TheHighWay

I agree... no need to invent dirt when there is already plenty to spread around. What intrigues me in this, however, is that Watered Garden says they all realized he had Encephalites, and were doing everything they could think of to treat it... why do I never remember EVER hearing that this is what happened to Howard? All I remember hearing is something like "ooooh Howard fell suddenly ill from some mysterious disease -- obviously it was the devil attacking him for standing strong with twi !!!" Does anyone else remember them ever just coming right out and saying "Howard had encephalites, and we suspect it was from a mosquito or tick bite since they were out hunting and it was going around at the time."? Wouldn't that make the most sense... to announce the facts so folks could pray for the specifics?

My thanks to everyone who responded. It's good to hear actual accounts from folks who where around back then. From the wikipedia info posted it sounds like a condition that was hard to diagnose (especially back then) and even harder to treat. Grace B. was an expert on natural foods and it sounds like whatever she did (I too, remember hearing about the blackstrap molasses and beet juice) worked. Was it a miracle? Depends on how you define miracle and what intervention you think took place. But at least it is one story that actually happened, as opposed to the many "stawries" told just to make a point. Does anyone know the time frame? When did Howard go to the hospital? How long was he there? How long was he recouperating at HQ?

With all the current discussions about Doc Vic's stories, and whether there is a shred of believability to any of them, someone reminded me of the Howard Allen illness... and I have to wonder: was any of it the truth? What I remember being told is that the two of them had been out hunting, and suddenly HA came down ill. Vic drove the camper back to civilization, having to stop repeatedly to keep Howard in bed. The docs couldn't cure him, and it took careful natural food ministrations (and much prayer) to bring him back to wellness. But all this took place before my twi-time, and in light of what I now know to be pure BS, or stolen ideas, I have to ask... were any of you part of twi at the time? What were you told? What do you KNOW to be true? What do you suspect to be truth? Exaggerations? Patent lies???

Boy, wouldn't that be a great thing I wonder, though, how much of our training fell into the fraternity cliche of hazing: I had to go through 'a,b, and c' so I'm going to make sure I put my pledges through 'x,y, and z' as payback. And it just gets worse with each cycle... Each new cycle of twit-leadership felt like they had to prove how spiritual they were by making it even tougher on the next group?

I think you are dead-on-target, on both counts!!

Yeah, I'd heard that V2P2 was associated with CFF and rising through the ranks. Guess this is proof. (you just wish they could do something better with their lives, don'tcha?)

Did you see the last line on the page???? If you are unable to do things that are outside of your comfort zone, then this is not for you. Ooookay... isn't this what is being discussed on the "Toughen Up" thread?? Hey... I've got a whole lot of yard work and exterior fix-ups that need to be done on my house... maybe if I set up a Biblical youth camp I could get it all done in a week or two this summer/fall... Weenies need not apply...

I believe lcm was installed in 1982. I don't know what year the prophesy was made but it would be interesting to look at that timeline.

What a mind picture that conjures, lol... so very very accurate. Yeah, I think that sums it up for a lot of us. We wanted to LEARN something, we wanted to DO something, we wanted to be a PART of something really GOOD and GODLY and HELPFUL. And that's what we thought we were doing. ((sigh)) "Toughening up" was sold to us like strength-training; wisdom-building; endurance-conditioning. All of these would have been good things. But I agree with those who have said what it really became was a hardening of the heart. We were taught to ignore the obvious and abide by the law no matter what. Sometimes that worked. And it seems that those who were helped by this procedure cannot see that most of the time it didn't work. Most of the time it did the opposite. And then we were trained to ignore that... yeah, socks is right: it got built alright...

Like so many twi issues, this was always taken on a case-by-case basis. I know of some corps couples who were in-rez when they (oops) got pregnant and they were told to leave the training and go have their babies. Come back as family corps. --- maybe they thought these folks were already on the hook financially and spiritually and they figured there was less risk of 'losing' them by letting them have the baby?

Because I had lived on campus at Emporia for a year in the college program, I had a fairly good idea of what the way corps was going to be like. Back then I knew they intended to put us in situations where we pushed ourselves farther than we had done before, broke through our barriers of fear, moved out of our comfort zone, and "had" to rely on God rather than ourselves. That is how I would have defined "toughen us up" back then. I've never had a problem with that aspect of the program. I feel that we who signed up usually had a pretty good idea of what was going to be asked of us WITHIN THE PROGRAM. If you didn't know going in, you learned pretty quick, to expect anything in the name of training. But it isn't within the program specifics that my feelings of victimization come from... it is from the whole over-arching system and mindset of twi... the teaching that if you questioned something you were either spiritually deficient or just plain evil, or that if you left the group you were walking out from under God's umbrella of protection, or that you received God's blessing by obeying your leadership/husband even when they were wrong (that God would deal with the fact they were wrong, that wasn't your job)... Did these concepts hold people in place? yes Did they keep folks from leaving as soon as they might have? yes Did they build fear and condemnation in people's lives? oh yeah Did they steal time, prosperity, opportunity, and even health from folks? you bet! That's how I feel vicitimized. Not by the specific programs, but by the whole mindset. That pervasive, insidious, incrementally evil mindset.

Yeah, well, Oldies honey, we all knew what your answers would be before you posted. But I suppose most folks would know that my answers would all be YES! I have seen the movie, but not in a long time. It's about politics and spies and perceptions vs realities and what you want to do vs what you feel you have no choice in doing... it's a good movie. And in some ways it certainly does represent the no-win situation twi put many of us through. They so often taught one thing and did another that you learned not to trust your own perceptions and gut instincts. Whenever my local leadership would try to direct what hubby and I wanted to do they would say, "Now we aren't telling you what to do, but....." and then they would list the reasons we should do it their way. And in the back of my mind I would also know that if we went ahead and did what we wanted, not following leadership's "advice" we would be put on their 'bad' list and suddenly everything we did would be questioned and scrutinized. We'd seen it happen to those around us over and over again. We didn't want it to happen to us. We did what the leadership said, even when it did us immediate harm!!! I agree with Polar Bear... everything about my life is better now than it ever was when I was a follower of the way international. Everything. THW

Louiselle was an amazing person when I knew her in-rez. Sweet, smart... a french-speaking Canadian who taught herself english so she could take more Bible classes. Just a joy to be around. But I doubt that she was the same person by the time she had become a limb-leader's wife!! I saw too many friends become leader's wives and undergo dramatic changes from vibrant, inspiring, confident, self-posessed people into cowering little "1950's susie-homemaker-wannabees" with bad hair, bad makeup, and no sense of style, standing behind their man (a step behind and to the left, please). -- Rico M's wife Robin is another example of this. Louiselle probably didn't give it much thought... just took directions from the top and obeyed.

The first link just takes you to the site, but shows nothing of twi. They go by the name of "The Way Ministry of Canada" if you want to do a search. The last two links work.

Craig wasn't a great football player but he did play football for KU. (wasn't his bachelors of psychology paid for by a football scholarship?) His team did go to the Orange Bowl, and one of the gifts he received while director of the corps was a replacement of his lost bowl ring, although I don't think he saw much field time in that game. He really didn't talk much about how good a player he was, in fact, he spoke more about his challenges as a player and how the coaches helped him, or how "believing images of victory" worked for him, that sort of thing. Rhino, I think you may be right... he probably would have been a decent school football coach if twi and vic hadn't intervened.

Excellent question!! I think most of my anger/frustration gets aimed right at VP-dubya himself. He started it. He got away with it. He taught others to carry on his legacy. If he hadn't set up the original structure, mindset, and support system, Craig wouldn't have happened. A lot of things wouldn't have happened. Beyond that, there have been long discussions at the greasespot about who else we should be upset with... some seem like obvious vultures who appear to have known EXACTLY what was going on and turned a blind eye (can you say M*yn*h*n??), while others seem as much innocent victims as the rest of us, who became so conditioned and found themselves in so deep they really didn't know how to get out (as many feel was the case with Dorothea W.) And now you bring up a good additional point about local leadership being in our direct path. So many folks never had any individual contact with VeePee or Craig, whereas they got personally shredded by their local high-ships. So it would be easy to see how their feelings would be directed to those folks. That wasn't in some special training program that you volunteered for, that was day-to-day stuff, trying to just live stuff, I didn't ask for this stuff, nowhere to run stuff. Like so many issues of being ex-twi, I think it's a personal thing; different for each of us... The questions I ask: Who did you the most harm? Who's motives do you understand? Who has actually asked for forgiveness or changed? Who is still there supporting twi? I agree with Ham... I don't expect an opportunity to reconcile my feelings with many of the folks who caused me harm. So I ask myself these questions to help me get to the point that I can live with it all, and move on with my own life in peace.

Don't we all?

What the heck does that even mean???? Who talks like that???? For the folks who still think the sun rose and set on VPW, I don't know how they can read accounts like these and think he was in any way a godly man...

I voted. What a great pic!!

Now THAT's a storyline I could get behind!!!

When did the corps training program leave Gunnison? Are they still doing family campus at Gunnison in the summer? Inquiring minds want to know...

I think so many of us bought into it because A) we were young and single and had no clue what it felt like to be a parent or B) he did with this what he did with so many other "principles" he taught-- started with what is accepted Christian doctrine (your actions have consequences) and took it a step or two further to make us feel like we were receiving special insight. We just wanted to know more than we knew, and went to the wrong source to find it.

Yeah, once I saw beyond my fear, oh excuse me "respect" of them, I realized all the face-melters I ever knew were selfish, immature, power-hungry bullies. I also found that when I got mad enough I could just stand there and stare them down, they wilted like the cowards they were. So, now when I see that kind of behavior in anyone, I realize they are all cut from the same cloth, and don't pay them much attention.

Actually, I think that was our mistake in the first place: thinking that there was some standard that defined NORMAL that we should/could conform to...

This is great!! I think we have the beginnings of a really good movie here!! Okay, here’s my all-star cast wish-list: Vic – Jon Voight Uncle Harry – Robbie Coltrane Dorothea – Julie Walters Loy – Bill Pullman Donna – Helena Bonham Carter Rosalie – Dianne Wiest Howard – John Mahoney Don Wierwille – Hal Holbrook Aunt Emogene – Imelda Staunton JAL – Tim Allen Michael Fort – Bob Saget Whaddya think?