Glad you (and me and countless others) got out. :)/> It's terrible to still be bound to that place, whether in allegiance or in hatred and unforgiveness.
Some have gotten out and cleaned off the garbage, retaining any godliness and truth they could, and God has been able to give them successful world-changing ministries (I think that K$nneth Co$eland, J@yce M$y$r, and $teve $chultz are among those who at one time took PFAL, and saw the danger signs and obeyed the Lord and left).
I have been reading Steve Hill's stuff, and he shares how he attended a ministry soon after he got born again that turned him off because of their hypocrisy of doing dope in the kitchen after "fellowship." (walks like the twi duck) Steve Hill quit that place and God had him mentored by real (not hypocrite) Christians such as David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill, and the Bill Bright Campus Crusade for Christ people.
And Sid Roth ("It's Supernatural") had a gentleman on his show recently that spent time in "a cult" that quacks like the twi duck. This poor guy was driven into schizophrenia, but the Lord was able to save him after he got out of the cult and went to a nice Christian place with real Christians in leadership.
Of course none of the people who "got out" want to talk about or name that place. It is shameful before the Lord to have been so stupid as to condone and accept the hypocrisy and wrong doctrines.
I am so very thankful for this Greasespot Café (and WayDale and TrashNet), which has provided a place for people to talk about (and shed) the garbage laid on us by twi.
I have read stuff by l<arl l<ahler, !arry Panare!!o, &risten $kedgell, and others, and it appears that once someone leaves they are able to move forward with their life with the Lord, which grinds to a halt to the degree one is shackled by that twi place, either in allegiance or in hatred.
I am reading now, "A century of wisdom..." by Alice Herz-Sommer, who is the oldest Holocaust survivor, and her story is bound up in forgiveness and living in the grace of God in the present. Amazing stuff.
Of course, I also wish I got out sooner, but glad I got out and am able to move forward with the Lord.
It seems to me that God put his hand over my eyes when I first got involved with TWI, and then, when I got to the time and place he wanted me to be, he took his hand off. I didn't "bolt", but I disassociated myself immediately. And took as many other people with me as I could.
Glad you (and me and countless others) got out. :)/>/> It's terrible to still be bound to that place, whether in allegiance or in hatred and unforgiveness.
Some have gotten out and cleaned off the garbage, retaining any godliness and truth they could, and God has been able to give them successful world-changing ministries (I think that K$nneth Co$eland, J@yce M$y$r, and $teve $chultz are among those who at one time took PFAL, and saw the danger signs and obeyed the Lord and left).
I have been reading Steve Hill's stuff, and he shares how he attended a ministry soon after he got born again that turned him off because of their hypocrisy of doing dope in the kitchen after "fellowship." (walks like the twi duck) Steve Hill quit that place and God had him mentored by real (not hypocrite) Christians such as David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill, and the Bill Bright Campus Crusade for Christ people.
And Sid Roth ("It's Supernatural") had a gentleman on his show recently that spent time in "a cult" that quacks like the twi duck. This poor guy was driven into schizophrenia, but the Lord was able to save him after he got out of the cult and went to a nice Christian place with real Christians in leadership.
Of course none of the people who "got out" want to talk about or name that place. It is shameful before the Lord to have been so stupid as to condone and accept the hypocrisy and wrong doctrines.
I am so very thankful for this Greasespot Café (and WayDale and TrashNet), which has provided a place for people to talk about (and shed) the garbage laid on us by twi.
I have read stuff by l<arl l<ahler, !arry Panare!!o, &risten $kedgell, and others, and it appears that once someone leaves they are able to move forward with their life with the Lord, which grinds to a halt to the degree one is shackled by that twi place, either in allegiance or in hatred.
I am reading now, "A century of wisdom..." by Alice Herz-Sommer, who is the oldest Holocaust survivor, and her story is bound up in forgiveness and living in the grace of God in the present. Amazing stuff.
Of course, I also wish I got out sooner, but glad I got out and am able to move forward with the Lord.
neither Copeland nor Myers ever took PFAL and never would have associated with Wierwille. However VPW took their teachings along with Hagen and Kenyon to be part of Power For Abundant Living, plus Ruben Archer Torrey, Bullinger, Smith Wigglesworth, Albert Benjamin Simpson, etc.
neither Copeland nor Myers ever took PFAL and never would have associated with Wierwille. However VPW took their teachings along with Hagen and Kenyon to be part of Power For Abundant Living, plus Ruben Archer Torrey, Bullinger, Smith Wigglesworth, Albert Benjamin Simpson, etc.
Ha. Thanks. A holdover from my thinking that pfal was more important than it actually was in the world, because it was my everything. Thanks. I remember someone who said pfal was immaterial in Christian history. Thanks again.
Ha. Thanks. A holdover from my thinking that pfal was more important than it actually was in the world, because it was my everything. Thanks. I remember someone who said pfal was immaterial in Christian history. Thanks again.
Working on my master's, I've had a few courses on church history the past few years. Who ever told you that PFAL was immaterial in Christian history was very nearly 100% correct. PFAL effected a minuscule number of us, maybe about 100,000 or so, but it wore off fairly quickly. I don't think there were ever more than about 30,000 active at any one time. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity were the fastest growing component of the Church in the twentieth century... vastly larger than TWI.
Working on my master's, I've had a few courses on church history the past few years. Who ever told you that PFAL was immaterial in Christian history was very nearly 100% correct. PFAL effected a minuscule number of us, maybe about 100,000 or so, but it wore off fairly quickly. I don't think there were ever more than about 30,000 active at any one time. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity were the fastest growing component of the Church in the twentieth century... vastly larger than TWI.
Love,
Steve
I think 100,000 only becomes a reality when it includes family and loved ones
who were affected by twi despite never having been in twi.
That number is supposedly the number of people who ever signed up for pfal.
As you all know, not everyone who signed up showed up for session 1. Not
everyone who showed up for session 1 showed up for session 12. Not everyone
who showed up for session 12 stuck around after that. When I took pfal,
there were 8 people signed up. 7 showed up for session 1, and 3 completed
the class. If that was typical, the 100,000 number should probably be
closer to 50,000, and that's representing EVERYONE who EVER was involved
in twi over supposedly 50 years. Per year, that's something like 1000
people per year on average. For a national church group, that's a rounding
error more than a membership list.
neither Copeland nor Myers ever took PFAL and never would have associated with Wierwille. However VPW took their teachings along with Hagen and Kenyon to be part of Power For Abundant Living, plus Ruben Archer Torrey, Bullinger, Smith Wigglesworth, Albert Benjamin Simpson, etc.
vpw wasn't the only plagiarist who ripped off Kenyon.
vpw, however, was probably the least-significant plagiarist who ripped off
Kenyon, at least in terms of numbers. People who've never gone near
Copeland's group or Meyer's group know who Meyer is. Statistically,
almost nobody in Christianity in the 20th century's heard of vpw and twi,
except supposed cult experts. Small wonder vpw made a big deal about
supposed cult status and tried to make the situation worse-
he enjoyed the recognition even if it was negative!
I was in Mississippi and the branch leader told me I was poison to the branch. Should have said, OK then, I'm doing you a favor and I'm out of here.
Holy Spirit never talks like that. When I was similarly analyzed, Holy Spirit simply confirmed what I knew , "not true." Same for you. Not True. Does not compute.
Quite frankly, I seriously doubt that God ever spit in twi's direction.
Matthew 5:45
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth spit on the just and on the unjust.
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth spit on the just and on the unjust.
:redface:/>/>
lol...
For those who might not understand the "spit in your direction" verbiage,
it has martindale written all over it. He used it derogatorily on those,
greasespotters, who left the twi-fold.
Remember that....."The Promised Land of the Prevailing Word" crap-sandwich?
Then.....crossing over the bridge to a land of separation.
VPW may have ripped off Hagin, but he did not rip of Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland's ministry is not really old enough for him to have done so. I never thought of VPW as ripping off Kenyon either since they made available most of his books, at least when I was in, I was able to buy many Kenyon books through the bookstore. At least at the time VPW was fairly honest about what he got from Kenyon. Can't speak for the years after '76 when I left.
VPW may have ripped off Hagin, but he did not rip of Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland's ministry is not really old enough for him to have done so. I never thought of VPW as ripping off Kenyon either since they made available most of his books, at least when I was in, I was able to buy many Kenyon books through the bookstore. At least at the time VPW was fairly honest about what he got from Kenyon. Can't speak for the years after '76 when I left.
Much of his positive confession/law of believing material came from Kenyon. He may have mentioned Kenyon in passing but, I've never seen a formal citation to that effect. The interesting thing about the bookstore is that they sold extraneous materials, from time to time, but we were always encouraged to give Way materials priority and precedence to their study and accuracy. At one time (I believe the early 1980's) we were encouraged to study nothing but "The Blue Book". You may recall that, in one session of PFAL, Bullinger's book was used to "prove" that Bullinger and Wierwille had independently come to the same conclusion regarding four having been crucified with Christ. (Which, by the way, has long since proven to be flawed research, anyhow.)
Now more evidence of Wierwille's plagiarism has come to light. Wierwille in 1963 published a pamphlet called "How to Be a Christian." This was reprinted as part of the book The New Dynamic Church (NDC) in 1971, and may have been published in a similar form as "The Joy of His Fellowship" in The Way Magazine in 1957 and as a booklet in 1953. The same material was originally published by E.W. Kenyon as Chapter 20 of his book The Father and His Family (FHF). Again, Wierwille did not place the borrowed material in quotation marks, nor did he cite or suggest the existence of any source. Kenyon's book was published before his death in 1948, years before Wierwille's writings appeared.
Compare these excerpts from the two works:
Kenyon: I suppose I have lost faith in myself. You see I have wanted to be a Christian, I have wanted to have God's help in this fight of life. I have gone to the altar again and again, and received nothing. I've sought and cried after God so many times and failed. (FHF, pg. 229)
Wierwille (The Searcher): I suppose ... I have lost faith in myself. You see, I really wanted to be a Christian, to have God's ... help in life ... I went to the altar again and again and yet I received nothing. I have sought and cried after God so much and so many times that I feel that I am a complete failure. (NDC, pg. 1)
Kenyon: Did you ever realize that salvation is a gift, that it is not necessary that you go any place to get it? You can find it anywhere. Did you ever realize that it is not what you do, but what He did for you that counts? All there is to receiving Eternal Life, becoming a child of God is to receive something instead of giving something. You have tried to get it by earning it. (FHF, pg. 229)
Wierwille: Did you ever stop to think that salvation is a gift, that it is unnecessary for you to go anywhere to get it? You can find God anywhere ... . Do you realize that to receive salvation is not dependent upon what you do but what He did for you? Do you realize that to be a child of God, to receive Eternal Life ... is to receive something instead of giving something? You have missed the joy of His fellowship because you have tried to earn or work for it. (NDC, pg. 1)
-- my college way home coordinator told me i should lie down and sleep and hold my limb leader
-- wierwille left bathroom door open at my college way home and turned around full monty when i walked by (had a big sheet eating grin on his ugly face)
-- when my college way home friends all went out and spent the night pheasant hunting on the motor bus in the dark
-- when ken barden died hitching back from LEAD
-- "uncle" harry grabbed my breasts and said, "oh, so young and firm"
-- wierwille told me he needs to heal me from my past sexual abuse
-- wieriwlle told me i had never been loved by a real man of god
-- finnegan tore me to shreads because he was under so much spiritual pressure
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Kit Sober
Glad you (and me and countless others) got out. :)/> It's terrible to still be bound to that place, whether in allegiance or in hatred and unforgiveness.
Some have gotten out and cleaned off the garbage, retaining any godliness and truth they could, and God has been able to give them successful world-changing ministries (I think that K$nneth Co$eland, J@yce M$y$r, and $teve $chultz are among those who at one time took PFAL, and saw the danger signs and obeyed the Lord and left).
I have been reading Steve Hill's stuff, and he shares how he attended a ministry soon after he got born again that turned him off because of their hypocrisy of doing dope in the kitchen after "fellowship." (walks like the twi duck) Steve Hill quit that place and God had him mentored by real (not hypocrite) Christians such as David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill, and the Bill Bright Campus Crusade for Christ people.
And Sid Roth ("It's Supernatural") had a gentleman on his show recently that spent time in "a cult" that quacks like the twi duck. This poor guy was driven into schizophrenia, but the Lord was able to save him after he got out of the cult and went to a nice Christian place with real Christians in leadership.
Of course none of the people who "got out" want to talk about or name that place. It is shameful before the Lord to have been so stupid as to condone and accept the hypocrisy and wrong doctrines.
I am so very thankful for this Greasespot Café (and WayDale and TrashNet), which has provided a place for people to talk about (and shed) the garbage laid on us by twi.
I have read stuff by l<arl l<ahler, !arry Panare!!o, &risten $kedgell, and others, and it appears that once someone leaves they are able to move forward with their life with the Lord, which grinds to a halt to the degree one is shackled by that twi place, either in allegiance or in hatred.
I am reading now, "A century of wisdom..." by Alice Herz-Sommer, who is the oldest Holocaust survivor, and her story is bound up in forgiveness and living in the grace of God in the present. Amazing stuff.
Of course, I also wish I got out sooner, but glad I got out and am able to move forward with the Lord.
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waysider
I should have bolted when, in session #5, it was revealed to me that I had been duped into taking the class via "date and switch".
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Steve Lortz
It seems to me that God put his hand over my eyes when I first got involved with TWI, and then, when I got to the time and place he wanted me to be, he took his hand off. I didn't "bolt", but I disassociated myself immediately. And took as many other people with me as I could.
Love,
Steve
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skyrider
Why would twi designated a corps person and college division person as UNEQUALLY YOKED?
Why the disparity? Why the parsing of different programs, different agendas?
Did young vic, a theological student, marry someone "unequally yoked" when he
eloped to Kentucky with a young nurse?
Would any other church attempt to parse the differences of corps and college division
when BOTH were sitting through biblical studies to better their lives? I mean, its not
like some guy hooking up with a bar girl who confesses to be an unbeliever or such.
Most pastors would sit down with the couple and lovingly go thru some scriptures and
recognize their love for each other.....and bless such a growing union.
C'mon.....wierwille's twi has been CONTROLLING from the get-go. Anyone who blames the
fallout on Martindale is looking thru idolized-I-glasses.
Everything about wierwille's past is juxtaposed with his mandates of others. He opposed
church board authority every step of the way....even while on its payroll, searching for
other avenues of opportunity. He secretly married when it was against policy. Yet, his
corps program sets taboo regulations on dating/marrying someone in the college division?
The guy was a controlling huckster.
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WordWolf
With emphasis on both "controlling" and "huckster."
"Controlling"- chafed at ANY accountability and structure when HE answered to it,
did his best to set up one so long as others answered to HIM
"huckster"-talked a good game and could relay convincing sermons, but was a
horrible example in real life, lacking self-control, cheating on his wife,
raping/drugging women, treating a ministry as his own piggy bank,
chain-smoker and alcoholic, etc, etc. If he'd read, understood and actually
believed Scripture, he would have actually tried to be a "Doer of the Word"
and not just a "Speaker of the Word."
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
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Kit Sober
Ha. Thanks. A holdover from my thinking that pfal was more important than it actually was in the world, because it was my everything. Thanks. I remember someone who said pfal was immaterial in Christian history. Thanks again.
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skyrider
And......why was that?
More divisions, more classes.
More divisions, more programs.
More divisions, more lane markings.
More levels.
More ladder-climbing.
More bureaucracy.
More oversight.
More leadership.
More POWER.
More CONTROL.
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Steve Lortz
Working on my master's, I've had a few courses on church history the past few years. Who ever told you that PFAL was immaterial in Christian history was very nearly 100% correct. PFAL effected a minuscule number of us, maybe about 100,000 or so, but it wore off fairly quickly. I don't think there were ever more than about 30,000 active at any one time. Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity were the fastest growing component of the Church in the twentieth century... vastly larger than TWI.
Love,
Steve
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outandabout
I should have bolted when -
I was in Mississippi and the branch leader told me I was poison to the branch. Should have said, OK then, I'm doing you a favor and I'm out of here.
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WordWolf
I think 100,000 only becomes a reality when it includes family and loved ones
who were affected by twi despite never having been in twi.
That number is supposedly the number of people who ever signed up for pfal.
As you all know, not everyone who signed up showed up for session 1. Not
everyone who showed up for session 1 showed up for session 12. Not everyone
who showed up for session 12 stuck around after that. When I took pfal,
there were 8 people signed up. 7 showed up for session 1, and 3 completed
the class. If that was typical, the 100,000 number should probably be
closer to 50,000, and that's representing EVERYONE who EVER was involved
in twi over supposedly 50 years. Per year, that's something like 1000
people per year on average. For a national church group, that's a rounding
error more than a membership list.
vpw wasn't the only plagiarist who ripped off Kenyon.
vpw, however, was probably the least-significant plagiarist who ripped off
Kenyon, at least in terms of numbers. People who've never gone near
Copeland's group or Meyer's group know who Meyer is. Statistically,
almost nobody in Christianity in the 20th century's heard of vpw and twi,
except supposed cult experts. Small wonder vpw made a big deal about
supposed cult status and tried to make the situation worse-
he enjoyed the recognition even if it was negative!
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Kit Sober
Holy Spirit never talks like that. When I was similarly analyzed, Holy Spirit simply confirmed what I knew , "not true." Same for you. Not True. Does not compute.
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excathedra
um maybe i should have bolted when i got witnessed to
i don't know
time will tell :)
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skyrider
So true.
In my pfal class, 12 people were signed up and sat thru session 1.
By session 5, only 9 of us were left....and then, graduated.
Within a few weeks, only 3 of us were attending twig from that
pfal class.
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Kit Sober
I used to think that the ones who left were missing out. Now I know the ones who left were the most fortunate.
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skyrider
No one in my family took pfal.
My four siblings all went on to have good families and successes in life.
All have owned their homes outright for, at least, 20 years.
Grandchildren are in the mix and the blessings are flowing.
God looks on the heart and all that twi-hype was marketing, nothing more.
Quite frankly, I seriously doubt that God ever spit in twi's direction.
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Twinky
Matthew 5:45
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth spit on the just and on the unjust.
:redface:/>
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Ham
You know.. the best teachers and supposed preachers of the sixties and early seventies, stood back from the microphone..
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skyrider
lol...
For those who might not understand the "spit in your direction" verbiage,
it has martindale written all over it. He used it derogatorily on those,
greasespotters, who left the twi-fold.
Remember that....."The Promised Land of the Prevailing Word" crap-sandwich?
Then.....crossing over the bridge to a land of separation.
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Keith
VPW may have ripped off Hagin, but he did not rip of Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland's ministry is not really old enough for him to have done so. I never thought of VPW as ripping off Kenyon either since they made available most of his books, at least when I was in, I was able to buy many Kenyon books through the bookstore. At least at the time VPW was fairly honest about what he got from Kenyon. Can't speak for the years after '76 when I left.
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waysider
Much of his positive confession/law of believing material came from Kenyon. He may have mentioned Kenyon in passing but, I've never seen a formal citation to that effect. The interesting thing about the bookstore is that they sold extraneous materials, from time to time, but we were always encouraged to give Way materials priority and precedence to their study and accuracy. At one time (I believe the early 1980's) we were encouraged to study nothing but "The Blue Book". You may recall that, in one session of PFAL, Bullinger's book was used to "prove" that Bullinger and Wierwille had independently come to the same conclusion regarding four having been crucified with Christ. (Which, by the way, has long since proven to be flawed research, anyhow.)
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waysider
Now more evidence of Wierwille's plagiarism has come to light. Wierwille in 1963 published a pamphlet called "How to Be a Christian." This was reprinted as part of the book The New Dynamic Church (NDC) in 1971, and may have been published in a similar form as "The Joy of His Fellowship" in The Way Magazine in 1957 and as a booklet in 1953. The same material was originally published by E.W. Kenyon as Chapter 20 of his book The Father and His Family (FHF). Again, Wierwille did not place the borrowed material in quotation marks, nor did he cite or suggest the existence of any source. Kenyon's book was published before his death in 1948, years before Wierwille's writings appeared.
Compare these excerpts from the two works:
Kenyon: I suppose I have lost faith in myself. You see I have wanted to be a Christian, I have wanted to have God's help in this fight of life. I have gone to the altar again and again, and received nothing. I've sought and cried after God so many times and failed. (FHF, pg. 229)
Wierwille (The Searcher): I suppose ... I have lost faith in myself. You see, I really wanted to be a Christian, to have God's ... help in life ... I went to the altar again and again and yet I received nothing. I have sought and cried after God so much and so many times that I feel that I am a complete failure. (NDC, pg. 1)
Kenyon: Did you ever realize that salvation is a gift, that it is not necessary that you go any place to get it? You can find it anywhere. Did you ever realize that it is not what you do, but what He did for you that counts? All there is to receiving Eternal Life, becoming a child of God is to receive something instead of giving something. You have tried to get it by earning it. (FHF, pg. 229)
Wierwille: Did you ever stop to think that salvation is a gift, that it is unnecessary for you to go anywhere to get it? You can find God anywhere ... . Do you realize that to receive salvation is not dependent upon what you do but what He did for you? Do you realize that to be a child of God, to receive Eternal Life ... is to receive something instead of giving something? You have missed the joy of His fellowship because you have tried to earn or work for it. (NDC, pg. 1)
SOURCE
EDIT: If you're still in TWI and reading this, NOW should be your "when" moment.
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excathedra
i should have bolted when......
-- my college way home coordinator told me i should lie down and sleep and hold my limb leader
-- wierwille left bathroom door open at my college way home and turned around full monty when i walked by (had a big sheet eating grin on his ugly face)
-- when my college way home friends all went out and spent the night pheasant hunting on the motor bus in the dark
-- when ken barden died hitching back from LEAD
-- "uncle" harry grabbed my breasts and said, "oh, so young and firm"
-- wierwille told me he needs to heal me from my past sexual abuse
-- wieriwlle told me i had never been loved by a real man of god
-- finnegan tore me to shreads because he was under so much spiritual pressure
how am i doing? i got more :)
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excathedra
should have bolted when.....
-- my friend came back from her interim year and told me she gave craig B J s while he spoke to donna on phone
-- i drove by donna and rosie making out
-- geer served drinks on bus and i ended up in back with wierwille having out of body experience
-- looked into dead eyes on top of me
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