Oh man...you were smart to get out when you did. The last few ROA's were horrible.
The theme was "Living Sanctified" and Martindale pitched the evening teachings as The Class on Living Sanctified. Attendance at the evening teaching was mandatory as was the morning series about Moses & Joshua (we were entering the "Promised Land of the Prevailing Mixed Metaphor" doncha know?)Attendance at late morning twigs was also mandatory. When they announced that there would be no more ROA's it was all I could do to keep from cheering out loud.
Thought I'd bring my own post back up.
The last ROA was the first one where that whole family (me, wife & 6 kids) went to. Before that I'd usually just take the older ones. As usual it rained buckets early in the week. The water flowed like a f'n river through my tent. The kids ended up sleeping in the Corps tents while I spent the night in one of the buildings drying out my stuff. We were in a "suburb" of Tent City, not far from the Corps and International tents; I thought I had it bad until I went over to the main area of Tent City to help folks get their things together to dry out (this in the pitch dark middle of the night) and was literally up to my KNEES in water.
On the way home we were supposed to "caravan" home with our Branch Coordinators (a newly married couple with no kids) who yelled at us because we were slow to pack up our sodden clothes and mud-encrusted tent. They insisted on picking up food at a drive-through when it was time to eat, rather than taking a break and sitting down and then halfway through the drive home decided to leave us in the dust.
then halfway through the drive home decided to leave us in the dust.
Sounds like good riddance. I would guess you branch coordinators at the time were Forehead wannabes. My wife had a horrible time with one of those before we were married. But that is another story.
As for the water, remember that all that area used to be swamp land and has a drain-tile system running underground to keep the place dry. Add water, and or a busted tile and you have a temporary pond. Can't believe the idiots were having people in those fields. Sounds like they did not care what happened to the folks out there in all that water / mud. Bastards.
This is my memory of the ROA - deciding that if I went to the showers early enough in the morning that they would be less crowded... instead I found out that all the women who were of the extremely large variety all showered early. I was standing there trying to get up to the shower area - you had to walk across some sort of gangplank like thing to get up to the showers. A VERY VERY VERY large woman was standing on it talking to a friend. I was trying to get by and said, "excuse me"... She looked at me as if I was being rude, and turned sideways to let me by. THERE WAS STILL NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR ME TO PASS BECAUSE SHE WAS THE SAME WIDTH ALL THE WAY AROUND. I cleared my throat and said, "I'm sorry, I still can't fit through." She finally got off the walkway and was obviously very offended by me telling her to move. Please keep in mind, this woman was naked except a normal size bath towel that only covered the bare necessities up front, and I was not going to squeeze past. As a teenager, I was traumatized.
ROA - nothing better than to take the only 2 weeks vacation time you have from a job to caravan to Ohio and to spend the time working. TWI is run by free slave labor. And they are not appreciative at all.
"Please keep in mind, this woman was naked except a normal size bath towel that only covered the bare necessities up front, and I was not going to squeeze past. As a teenager, I was traumatized."
I attended at least 6 ROA's. I camped out (the worst), stayed in a motel (the best), stayed in a motorhome (pretty good), and at Joe Coulter's house with a bunch of A/V Corps (weird). The times I worked video at the ROA were the best. I had credentials that would let me in anywhere, the occasional use of Joe's golf cart, access to the backstage break area and an air conditioned video van to hang out in. The downsides were long hours and lots of pressure to get everything right.
Lol.. Enjoyed reading those horror stories.. Gee, makes me not want to go!
But alas, I did.. And well, I actually enjoyed it.
I just got out of HS, and was a newb in the ministry. But I grew up in the outdoors. Raised on a farm, loved to go hiking in the mountains, and loved to stay in tents in rainy weather.. Maybe I'm just a masochist and don't know it! lol.. I knew how to keep my tent dry for the most part. And the first 2 years I didn't even know about the work groups! Well, maybe the second year I did, but I was a returning WOW and had already made plans to go backpacking in the smokies with my dad, so I only stayed halfway..
The showers were a bit awkward. But then, it was only a year or so since I was in HS and was on the swim team, so taking showers with other guys was the norm. And at least I wasn't being attacked with towels like in HS.. lol..
Since I bought into TWIs "teachings", there wasn't much complaints until possibly the third Rock I went to and it was "determined" for me that I ought to be helping work in the pizza tent. Wasn't too bad, but being "volunteered" rather than it being my choice was just the beginning of realizing their ways of take but never give! And even their hypocrisy when once while working I was confronted for making a joke of something only to have the person who reamed me, turn around and do the exact same thing as I did, and then get even more upset when I pointed out his hypocrisy.. lol.. That didn't turn out well!
Course it was a little weird also coming to this Christian gathering and having women willing to do things I was told never to talk about in public.. lol.. But I was a kid, what did I know! At least I had enough self control to say no thanks when offered.. Yeah, just weird!
But overall, since I enjoy the outdoors, it was like group camping, which is something I still enjoy!
ROA - nothing better than to take the only 2 weeks vacation time you have from a job to caravan to Ohio and to spend the time working. TWI is run by free slave labor. And they are not appreciative at all.
True. Very true. But I think I hated the adv. class specials over Thanksgiving more. A time when families are supposed to be together and I was using vacation time to go to a hotel and be yelled at. I liked the hotels, being somewhere different-but the classes and the intense pressure sucked.
They were really an unappreciative bunch of self serving leadership. I remember seeing a leader guy I had once been friends with. I went up to say hi and he held his finger up and said "excuse me please" and turned to someone else and acted like it was more important to first talk to someone else. He was being big leader guy. I walked away and lost all respect for him and suddenly missed my real family, who were not a-holes.
True. Very true. But I think I hated the adv. class specials over Thanksgiving more. A time when families are supposed to be together and I was using vacation time to go to a hotel and be yelled at. I liked the hotels, being somewhere different-but the classes and the intense pressure sucked.
They were really an unappreciative bunch of self serving leadership. I remember seeing a leader guy I had once been friends with. I went up to say hi and he held his finger up and said "excuse me please" and turned to someone else and acted like it was more important to first talk to someone else. He was being big leader guy. I walked away and lost all respect for him and suddenly missed my real family, who were not a-holes.
Yeah, if you were fortunate enough to get a job that gave you 2 weeks off in your first year of employment, you spent that time going to Corps Week and the Rock. Then if you lived out west and you couldn't "believe" enough to get a plane ticket, add another week's worth of driving and now you're off 3 weeks for the Rock and Corps Week. Good luck finding a job that gives you 3 weeks off a year. Wierwille's answer, "believe God and quit fainting in your minds!" I remember well how V.P.'s heart was "broken" because of all the Corps that departed prior to the Rock. So he yelled at the entire Corp during a Sunday night service.
Add to all of that all the twig, branch, limb, W.O.W. Vet, Advanced Class grad meetings during the year along with the planning meetings for such events. Then there was the "volunteer work" for these events that took extra time. My favorite time was always driving for hours to go and mulch, trim, and generally spruce up THE LIMB COORDINATORS YARD.
When I finally realized that the main leadership was completely out of touch with the Corps on the field was when top leader from a Root location visited our state. Then he busted on us and all Way Corps for not attending the Way Family Camps. Great! Add another week or 2 of time off and driving, raising the money etc. to go do "Devotion with Motion" at 7:00 in the morning. When we brought this up to our great leader, his answer was, "I don't know what to tell you. You just need to believe God."
"I don't know what to tell you. You just need to believe God."
That phrase infuriates me. So these peons leaders in the cornfield make unreasonable demands on people and then expect God is overing overhead like a cruel taskmaster expecting we just "believe" him bigger - idiots. A person either has faith, trust in God or not. They make it sound like there are countless degrees of believing and of course there is always more to be had. Idiots..Ok, finished griping now.
That phrase infuriates me. So these peons leaders in the cornfield make unreasonable demands on people and then expect God is overing overhead like a cruel taskmaster expecting we just "believe" him bigger - idiots. A person either has faith, trust in God or not. They make it sound like there are countless degrees of believing and of course there is always more to be had. Idiots..Ok, finished griping now.
That, and there was always an underlying assumption that whatever they were saying, planning,etc. was the Will of God.
Yeah, if you were fortunate enough to get a job that gave you 2 weeks off in your first year of employment, you spent that time going to Corps Week and the Rock. Then if you lived out west and you couldn't "believe" enough to get a plane ticket, add another week's worth of driving and now you're off 3 weeks for the Rock and Corps Week. Good luck finding a job that gives you 3 weeks off a year. Wierwille's answer, "believe God and quit fainting in your minds!" I remember well how V.P.'s heart was "broken" because of all the Corps that departed prior to the Rock. So he yelled at the entire Corp during a Sunday night service.
Add to all of that all the twig, branch, limb, W.O.W. Vet, Advanced Class grad meetings during the year along with the planning meetings for such events. Then there was the "volunteer work" for these events that took extra time. My favorite time was always driving for hours to go and mulch, trim, and generally spruce up THE LIMB COORDINATORS YARD.
When I finally realized that the main leadership was completely out of touch with the Corps on the field was when top leader from a Root location visited our state. Then he busted on us and all Way Corps for not attending the Way Family Camps. Great! Add another week or 2 of time off and driving, raising the money etc. to go do "Devotion with Motion" at 7:00 in the morning. When we brought this up to our great leader, his answer was, "I don't know what to tell you. You just need to believe God."
Not once......in my 24 years in twi, did leadership deal with REALITY in tackling corp mandates of cw/roa attendance AND stay employed.
Who gets three weeks of vacation time......in their first year of employment?
Who gets to 9-5 hours, everyday, always....so as not to miss twig/branch meetings?
Who gets another extra week off work.......to attend a way family camp?
Add a couple kids, education, career building.......NO WONDER CORPS COULDN'T KEEP JUMPING ALL THE HOOPS THAT WIERWILLE & CO. DEMANDED.
Add a couple kids, education, career building.......NO WONDER CORPS COULDN'T KEEP JUMPING ALL THE HOOPS THAT WIERWILLE & CO. DEMANDED.
And they've paid the price. There aren't enough corps to go around these days. Personally, I love it - maybe they can make some more demands on the burdened few. The way international is responsible for it's own attrition and they are too stoopid to change.
1) Wierwille did NOT have "believing" to put a foundational class together.....he STOLE it from BG Leonard and, then, added snippets of infor from Stiles & Bullinger.
2) Veepee did NOT have "believing" to start twi after stealing BG's class......he STAYED ON CHURCH PAYROLL for another 4 years.
3) Veepee did NOT have "believing" to build twi without free slave labor.
4) Veepee did NOT have "believing" to LEAD the leaders. He manipulated, coerced, exploited, etc......but he did NOT tackle the problems.
5) Veepee did NOT have genuine, leadership ability.
And they've paid the price. There aren't enough corps to go around these days. Personally, I love it - maybe they can make some more demands on the burdened few. The way international is responsible for it's own attrition and they are too stoopid to change.
And......that's why there is no roa.
Corps numbers plummeted after cgeer's power-grab in 1986.....
Then, as twi rebuilt....martindale "got revelation" to put all corps on twi payroll in 1995. Not surprisingly, this was the last year for rock of ages. Why? Because then twi would have to PAY for all the cost incurred by way corps. Traveling costs, food, motels, gasoline, housing during corps week/roa and travel expense home......ALL WOULD BE TWI'S EXPENSE WITH CORPS ON TWI PAYROLL.
On the first corps meeting in September 1995, martindale announced that only "invited" corps could attend any Word in Business conferences. In other words, twi does NOT want to pay for you corps attending the event. Stay home, unless we need you to work.
Exploitation of corps thru the years?........yeah, absolutely.
I have good memories of the first 2-3 Rock of Ages. It was more 60ish than the despicable thing it was later. I rode out with Chris Geer from Rye once. We left late, so slept over in a corn field and attended a church breakfast event the next day. Chris and I were never friends... I knew he wasn't trustworthy.
Another ROA memory... running out in a rainstorm with a bunch of other kids and being hauled back inside a tent by Bless Patrol and then given a good reproof session for not being more careful.
I was enjoying the rain because where I was from NEVER got that much rain at a time.
Silly me... I had forgotten that weather is caused by the Adversary.
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MTgal
Part of the wonderful aroma more than likely came from the product used to "fertilize" the area -- check with staff who worked with the "honey pot" crews...
George Aar
I dunno. I never cared for Way-Flavored music in even my most myopic of WayDaze so that was no draw. The weather was always nigh unto unbearable. Even the air was tainted with the rank, fetid odor of
Broken Arrow
What got really scary one time in the men's shower was when the entire group started singing "He Touched Me"! I believe the line started moving a lot faster at that point.
OldSkool
Thanks!! I will do just that.
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Oakspear
The last ROA was the first one where that whole family (me, wife & 6 kids) went to. Before that I'd usually just take the older ones. As usual it rained buckets early in the week. The water flowed like a f'n river through my tent. The kids ended up sleeping in the Corps tents while I spent the night in one of the buildings drying out my stuff. We were in a "suburb" of Tent City, not far from the Corps and International tents; I thought I had it bad until I went over to the main area of Tent City to help folks get their things together to dry out (this in the pitch dark middle of the night) and was literally up to my KNEES in water.
On the way home we were supposed to "caravan" home with our Branch Coordinators (a newly married couple with no kids) who yelled at us because we were slow to pack up our sodden clothes and mud-encrusted tent. They insisted on picking up food at a drive-through when it was time to eat, rather than taking a break and sitting down and then halfway through the drive home decided to leave us in the dust.
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OldSkool
Sounds like good riddance. I would guess you branch coordinators at the time were Forehead wannabes. My wife had a horrible time with one of those before we were married. But that is another story.
As for the water, remember that all that area used to be swamp land and has a drain-tile system running underground to keep the place dry. Add water, and or a busted tile and you have a temporary pond. Can't believe the idiots were having people in those fields. Sounds like they did not care what happened to the folks out there in all that water / mud. Bastards.
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JavaJane
This is my memory of the ROA - deciding that if I went to the showers early enough in the morning that they would be less crowded... instead I found out that all the women who were of the extremely large variety all showered early. I was standing there trying to get up to the shower area - you had to walk across some sort of gangplank like thing to get up to the showers. A VERY VERY VERY large woman was standing on it talking to a friend. I was trying to get by and said, "excuse me"... She looked at me as if I was being rude, and turned sideways to let me by. THERE WAS STILL NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR ME TO PASS BECAUSE SHE WAS THE SAME WIDTH ALL THE WAY AROUND. I cleared my throat and said, "I'm sorry, I still can't fit through." She finally got off the walkway and was obviously very offended by me telling her to move. Please keep in mind, this woman was naked except a normal size bath towel that only covered the bare necessities up front, and I was not going to squeeze past. As a teenager, I was traumatized.
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Oakspear
Those plastic forks in the meal tent worked well for poking one's eyes out before going into the showers....
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OldSkool
I'm traumatized as a middle aged adult just reading it.
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chockfull
ROA - nothing better than to take the only 2 weeks vacation time you have from a job to caravan to Ohio and to spend the time working. TWI is run by free slave labor. And they are not appreciative at all.
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Bolshevik
I hated the travel more than anything. Just another exercise in exhaustion.
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Jim
"Please keep in mind, this woman was naked except a normal size bath towel that only covered the bare necessities up front, and I was not going to squeeze past. As a teenager, I was traumatized."
I was traumatized just reading about it.
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Jim
I attended at least 6 ROA's. I camped out (the worst), stayed in a motel (the best), stayed in a motorhome (pretty good), and at Joe Coulter's house with a bunch of A/V Corps (weird). The times I worked video at the ROA were the best. I had credentials that would let me in anywhere, the occasional use of Joe's golf cart, access to the backstage break area and an air conditioned video van to hang out in. The downsides were long hours and lots of pressure to get everything right.
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TrustAndObey
Lol.. Enjoyed reading those horror stories.. Gee, makes me not want to go!
But alas, I did.. And well, I actually enjoyed it.
I just got out of HS, and was a newb in the ministry. But I grew up in the outdoors. Raised on a farm, loved to go hiking in the mountains, and loved to stay in tents in rainy weather.. Maybe I'm just a masochist and don't know it! lol.. I knew how to keep my tent dry for the most part. And the first 2 years I didn't even know about the work groups! Well, maybe the second year I did, but I was a returning WOW and had already made plans to go backpacking in the smokies with my dad, so I only stayed halfway..
The showers were a bit awkward. But then, it was only a year or so since I was in HS and was on the swim team, so taking showers with other guys was the norm. And at least I wasn't being attacked with towels like in HS.. lol..
Since I bought into TWIs "teachings", there wasn't much complaints until possibly the third Rock I went to and it was "determined" for me that I ought to be helping work in the pizza tent. Wasn't too bad, but being "volunteered" rather than it being my choice was just the beginning of realizing their ways of take but never give! And even their hypocrisy when once while working I was confronted for making a joke of something only to have the person who reamed me, turn around and do the exact same thing as I did, and then get even more upset when I pointed out his hypocrisy.. lol.. That didn't turn out well!
Course it was a little weird also coming to this Christian gathering and having women willing to do things I was told never to talk about in public.. lol.. But I was a kid, what did I know! At least I had enough self control to say no thanks when offered.. Yeah, just weird!
But overall, since I enjoy the outdoors, it was like group camping, which is something I still enjoy!
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100% Free
True. Very true. But I think I hated the adv. class specials over Thanksgiving more. A time when families are supposed to be together and I was using vacation time to go to a hotel and be yelled at. I liked the hotels, being somewhere different-but the classes and the intense pressure sucked.
They were really an unappreciative bunch of self serving leadership. I remember seeing a leader guy I had once been friends with. I went up to say hi and he held his finger up and said "excuse me please" and turned to someone else and acted like it was more important to first talk to someone else. He was being big leader guy. I walked away and lost all respect for him and suddenly missed my real family, who were not a-holes.
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Broken Arrow
Yeah, if you were fortunate enough to get a job that gave you 2 weeks off in your first year of employment, you spent that time going to Corps Week and the Rock. Then if you lived out west and you couldn't "believe" enough to get a plane ticket, add another week's worth of driving and now you're off 3 weeks for the Rock and Corps Week. Good luck finding a job that gives you 3 weeks off a year. Wierwille's answer, "believe God and quit fainting in your minds!" I remember well how V.P.'s heart was "broken" because of all the Corps that departed prior to the Rock. So he yelled at the entire Corp during a Sunday night service.
Add to all of that all the twig, branch, limb, W.O.W. Vet, Advanced Class grad meetings during the year along with the planning meetings for such events. Then there was the "volunteer work" for these events that took extra time. My favorite time was always driving for hours to go and mulch, trim, and generally spruce up THE LIMB COORDINATORS YARD.
When I finally realized that the main leadership was completely out of touch with the Corps on the field was when top leader from a Root location visited our state. Then he busted on us and all Way Corps for not attending the Way Family Camps. Great! Add another week or 2 of time off and driving, raising the money etc. to go do "Devotion with Motion" at 7:00 in the morning. When we brought this up to our great leader, his answer was, "I don't know what to tell you. You just need to believe God."
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OldSkool
That phrase infuriates me. So these peons leaders in the cornfield make unreasonable demands on people and then expect God is overing overhead like a cruel taskmaster expecting we just "believe" him bigger - idiots. A person either has faith, trust in God or not. They make it sound like there are countless degrees of believing and of course there is always more to be had. Idiots..Ok, finished griping now.
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Broken Arrow
That, and there was always an underlying assumption that whatever they were saying, planning,etc. was the Will of God.
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skyrider
Not once......in my 24 years in twi, did leadership deal with REALITY in tackling corp mandates of cw/roa attendance AND stay employed.
Who gets three weeks of vacation time......in their first year of employment?
Who gets to 9-5 hours, everyday, always....so as not to miss twig/branch meetings?
Who gets another extra week off work.......to attend a way family camp?
Add a couple kids, education, career building.......NO WONDER CORPS COULDN'T KEEP JUMPING ALL THE HOOPS THAT WIERWILLE & CO. DEMANDED.
I've been saying this very thing for years !!!!!
<_<
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OldSkool
And they've paid the price. There aren't enough corps to go around these days. Personally, I love it - maybe they can make some more demands on the burdened few. The way international is responsible for it's own attrition and they are too stoopid to change.
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skyrider
Speaking of "believing".......
1) Wierwille did NOT have "believing" to put a foundational class together.....he STOLE it from BG Leonard and, then, added snippets of infor from Stiles & Bullinger.
2) Veepee did NOT have "believing" to start twi after stealing BG's class......he STAYED ON CHURCH PAYROLL for another 4 years.
3) Veepee did NOT have "believing" to build twi without free slave labor.
4) Veepee did NOT have "believing" to LEAD the leaders. He manipulated, coerced, exploited, etc......but he did NOT tackle the problems.
5) Veepee did NOT have genuine, leadership ability.
pfffffffttt
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OldSkool
And the list could go on!
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skyrider
And......that's why there is no roa.
Corps numbers plummeted after cgeer's power-grab in 1986.....
Then, as twi rebuilt....martindale "got revelation" to put all corps on twi payroll in 1995. Not surprisingly, this was the last year for rock of ages. Why? Because then twi would have to PAY for all the cost incurred by way corps. Traveling costs, food, motels, gasoline, housing during corps week/roa and travel expense home......ALL WOULD BE TWI'S EXPENSE WITH CORPS ON TWI PAYROLL.
On the first corps meeting in September 1995, martindale announced that only "invited" corps could attend any Word in Business conferences. In other words, twi does NOT want to pay for you corps attending the event. Stay home, unless we need you to work.
Exploitation of corps thru the years?........yeah, absolutely.
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Pax
I have good memories of the first 2-3 Rock of Ages. It was more 60ish than the despicable thing it was later. I rode out with Chris Geer from Rye once. We left late, so slept over in a corn field and attended a church breakfast event the next day. Chris and I were never friends... I knew he wasn't trustworthy.
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JavaJane
Another ROA memory... running out in a rainstorm with a bunch of other kids and being hauled back inside a tent by Bless Patrol and then given a good reproof session for not being more careful.
I was enjoying the rain because where I was from NEVER got that much rain at a time.
Silly me... I had forgotten that weather is caused by the Adversary.
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Bolshevik
rain adversary makes corn, corn makes whiskey . . .
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chockfull
and thus the circle of life is preserved.
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