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Well said. It would be one thing if a person was well established in life and then made the decision to become way corps. But they prey on the young and vulnerable, and before you know it you haven't developed yourself and your options become very limited as you get older. The experiences and education the way Corps provided was nothing that could be brought to a new job. Nobody is hiring for a chair stringing temper tantrum throwing plastic utensil saver.

LOL. I'll have to remember that line. Thanks wayside and word wolf. I did eventually learn the Christ-mass thing was a lot of bunk. I was trying to be wry, tongue in cheek. Maybe should have put these behind that sentence. :wacko:

During my twi years I didn't admit how much I loved Christmas. (Always have and still do.) I hated calling it "HO HO" and having to sing the twi version of Christmas Carols. ie: "Speak in tongues, speak in tongues do it every day..." to the tune of jingle bells. Although the worst was "I'm dreaming of a white HO HO" LOL, how completely out of touch. Leaders were so superstitious about saying the word Christmas yet didn't have a problem with us all looking like a bunch of idiots walking down the street singing that we were dreaming about a white whore. Anyway newlife, back to your question. I choked on the word Christmas for a bit, feeling ashamed because after all it meant Christ-mass a celebration of death. But this is how I dealt with it eventually. I realized that words can change in their meaning due to the current culture. Like when "you're so bad" evolved into a compliment. I now think of Christmas as the word it's called in our culture for celebrating in December. I try not to think of the origin anymore, just that there are days our culture sets aside to have celebrations and the one in December happens to be called Christmas. The meaning of the word has evolved for me. Non Christians say Merry Christmas because they are recognizing the holiday, not Christ. It's also ok to celebrate the life of Christ on the 25th as you might on any other day. Something that helped my husband and I start to enjoy holidays was to identify what we really wanted to be doing. We had fallen into the pattern of keeping family traditions that had really run their course and were no longer fulfilling. On Christmas we would go to this set of relatives, Thanksgiving the other relatives, Easter at our house etc... Some of these locations also required travelling distances. We were knocking ourselves out to keep up these traditions and then when we got there it was tedious and boring. Then we'd come home and have to get back to work, feeling worn out. But since we're both die hard people pleasers it took us a while to realize we were no longer happy participating in these holiday traditions. How we handled it was to give our relatives advanced notice that we would not be able to come on holidays anymore. We communicated it as kindly as we could. They were disappointed at first but it didn't last. It helped that we communicated well in advance of any holidays and that we found other less pressured times to visit. We have great relatives and we love them, but we needed to change things up. We now have a better time visiting each other on non-holidays. Quality instead of quantity. We celebrate at home now, with friends we enjoy being with and have a things in common with. It's been a lot of fun. Everyone brings their favorite dish, we play games, watch movies and talk about cars or anything else we find interesting. We now save our vacation days for actual vacations. But like I said, it helped when we finally identified what we wanted to be doing on holidays. It's different for everyone, so I would suggest you don't just go with the flow. Think about what would make you happy and who you would like to be with. I hope this helps.

Well said- you're right, the goal post was moved.

Don't think I ever knew Sunny. Are you ok Exie? Just had some questions and this topic seemed to fit. Hope you're ok.

LOL. twi leaders are legends in their own minds.

So full of himself. Yeah, understanding him better? That he exaggerated his abilities and usefulness? Although if the Olympics had throwing tantrums as a sport, he would have taken the gold medal.

I don't remember him. I'll need to read the posts. It will be interesting to see if it leads anywhere.

That's right, he did say running. This delusion was passed on to many twi leaders too. They truly thought the world would be begging for them to manage them. It was a rude awakening for many. That's why they mope. What about the college football success? Was that ever true? I don't see anywhere he was even mentioned. But I may not be looking in the right place.

He used to say he could be working for a fortune 500 company if it wasn't for all of us. Also, was he really that much of a jock? Is there anywhere on the internet that verifies his so called football success?

A different grandson, from another branch of the family. It was in a film where vpw made the mistake of thinking his affection for a grandchild meant the kid was going to be a prophet or something. I can't remember vpw's exact words but he was wrong about the kid. The kid and his family never "stood" with twi or vpw. He just happened to be vpw's favorite grandkid.

For as much as they used and abused us- the media really doesn't care about them, even the Loyster. They are just too stupid to profile on national TV. Any thoughts?

Like- wasn't his grandson supposed to have a special calling? That grandson has had nothing to do with it all as far as I know.

Yep- that's exactly what would have happened. I used to vacuum up a lot of big dead flies in window sils with the attachment hose. But I had to wait until the housekeeping coord left. She wanted us to wipe up the dead flies with a cloth. Yuck. She would flip out if anyone had a good idea or the ability to think for themselves. She considered efficiency or innovation by others to be devilish.

Ha Ha Ha. Thanks for the laugh.

When I was young, I felt like I had so much time. I became involved with twi as an impressionable teenager. I wanted to understand the bible and bought into what they said about being the only ones with the truth. And honestly, at that time they were teaching more than I had been taught at the churches I had attended up until then. But while they tried to paint all churches as evil, I had good experiences at the churches and youth groups I'd grown up in. I have many fond memories, and yes I learned some bible before twi. But I was searching for more and came to believe I'd found it in twi. So anyway, back to thinking I had time to do what I wanted to do with my life. I had always known what I wanted to be "when I grew up". I had talent and natural ability in the area's I wanted to work in. twi was heavily promoting several programs. I was heavily encouraged, challenged and "confronted" about going on a one year program. I complied, actually wanting to go and thinking to myself: I have a lot of time, it's only a year. However, that year turned into many as twi led me to believe anything I did on my own behalf was selfish, education was irrelevant and if I was believing, my needs would always be met. I spent many years working for free or on a need basis. In the back of my mind I continued to think I would one day have time to pursue my dreams. But as the years went on, the twi leaders made more and more demands. Three to five meetings a week in addition to mandatory witnessing hours. Cleaning limb homes and babysitting for free. Cleaning public buildings we had rented before and after a twi event. (Buildings were already clean- but ahead of time we were supposed to make it spiritually clean, and afterwards we were supposed to leave it better than we found it. Even areas of the building we had not used). Helping to run classes, limb meetings etc... God forbid you lived within a 250 mile radius of a root location. Forget about a nice Sunday at home. There was no time for me or my well being. I was too busy doing their constant bidding. When times were tough, I looked for guidance from twi leaders. They either raged about how I should be believing God or were indifferent. No help at all. (ie: Limb coord wife insisted I give up several shifts at work for 3 weeks so I could come clean her home and baby sit because there was a class being run at their home and it was the spiritual priority. The region coord wife had told her this and we were to be on the "obedience to abundance" track)...... I was broke and starving. I am now becoming educated and working towards my goals. I have much greater success, happiness, well being and friendships now than I ever did in "the promised land of the prevailing word" of twi. Although I am decades behind most in accomplishing these things, I'm thankful I didn't let twi take my entire time here on earth. My advice is, take care of your own life first. Volunteer along the way, be giving and helpful but don't ever let any organization, especially twi or others like it to consume your life.

Now a days they don't call it Mark and Avoid. They had gotten too carried away with that one. Now they just say, you are no longer welcome at any Way Ministry fellowships.

Yes they had two daughters. Hope they are OK.

I know Grease Spot Café is going to close down. I appreciate Paw keeping it up for all these years. But I feel like there are still some things that need to be said. So here goes. I don't ever want to deter anyone from deliverance or the peace the word of God is able to bring someone. If TWI is able to give that to somebody, then so be it. I wouldn't want to talk someone out of it. If God delivers I don't want to tear it down, no matter where the source it comes from. But in my experience TWI stopped being effective in a Godly way a very long time ago. Historically TWI has had the poorest of leadership. They truly did not know how to minister, or they were unwilling to. When a believer admitted to having a problem or an issue, leadership would often use subterfuge to handle it. Instead of ministering, they would 'turn the tables' so to speak. They would yell at the person who had sought help, accusing them of "not renewing their mind" or "being possessed". No matter how long someone had "stood" with TWI they were usually "mark and avoided". Basically thrown out of TWI in their darkest hour. No support from the ministry they had "stood" with. My Worst experience was with J and K N. They were both very uneducated. J had run away to a homeless shelter and K had never risen above being a waitress. (I'm not Prejudice against waitresses, not at all. Just trying to show the experience and education this particular leadership had). They were both incredibly arrogant, especially K. They were both full time paid staff on the field, yet expected their home to be cleaned by believers for free, expected to receive child care for free and demanded gifts they had specified. K threw many temper tantrums. It was basically an excuse for her being uneducated and having no idea how to minister. To this day they are leadership with TWI. They are probably too fearful to venture out on their own because they truly do not have many skills. I want to say to young people in TWI. You may be excited and committed. But do you realize you are serving an organization that may not be there for you when you need them? When you are old, will they support and help you? It's important that you get yourself educated and have a savings account so you are not out in the cold when you are no longer deemed useful by TWI. I know a man who "stood" with TWI for over 30 years. He had worked on staff at HQ for many years being paid on a "need basis" only. He left HQ and was a very active member on the field running fellowships and being at the beck and call of "leadership" for TWI. A couple of years ago, he had some financial issues. He turned to the TWI leadership for guidance and help. He was devastated to be told he was no longer welcome at TWI fellowships. They were not interested in helping him or "believing with him" to resolve his issues. It did not matter how many years he had stood, sacrificed and worked for free. When he needed help, TWI just dumped him. Please think about your future, because the TWI leadership have proven to be only fair weathered friends. They will most likely use you for as long as possible then turn their backs on you when you need them. Be careful and protect yourself, because they will probably not. I have more to say, I'll try to get to it later. Any comments about this? Thanks again Paw for giving us a voice.

Awesome! Thanks.

Will she still need him, will she still feed him-when he's 64?

Sorry to hear about Fred- sounds like someone you were close to. Glad you have good friends and a good relationship with the lord.

Interesting question. I wish I had been stronger and more of an independent thinker back then. Regretfully, I let go of friends and opportunities that would have been more life enhancing than the hard hearted callous arrogant egotistical uneducated leaders I sided with. I apologized to a woman I had said some stupid things to that badly confused her. We are friends to this day. I ran into another woman who I had been afraid to apologize to but knew I should. She went out of her way to be so nice and kind to me that it made the whole thing a non issue. She had already forgiven me and made sure I knew. It was awesome, she was awesome. I'm not proud of some of my behavior back then, definitely not. But I'm thankful for God's grace. I finally figured it out and started living a better life. I'm much stronger and know how to think independently once I got away from it all. No longer the young person looking for direction from self serving narcissists.

In our area for a long time, the limby leader wanted the fellowship cords to collect WEEKLY :blink: :blink: family reports. They had to be very detailed about what we did and include what we learned from Gods word that week and areas of spiritual growth. Unbelievably time consuming and exhausting. On top of this, we were required to attend our fellowship at least 3 times a week. All this while working full time and having a family. If you didn't turn it in on time or didn't do it, they followed up. They demanded to know when you would get it to them and insisted you made it a priority. The reports were sometimes returned to you with requests for more details about growth etc... I ran out of things to write about. Some weeks our family had no "spiritual growth" that we could document. God forbid you admitted that. So I would write stupid stuff like "On Wednesday, we turned the TV off and decided to make sure we were not watching too much of it". This limby leader was full time staff on the field with too much time on his hands. Eventually- they said we only had to turn the reports in once a month- but it was still a stupid pain in the butt. It finally faded out after about a year and a half. Oy Vey- the things we did and the time we wasted for them.