Be a Way Disciple....

[OldSkool]

I went way disciple twice. I can say in retrospect that next to my in-residentured way corpse years this was the worst year of my life. 2 separate 6 month runs.

Ok, first off what's up with the mandatory relocation? Cult control method? Anyways, they have a way of mixing up teams boys / girls and varying age ranges. My first team had a lot of young folks as did my second which leads me to believe mama and papa way international follower like sending their kids into this fiasco to grow em up a little? We had one of the girls in our "household" that was just turned 18. Our household coordinator harassed this poor girls constantly, even going so far as to organize group confrontations against her on several occasions where she screamed at her repeatedly. It was sick. She was discovered late one evening going to sleep fully dressed so she could sneak out the window in the middle of the night, even though she was 1000 or so miles from home. The limb coordinator had to come smooth things over to get he to finish. The whole affair was absolutely horrible and I am ashamed to have been associated with it. I can say that I was the lone voice of dissent for her but to no avail. Anywho.

The language describing the living situations is the same as WOW. Families, brothers and sisters. That creeped me out from day one since no one there was my family and I had already heard enough about the "spiritual" family in the household of the way international.

Now the lifestyle is atrocious. For us we were up at 5:30 and in the word for an hour. At first this was a little fun but quickly became a burden. Mandatory study time along a suggested list of approved topics. Then you had the daily lift list. Forced prayer in other words. Next was work, we all did the full twenty hours a week and pooled our money into a "household fund." I mean it was communal living at it's finest. We never had dough except what was given to us from the fund to buy something to drink or a small bite to eat while out at the malls. Plus we all tithed on the dough we made. We were mostly broke all the time for 6 months. Great training no? Then there were the meals. We simply ate bad the whole time because we could not afford to buy decent food. I remember distinctly one of our meals was wok fried, wilted brown lettuce. We got that anytime the lettuce was going bad. It was awful.

Did I mention the sleep deprivation? Well, it starts setting in after a while. Mind you I was used to getting earlier than 5:30 and had done so for years. So I am not talking about getting up early. We got up at the crack of dawn and did not hit the mattresses until 11:30. Usually would not fall out til around 12:00 or so. 5 and half hours on average for 6 months REALLY takes a toll. We got sick a lot after the things wore on a bit. Must have been because of our unbelief?

Now for the witnessing part. We were instructed to basically avoid people who needed excessive attention and told to find the devout. Basically we were scouting for gullible middle class people who had their stuff together and their wallets full. I found it strange to emphasis put on how very precious our time was and to not waste it. In the afternoon we went door to door. In the evening we lurked malls and any other store we needed to go to. I always felt so creepy. We were always sizing people up, looking for an angle to start talking to them and start "witnessing." Then we kept track of the numbers and were real proud of ourselves. Except this "witnessing" never had substance to it. It was never designed to help the person's needs. It was all designed to get them signed up for the way classes.

That was our goal. Get them signed up for a class. Put a class together. The schedule is patterned so so there is a class running the last month of the 6 month tenure. That is really the only reason the way disciples are sent anywhere. Organize and run one class. And the class is so, so, emphasized. You know if people are in dire straights - sign them up for the class! It's the cure all. Ok, I m getting long winded - better stop now.

[JavaJane]

Now you have that fracking song stuck in my head... "be a Way Disciple! Live and speak God's Word each day! Live a disciplined lifestyle, growing walking on God's Way!"

You're giving me flashbacks, OldSkool.

I have to say Way Disciple was better than WOW, though. Mainly in that it was 6 months shorter than the WOW year.

Way Disciple was a horrible year for me, except that it was the year I met my husband. My mom (who knew about how bad twi was since my family had gone into the WC prior to this and had been made M&A - and who I had just reunited with prior to my WD tenure) ordered basic groceries for my Way Disciple family and had them delivered to our house a few times. She also ordered cable and paid for it for the six months we were out there so that we could see the news - she didn't want us to become completely isolated. I have a wonderful mom... and since she wasn't in twi, no one could tell her not to give to us. It was such a wonderful thing she did, and I knew it then. I REALLY know it now.

Way Disciple depleted my entire savings - before that time I had been working in a successful managment position where I was earning quite a lot of money. In fact, I gave up a LOT of money to be able to go - in an effort to convince me to stay on at the company I was working for before I left, the owner told me that if I decided to stay on for five years he would make sure I was making a six figure salary in the next two years. I decided to go WD instead. I tell my husband that that was how much I had to pay to meet him. But anyway, the other members of my household were a lot younger than me and one dropped out right before WD assignments, so our household was short one person's income. And the other girls didn't have any savings... so I covered. Kept us in ham sandwiches and Doritos for six months.

Our team coordinator was an foot and a misogynistic pig. He loved to make sexual comments towards me and the other girls, even though we were all much younger than him. He also liked to harass us like that during witnessing when we were in public. I reported him to the local branch coordinator who put a stop to it - but the team coordinator never really understood WHY it wsa inapproprite or disrespectful to say things of a sexual nature to us. Idiot.

He also told us that we couldn't study anything outside of what was prescribed in the WD handbook... no independent word studies, nothing.

My husband though was one tough cookie when it came to dealing with the team coordinator. He wouldn't let him treat us girls badly. One night I was sick and we were witnessing in the freezing fracking middle of winter in a trailer park in the middle of the night. I was teamed up with my future husband. He saw how I was feeling and told me we should go sit in his warm car - and that we didn't have to tell the team coordinator. I will never forget that. He also went to bat for one of my housemates who didn't want to go witnessing on her day off but our team coordinator was trying to make her go with him so he could be two by two. Thank God for my husband. He didn't put up with the crap, and still managed to get through the year without getting kicked off the field. I'm still not sure how he did it.

[OldSkool]

The team coordinators are usually, if not all ways, apprentice way corpse. Which means some of them are narcissistic, megalomaniacs who LOVE to be in charge.

[Bolshevik]

WayD is where I learned you could stand in front of a group of people and say anything . . . and they'll believe all of it . . . just cause you're a WayD.

[OldSkool]

WayD is where I learned you could stand in front of a group of people and say anything . . . and they'll believe all of it . . . just cause you're a WayD.

OMG! They are shameless in the rock star status they put on way disciples, present and past in order to get more of them!

[JavaJane]

BUT they don't tell you that rock star status leaves as soon as you are done with being Way D. It did for us. Once the nametags were off, we reverted back to non-important little peons for them to poop on.

[OldSkool]

BUT they don't tell you that rock star status leaves as soon as you are done with being Way D. It did for us. Once the nametags were off, we reverted back to non-important little peons for them to poop on.

Oh, big time if you are on Staff. On the field they extract quite a bit more out of you and lay the expectations on extra thick. Bring new people, run fellowships, basically it seems you receive an unsolicited promotion because you have a groovy new name tag.

[Gen-2]

heh heh,... OldSkool said "groovy"

[Broken Arrow]

heh heh,... OldSkool said "groovy"

Hey man, that's his bag. It jives with me. In fact it's outtasight!

Peace, man.

Edited June 22, 2010 by erkjohn

[Broken Arrow]

The team coordinators are usually, if not all ways, apprentice way corpse. Which means some of them are narcissistic, megalomaniacs who LOVE to be in charge.

Yeah, well, I was a, um, coordinator myself. It was of the W.O.W. variety, I was also Interim and Graduated Corps...went twice because pain is my thing. Anyway, I would like to say that...YOU'RE RIGHT!! Most of us WERE narcissistic, megalomaniacs!! Today, I'm embarrassed about the whole thing, and no, I didn't need to "go to grow". I needed to leave to breathe, but I didn't, I stayed.

[Gen-2]

I wonder how may people in WayD or WOW - when they got their assignments and saw themselves listed as the "Coordinator", went "Oh Look! God chose ME! ....well of course He did...!"

[Broken Arrow]

If you were Corps you already knew you were going to be the coordinator. That is because we were spay-cial. God's crack troops, God's Green Beret (or Marines in your case). We were the, "guardians of the Mystery". Elitist? Us? No way!