outandabout

Some believers in the area decided to barbecue in their back yard. Then they invited some other people, then they thought, "Hey, let's invite Mot and Barq too! (the branch leaders) WELL, they were rightfully REPROVED by branch leader Mot because it was wrong spiritual PROTOCOL to invite him LAST. We also put on a surprise birthday party for said branch leader, and were royally reproved later for the party not being good enough and not showing enough respect to BL and BL's wife. I think at one point BL's wife had nowhere to sit and no one jumped up to give her one. They cancelled the Sunday morning fellowships to punish us.

Didn't Firesign Theater do a thing about "We're All Bozos on this Bus"? I love that line! Sometimes I say it and people don't get the reference. They look at me like "Huh?" "We're all bozos on this bus!" Love it! :D-->

Thelma and Lousie Gena Davis The Accidental Tourist Hey tonto, who's [/b]? :D-->

Wow, Oakspear, that's not a very SPIRITUAL assessment of the motives of the leaders who were placed over you by GOD in HIS household. ;)--> I think we need to call a MEETING RIGHT NOW about you saying such a devilish thing about the people who only wanted GOD'S BEST for your life!!! I mean, here they were, taking time out of their busy lives to watch out for GOD'S HOUSEHOLD and cleanse it from evil and you say they were doing it because they simply "didn't like some one?" How sense-knowledge of you!!! And frank123, my brother and his wife finally left TWI because of the housecleaning thing. He said they got put on probation because "their house was too dirty." He said that their house was "dirty" because they had no time to clean it because they were always at Way things. Oh my Gosh, I STILL can't get over this stuff!! -->

Then I went to Greenville, Mississippi. On the way there, I couldn't figure out how to turn off the brights on the headlights of the VW and other cars kept blinking at me. Then as we crossed the bridge into MS, the horn shorted out and wouldn't stop beeping all the way across the bridge. When I got to Greenville, my "twig area" that I was assigned to consisted of a WOW Vet who got talked into staying in the area and three PFAL grads. An interim 9th corps woman was leaving to go back into residence. That was the year that they sent us out BEFORE corps week and ROA to get "settled" in our areas. Also, there was an 11th corps interim guy who was going back, as well as the WOWs who had been there. They were living in this house and I thought that it would be nice if I could just take over the house and stay there with the WOW vet. Maybe I just didn't feel like looking for another place, and besides that, I liked the house. It had a big room in the back that I figured was good to "run classes" in. Then it was time to go to Corps week and ROA. I didn't trust that VW to make it there so a 10th corps woman, Janice (?) and I decided to hitch there. After all, we'd done all that before, right? So off we went, to hitch-hike from Mississippi to Ohio. Wasn't that a lot of fun!!! Not!!! At one point some guys picked us up who wanted to "party" and I told them we were into the Bible and weren't interested and they immediately dumped us out in the middle of nowhere. My partner had to poop and went door to door to find a house that would let her. We tried to get another ride and this older couple locked their doors when they saw us. But somehow we got to Corps week and ROA. And I don't remember how I got back to Greenville after it was over. I felt really lost and scared and un-Corpslike. Now I had to go back to this town in Mississippi and dynamically Make It Happen out of pretty much nothing. I was going have to perform miracles and Move the Word. So somehow I got back to Greenville and the house and Angie the WOW vet. One of the grads in the area with two young boys needed a place to stay so I figured, why not move in with us?? I asked Mot the limb leader (of course) and he thought it was ok, so she moved in. Next thing I knew, the police were at the door to arrest her for outstanding traffic tickets and she went to jail. Eventually she got out. But later she decided that she hated me and I was "making her life hell." Meanwhile, I was playing the guitar in the back room and got a gig in this bar and I decided that I could be a professional musician and I sang and played in this bar with a paying gig for a short time. Our room mate with the two kids moved out and then Angie and I found out that the house was up for sale and we had to move out. We moved to a two bedroom trailor on the outskirts of town. There we were. I had quit McDonald's and been fired from Wendy's and didn't have a job. We had no electricity or phone. We had to come up with deposits for everything because that's how it is when you have no history with the utillities or credit. I remember getting up early while it was still dark and getting dressed by candle light and hearing the sound of a train going by in the field behind the trailor. I went to Sambo's and the manager was nice and he hired me. That's where I worked for the rest of the year. I can still see the inside of that mobile home like it was yesterday. My room was on one side and Angie's was on the other. We had to get the utilities turned on one by one. One night it was so cold we spent the evening in another trailor that belonged to people that had heat. I remember getting up in the morning in the cold to get ready to go to work. Eventually we got our heat and our electricity and gas. I remember coming home from work and counting out tips. One day I found a petrified mouse behind my dresser. Greenville had roaches and mice no matter where you lived. My limb leader, Mot, said we should get a photo of the believers in our area to send to So and So's wife who was coordinating some book for Craig. Well, I didn't have much of an area to get a photo of and I procrastinated and later he called me and yelled at me because poor So and So's wife was pregnant and poor her and I should get this done. I was thinking lucky her, she's married and has a husband and is pregnant. She belonged somewhere, to somebody. So I had some one take a picture of ME in front of Sambo's and I sent it in. Meanwhile, I kept working at Sambo's. One day Craig walked in, why he was there I don't remember. I kind of lost my focus and my manager noticed it. He couldn't figure out why I got so distracted. And every day, as I was writing out orders, I would date the top ot the checks, and think, "By now, I should have a class together." I had inherited some window cleaning jobs from a WOW who had left after that year, but they fell through. One day I walked and walked through the town trying to drum up some work and eventually I came across a car dealership where the owner's wife hired me to wash cars for $4.50 an hour, which at the time I thought was a fortune. She told me that her husband didn't like her out there in the cold washing the cars. I thought, "That must be nice, to have a husband that doesn't want you out there washing cars." So I waittressed at Sambo's and washed cars on the side. Mot and Barq came to vist us one day and Barq thought our mobile home was really cool. But what was funny about that, later at some meeting she said, "I knew the minute I saw that it wouldn't work out between you two with bedrooms on one side and the other." OK, so you thought it was really cool but you REALLY thought it sucked?? Thanksgiving came along and I just lost it. Angie made a chcken and we ate it and I spent the afternoon laying on my bed crying. How unrenewed of me. To cry on Thanksgiving when my family was across the country that I wasn't supposed to care about and at the age of 31 I had no husband or child or anyone who really cared? What should I be crying about? One day I woke up and I had a terrible pain in my lower abdomen, so much that it was making me double over at work. I was back at the trailor and I had this moment of realization that, here I was, living in a trailor, no one really gave a damn about me, I had no health insurance and I was in pain. It was a pretty scary moment. Later, I called Mot the limb leader and asked him to pray for me, which he did. Later, he asked me, "What was that all about?" At one point, the fridge went out and all the food went bad (I can still smell it if I think about it). The pipes got clogged up and my car broke down. I was sitting at the kitchen table in a state of numbness, thinking, ok, now what? Daughter is home, hubby wants the computer, gotta go. Wow, I can feel thankful for that! Here I am, in my house, with my little family, my job that's not at Sambo's. This is really cathartic, even if no one reads it.

It's based on a true story. That makes it really sad, and I haven't wanted to watch it.

ooooh, so that's what happened! Thanks for letting us know.

Valerie, I sent you a PM.

OK, so I went back to my final year in residence. I was happy to be back, relieved to be "off the field." I went LEAD during good weather. I was lucky that way. I had a pretty good time. I enjoyed the solo or duo or whatever they called it, despite that fact that I ate my whole bag of food the first evening, while watching the night come in and the evening star arise. I chopped up a fallen tree (it was pretty rotted out) to better arrange my area to my liking. My "space" was like my own little home. I made a shelter to sleep in like they showed us, with branches and twigs and bark. It rained and my little shelter kept me dry. The only part about LEAD where I had a problem was when it was my turn to lead the group through the woods. I have never had a sense of direction and I had no clue where I was going. I never did know what my evaluation said. I also went to the Texas Farm that year. I lucked out again because the bus our group was on was a nice Greyhound type bus, nice and comfy. It was one of the few, if not only, times they sent people down there on a decent bus. They usually rode on old school buses that broke down and then the people on the bus got blamed for it. (Announcement at lunchtime: "The bus going to the Texas Farm has broken down." And when they got back: "What's wrong with all of you, where's your believing?!?") Our group worked in the fields for one day and then tornadoes appeared on the horizon and we had to stay inside. Lucky again! We were watching some old movie on TV and one of the characters said, "That's a tough row to hoe" and we all burst out laughing. That year was also the year of the big Commie Take-Over Scare. We were all called into Wierwille Library to listen to a tape from some guy in the military and he went on about stuff I couldn't understand the significance of and at the end he said, "And it's not going to be a very merry Christmas." Somehow that was supposed to mean that we were in great jeapardy. One girl stood up and asked Craig, "What does this all mean?" and Craig went off about bodies in the streets and the end of our world as we knew it. We were to get into groups that we would leave with when we had to evacuate the Emporia campus.(since one of the first groups the Commies would try to annihilate would be TWI) I approached some women I knew to ask if I could be in their group (one of them was my former WOW sister) and I was told they didn't "have enough room." I sat down and cried. Some 10th corps people came over to comfort me and I found another group and we were going to go to Wisconsin. Then later I changed MY mind and found a group with a friend of mine in the 8th corps. And we had to get hiking boots and back packs and supplies to take with us (MAL-PACKS) MAL - More abundant living. We had a prayer room where we had 24-hour prayer to prevent the impending disaster from occurring. Guess the prayers worked because the Commie Take-Over didn't happen. ha ha Halfway through the year, I got sent to Headquarters in a group selected for their supposed ability to write a good research paper. Working on the paper was supposed to be our main priority. Dr W said it was an experiment. I remember that I worked on my paper, ate a lot of granola, sprained my ankle running which caused me to stop running and I got fat. And I slept in a trailor with a bunch of other 8th corps women. From HQ, we were sent Lightbearers, and I went with David DXWXXD. I wasn't able to contribute financially to our trip because they didn't send us out with any money and somehow I was supposed to have some. Our group actually did get a class together, mostly because the area we went to was going in that direction anyway. Anyway, somehow the class came together. The highlight of that trip, though, was that David and I went to see Bob Dylan who was in his Chirstian mode at the time and had made his album that had songs with lyrics that were all based on The Word. It was a really cool little concert and part way through, David went down the aisle and threw the book, "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today" up onto the stage. He had written a little note in in the inside flap to Bob Dylan about how since he was "taking quite a stand and this was to help." One of the guys picked it up and put it on the a speaker. One more incident I recall: Later when I was back at Emporia, I was asked by my branch leader, who strangely enough was Jxx Stxxx, who I had been so 'in love' with, to make a card for Dr W. I had already sketched out a picture, of all of us in the branch in a snow scene, some on sleds, some on skates, some throwing snow, etc And in the final version, it was all colored in and I had photos of people's faces that I pasted onto the figures. I was up all night doing the thing, and I borrowed some supplies from Divine Design. (Like I had some?) At the same time we were studying Hebrew and I was learning how to write the Hebrew alphabet. So the next day I flunked the Hebrew alphabet quiz, though I couldn't quite get why, because I thought the letters looked correct to me. I had also just been reproved from some one in Divine Design for USING THEIR SUPPLIES. After the reproof and then flunking the Hebrew alphabet, I started crying. I just remember getting to this point where I had had it. By the way, no one thanked me for the card (of course not) and I don't even know if Vee Pee even saw it. Just one card out of many, that I had to stay up all night to make and then get reproved about because I used supplies to make it. I still have the original sketch of that thing. I had a 10th corps twig that had some great people in it. Picture is posted in "Every Picture Tells a Story." We spent a week in Gunnison before graduation and we received our assignments. Since I KNEW that GOD knew BEST where I should go, I left in it in the hands of TWI to decide my fate. (TWI = GOD, right?) Little did I know that what that really meant is you got the bottom of the barrel because the hot-shots had already been traded off in the little back room deals. When my name came up, it was announced that I was going to Greenville, Mississippi!! with the Mot and Barq Lilly! The same Barq from my Amarillo debacle! Time to graduate, and go out to serve the believers as a doulos of God! After our time in Gunnison we came back to graduate. The Corps Weddings were either before or after that. During our graduation ceremony out by the pond, Vee Pee went on and on about the significance of the number 8. Then I got ready to leave for Mississippi after Corps Week and the Rock. I bought a beat up old '68 VW for $500. Got registration and insurance and all that crap. Packed it up and took off with some 10th corps who were also going there as WOW coordinators for their interim year. And off we go!!!

The Truth about Cats and Dogs Janine Garafalo Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion

"The door swings both ways." (Yeah, sure it does. Just try going OUT that door and see what happens).

The Last of the Mohicans Madeline Stowe the General's Daughter

What's a CFO?

My last year in res we cleaned out the pond and a bunch of us jumped into the mud. Wow was that ever fun ??!!??

I remembered something else though I don't recall if it was 1st or 2nd yr in residence. It was the LICE. We were all to report to the in-residence corps nurses to check for LICE, since it somehow became known to the powers that be that lice was a problem on campus. We go our hair checked out and those of us who did have lice were treated with kerosene on our heads. We spent a whole day dragging our bedding and our possessions to the grassy areas outside in order to kill all lice and larvae since they couldn't live under 45% and it was winter. This process seemed to rid the campus of the LICE problem.

Thanks, Belle and excie. Eventually I'll write the rest, up to my exit from TWI. Thanks for actually reading it up to this!

I went to Redlands, CA as a WOW "branch coordinator." I had two WOW sisters. We found a 2-bedroom apartment. I had a job in the cafeteria of the University of Redlands and so did one of my WOW sisters. I was always a little depressed at that job, making minimum wage, wearing a uniform, being around college students when I already had a degree. I had gotten my driver's license at the end of my first year in residence and on the field I bought a car. My dad foot the $500 for it. It had been some kind of government vehicle with something on the top that had been removed so I covered up the rusty spot that was left with Way bumper stickers. That was the year that there was the gas crisis and you could only get gas every other day and there were lines at the gas pumps. We ran some classes, thanks to my WOWs and their efforts. I felt a lot of pressure that year, to "produce". I was starting to get what it meant to be CORPS. How you always had to produce, had to tow the line. Donnie Fugit and his wife came by that year. He was a roving WOW coordinator. We ran some classes and did ok as a branch. I was looking forward to going back for my last year in residence, although I didn't think much farther past that....meaning I would have to be Corps the REST OF MY LIFE..... I turned 30 that year, still single, but I figured that God would meet my needs because if you put God FIRST, i.e. doing what TWI said to do, then your needs would be met, right? One day later, in 2001 or so, I drove back to Redlands and walked through that same apartment complex I had lived in as a WOW. It looked very much the same. So the year ended, and it was time to go back into residence. I didn't trust my car to make it to Ohio, so I sold it to one of the WOWs in my branch and left in another car with an 8th corps brother, (the owner) and a 6th corps woman, Debbie. The three of us took off, and the car blew a rod outside of Chicago or St. Louis, don't recall which.....Debbie and I hitched the rest of the way to Corps Week. And so my iterim year ended.

oops, sorry. didn't look at the post before the last post. okey dokey no using two in row. gotcha.

Tom Cruise Vanilla Sky Cameron Diaz

At the end of the year, I was required to go to the Advanced Class at Emporia. I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for my transportation, but the WOW branch and twigites had a surprise party for me and I was given $$ for my train ticket. I also didn't have any luggage for all my stuff so I folded over a big sheet and sewed up the sides and made it into a big bag, put all my stuff in it and checked it in to go on the train. So off I went to Emporia and the Advanced Class. I don't recall how I got to wherever I had to go after that, eventually ROA, then back to CA then to Emporia. At one point I bummed a ride with a married couple. Funny how I knew I had to get from here to there to here to there but didn't know how I would do it. And with no money to boot. Once in residence, I was a good little Corpsebot. The first week we learned about flossing, drinking water, filing, running....actually I think what I learned that first week was stuff I actually still use, well not the running. Eventually my "job" was upholstery. I was out in the back of the Allen Gym when it was still condemned and we reupholstered furniture for the campus locales. I was with Nancy (I think?) and Donald from Scotland. Eventually Molly (I think?) from the 6th corps joined us and she was a lot of fun, (not sarcastically meant). One day before Ho Ho Relo she said we would make "pillows for our loved ones" and I made one that I gave to my mother that stayed on her sofa until her death. One of my most vivid memories of that 1st year in 8th corps residence is of this first few weeks at the beginning of the year when we were all falling asleep all the time. One time in Kenyon Hall, somebody was teaching, one of those founding people, (the guy who made wine in his cellar ? George Jess? maybe) but NOBODY could stay awake. People were just nodding off everywhere. He was going on about Abraham went here, and then he went there.... and off I went to Nod. Gexxald Wxxx got SO MAD that his solution was to make us all sleep less and work and exercise more. I have NEVER been more TIRED in my entire life than during that week when we were being PUNISHED for falling asleep. Oh, and we had to get up early and meet in the circle drive and do exercises, including these things called "rabbits." Somebody showed up in a rabbit costume later on while we were doing those things. ha ha ha thanks for the laugh. I was up in the Abassador room with a couple other people from my twig and we were moving stuff around and I laid down on the floor and was TOTALLY wiped out. The MOST tired I have ever been, EVER. Ah but we must PUSH OURSELVES through our BREAKING POINT. And there was the "stride." We were supposed to reach that "stride" as a Corps and were we there yet??? No not yet, gotta get to that STRIDE.. One time Vee Pee was coming to campus and we were going to have a parade. Somehow I was supposed to be an elf. Well, the parade got cancelled which was a good thing because I had no means to obtain anything with which to make an elf costume. Another time, we all had to wear red and stand in a big heart as Vee Pee flew overhead in Ambassador One so he could look down and be blessed to see us making a big red heart. So, these are some of the highlights of my first year in residence. I was convinced of course that I was answering my CALLING FROM GOD. I do remember sitting in study hall, though, in Wierwille libray, looking out the window at the leaves in the trees and having this strange disassociated feeling, a feeling like "Isn't it strange that I am here and doing this?" Then the year ended, we went home for break and came back to go to ROA (did Corps week start yet? Mmaybe that was the first one that year). Then OFF to my Interim Year Assignment!!!!

Dustin Hoffman Midnight Cowboy Jon Voight

Here are some pics of some New Bedford believers that year (1976-77): Potato chips for 79 cents!!!

Thanks for reading coolchef and Belle.

If you look closely, you can see that his nametag says "Person." I remember now that I had prayed during some WOW meeting that I would get a "person" into PFAL. Thus, the tag saying "Person." Steve had a great sense of humor obviously to go along with such a thing. Steve became one of my sponsors in the corps and helped pay my way for transportation to the Advanced class '77 that I had to take before going in residence. God Bless you, Steve, wherever you are.

I got assigned to New Bedford, Mass. That was kind of cool to me because I was born in Providence, RI which wasn't that far from there and my mom was from Boston, plus my ancestor had landed in Rowley Mass in 1648. I felt it kind of brought me full circle. New Bedford was a really neat town. It had that New England feel to it. My two WOW sisters and I found a place in the top of one of those three story houses that are everywhere in those New England towns. I found a job a few blocks away in "Yor Dogg Howse," a small restaurant where I was both cook and waitress, behind the counter. I worked in the mornings and the same people came in every day and it was like a party. My WOW sisters were Joan and Don't Remember. There was one other WOW family in our branch which had the corps WOW coordinator, a 6th corps on her interim year with 3 other WOWs, (2 male, one female) I had a pretty good year, all in all. I applied to the 8th corps and didn't get in, but one evening our limb leader, Staxxy Bxxxn, came by and informed me that I HAD been accepted. I was wondering how this came about, but I was not allowed to be privy to this information. Why should I know, it was only my life we were talking about. We ran a few classes that year, don't recall how many. I got a couple of people into PFAL. One of them was Steve, see below.