our understanding of God is limited. And I know what you are saying I just think that GOD is a lot bigger than what "I" think he is. I am not so sure Christianity has the only lock on salvation... (This is the part where I get pommeled I suppose) There are a lot of different religions out there who believe in a God. They have the same moral structure we have... why would God be limited by our puny understanding of him? I guess really it amounts to the fact that the older I get and the more I learn about other cultures and their beliefs the more I think God is bigger than one religion and one church... and yes I still believe in God and Jesus and that he rose again so man could be redeemed... I just wonder if maybe God sent his message to all peoples and it takes a lot of different forms.. Don't ask for chapter and verse I couldn't even tell you chapter and verse to prove Christianity was the one true religion.

Okay maybe I should take that one out it is what I read on here from a couple of other posters who were around for the 90's I think. The rest are what I remember from my time in.

I know you aren't asking me but I think that we don't really have an understanding of what it really is all about. I suspect that our limiting beliefs about who is saved and who isn't and how it all works are not very accurate.

NO Wearing of crosses or crosses on your walls no art objects furniture or household objects made in other countries(it would have devil spirits attached to it, if it did come from there) How about if your family is not part of The Way International they are the enemy and you should not spend any time with them. Your house should be spotlessly clean your dresser drawers(Way Corps... at least while i was there) were supposed to be neat and tidy and if your mind was renewed you ought to know exactly how many pair of socks and underware you had.(According to LOY Boy at one of those Way Corps meetings at HQ during Corps week) Must tithe at least 10 percent. Of Gross income(not Net) To live the more than Abundant life it needs to be more than that. Do not pray out loud.. the Devil might find out what you are praying for and send his minions to mess it up. Children are all possesed or have devil spirits controling them... don't ever be alone with them.(this one was after I left) Edited for my spelling errors Edited again to cancel out something I miss understood.

Interesting they must of had to wade through a lot of hateful posts to find that one. Snicker I survived the way mostly intact and even I am appalled by the stuff that happened.. not only am i appalled by it and revolted.. coming to greaspot has made me realize how lucky I was to have left so early Finding out the truth about the ministry here has been the best thing ever and if her little announcement sent anyone here to see the truth than hip hip horray. but to stand up there and pretend that this site has softened it's and collectively our stance on what the ministry is, and has done to people who were part of it is stupid. edited to fix my errors spelling and structure

We didn't really have a final straw like you all actualy we left long before the LCM crap, but we had seen lots by then. We left with tail between legs feeling like we had some how failed the ministry. that we were not good enough. Hubby was having trouble getting work and got harrassed about that and about how we were running the Twig and about Me as I was not Corps and I tended to not follow the rules very well. One night we were laying in bed talking and I told him how sometimes I really wished we were not twig leaders or anything just plain people and then appologized for saying it.. then he asked me what I thought about us leaving.. and I asked if he meant the State we were in? and he said no I mean the ministry .. HE offered to stay in the ministry if I wanted but things were really starting to get ugly where I lived out west. Actually to be honest they probably were always ugly but now that I was married to Corps I got to really see the ugly side of the ministry.. The ministry was just starting to switch from tollerance of Gays to witch hunting them.. LCM was just announced to be VP's replacement not put in power yet just announced he would be in charge. Also the beginings of the whole devil spirits in everything teachings had just come out in a STS tape, Not having been to an Advanced Class I had not heard that before. I believe it started at Advanced Class 79? Also the LEAD accident had happened and i was still stunned that we had not prayed for them as a Limb when we had a get togehter a few days after it happened and it was announced... I also had my own doubts about VP and questions about a few things I had heard so when Dear Hubby wanted to bail I was more than happy to follow suit. We left in the middle of the night a couple days later scared we would be killed on the road. But we weren't and it would be nothing but better once we left.

LOL Rocky I saw that and thought the same thing.

Oh My ... Brings back memories of my WOW year .. Our group had two WOW families in it.. but we were really close knit,(I know a rarity, and that I had a good year was also a rarity) so we turned into one giant wow family.. anyway the Corps guy who was In Charge of the whole group, got the STS tapes on cassette once a week, and we would listen to them as a "family" I still remember falling asleep almost every single one... I think at least 3/4 of us did. I am not sure if that is a commentary on the teachings or our general exhaustion. This was in 79/80. At that time in the west, at least where I was, not many peoplee got them, and they were not something you played at TWIG.( Now I am trying to remember if we had to fork over the dough for it too) Who decided you were going to stand up when they did on the tape .. is that not the weirdest thing ever.. although if we had I might have stayed awake for the whole tape. Snicker. on the other hand standing up and down, wasn't that one of the things VP made a stink about, how stupid of the churches to do it.( I know not the same thing but close enough)

Hi Twinky Thanks I live In California About 30 miles inland from the monterey bay. IT has taken me a long time to get it looking this nice and then it will look all scraggly for the summer LOL maybe not this year since I put in lots of the painted daisies. Gophers don't eat those. you should see it today it is even fluffier with flowers than those pictures. All my Irises are in bloom.

I used to hate the sneering attitude that Twi'ers had for other christians.. not just people in the twigs but branch and limb leaders. and the dismissing of other chrisitans, making fun of them. As if they were nothing but dirt. Yeah there is the love of God. and my favorite BS was the whole idea thatit is the grace period but you are still tied to the law of tithing, oh and the law of believing by the way, lets not forget that you have to get your needs and wants parallel and then you will get what you want. You didn't get healing? well By Golly your needs and wants are not parallel and you believing isn't big enough. That whole I have no friends when it comes to the word that I swallowed hook line and sinker like an idiot is so far from the reality of what our human nature is which is to band together in communities and work together. How can that even be true when it goes against our very nature. And the attitude that no giving was best unless you were giving to THe Way International. and I left early on... I can not imagine if I had stuck around for LOY BOY and his band of unmerry men.

So I was coming to the Forums today for a quick view and ran accross this article, on the main Greasspot page, about why when a clergy memeber has sex with a congragant it is not an affair. here is the link to the full article. http://www.greasespotcafe.com/main2/editorial/editorial-items/why-its-not-an-affair.html after reading through it I found myself completely agreeing with it. I think this is the most important part of it... And this I aslo found this article I read it at this web site http://www.aeppp.org/ I found it informative and it helped me really understand what happened not just to those abused by The Way International, but to everyone who was a memeber whether we were aware of it or not. IT also helps, at least for me, to clarify what happened to so many of the girls and women who were raped by VP or forced into sexual relationships by other Way International Leaders.

Genuinly surprised? Sheesh He lies, passes himself off as a Doctor with no degree. steals others work and pretends he is an authority. He pretends he did all this translation, yet he doesn't know the language. He is hand and glove with Rood. I only wish the internet had been around when I got involved with The Way International I would have run the other direction. For any one who hasn't gone to those links that Wordwolf posted at the beggining of this thread ... you should IT is informative not just about Our lovely Mr Trimm but goes into detail on Wierwille too. THey are surprisingly alike.

SO well put.... And so very true. THanks fro wrriting that and Shellon hugs and my prayers are with you and your family. i hope your daughter finds an answer soon and a course to take toward healing, and recovery. We all go through moments in our childrens lives. But to have some one try to blame anything on whether you are witha particular organization is the ultimate in evilness.

But that is the beauty of it Chockful, James doesn't either! They will have a great time. Now then there is an excellent logical solution and some how i doubt that it would happen, though I am sure TWI would be willing to handle it that way. as was noted before TWI is about the Money!

Okay and that made me laugh. You of course know that will not happen. Good luck... though I think you will fail.