Oakspear

Plenty of Way Corps grads ran there own successful business...then got screwed by the everybody-is-a-full-time-minister "revelation". That's not who you're talking about though, is it? ;)--> We had a guy in our area, who came in as a branch coordinator and was bumped up to Limb Coordinator before he left. The first year here he was a dry-waller. Worked hard all day, and went out witnessing most nights. Was a jerk in a lot of ways, but he actually did everything that he asked us to do. One of the PFAL classes during the last year that we had them had everybody but one person witnessed to by him. Anyway, after one year as a dry-waller/branch coordinator, they made him and his new wife full-time "ministers". By the time it was time to go back and join the work force, Martindale had convinced everyone that they could all be "managers". Most people who have never had managerial experience think that managers are just the folks who sit on their butts and tell everyone else what to do all day...kind of like what TWI "leadership" did . So here's all these people, who have been completely out of the workforce for several years, and who worked blue-collar or service industry jobs before that, applying for positions as managers in various businesses in their towns. Reality set in pretty quick for most of them.

Oldies, are you saying that you don't care that I couldn't care less that signals couldn't care less that Jim doesn't agree with him? Or do you not care that...oh forget it ;)-->

Just what the h*ll did that mean? In the context of the TWI heirarchy, Don & Howard, who were not ordained, had more power and authority than any Corps grad with a worthless "Rev." tacked on before his name.

No, and Elisha didn't run around preaching that what ever he ended up dying of was a devil spirit either. It wasn't the cancer that negated any ministry that Wierwille might have had, it was his behavior. The cancer only gets brought up because he himself taught that cancer was a devil spirit. How ironic that he died of cancer.

And I couldn't care less that you couldn't care less if Jim agrees with you. :P-->

Although this is listed as "Corps Notes", I remember hearing all of it: maybe our local Corps went over their notes with us, or the same ground was covered with advanced class grads or something. As I recall, Martindale was saying that Wierwille didn't wait until the last minute to name a successor, I also recall him saying that Wierwille didn't expect to die so soon...implying that he did the right, biblical, thing, but that the adversary killed him off. I don't know what people who were around Wierwille thought, but from where I sat, he looked hale & hearty when he stepped down in '82. The quick decline over the next 3 years is another story. Of the original three trustees, Harry Wierwille died "in office", Ermal Owens retired in 1977, and died in 1980 or '81.

The writers of post-biblical church history, the faction that eventually became the Catholic Church, didn't consider Timothy to be that big a deal, he wasn't one of the twelve apostles, hence, few if any legends or speculation about his life. You don't hear anything about Barnabas, Silas, Agabus, etc, but there are legends galore about Thomas, Philip, etc. Many early churches claim to have been founded by one of the twelve http://www.tntt.org/vni/tlieu/saints/St0126.htm http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14727b.htm TWI taught that Timothy was the successor to Paul as leader of the church

I always wondered how their history books handled that. I don't know if they've forgotten, more like denial. A nightmare- to them- they wish they could forget. They just pretend that unpleasant things didn't happen. The only thing that "failed" that ever got brought up was the so-called "zero Corps".

He was not... ...funny ...a dancer ...able to execute martial arts moves

They seem to have forgotten about Caballero and Townsend

I wasn't at the "inauguration and installation" of the 2nd prez of TWI, but I used to have a tape of the highlights, including Martindale's account of how he "got in The Word" back in his college days. The way he tells it (and IMHO, his account was a sincere and truthful one) he began having serious doubts about salvation during his last year or two in college, despite being the head of at least one Campus Christian group. Getting more involved by going on a missionary type of thing to New York and other things only made the perceived emptiness even more deep. According to his account, Donnie Fugit's and later Wierwille's teaching showed him that it was possible to have definite answers about salvation. By the time he took PFAL, he no longer spent every day fearing that he was going to hell. TWI & PFAL hooked him...he bought into it 100%. I'm sure that he believed that he literally owed his life and sanity to Wierwille. No wonder he was so into it, no wonder he was so loyal, so willing to do anything for the cause. Buying into the whole scam of Wierwille as MOG laid the groundwork for believing that his own position was ordained of God, and that he could do no wrong. His own weaknesses blossomed as he was able to act with virtually no restarints for much of his reign

Train up a child in the way he shall go, and when he is old he will not depart from it (Hey, just because I'm not a bible believin' guy, doesn't mean that I don't think there's good stuff in there :D-->) I have six children. The two oldest were my ex-wife's from her first marriage, the other four I contributed DNA to :o-->. When I separated from and later divorced my wife on the heels of my expulsion from TWI, only one of my children would talk to me. I wasn't the perfect dad (who is?), but they were convinced by their mom that I was a jerk worthy of "mark & avoid". Periodically I get letters from my late-teens daughter explaining why she thinks I am such a jerk. But over the last half year the older ones have come around. My oldest (who I swear would have slit my throat if he had the chance ) and I have reconciled. My second oldest and his girlfriend socialize with Reikilady & I from time to time(we had them over on Mothers' Day) and he and I have a few adult beverages together on Monday nights at "Open Stage" at a local watering hole. I've been told on several occassions recently, by my sons, that I was a good dad. I guess the moral to the story is that we have to just do the best that we can. They'll appreciate it or not when they're young; but adulthood brings a whole new perspective.

Congrats! -->

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Happy Birthday!

BOOKS - Read the Simarillion (aka the Elven telephone directory) & LOTR series more than once. I had read most of the Star Trek books until they started putting them out in a series of four or more books. Science fiction: Asimov, Heinlein, C.J. Cherryh, L.E. Moddessit. I've read The Silmarillion about six times over the years and read LOTR about once every two years MOVIES - Seen all the LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, and even the Harry Potter movies. Especially likes the behind-the-scenes clips on the DVDs. I like stupid movies: Starskey & Hutch, Meet the Parents, Clerks, all the Pink Panther movies, Get Shorty & Be Cool. I also like science fiction, LOTR, etc 'PUTERS - Knows how to read & write in binary and hexidecimal. (Haven't sat for my A+ cert yet, but hopes to, soon.) Gets excited about wireless networks. No geekdom here for me, but I do write a pretty mean spreadsheet MUSIC - Listens to some techno pop and still owns vinyl albums. Knows who OMD is. Loves the Bee Gees. Blues, fusion jazz, 70's rock. Muddy Waters, Danny Gatton, Roy Bucahnan, Morphine, Good Charlotte, Chris Duarte, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Blues Traveler are current favorites. PETS - Owns cats. (Or is it the other way around?) [bv] My only pets are two plants[/b] WORK - I like my job because I get to work with statistics, design presentations, and read gross medical reports. The grocery business - what can I say? I'm around food all day! MODE OF TRANSPORTATION -A customized (work in progress) PT Cruiser, Limited Edition, silver. Refuses to own a mini-van! 1987 Cutlass fake-wood-sided staion wagon, named "Big Woody" TRAVEL - Haven't done much for recreational purposes. Spent a couple of days at the Smithsonian once on vacation as a teen - would love to go back! (For a month!) Love to travel, especially in my wowmobile! Like driving more than flying, but flying works better when I don't have a lot of time. Ask Reikilady sometime about me in the airport S/O - Married to a math teacher AND loves to hear him talk about work. My sweetie posts here and I love her...what more can be said?

Galen & Jim: Asimov fans! Cool!

Yo! Lingo! Check your PT's

How did people ever communicate before they invented the cell phone? -->

I sat there scratching my head through large sections of it. Usually the "answers" to any questions were merely quotes from WayAP thrown back at you, or a look that said "what? you don't get it?"John Reynolds told me to ask my region coordinator, TH, my questions, since he would be "working the word" in preparation for teaching WayAP live. TH's response was that he didn't need to work the word: if the class was good enough for the Trustees, who approved it's use, it was good enough for him. His specific response to my analysis of Martindale's teaching on the original sin of mankind was that even if Martindale's teaching couldn't be backed up by specific scripture, "it must be right, because of what we know about homosexuality". Oh yeah, another thing: I recall us being directed to call WayAP "The Way Class" if we didn't use the full title - I guess too many people were calling it WAP (pronounced whapp)

In some ways they are smartening up. As Wierwille was as bad as Martindale in many respects, (he hid it better, and was much better at P.R.) Rivenbark & Co. are trying to keep a lower profile, I believe that RFR running things while not being the public face has less to do with her excruciating teaching style than with the decision to no longer focus all the attention on one individual.

There were not a lot of WayAP classes run before I got kicked out in 2001. I believe that the last year that PFAL was run in TWI was the 94/95 "ministry year", right after the WOW program was cancelled and right before the ROA was canned. WayAP was run for PFAL grads only in 95/96, with the Way Corps going first, and was run for new people in 96/97. Our state ran two grad classes in January and February 1996, and did not scrape up enough people until over three years later, in June of 1999. Included in the class were three PFAL grads who had just started participating in TWI after several years away, the new wife of one of these grads, and my son's girlfriend. In 2001 we ran a "live" class. New students were the girlfriend of another young man in our fellowship, an immigrant from Togo who was a PFAL grad, and two children of grads. No really new people. To be fair, despite back-to-back PFAL classes in the 70's and 80's, the 90's did not see a lot of PFAL action. A class was run in 1990 with eight people, five who were children of grads. Another class did not run until over three years later; one of my sons had been paid up for two years when he took it. The next classes was not until two years after that, when we managed to run three classes of seven people each in one year. Other than one family, no one stuck around much past session 12.

When I was in, I would not have admitted that what TWI was requiring was micromanaging either, yet it was. When I was in, I rationalized away the badgering too We would have new memebers (MEMBERS??? ) I used to think so too When I left our fellowship had the following professions: Independent business owner/part owner of a farm; paralegal; railroad worker; nurse; insurance salesman; waitress; sales rep; several staff members at a catering firm; dry waller; auto mechanic; stay-at-home mom; plumber, etc. So what? --> So, they've rejected everything they've ever taught, huh?

WayAP was 12 sessions, but each session was only two hours.

It was a "bargain" because we got to take it again and again and again? Who really learned new stuff after the first time? Okay, maybe it would take twice before it would all sink in, but this stuff wasn't too complicated, and you had the books and the syllabus.