Mocha Tree Girl

Thanks penguin!

Still curious about Michelle Tabor and if she is still in - don't know her married name - but I think she married someone who either became clergy or a limb coordinator. I think she was 22nd - she was the WOW team leader in Seattle, and I considered her a good friend.

Too funny. I lived next to a bunch of wow's and went "witnessing" with them in bars frequently. Since I didn't have the 2 drink limit I was the one they sent to the bar to buy the pitchers - and their cups were never empty. On more than one occasion I found WOWs "accidentally" drinking from my glass as well. Abundant sharing in deed. And back into lurkdom I go........

I left TWI and eventually joined the Catholic chruch. Just wanted to pop in here and say that "RC church" is yet another bit of Way jargon that drives me insane. It's the Catholic chuch - the Roman Catholics are only a part of it. I am not speaking about the catholic church as in the general christian body of Christ either - there are several different "Rites" within the Catholic church - Latin Rite - aka Roman Catholic being only one of them - that fall "under" the Pope's leadership. I am one of those other Catholics - I am Eastern Rite aka Byzantine Catholic. "The RC church" that LCM ranted about was to me nothing more than an ignorant and usually inaccurate stereotype of catholicism in general. So - if you are one of those people that likes to throw out all your old Wayism's - do me a favor and get rid of that one! ;)--> If you want to speak ill of Catholics just call em Catholics. :P--> And back into lurker oblivion I go.........

You know, that is why I am still here, checking this dang forum after 10 years! And I wasn't even married to, or "in love" with anyone in TWI - I just LOVED the people (WOWs) who were in my life because of TWI. I never fell hook line and sinker for TWI - but I loved those people - and they were a part of my life. It does hurt losing people because of a damn cult! 10 years later I am still haunted by them, wondering if they are in - or if they wised up. How they have been hurt? It felt like a death to all of a sudden have them gone from my life. Me leaving was not a death - but I grieve for the people I left behind.

Coming out of lurkdom to post my cousins names - which top all of these - Silver Sundown Cedar Tree Sunrise Tai Tamarack and their step sister Uvia Singing Rainstorm Back into lurkdom I go.....

I am vaguely familiar with Tres Dias - more familiar with Chrysalis and Walk to Emmaus which are similar 3 day retreats which are protestant based. I made my Chrysalis in 1987, and my Walk in 1993 (while involved with TWI oddly enough). I have been involed with Chrysalis for many years, and credit that ministry with being able to straighten out the doctrine mess TWI left in my head, and saving me from getting sucked into TWI completely. Rather than going WOW I left TWI and soon was chosen to be a Lay Director for a Chrysalis - an experience that did what the WOW program only claimed to - allowed me to grow spiritually 10 years in one. :)-->

Thanks! Wayfer Not! - Congrats on your marriage! I peeked at your photos - you make a beautiful bride. :D-->

Just curious. I knew someone who was Corps on the WOW field in 92-3, and another who was apprentice in 93-4. What would their corps number be?

My experience with corpse people was pretty limited - in 1992 I met an interium coprse girl who seemed pretty sharp - and who I have heard is married to clergy these days. She had good social skills - and appeared warm. One of the WOWs was entering the corpse the following year - he was a small business owner, and a people person as well. He was later booted from corpse. The interium corpse girl sent after the wow year to help run the twigs that had been spawned had multiple master's degrees, but was socially retarded. The only job she could find was in a Sabarros. I can't imagine she survived since that was a time that was the height of booting people out. And, there was a coprse girl in the area who was in her mid 30's and worked at Boeing. I felt bad for her because she was all set to move out on her own, in her very first non-way living situation and then leadership made her move in with social retard corpse girl instead.

You sound much like me when I was first involved with TWI. I was young(early 20s), looking for a serious relationship, and just looking to form friendships with people in general. I was taken aback when I first was confronted with the "cult factor" and brushed it off. I thought I was much too smart to get sucked in. I was wrong. I didn't get sucked in too far, and never had anything bad really happen to me - but I did get sucked in because I loved the people who were in. I really invested a lot of time in my circle of TWI friendships - and in the end they all just walked away because I was not willing to turn my entire heart over to their ministry. My biggest regret is that I wasted 2 years that I could have spent developing some real and lasting relationships with people who were looking for the same. I loved those people - but not TWI - and that is why, over ten years later, I still pop in to this forum hoping to find out what happened to them - and if they are hurting, if they are out, if they are free. I really thought I knew them - and that I was a good judge of character - but I never knew them at all. In my experience nothing was ever as it seemed - and reading the real story here makes me ache even more for those people I loved. I thank God there was not a cute one among them - or I may have been sunk!

I rarely post here anymore, but have to say, this really isn't all that freaky. TWI courted people who were seeking answers, seeking God. So - it was pretty easy to see them as an answer to prayer if you happened to cry out and they were anywhere near! It happened to me - I prayed for a group of friends who were excited and fired up about what God was doing in their lives, and I met a brand new group of WOWs soon after. One WOW family worked where I worked, and soon after another WOW family moved next door to me. I thought for sure it was a God thing - but I was actively LOOKING for answers. I was 22 and right out of college, living in a new town, on my own for the first time. Ripe for the picking!! In that year I was courted by two cults - TWI and Church of Christ. My TWI friends were who I ran to when I got freaked out by COC and their heavy handedness. They assured me I was not crazy - and much more spritually in tune than those people thrown about by unsound doctrine. In fact, I signed my "Green Card" the night some whacko COC girl told my I was not really saved because I questioned their doctrine-->. I think what has made it so hard for me to "forget" that 2 years is that I loved the WOWs I met and spent time with - and was friends with. It was fun to have a group of friends who I could talk God with - and be excited about stupid **** about - freely share what God was doing in my life with - even the mundane stuff. I really had no idea what was going on under the surface though - no clue the kind of pressure they were under to "raise me up" to their level of "believing." I genuinely cared about them, and to this day wonder what has happened to them - why they are still in - how they have been hurt - if they are okay. One is married to clergy - and I wonder how it is that the person I thought I knew, and who I admired because she was smart, dedicated, loving and strong, could still be in - and high up on the food chain. I wonder did I ever really know her at all? Was it all just an act. And to the why would God put me in that situation question - I don't know. I don't know that God put me there at all - but I know that I grew tons as a result. As a result of TWI I had to examine everything I thought I believed, and had been brought up believing, and read, and been force fed. I feel I have a much more solid foundation having done so.

In the fall of 1992 the WOWs I knew reportedly healed a guy who was coming to their twig of AIDS, and of his homosexuality. I never met the guy - but the WOW coordinator (Interium Corps girl) and her WOW sister took me out one night and witnessed to me specifically about the situation. I was VERY new to the whole TWI thing - so of course wondered outloud why it was not in the news. They said they did not want to risk the media attention swaying his believing - so they were keeping it quiet. This guy soon stopped coming to TWIG - I never actually met him. Wouldn't you think he would stick around if someone had helped heal him of AIDS??? Again, in my naive about all things TWI state, I asked the corps girl about this - and she said he had "gone back to his homo ways like a dog to vomit" so they thought it was best that he not corrupt the household. I asked if he remained AIDS free, and she said indeed he was - but probably wouldn't be for long. His "girlfriend" and later ex-girlfriend however continued to go to TWIG, and took PFAL with me in the spring of 1993. At one point during a break in the class she witnessed about his healing, and showed a photocopy of a negative test result. Unfortunately, it was rumored that she did not manifest at the end of the class - and I don't remember her being around much after that. I remember trying to drown out the skeptical voice in my head regarding the whole story - but kept coming back to the idea that someone actually healed of AIDS by complete strangers would just leave them in the dust!!!

I was not WOW, but attended two different WOW twigs. I worked with 4 WOWs (I was actually their supervisor), and lived next door to a different WOW family. They had me surrounded. The poor WOWs I worked with all four worked at the same restaurant - so were together all the time! They were quite tired of being under their Corps girl's thumb by the end of the year! The WOW's next door were really fun - I hung out at their apartment all the time, often eating with them if I wasn't working. They seemed to eat a lot of hamburger helper. We worked in a coffee shop, so they got a free meal and all the latte's they could drink. They also took home the leftover ground coffee at the end of the night - which I sold to them for a quarter - and which kept them in fellowship coffee. There were, I think, 6 wow girls in our city, and I am pretty sure they all gained weight that year - so they did not go hungry. That was my first year out of college and on my own and I was struggling to pay my half of the rent (for the same size apartment they had), car payment and insurance, college loans, and other living expenses - and I was working 3 times as many hours as they were. In a phone call to my mom I was excitedly telling her about the WOWs and their abundance, when my mom, who was skeptical of the whole TWI/WOW thing, pointed out that it was not too hard for them to achieve an "abundant life" since they were living 5 to an apartment (2 bedroom) with only a few cars between them, and no debt. It was then that I noticed the existance of Way Homes in our area - with other 30 somethings living 4 and 5 to a home - and being told where to live, and who to live with - and realized this was a TWI way of life - not just a WOW thing. I also knew that was not my idea of abundance!

Where was the "results not typical" disclaimer?? :P--> DeColores! B-