Watered Garden

Our first "child" was half yellow lab and half Irish setter. His name was Brandy. He was taller than any lab, but with a deep chest and a nice wedged head. He was the color of a dark golden retriever with a cream colored belly, and in his youth, cream colored fringe on the backs of his legs and the underside of his tail. He was 90 lb. He was an official twig dog, allowed to attend most if not all fellowships, at least the ones we were allowed to run. He liked most people, except one uppity 6th WC branch leader and a foster child we had who tormented him. He was hugely protective of his people. He would joyfully wade into an altercation with another dog, and he only lost once, when he was 12 years old. He was smart enough then not to get into any more battles. A Brandy story: We lived in Charleston, SC when Hurricane Hugo hit town. In the aftermath came carpetbaggers, thieves and scam artists, looking to make a buck from our distress. We had a big tree down across our front yard that my husband planned to cut up when he got a free weekend. As I was preparing dinner one evening, I noticed a beat up Chevy Suburban drive by a shady looking character, an older guy, slowly making its way around our street. A nicely dressed young man was going door to door, reporting back to the older guy. As he came up our driveway, I thought, "I' m just going to ignore him." However, my son saw him too, and raced to open the door. Fortunately, Brandy got there as the door opened, and the next thing I heard was "MOM!" Brandy had this guy backed up against the side of the house, snarling furiously. "I'm afraid of dogs!" squeaked the young lad. "Yeah, I think he knows that." I replied, getting a loose grip on Brandy's collar. This encouraged the youngster a bit. "I was wondering if you wanted that tree taken out," he ventured. "My husband's taking care of it." I said. "Now, I don't know how long I can hold onto him, so maybe you better go on your way." He had barely enough sense to walk quickly instead of run. Brandy wouldn't move until he was back on the street. My son told me the guy had jumped over the porch railing in an attempt to escape the Jaws of Death. WG

And be sure it doesn't dribble onto the lapels of your three piece suit! WG

Maybe one of them should have been: How to melt face and look spiritual while you're doing it. WG

I was in FLO for two of Waysider's three years, and I can't remember a single thing I learned, except how to tell baby radishes from baby weeds. Honest. That was the first thing Mr. Garden liked about me. I could work in a garden. We did have a Fellow Laborers Night, similar to Corps Night except since we worked secular jobs we couldn't all dress to nines, at least I couldn't since I worked in Columbus and drove directly to Limb. We took classes, too. One of the most entertaining things about Corps Night and classes was watching Mr. Garden try to stay awake. I don't remember much about the book of Acts. Wasn't there some time or other we were supposed to memorize the first chapter of Ephesians? Second year was worse, mostly bytch sessions from JM. Our objectives were similar if not identical to WC. "Acquire an indepth spiritual awareness and perception." Uh-huh. WG

Congratulations and Godspeed! Y'all stay in touch now, hear? WG

DWBH, You said HY was a great fan of this Ma__e guy, which probably explains the first incident, which took place in a hotel or some such meeting room away from Limb, right after 4th year FLO got settled in their little rooms. The other two were indeed engineered by JM hissownself. The getting rousted out of bed in the middle of the night was pure sadism. I wasn't around for the lockdown, thank God. I can't imagine going from Friday night to Sunday night without a couple showers and brushing after every meal. Those people were very, very sure of themselves; they should have been arrested for kidnapping. Who was taking care of the children during this torture session? Waysider, I agree with you. I don't think HY meant any real harm. But I always got the sense that JM was enjoying himself thoroughly. And yes, he certainly was a sleazy womanizer. His hand crept toward my backside more than once. I should have broken his arm! Galatian's 5:12 for men like him.* WG Galatians 5:12, KJV: I would they were even cut off which trouble you." WG

DWBH, 1975-76 it was HY. 1976-78 (Waysider was there for two years under this guy's "leadership") it was JM, the only man I ever saw drink beer at 9:00 AM. He had it in a coffee cup and I noticed it as I rounded a corner onto a pathway, which he was coming up as I was coming down. I could see right into it, and thought, "Hmmmm.' He must have seen a look on my face because he mumbled some lame excuse. Of course it never occurred to little brainwashed me that he might be an alkie. Wonder if that would explain some of his less appropriate behaviors? Of the two, I pretty much liked HY, though he let the FL coordinator, a 21-year-old child, do all the dirty work. The future Mr. Garden would've made a great leader for that bunch, because he was honest, genuine, real, and knowledgable of God, kind and loving. But I suppose from that viewpoint someone with a lot more legalism and a lot less lovingkindness would be more what TWI would want. Now lessee, what good did I get out of those two years? The second best thing that ever happened to me, Jesus being Number One - my husband! WG WG

As Waysider mentioned in an earlier post, we were pretty isolated from the rest of the world. We were being trained to be leadership in the State of Ohio. Thirty-two years ago, I was a trusting soul, somewhat naive, and believed that all TWI leadership were placed in their positions by revelation from God. Iit was my personal responsibility before God to listen to that individual very attentively, with completely undivided attention; to remember their sacred words, and to obey without question, the first time every time. So if a most exceedingly great and mighty man of God thinks I am worthless and useless, then I pretty much have to agree. The first incident, the one I described, was probably a very watered-down version of brainwashing such as was found in the infamous prison camps of North Viet Nam and Nazi Germany. Pick a few of the strongest, make the entire prison camp watch them being tortured, and you'll have no problem with the rest of the prison population. And, the chances that the prison population will stage an instantaneous rebellion in that situation are very slim indeed, or it wouldn't be happening in the first place. Remember, we were TRAINED to obey leadership. We were TRAINED that the MOG is always right. To question the MOG is to question God. I can only speak for myself, but I spent two years in Ohio Fellow Laborers, and of those 24 months, I would say about 22 of them I was scared to death. The last two I was engaged to be married and didn't really give a rat's nose. Remember too, that as Waysider said, we had for the most part menial jobs, crappy cars, and lived 6 to an apartment in Delaware, Ohio. If you didn't own your own vehicle and have it in decent working order, and you were given your marching orders, which meant "out within 24 hours" you were well and truly screwed. What 20-something wants to call Mommie and Daddy in the middle of the night and say "come get me."? Some of us had family in TWI; they would've been ashamed of the failure their kid reflected on them. Some of us had parents who despised TWI and would have never us out of their sight again. So rebellion was not an option for many of us. WG

Waysider, The lockdown at Limb your third year was basically a kidnapping. Unfortunately, it would have been unthinkable to call 911 and have the Delaware County Sheriff's Officers surrounding the building, and see JM led away in cuffs. Nice fantasy, though. WG

Coolchef, I think the perpetrator was probably the guy DWBH described. Don't know of the folks you mentioned. There could easily have been several individuals "trained" in these techniques and sent forth to "bless the believers." I think what made this so successful was that we were suddenly threatened, tied up, blindfolded, and tormented by those we TRUSTED. If in fact a Russian invasion had happened and THE ENEMY was after us, our response would have been entirely different. But this was a friend, a fellow believer, another member of the body of Christ. We were not forewarned in any of the three situations, the two I remember, and the one of which Waysider was an unhappy victim. One of the results was to keep us off-balance, uncertain, and wary. We were taught to revere leadership, and here is this "guest speaker," some fellow to be treated with the utmost courtesy and respect, someone to be listened to and trusted, and he ties some of us up, blindfolds us, and screams, curses and pushes and hits. This is the treatment some of us receive from an individual who supposedly represents the Lord Jesus Christ. Funny, I don't remember reading in the Bible that Jesus did this to any of his apostles. Just another example of TWI taking over the rightful position of Jesus in his followers' lives. I love that bumper sticker, "Jesus, please save me from Your followers." Right. WG

Well, if the Bible is TWI's only source of faith and practice, you read that same passage in Hebrews (11:36:38) about HOW the faithful died, and considering that 10 of the 12 apostles were martyred (Judas commited suicide and John lived to an old age) I don't think you can promise that the faithful will die a peaceful death. Also considering we are made of corruptible flesh would make me think that a peaceful death is unlikely to be a promise. However, the faithful are promised a new life in Christ, an eternal life, and a body with no pain, no suffering, no disease, no aches, no pains, no aging. WG

I want to thank whoever set up that site so that all could look at the picture. I was certainly not among you, but I found my wonderful brother-in-law, Randy, who is no longer with us. WG

Skyrider, Do you know any more of the details? Do you remember who led the torture sessions? Someone told me a rumor they were tied to stakes and left at night or some such stuff. Of course this may be a wild rumor burning out of control. The session I described was very successful from the leadership point of view. It didn't take much after that to break people down to the Listen-Remember-Obey mode of thinking (if you want to call it thinking). I have an excellent memory and Waysider ain't all that bad, either, and neither one of us can remember the sadist-in-chief's name though both of us can remember his face and his wife's face. I remember wearing off-white knit pants and a really cute little floaty top, light blue and trimmed with lace, short sleeves and a V-neck. I don't remember the people who were pulled up front and sadistically treated, except for the one I married, who also has an excellent memory and doesn't think this ever happened. Waysider can correct me if he remembers I'm wrong, but I think we were locked into the meeting room during the sessions. This traumatized about 42-50 adults. It is unbelievable that an organization which claimed to be the one true representative of God Almighty and used a phrase Jesus Christ used to describe himself (I am The Way.....) as its name, would permit these tactics. I don't always agree with everything my church does, but I am totally sure neither of our pastors would let this in a country mile of their people. I still, after 30+ years, get the shivers thinking about it. If anyone out there can remember any more about it, I'd love to see you post on this thread. WG

Tonto-- Was he short and squat, kind of like a defensive football player? Was his wife petite, with long blonde hair and a perennial suntan and big smile? Was he from Columbus, Ohio. What did he do to you? You can PM if you prefer. I still get queasy thinking about it. I suffered along with the chosen few. And what really makes me ill is that NOT A ONE OF US stood up and said "Stop it! These folks are good people! What are you doing? Show me book, chapter, and verse where it says this is okay with God." They did this to the WC. What was the purpose? Did they ever tell you? Oh, yeah, and Waysider, what on earth gave you the idea you were allowed to THINK? WG

Yeah, the weekend lockdown had to have been your third year, because if I'd been there there would've been TWO nervous breakdowns. Blindfolds and handcuffs. That's right. What pizzed me off was that if this was to teach us to stand boldly and fearlessly upon the Word no matter what anyone did to us, why didn't they use RA and HY and LG and some of the other leadership as examples? Isn't leadership supposed to be in the front lines? I do recall they were 3rd year FLO who were tortured. I asked GP, my house coordinator who was a 3rd year FLO what in he11 that was all about and got some stupid answer like "It's very spiritual. I don't expect YOU to fully understand it." She once told me that the moment she met me she decided to make it her personal business to "break me." I always despised the guy. Always. And they treated him like some sort of celebrity. I would just love to see some SOB show me book, chapter and verse to justify what they did to us. I also remember the middle of the night assembly. I think MC who was going to marry BSS got canned at that one. At least I think he talked back a great deal. I can't remember if Mr. Garden and I were engaged at the time, I think we were almost engaged. I rode in to Cols to work with the future first lady of The Way of Illinois and we stopped some nice place for breakfast. We had to write a little essay or something begging to be allowed to stay for more red tape, beaurocracy and BS in our lives. Classic manipulation. Our LC our second (and your third) years should rot in he11 for what he put people through. HY I can kind of excuse, because as I recall he was somewhat uncomfortable after things got really rough. Didn't the guy kind of shove and slap at his victims? It didn't quite break Mr. Garden, though. I'd love to see anyone try that on him now! But I think it helps explain some of my fears of weird teachings a la "it is written" and "if you don't do _________________, God won't even spit in your direction". After all those years of careful training that the teacher, whomever that might be, holds God in a box and won't let you see Him unless you obey. I learned so much in FLO, it's a wonder I can think at all! (to paraphrase Paul Simon). I have to stop now. This is making me tearful and nauseated. WG

This is going to be really, really vague unless Waysider reads it and can add some. It's about a group facemelt we underwent in Fellowlaborers of Ohio. This would've been our first year, in September or October 1975. This was so terrifying I have basically blocked 90% of it from my mind. There was this guy who was some kind of a consultant by profession. I don't remember his name, except he lived in Columbus, and had a pretty blond wife who sold Shaklee or Amway or something. He was short and blocky. We met at a hotel meeting room and it was an all day meeting for FLO only. I may have been in a skit or something. I remember what I wore that day, but I don't remember much else except the horror. This guy was there to do some kind of reverse motivational training of some kind on the FLO's. I remember he selected a few souls, stood them up in front of the 50 or so of us, and literally got an inch from their faces, screaming at the top of his lungs all kinds of obscenities, accusations, threats, curses. It was the foulest, vilest attack I had heard in my life. One of the victims was the future Mr. Garden. I don't think LCM could have done it any better. I thought this guy was going to physically torture them and maybe he did tie their hands or something. I was literally about to soil myself with fear. We broke for lunch. I told RA our FLO coordinator I was going home and not going back in. He enforced my attendance, telling how important that was and what a great learning experience it would be and how thankful I should be and unfortunately he won. Of course, him being a coordinator, no one stood HIM up in the front of the room and screeched at him. Now of course during the screamfests the screechee couldn't make a sound, had to stand there and eat .... and love every minute of it. I don't think a one of us ever understood the greatness of this seminar. There was no godly love in it, no learning of Biblical truths, just an opportunity for a fat jerk to scream at one of the finest men, no make that THE finest man I've ever known. This guy, whose face I see clearly in my mind's eye, but whose name I can't recall, made Parris Island look like King Island. Afterward, none of us could look in each other's eyes. We silently filed out to our cars and drove back to Delaware. I eventually sought out Mr. Garden, who was quiet but seemed all right. It was a spirit busting seminar. It broke a lot of people just to watch. I don't know if this was a version of something they did in the WC or what. I heard rumors of a chosen few being taken to a camp in California and treated as if they were POW's. This was a psychological assault as bad or worse than anything anyone endured under the administration of the face melters and it went down in front of a whole group. I don't think any one person dared raise an eyebrow as their friends and roommates were verbally and mentally and emotionally rapedin front of all of us. Do any of your earlier WC remember anything like this being standard operating procedure as part of your training? Do any of you remember hearing about that POW training experience in california that LCM was supposedly the only one who "survived," figuratively speaking? This was one of those gut wreching moments I have occasionally (See "Secrets of the Vine" on the open forum) that tell me loud and clear: THIS IS NOT OF GOD! GET THE H311 OUT OF HERE! I did stay in FLO for two years, but it wasn't all bad; I married Mr. Garden and we have been married for 30 years! If you are "in" or "out, aka free" listen to your gut and your heart. You encounter a situation like this or any of the others described on this thread......RUN LIKE THE VERY DEVIL WAS ON YOUR HEELS, BECAUSE HE PROBABLY IS! PS: Mr. Garden has blocked this and doesn't remember anything at all, including the description of the guy. And he is very, very stable mentally and emotionally, so I think it was pretty awful for him, too. WG

Sometimes the cost of freedom is high. But the cost of bondage is unbearable. You have helped more people on this forum than you will ever know. You were doing that even when you were "in." You're no coward. You're one of my heroes. WG

Gee thanks, Oldies! That'd be a heckuva lot more than your hero ever gave B. G. Leonard. WG

Ya know, Before TWI was taken over by the Administration of the Face Melters, I had a reputation for saying what I thought, in fact, what everyone else usually thought but was afraid to say. In fact, I was something of a smartazz. During the Administration of the Face Melters, I got really quiet and fearful of letting anyone get close to me at all. My trust and heart were broken by all of this. Before the AFM, people pretty much left me alone. They didn't want to risk having the truth box their ears. Now, I'm happy to say I'm getting back to being myself, much to the shock of the small group I'm involved with at church. Oh, I'm nice about it, but when people say to the group, "we need to be real" they don't know what they're asking for! :) I think that was one purpose for face meltings: Silence the questioners, the dissenters, the reasoners. WG

Waysider-- I wish I'd had a pet German shepherd dog who was trained to bite butts! Sophie was great at retrieving tennis balls until she got arthritis too bad. We moved to the country four years ago. The first year, our next door neighbor had a pond dug. When it filled, he stocked it with fish and put a bubbler thing in to aerate it. Now the aerator sits on the bottom of the pond and has a float attached so its location can be verified at all time (I guess the bubbles at the top weren't enough proof). The float looks exactly like a tennis ball. He says the entire contraption probably weighs 60-70 lb, and when he first installed it, Sophie swam to the float, grabbed it, and dragged it out TWICE. He had to tie it off a foot below the water surface. Neither one of us could believe she was that strong (it was about 10 feet underwater) until Mr. Garden caught her in the act. He is, however, an extremely nice man and understands that labs have to swim and are bred to pull things out of the water, usually dead ducks or real tennis balls. So he tied it off down where she couldn't see it. And no, she's never retrieved a labrador. We had that fixed! WG

Absolutely wonderful! These middle school and high school kids work so hard for their achievements. My next door neighbors' son is 9th grade and plays sports. Sometimes he is up until 11 pm or later with homework. WG

It's still plaigerism. I want my 25 cents royalty! WG

Oldies, You just plaigerized my post! WG

Nicole, I like to think that Mr. Garden and I were two of the "good guys." We were never on staff or anything, but I know peoples' lives were changed because of us, especially Mr. Garden. 2Life posts here sometimes; she and her husband were WC and our twig coordinators for a while. They would do anything to help people, including moving some real characters into their home, coming to fetch someone in the middle of the night who's car had broken down, even bailing folks out of the slammer! (not us thank God). They were the go to people when you had a need or a problem. There were lots of really sweet, God loving people in TWI. Unfortunately, the untoward actions of a few people in leadership overshadowed much of the good. Remember Shakespeare? In "Julius Ceasar" Mark Anthony states in his funeral oration: "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Ceasar." It is unfortunate that the vile acts of so few have overshadowed the good deeds of so many. I don't know who your parents were, but I do know there were many, many people whose lives meant a great deal to God as well as to the people they served in love. WG

Well, right now I have one 14-year-old Labrador retriever named Sophie - also known as "Sophie's Wicked Sweet" thanks to my cousin from Maine. Up until a few weeks ago, when he had to be put down secondary to a big nasty cancer in his belly, we had a 16-year-old red and white cocker spaniel, Maxx, registered as "Michael's Smart Maxwell." We got Sophie as a six year old from some people who didn't want her any more. Their loss, our gain. Maxx was a tiny pup when we got him. He lived in several states before we came home to Ohio. Next spring I want to get another dog, but ..... cocker spaniel or lab??????? My grandson and I have the name picked out already: If it's a girl dog she will be Sweet CarmenOhio. If a boy, Archie, for Archie Griffin. My grandson is 4 years old and already a rabid Buckeye fan! Oh, and I occasionally play host to the non-neutered, non-spayed cats from next door and their children. Does that count? WG