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Don't really know where else to put this story... Move if needed. Well, taking a deep breath, and sharing here a brief history of the sexual abuse I experienced in what I had thought was FINALLY a place I could be cared about and where I could escape the "mental hospital" and recover from the breakdown I was experiencing in Jan '74. At the time was a Baptist folk-song-loving hippie, abusively married, VISTA-volunteering-in-very-racist-very-rural-southern-VA as a college graduate from New England. Starting in the Family Camp where I took PFAL as a brand new believer in NY that summer, a series of sexual encounters gradually began; I had been raped twice, as a 12 year old and on my honey moon night, but had kind of buried the memories, so was particularly vulnerable. At the CF&S Family Camp in OH three weeks later, my boundaries were further broken by the class, altho I was healed of some of the bondage and trauma surrounding sex. However, the pendulum was set to swing into the license-to-sin culture of the way that has been brought to light here and other places. Guess my path was pretty predictable- it involved being sexually abused by two young leaders and then engaging in sex with believer bros, then two guys I was "witnessing" to, etc. There were other incidents that were not (what's a cool way to say full-on intercourse?) Was invited on the motor coach corpse week '80; vpw dropped his pants, but I was again in mental distress after my interim year, and he ended up talking about my next year's assignment as we cuddled, thank You GOD! So from the Advanced Class '79 (July?) to the summer of my final WOW year in '83, I had 10 full sexual encounters/ relationships along with other activity that the culture sanctioned. (Was too "out of it" to protect with safe sex precautions, but my female system had shut down either due to the running, all the birth control pills in traveling hippie times, or the traumas, so there you had that...) When I finally kind of realized that I was becoming an abuser, I said Enough! These are my brothers and I am their sister, and this is wrong. I mentioned in another post how I learned that sexual abuse was A-OK with vpw et al; and of course along with it came the message that women were less than, that it was fine for men to help themselves to the young women, etc. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:1 WAS TAUGHT IN CF&S, YET. . . . . What's new?? A counselor labeled the way as misogynistic... Guess so?! Could of course, talk about how the way contributed to very good things in my life like meeting my future h, having my children with him, making wonderful friends, receiving some deliverance, etc. BUT! I am in full-time trauma recovery from many things, among them the cult aspects of the way and the sexual abuse. All for now I think... Blessings to all!

In a galaxy far, far away...............I got involved in The Way International, because they were offering a foundational class on the Bible. At the time, I was in my second year of college and out cruising on my 900 Kawasaki this one Sunday morning when I stopped at a state park to stretch my legs and two WOW ambassadors approached me. I attended some twig fellowships and signed up for pfal........and took the class. There were 12 students in this class......everyone was under 25 years old. Add two WOW years, Way Corps training.......and its potent mixture of manipulation and indoctrination.......and my transformation into a cult was complete. Corps coordinators had us jumping thru hoops to avoid public embarrassment, guilt and fear in nearly every closed-door meeting. Wierwille taught many corps nights and would rail on those corps leaders [4th, 5th and 6th corps -- mainly].......calling some "cop-outs" for leaving him. When Barr1e Hill went thru her deprogramming experience and came back to twi, and later Monty Pelt0......wierwille had them on main stage telling their stories of escape. See......"twi was your true family." The "Us verses Them" teachings were a daily occurrence. My involvement in twi lasted until 1998.......after six agonizing years as Oklahoma's Limb Coordinator. And when martindale was ousted in 2000 by twi's lawyers, no less.......that should have been a big fricken clue as to how rotten twi had become. But STILL......lots and lots of corps remained committed to twi-servitude. And now, FINALLY.......after 16 years of Rivenbark leadership, more corps have had enough and splinter cults are cropping up. Ric0 Magnelli is heading up Oikeos and Bob Moynihan, Michael Fort and Ed Horney are spearheading efforts for Revival and Restoration. Splinter cults run by Corps Coordinators.........surprise, surprise. The guys who were the most steeped in complicity AND hypocrisy want to get behind the microphone and lead others?!?!? NO THANKS. In my opinion........splinter cults are WORSE, not better. Maybe it's just me, but I think Matthew 23 speaks volumes of seasoned Pharisees who make it their business to run roughshod over other peoples' lives. I think that the Lord does NOT look kindly upon them. How many times did they bind heavy burdens upon us, grievous to be shouldered.....while they themselves regurgitated "the law of believing" in their teachings to us. All those crappy teachings on *the wooden spoon* at the Indiana Campus. All the Group Confrontations and Yell-fests over one corps person who no longer wanted to jump thru some damn hoop. All that disgusting MOG-doctrine crap......where wierwille was "the man of God of the universe." And, demanding that way corps stay loyal to the board of trustees......even when it was blatantly obvious that the "twi-debt policy" or the"no-pregnancy policy" was God-awful tripe. Or, the "mark and avoid" policy. Hypocrites!! Woe unto you........hypocrites [shut up the kingdom of heaven against men] (verse 13) Woe unto you........hypocrites [ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayer] (verse 14) Woe unto you........hypocrites [make disciples twofold more the child of hell than yourselves] (verse 15) Woe unto you........hypocrites [omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith] (verse 23) Woe unto you........hypocrites [make clean the outside of the cup...within is full of extortion and excess] (verse 25) Woe unto you........hypocrites [whited sepulchers.....full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness] (verse 27) Woe unto you........hypocrites [you build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchers] (verse 29) The Lord Jesus taught it plainly for all to see..........scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites. Got it? Corps coordinators..........ppffffftttt. You guys should have YOUR BUTTS in the seats learning from others.

Any one remember the corpse week meeting (hope OK to use a DWBH's "satirism"... feels so GOOD) in the big tent in '80 I think, in which a courageous guy stood up and expressed the idea that the sexual activity of Pa&l Virgil*o in Idaho with young female believers, should be addressed?? I sure do... (Will share in another post about the reasons I particularly remember, and perhaps what I would stand up and say now, heh heh.) There was vpw with some other leading men sitting on a raised platform up front, with an audience of all of the corpse folks who had come in for the week attending the open meeting. After the speaker basically intimated that the sexual abuse (by the handsome young musician limb co-ordinator) was wrong and should be addressed, vpw made light of the request and quickly deflected it by saying that it wasn't really a sin. NEXT? Oh yeah. Lesson Learned for/by me. And particularly by all of the young raised-in-the-way folks who had been sexually abused. Oh Yeah... Hope you can follow me... All I want to write in this post. Thanks for reading whoever does!

Considering the history of vpw's group, its "scraping by" years exceeded its successful years. He started, IIRC, in 1941. In 1942 AND 1943 (I may be off and it was 1941 and 1942), vpw claims he considered giving up. If he told the truth, he certainly didn't have much endurance to "run the race." Imagine if anyone else went to HIM talking about quitting, what a failure he'd make them out to be, especially the SECOND time. He claimed to have heard from God Almighty in 1942, and STILL nothing took off. He continued for several years in the denomination, while doing side-projects for over a decade, with a radio show, editing the work of Bible teachers, and so on. A few years after he was able to deed the family farm to HIS ministry, (time to do work around it), he went out on his own, and complained that he wasn't getting enough tithes to do the job. Even after stealing Leonard's class and Stiles' book, he had lukewarm results. If he hadn't hijacked the hippies around 1969-1970, he would have vanished into history, another would-be "giant" of history nobody's ever heard of. So, 1941-1969 is 28 years of lukewarm results and skating by. 1969-1982 is 13 years of success- built on the backs of others whom he deceived, and those years ended with him bitter and neglected just as he'd neglected so many others down the decades.

Same pattern.........always. Rivals wait for opportunistic time Head Minister passes away or retires When not promoted to big chair....plots strategy Abides time to "break away" and be in charge Find chinks in their armor/doctrine Isolate his splinter group from "wrong doctrine" Be sure that support ($$$) is firmly in place Behold.......another offshoot grows in the midst Nothing new under the sun...... Heck.....wierwille's "thriving ministry" only lasted 12 years (1970-1982) Then, he retired......and the infighting started.

DWBH..........ironic, indeed! THOSE who were the most complicit to this evil and secrets........are STILL the most dedicated to this pseudo-Christian con. Splinter Cults like these........lord over people who claim to "research the bible" but can't find common sense staring them in the face. Ugh.

I got my sexual assault at a lower level that fall of 1979 at HQ. I mentioned some things about it yesterday in the language thread, since "loosened up" was specifically said about me. (I was not supposed to hear it said). My main assaulter (not VPW of course) is involved in an offshoot of sorts to this day. I can't help but wonder if Barnard later had some sort of loosening up in TWI...if he did, he no doubt went along with it instead of running and freezing like I did.

Thanks for your posts, Penworks and Skyrider! Informative and enlightening. I lived at HQ from 1979-1984, as both Midwest Region Coordinator and Trunk guy. During that entire time, Quillen was the head of Bless Patrol. Along with Scott Jarvis, Jim Peterson, Don Wierwille, MacMullan, and Geer, Quillen was a prime mover in getting his Bless Patrol Dept. legally and officially deputized by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, which effectively made Bless Patrol a Sherriff sanctionioned private police force made up of deputized members of the Shelby County Sherriff’s Office! They ALL had to successfully complete the Ohio Sherriff Deputies qualification and performance exams, which they did. As I said, my entire time of post-in-rez time at HQ, 9/79-8/84, Quillen was the head of Bless Patrol. He was joined-at-the-hip with Geer and super-secret-double-probation-agent MacMullan the entire time I was there. ALL the sexual dalliances of ALL the “Trustees” were coordinated and “overseen” by these three Wierwille gestapos. There are scores of personal, eyewitness, firsthand accounts right here over the 19 years of GSC posts, which document the evil, and sometimes guilty stares, at vic’s victims as they marched off the Bunny Hatch, as Dotsie referred to the motor coach, by one or more of these loyal pimps for da MOG. Not one of them would hesitate for one second to put a bullet into ANYONE vic perceived as a threat. NOT ONE. These days, it is ironic to note, that each one of those three hitman security guards and pimps, runs his own wierwille cult. Geer does his “Word Promotions” franchises out of Maine, Quillen runs his offshoot out of CFFM in Illinois, and Agent MacMullan helps run SOWERS on his family’s MS farm with V2P2, victor paul wierwille II, JP’s kid. And, then there’s Mark Frontczak, Victor Barnard’s right-hand man pedophilic sexual predator at their River Road Felliwship in Finlayson, MN. He was a very loyal and high profile Bless Patrol guy under Quillen. He also enabled and participated in the incredible Victor Barnard cult for nearly 20 years, for which Barnard himself now gets severely beat up in prison regularly, for just a few of the 59+ sexual crimes he committed with Frontczak’s help and support! Frontczak is now happily back with his former boss and the offshoot networks hawking his “spiritually right on” cartoons and acting as if he never heard of Barnard......kinda like trump never met or heard of any of his victims either. So, the wierwillean cults continue vic’s only legacy, lying about their faddah in da woid while continuing to pimp his Aryan, Nazi fundamentalist “Christian” cult. So, the wierwillean legacy marches on through the scores of all these offshoot TWIt cults spread around the country. Thank God that the GSC is still here! Faithfully and factually telling the other side of the story of these destructive and immoral wierwille cults.

Everything would have changed. He BRIEFLY (in the 1950s) talked about Ecumenical movements- he would have continued as ecumenical, giving Leonard and Stiles due credit, and claiming an eclectic group that did their best to incorporate the best of what each Christian ministry offered. If he reached out the the hippies, it would have been a joint effort and even-handed, and the results would still be felt to this day rather than having choked the vitality out of a nascent Christian movement.

I just read that 40-year old letter again. What struck me (slapped me in the face) this time was that Wierwille said, "I love you for who you are." Oooops, that's not it, instead he actually wrote, "I love you for the privilege and responsibility you have." What was that "privilege?" As he taught (indoctrinated) H.I.S. way corpse, the privilege was having been called to be "doulos." Literally a slave. One who no longer has freedom to make her/his own life choices. Of course, in the indoctrination, it was slave to God. In practice, it was slave to Wierwille and his successors. The reward for the slave? To serve the earthly master on the basis of a bass-ackward interpretation of what leadership is supposed to be... and what Wierwille and successors could con you into believing you'd get at the "Bema." When you stood before God for rewards in heaven. Not unlike the mythical 70 virgins another religion promised for heinous acts of terrorism.

Twinky, I had the exact same conversation with J@nu@ry over 15 years ago, and very similar experiences with CFFM. For what it’s worth, I’m in complete agreement with you comments. For decades she lived in fear of reprisals from TWI. Actually feared for her life. What a horrible way to live. To my knowledge she’s past that now. From what I can see these days, CFFM is doing the best they can do to honor Jesus Christ in their small community of Christians as they continue to help those who were abused by TWI in any form.

Hello all, This is my first comment after finding these forums a few weeks ago. I was born in 1982 into a family that was part of TWI; my parents were part of a twig group in the Houston area. From what I understand, my family and a big chunk of people in the Houston area broke off and started a splinter group sometime in the mid to late eighties. My mom and stepdad kept most of that info from us, but I remember them warning my sister and I not to answer any questions regarding PFAL materiel if someone came knocking at the door. The day I turned 18 I left and never went back to a fellowship. This caused a great stress between my mother, stepfather, and I and I went nearly a decade without talking to them. Between then and now I have put in work to try to build a relationship with them, but it is a very small slice of my life that I can share with them or that they can share with me without treading into religious waters. Despite that, I felt like I have been on the right track with them showing up for weekly dinners and starting to get to know them a little bit again. That is, until my sister died last month. It was a horrible accident and she was far too young in her mid 30's. I took on the bulk of the funeral planning, as hospitality and events is my profession. It was really difficult to plan because it forced me to negotiate with them about how much their religion would be involved in the service. We decided on a non-secular event hall, which was easy because they would have had an issue going anywhere with any other kind of religion involved. The tough part is that they wanted their reverend to speak for an hour of the 2 hour service. I fought tooth and nail to get it down to 15 minutes, which they agreed to. He spoke for 40 minutes. It was so difficult sitting through his angry sermon, where he was talking about drinking blood, speaking in tounges, and then pitching people taking PFAL classes. WTF. I left so angry. For the first time I started examining how TWI and their offshoot really effected me and the people I love in my life. I grew up feeling extremely emotionally and physically isolated from the outside world, and I am just now (in my late thirties) figuring out how to come to terms with that. I am married and have a good job, but that has taken serious work. I have a hard time really opening up and connecting with people although I yearn for it and work for it daily. My dad was excommunicated after he and my mother divorced (she cheated on him with their TWI marriage counselor). This probably had to do with my dad being gay :P. He hid his sexuality from my sister and I because he knew it meant we wouldn't get to see him. He never missed a child support check even though he was broke and despite constant pressure from my mom/stepdad and TWI pressuring him to cut ties. Once he finally came out, my mom and stepdad really freaked out because they are convinced he has devil spirits. For just under two decades they have had a cool relationship with each other, only talking when it had something to do with my sister or I. During the funeral they were cordial during the planning process, but cool during the funeral. Anyone former TWI or current offshoot would ignore my dad and his partner of 25 years. People who he has known for decades just pretended he wasn't there. After I spoke my heart at the funeral speaking about my sister and her life, I started getting the same treatment. It turns out I offended people by talking about her dad and his partner in the eulogy. That made me feel angry and sad. It also made me feel proud for speaking my mind to a group that didn't want to hear from me. Anyway, I am sorry for the word soup and I hope that I haven't gone way off topic here. I am just looking for information now. I am researching the people who I know are in their group now. I want to figure out what offshoot they are a part of and where all this PFAL money is going, considering it isn't supported by TWI anymore. My parents hold classes and travel regularly to hold and attend retreats. I am dying to know how big the splinter is that they are a part of. I want to learn more and face this. Does anyone know of any major offshoots that have a strong presence in the Houston area? Am I allowed to list names in this group to see if any of you know any of these people? Thank you all. It has been fascinating learning about your experiences.

Those who intentionally hide and dismiss wierwille's plagiarism, research foibles, and sexual predation AND have made it their business to lord over others.........THOSE SPLINTER GROUPS are worse! At the starting gate of splintering from twi, they are hypocrites before God and man.

Unless any given splinter cult declares emphatically that it believes differently than Wierwille taught (and practiced), it's fair to surmise that said group's practice will be what Wierwille practiced. That includes the notion that, IOW, it's fair to characterize the the default position as how WordWolf described. It would naturally be up to any such apparent Top Dog to make the distinction by word and deed.

I'm drawing a distinction between some of the FOLLOWERS (quietly trying to do godly things, helping others, praying) and those who rushed to the front to claim the microphone. We don't hear about the usual adherent anywhere because it's boring news- few want to hear about those who run soup kitchens and build houses, but they'd stop to hear about the corrupt "leader" who got caught. Those who pushed their way to the titles, IMHO, are in it for the titles.

As cynical as I can be, I would refrain from making such a blanket statement. I think there are some who are sincerely trying to do their best and are not in it for the glory. That's not to say there isn't some ego involved -- a splinter group, by definition, is led by people who think they can do a better job than the group they left. But to declare them unworthy to be ministers... I don't know. It certainly applies to some, but I cannot see where it applies to all. Sincerity may not be a guarantee for truth, but it is a guarantee for sincerity.

Back when lcm drove off 80% of twi in 88-89 with his "line in the sand", a fellow with the screen-name of Cesar Salad said he thought the biggest problem with lcm was that he wasn't able to get humble enough to "wash the apostles' feet" and so he wasn't fit for ministry work, since it was for HIS OWN glory and not for Jesus. It's no different for any other alleged "leader" that vpw trained, or vpw's machine trained. They all want to be the top dog- so all of them are UNWORTHY to be ministers. All of them want to be SERVED and not to SERVE.

Exhibit C: Victor Barnard Exhibit D: Chris Geer

Well.........the point being, I'm here at GSC to sound the alarm on cults and their tactics. I care about the people who get ensnared........ I care about those who are bruised and brokenhearted..... I care about setting the captives free...... That's the mission of GSC......to tell the other side of the story. Beware of splinter-cults, too !!! That's the point.

I thought they all divorced each other.