I don't have any stories, Lindy, but thanks for sharing yours. I always wondered about those things. Sometimes the assignments were way to coincidental and the more popular someone was, the higher up on the ladder they got.
I know one bc who has been campaigning for years to be moved up to lc and desperately wants to be put on full time so he can quit travelling and working such hard hours. If he continues to kiss enough a$$ he just MIGHT, but I doubt it because he has kids that will be going to college soon.
Yeah, Lindy - and every WOW assignment was made spiritually also... uh huh.... dontcha know. Oh - the Veepmeister PERSONALLY made those assignments and got revelation from GAWD hisself as to where to send our young, naive butts.
That's how I ended up as a WOW in San Antonio in 1974 with a family coordinator I HATED (the feeling was mutual).
Oh - and my interim year in PINE BLUFF, ARKANSAS - which had to be the worst year of my life.
That was a real spiffy "spiritual decision" all right.
And if you believe that - I know some property along Alligator Alley in S. Florida that would be a wonderful retirement spot....
TWI became the legalistic church they warned us about. The very fact that they micromanage peoples' lives throws the 'spiritual' out of their decisions.
Not all decisions have to be spiritual. What did God give us brains for? Spiritual decisions are needed only when your brain can't give you an answer of peace.
How about Abe Lincoln waiting until 1863 before choosing Grant as his top general? His advisors told him don't pick Grant; he drinks. Or how about Elimelech and Naomi up and leaving Israel for Moab? They HAD to be out of fellowship to leave Israel, God's nation, and move to the accursed Moab, right?
TWI made decisions FOR everybody like they had the one true spiritual playbook.
When I went WOW in '81 I was told by one of the few people making the decisions where to place the WOWs in my country that year, that I was certainly going to be sent to a certain city. This was confirmed to me several times...even though I did not solicite any of this information.
Meanwhile, I was dating my husband to be at the time...but we kept things very hush hush. You know, we didn't want people to think we weren't spiritual and keeping our commitments.
Well, I guess word got around and the night of commissioning, I opened my envelope and I was not sent the the city I was told. My envelope actually had been stamped twice over.
I was sent to a city only 30 minutes from my home town. My parents were already haters of TWI and now I had to tell them I could not go home at all and that I was certainly not going home for Christmas. That went over like a lead balloon. Was the worse year of my entire life.
My husband to be was sent wow to the other city. I know they wanted to keep us apart. And they did. For the 4 years we dated before we married, we never lived in the same city.
When I think of their f*cking spiritual decisions I want to puke.
My brother was sent to Fort Worth, twin city Dallas, where my "unbelieving" father lived. Needless to say my dad was a little ticked off about his son not being able to leave Fort Worth for lunch even for an hour. (Hmmm, why did he think it was a cult?)
Our WOW year we were sent to BFE, WI. Our WOW sister's son kicked our butt the whole time. The kid had problems.
Wasn't that a great screaning process they went thru..."You got the cash? Great. Now go live with some crazy a$$ strangers for a year. It'll do you some good."
quote: Not all decisions have to be spiritual. What did God give us brains for? Spiritual decisions are needed only when your brain can't give you an answer of peace.
Actually, John, you know me, I don't think there is anything spiritual about any decision.
Hey, isn't "spiritual decision" an oximoron anyway? It implies that God or a higher power gave you the answer. There wouldn't really be any decision made on the part of the person receiving the revelation.
I can almost see the process- a smoke-filled room in the back, ole Howard or Ermal throwing darts at a map on the wall- "Vic, looks like that one's goin to timbuctu.."
I dunno. My WOW year turned out pretty good. Actually got something good out of it. Maybe sometimes the dart hits the right spot.
Lindy, people here found a way around that little regulation. They "kidnapped" my WOW brother and gave him a tour of Michigan's upper peninsula. Took him at least 200 miles outside of our assignment. I don't think anybody ever found out. I wasn't talking..
One time at Corps Wk or ROA, I was talking to a limb leader's wife I knew, and casually mentioned that I would like to go back to San Diego to live someday.
She looked at me with an all-knowing wise smirk and said, "It's best that we make "SPIRITUAL DECISIONS"
Ok, CXXXX SXXD, you knew in a 2 minute conversation what I should do with MY LIFE?? You and everybody else, I guess, certainly not ME. Why should I, a mere corps grad peon with no REAL place in the heirarchy, KNOW where to live???
Or even have the gall to make a DECISION about such a thing?
I ended up in San Diego and stayed there anyway, but that was because they kicked me of Corps Week in 1982 and I had nowhere else to go but that's another story I'll tell sometime.
Anway, any time some one mentions "spiritual decision" that's what I always remember. Her face and her saying that.
Know what that did to me? Gave me nowhere to go except where TWI told me, otherwise it wasn't a "spiritual decision" if I simply lived where I wanted to.
You have to live where you LEAST want to live, that's "spiritual." And if you live where you're happy to live, well that must be wrong.
If I had only known...I would have mentioned those alooooooooooong time ago... :D-->
Once I woke up at about 2:00 am and my wow sister was rummaging around in the ashtray...she had run out of cigarettes and she was smoking the butts -->
We hated...HATED HATED HATED HATED our wow family coordinator. He was insane I was convinced!!
Now, oh no....I feel a choo-choo coming on...sorry... :o-->
Quick synopsis of my wow year. ok.. I'm lying ...it won't be so quick I think) Keep in mind now...this was someones great spiritual decision to plunk me in this wow family.
OK...I'm sent wow with one other girl and 2 guys (one of which was a corps nazi/brain dead guy).
The girl leaves in October to marry this wow guy living in another family in town. They left overnight and there were not seen 'til about a year or 2 later. They got married.
So now, I'm stuck with brain dead and this 30 some year old guy who's brain dead too. I mean this in the nicest way...I think this guy was medicated or something. He shook all the time and could barely speak two words.
Here's an example of insanity ~ true story.
One night I lovingly offer some tea to this guy. I said in my kindest way speak voice...Wow brother, would you like a cup of tea? He says..."Is it available?"
At that point I really felt leaving college to do this was a very worthwhile endeavour.
The corps nazi was another story. He was hard, insensitive and by the book.
Everyone thought he was great. He'd put on the charm when the other wows were around and especially with other nazi leaders.
So I trundled along...drinking, smoking staying away, as far away as possible. I only spoke to him when it was necessary. He was so brain dead he wouldn't have noticed I was displeased if it bit him in the a$$.
I manage to make it 'til April. By then I'm just trying to survive. Oh...did I mention...this was my apprentice year as well? :P-->
In April...my prayers had been answered. I was sent a wow sister. Someone my age who could speak in complete sentences and that I could have a conversation with. Her wow family was split apart because of another wonderful yet too lengthy to explain incredible TWI scenerio.
I said nothing about Dumb and Dumber to her. I was just soooooooooo happy to have company.
About 2 weeks into her move ..she comes stomping up the stairs, shoves open the door, looks at me with this look to kill and say, " Is he always like this?" (she was referring to the nazi). I simply nodded yes and handed her a cigarette and a drink.
It was pointless to go any higher...it was always "our lack of renewed mind" and whatever else they could come up with.
One day, in absolute desperation, my wow sister says to me, "We gotta talk to him. We gotta make him understand." I said..."well you can try...but it's futile."
So I went along with her plan.
One morning while we were having our "FAMILY TIME" reading our bibles, (oh god...I feel like puking) she starts into him. You see we hadn't spoken to him in about a month. We were living under the same roof and never spoke. He never clued in there was a problem. -->
She says, "We need to talk." and she starts letting him have it. He sat there nodding and giving this 'don't bother me..I'm drinking my jim jones koolaid' smile with this faraway daze in his eyes.
She went on and on getting madder and madder by the minute. He then at the end of it all says with this very calm and unquivering voice, "Is there something I can help you with girls? Can I read you something from the word?"
I went upstairs, took out a cigarette, poured myself a tall one and waited til August. ;)-->
In August 1979 I had been a PFAL grad for 17 months and was moving into a Way Home.
Naturally, "leadership" made the decision as to who would be the Way Home Coordinator/Twig Leader...must have been of God, right? It was a guy who had taken PFAL with me the previous year.
One morning, one of the women who lived in the WH stayed home from work and tried unsucessfully to make a phone call. She went to the corner pay phone and found out from the phone company that we were shut off because we were several months behind in our payments. She called me and the other woman who lived there. We made some phone calls (from work) to our other utilities and found out that none of them were paid.
That night we three confronted our WH Coordinator, who was responsible for collecting our share of rent & bills and making the payments. He admitted to drinking and gambling our money away. We called our Branch Coordinator and told him we were throwing the bum out.
BC told us that we didn't have the authority to do that since we weren't the ones who put him there. He convinced us that we should keep this S.O.B. in our home, but he would be replaced as leader. He agreed to pay all the back bills, and would no longer be in control of the finances. I was appointed Family Coordinator & Twig Leader.
He paid the back utilities with rubber checks.
We gave him three days to get out.
BC said we were unloving and should have consulted with him.
We said, "sure, how about we throw his foot out tonight?"
All the time I was active in TWI, all I *ever* heard from the returning WOW's was "it's great, you gotta do it, it was the greatest thing in my life", blah blah blah...
I always felt guilty for not going.
What the hell happened? A la prochaine has me LOL with her story. Hers' at least didn't involve physical or sexual abuse like some of the others. Did all the returning WOW's just pretend to have had a great time?
Pro, don't take this as me doubting your experience. Nobody could make up a story like that....
It was healing to write it and laugh. I read it to my husband and we were both spewing all over the screne.
I was so messed up after that year. I went into rez with all of these unresolved issues. Especially the hatred I had for this nazi. And, here I was going into the same program he so called had his training in. And to top it all off, now this nazi/brain dead dude is my corpse(?ropos) brother.
It made me happy to know I brought some smiles to others here on GS. :D-->
JIM,
I might not have been physically or sexually abused, but was severally mentally abused. No fun was had by all. :(-->
I might not have been physically or sexually abused, but was severally mentally abused. No fun was had by all.
I took your writing style as casting a bad experience in a humorous light, a storytelling style that I learned from my dad and that I use alot with my own experiences. I acknowledge that it doesn't diminish the pain that you went through at the time. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't suffer.
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Belle
I don't have any stories, Lindy, but thanks for sharing yours. I always wondered about those things. Sometimes the assignments were way to coincidental and the more popular someone was, the higher up on the ladder they got.
I know one bc who has been campaigning for years to be moved up to lc and desperately wants to be put on full time so he can quit travelling and working such hard hours. If he continues to kiss enough a$$ he just MIGHT, but I doubt it because he has kids that will be going to college soon.
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Hope R.
Yeah, Lindy - and every WOW assignment was made spiritually also... uh huh.... dontcha know. Oh - the Veepmeister PERSONALLY made those assignments and got revelation from GAWD hisself as to where to send our young, naive butts.
That's how I ended up as a WOW in San Antonio in 1974 with a family coordinator I HATED (the feeling was mutual).
Oh - and my interim year in PINE BLUFF, ARKANSAS - which had to be the worst year of my life.
That was a real spiffy "spiritual decision" all right.
And if you believe that - I know some property along Alligator Alley in S. Florida that would be a wonderful retirement spot....
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johniam
TWI became the legalistic church they warned us about. The very fact that they micromanage peoples' lives throws the 'spiritual' out of their decisions.
Not all decisions have to be spiritual. What did God give us brains for? Spiritual decisions are needed only when your brain can't give you an answer of peace.
How about Abe Lincoln waiting until 1863 before choosing Grant as his top general? His advisors told him don't pick Grant; he drinks. Or how about Elimelech and Naomi up and leaving Israel for Moab? They HAD to be out of fellowship to leave Israel, God's nation, and move to the accursed Moab, right?
TWI made decisions FOR everybody like they had the one true spiritual playbook.
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A la prochaine
I have to pipe in here...
When I went WOW in '81 I was told by one of the few people making the decisions where to place the WOWs in my country that year, that I was certainly going to be sent to a certain city. This was confirmed to me several times...even though I did not solicite any of this information.
Meanwhile, I was dating my husband to be at the time...but we kept things very hush hush. You know, we didn't want people to think we weren't spiritual and keeping our commitments.
Well, I guess word got around and the night of commissioning, I opened my envelope and I was not sent the the city I was told. My envelope actually had been stamped twice over.
I was sent to a city only 30 minutes from my home town. My parents were already haters of TWI and now I had to tell them I could not go home at all and that I was certainly not going home for Christmas. That went over like a lead balloon. Was the worse year of my entire life.
My husband to be was sent wow to the other city. I know they wanted to keep us apart. And they did. For the 4 years we dated before we married, we never lived in the same city.
When I think of their f*cking spiritual decisions I want to puke.
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lindyhopper
yeah, A la, that was tres spiritual.
My brother was sent to Fort Worth, twin city Dallas, where my "unbelieving" father lived. Needless to say my dad was a little ticked off about his son not being able to leave Fort Worth for lunch even for an hour. (Hmmm, why did he think it was a cult?)
Our WOW year we were sent to BFE, WI. Our WOW sister's son kicked our butt the whole time. The kid had problems.
Wasn't that a great screaning process they went thru..."You got the cash? Great. Now go live with some crazy a$$ strangers for a year. It'll do you some good."
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A la prochaine
Lindy,
= GO AND GROW ...GO WOW.
YA...RIGHT...Go and Grow...remember they said you'd grow ten years in one.
They just forgot to add the words 'OLD Faster' in the slogan
Go and Grow Old Faster..
I swear, I grew 10 years older that year. That was about it!
I even started smoking that year and I would even keep a 40 oz bottle of Scotch in my bedroom. AND I WASN'T a drinker nor a smoker before that year.
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lindyhopper
JohnUR,
Actually, John, you know me, I don't think there is anything spiritual about any decision.
Hey, isn't "spiritual decision" an oximoron anyway? It implies that God or a higher power gave you the answer. There wouldn't really be any decision made on the part of the person receiving the revelation.
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lindyhopper
LMAO, ala
:D-->
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Ham
I can almost see the process- a smoke-filled room in the back, ole Howard or Ermal throwing darts at a map on the wall- "Vic, looks like that one's goin to timbuctu.."
I dunno. My WOW year turned out pretty good. Actually got something good out of it. Maybe sometimes the dart hits the right spot.
Lindy, people here found a way around that little regulation. They "kidnapped" my WOW brother and gave him a tour of Michigan's upper peninsula. Took him at least 200 miles outside of our assignment. I don't think anybody ever found out. I wasn't talking..
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outandabout
One time at Corps Wk or ROA, I was talking to a limb leader's wife I knew, and casually mentioned that I would like to go back to San Diego to live someday.
She looked at me with an all-knowing wise smirk and said, "It's best that we make "SPIRITUAL DECISIONS"
Ok, CXXXX SXXD, you knew in a 2 minute conversation what I should do with MY LIFE?? You and everybody else, I guess, certainly not ME. Why should I, a mere corps grad peon with no REAL place in the heirarchy, KNOW where to live???
Or even have the gall to make a DECISION about such a thing?
I ended up in San Diego and stayed there anyway, but that was because they kicked me of Corps Week in 1982 and I had nowhere else to go but that's another story I'll tell sometime.
Anway, any time some one mentions "spiritual decision" that's what I always remember. Her face and her saying that.
Know what that did to me? Gave me nowhere to go except where TWI told me, otherwise it wasn't a "spiritual decision" if I simply lived where I wanted to.
You have to live where you LEAST want to live, that's "spiritual." And if you live where you're happy to live, well that must be wrong.
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excathedra
do tell outieaboutie, when you feel like it, that is
:)-->
lindy, horrible about your brother and dad
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A la prochaine
LINDY and EXCIE,
It tickles me pink to think I made you guys/gals laugh.
Ala made a funny!
:D-->
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excathedra
you tickle my funny bone constantly a la
been thinking on and off about your bottle of scotch and cigs all day and laughing my foot off
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skyrider
me too, a la........that's a hoot!
:D-->
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outandabout
scotch and cigs LOL me too
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A la prochaine
If I had only known...I would have mentioned those alooooooooooong time ago...
:D-->
Once I woke up at about 2:00 am and my wow sister was rummaging around in the ashtray...she had run out of cigarettes and she was smoking the butts
-->
We hated...HATED HATED HATED HATED our wow family coordinator. He was insane I was convinced!!
Now, oh no....I feel a choo-choo coming on...sorry...
:o-->
Quick synopsis of my wow year. ok.. I'm lying ...it won't be so quick I think) Keep in mind now...this was someones great spiritual decision to plunk me in this wow family.
OK...I'm sent wow with one other girl and 2 guys (one of which was a corps nazi/brain dead guy).
The girl leaves in October to marry this wow guy living in another family in town. They left overnight and there were not seen 'til about a year or 2 later. They got married.
So now, I'm stuck with brain dead and this 30 some year old guy who's brain dead too. I mean this in the nicest way...I think this guy was medicated or something. He shook all the time and could barely speak two words.
Here's an example of insanity ~ true story.
One night I lovingly offer some tea to this guy. I said in my kindest way speak voice...Wow brother, would you like a cup of tea? He says..."Is it available?"
At that point I really felt leaving college to do this was a very worthwhile endeavour.
The corps nazi was another story. He was hard, insensitive and by the book.
Everyone thought he was great. He'd put on the charm when the other wows were around and especially with other nazi leaders.
So I trundled along...drinking, smoking staying away, as far away as possible. I only spoke to him when it was necessary. He was so brain dead he wouldn't have noticed I was displeased if it bit him in the a$$.
I manage to make it 'til April. By then I'm just trying to survive. Oh...did I mention...this was my apprentice year as well?
:P-->
In April...my prayers had been answered. I was sent a wow sister. Someone my age who could speak in complete sentences and that I could have a conversation with. Her wow family was split apart because of another wonderful yet too lengthy to explain incredible TWI scenerio.
I said nothing about Dumb and Dumber to her. I was just soooooooooo happy to have company.
About 2 weeks into her move ..she comes stomping up the stairs, shoves open the door, looks at me with this look to kill and say, "
Is he always like this?" (she was referring to the nazi). I simply nodded yes and handed her a cigarette and a drink.
It was pointless to go any higher...it was always "our lack of renewed mind" and whatever else they could come up with.
One day, in absolute desperation, my wow sister says to me, "We gotta talk to him. We gotta make him understand." I said..."well you can try...but it's futile."
So I went along with her plan.
One morning while we were having our "FAMILY TIME" reading our bibles, (oh god...I feel like puking) she starts into him. You see we hadn't spoken to him in about a month. We were living under the same roof and never spoke. He never clued in there was a problem.
-->
She says, "We need to talk." and she starts letting him have it. He sat there nodding and giving this 'don't bother me..I'm drinking my jim jones koolaid' smile with this faraway daze in his eyes.
She went on and on getting madder and madder by the minute. He then at the end of it all says with this very calm and unquivering voice, "Is there something I can help you with girls? Can I read you something from the word?"
I went upstairs, took out a cigarette, poured myself a tall one and waited til August.
;)-->
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jardinero
From funny ala:
stop, I'm tearing up here.... o.k. a couple of more:
Corps prin. #1 in action - - lol
I'm sorry, ala, that is so damn pathetic, I can't stop laughing.....
...jim jones koolaid smile...
:D-->
o.k. one more:
...and there you have it folks, a recount of another wonderful WOW year.
((((((((((ala))))))))))))) you is too damn funny, girl!
J.
;)-->
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dmiller
"You can lead a WOW to the *trough*, but you can't make them drink, until they get Dumb, and Dumber."
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Oakspear
In August 1979 I had been a PFAL grad for 17 months and was moving into a Way Home.
Naturally, "leadership" made the decision as to who would be the Way Home Coordinator/Twig Leader...must have been of God, right? It was a guy who had taken PFAL with me the previous year.
One morning, one of the women who lived in the WH stayed home from work and tried unsucessfully to make a phone call. She went to the corner pay phone and found out from the phone company that we were shut off because we were several months behind in our payments. She called me and the other woman who lived there. We made some phone calls (from work) to our other utilities and found out that none of them were paid.
That night we three confronted our WH Coordinator, who was responsible for collecting our share of rent & bills and making the payments. He admitted to drinking and gambling our money away. We called our Branch Coordinator and told him we were throwing the bum out.
BC told us that we didn't have the authority to do that since we weren't the ones who put him there. He convinced us that we should keep this S.O.B. in our home, but he would be replaced as leader. He agreed to pay all the back bills, and would no longer be in control of the finances. I was appointed Family Coordinator & Twig Leader.
He paid the back utilities with rubber checks.
We gave him three days to get out.
BC said we were unloving and should have consulted with him.
We said, "sure, how about we throw his foot out tonight?"
Spiritual decisions
-->
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Jim
Ok, I gotta say this.
All the time I was active in TWI, all I *ever* heard from the returning WOW's was "it's great, you gotta do it, it was the greatest thing in my life", blah blah blah...
I always felt guilty for not going.
What the hell happened? A la prochaine has me LOL with her story. Hers' at least didn't involve physical or sexual abuse like some of the others. Did all the returning WOW's just pretend to have had a great time?
Pro, don't take this as me doubting your experience. Nobody could make up a story like that....
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vickles
Jim, you were 'conditioned' to say only the positive.
But, there were some wow's that had a good year...don't hear many of those though.
I went three years of wow. Each year was even worse of the year before. I was clearly into pain...
-->
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A la prochaine
Jar,
Glad you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane.
It was healing to write it and laugh. I read it to my husband and we were both spewing all over the screne.
I was so messed up after that year. I went into rez with all of these unresolved issues. Especially the hatred I had for this nazi. And, here I was going into the same program he so called had his training in. And to top it all off, now this nazi/brain dead dude is my corpse(?ropos) brother.
It made me happy to know I brought some smiles to others here on GS.
:D-->
JIM,
I might not have been physically or sexually abused, but was severally mentally abused. No fun was had by all.
:(-->
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Jim
I took your writing style as casting a bad experience in a humorous light, a storytelling style that I learned from my dad and that I use alot with my own experiences. I acknowledge that it doesn't diminish the pain that you went through at the time. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't suffer.
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A la prochaine
Jim,
I didn't think you had taken it that way all. But I felt maybe I should clarify, that was all.
Glad you enjoyed the story.
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