kenwas

My freshman roommate was in a similar situation. I was no longer in TWI but I was still indoctrinated and probably would have returned to fellowship if my parents had and if some of the people I actually liked were in our assigned fellowship. I don't think there's much you can do if she's at an early stage in TWI: what worked for me was a few years of dissatisfaction with the group, being on my own at school, and looking up The Way on Wikipedia out of curiosity. Encourage your roommate to do other activities (though she probably won't feel the need) that will put her in contact with a diverse group of people. And if you guys are in college, I found that my classes (especially anthropology) were eye-opening. Oh, and the best thing my roommate ever did for me was to be my friend even if she thought some of my religious views were weird. I learned a lot from her.

Oh, I wasn't offended by anyone thinking the videos were funny. I just felt really sorry for this young man and others in situations like that.

I wonder who was filming that and why. You'd think the other family members wouldn't want that "conversation" filmed. I think this video is pretty scary. About a month ago, I realized I was an agnostic and while I don't think my parents would act like that, I'm scared to tell them. There is a lot of intolerance of nonreligious people in this country.

What happened to the delightful swaying I remember? And blecch, I thought the clothing was terrible back when I was a little kid. Why has the production quality never gotten any better? I love The Soup.

Maybe it has. My mother just got a call from our old FC. I thought it was really odd when she told me but if this is going on elsewhere, it makes sense.

I haven't been to a fellowship for a few years, so I'm not sure. I was still indoctrinated up until April, though, which is when I consider myself out. But I don't think it could have changed very much in so little time.

I believe that Christianity preaches tolerance and I have met a lot of Christians who are, but not every Christian is tolerant. This seems to be true of all groups, though and the negative sides to anything usually get more media attention. I also think that people confuse ignorance with intolerance. Maybe one leads to the other? I don't know. A Christian person once accused me of being an atheist (as if that were a bad thing) based on my political views and got angry when I said I was also a Christian. I doubt she represented her whole sect. A lot of Christians I've met tend to come off too strong and others have been just plain rude but that had to do more with their personality than their religion. Thanks for these interesting questions. I've been wondering about this lately, too.

I was a kid, so I was just raised to hate the forbidden things, I suppose. We weren't allowed to watch TV and movies without the parental "pause and explain the evil." I remember being scolded by one of the other twi parents for making up "not nice" storylines when I played Barbies with her kids. By not nice, I mean that one of the dolls was an orphan.

That's how I felt when people left. It was a bit worse when they were hostile. People leaving and "attacking" us made us feel closer and brought us under the scrutiny ("protection") of the limb coordinators.

I had a great excuse not to go to fellowship: college. But obviously, I was thinking of it as an excuse, so you can tell I was a bit dissatisfied with twi. My family members just stopped going one by one because they split up our fellowship (though my sister stopped going long before that) and my dad had financial issues. None of us had any problems from anyone still in but I've found that my mom is still indoctrinated. She and my dad found a church that they like, though.

My parents had a sort of black list of books and movies we couldn't read and watch. One we like to joke about today is Pocahontas, which we had to sell because "Grandmother Willow is a devil spirit." We had to explain to other kids why we couldn't read and watch these things. When I was in sixth grade, I felt like an absolute sinner for sitting in the classroom while my teacher read certain books. Surprisingly, it was another set of Way parents who got my parents to lighten up.

Thanks, kimberly. That's exactly how I felt. I liked fellowship a lot because of the people.

Nowadays, I am very glad I could never get through those books. What I find interesting is how often these books were used as references in teachings. VPW was considered a number one authority on everything and a lot of people brought his books along with the Bible to fellowship. We were given the blue book after the foundational class and expected to read it and reading the whole series was an important part of our spiritual understanding if I remember correctly. If we had questions, we were supposed to look at those. So, his gospel effectively continued after his death.

To everybody: Thanks for the kind words and support! dmiller and T-Bone: Looks delicious! T-Bone: Actually, I think the reason I didn't have much trouble adjusting is because I was pretty sheltered from the more horrible aspects of TWI. I've been reading other peoples' stories and it seems that the closer they got to the leaders, the worse their situations were. I only took one foundational class and I only went to headquarters once (not including the ROA, which ended when I was five). Our fellowships were like casual gatherings and I don't remember any major drama, even when I was older. Of course, this made TWI look pretty positive in my eyes and it still did up until two months ago.

There are pictures of my dedication in the family photo album. I don't have any really horrible experiences to share. Mostly, I remember my TWI experiences to be very happy ones. I really liked everyone in our fellowship and I truly believe that everyone was sincere about their beliefs. Perhaps I was too young. I did just find out that this was a cult a little over two months ago. I'm probably still a bit indoctrinated even though I stopped going to fellowship a couple of years ago. I still retained my beliefs and the only reason mom and I stopped going was because the new fellowship was very dry and I didn't get along with the other teens. My parents weren't really that strict. They've since admitted that some things they did, like getting rid of our troll dolls and not allowing us to watch Pocahontas, were pretty dumb. We also celebrated "Ho Ho" instead of Christmas. I remember accidentally singing that in music class (Have a Holly Jolly Ho Ho). When my sister and I were younger, there was another family in our fellowship. They were the coordinators at that time, so they influenced how our parents acted. They inspected our house. I remember them admonishing our parents for the troll dolls. The family had two girls about our age and they were bullies but we were expected to be friends with them. The most awful memory I have is of a couple who was in our fellowship when my parents ran it. They were confronted in front of the whole group by my dad and were kicked out. This, I believe, is a terrible thing to do in front of not just children, but everyone. I always felt sad when people left and was expected to pray for them. There were a lot of kids in our branch and we got along when we were preteens. I think these were my best memories of being in TWI. When we were older, however, my sister began to lose interest as well as my dad. My dad was respected and a great teacher so this made me very unhappy. Then, like I said, my mom and I stopped going, though I still retained most of my beliefs. Right now, I'm trying to find answers and I feel a bit messed up. I'm not especially close to my family, but we're not outspoken by nature. Even so, I don't know if I struggle with relationships because I'm naturally shy or because of TWI. I also feel a lot of shame and bitterness. It's also hard for me to trust other religions. I feel really uncomfortable in my parents' new church. It's partly because they're trinitarian and partly because they have the same kind of pseudo-warm atmosphere that TWI had. I just don't know if any religions are right or if any of my former beliefs are valid at all. If I were going to give advice to parents or children of former TWI people or families that were involved, it would be to talk to each other and express concerns that you have about your beliefs and well-being. I'm very glad to say that everyone in my family seems happy now.

Hey, everybody! Thanks for the suggestions.

Thanks, penguin, for the welcome and the would-be pastry. I think the diner theme here is great and I'm enjoying browsing the different topics.

Hi! I'm kenwas. I'm 20 and I've always lived in MN. I was very happy to discover this site and forum because I'm a former TWI member who has experienced a lot of confusion over the past few years. My parents joined TWI pretty soon after college (I don't know if they were already married or not). Mom was a former Lutheran and dad was a former Episcopalian. My sister and I were born into the group so I've never known anything else. I remember everyone in our various fellowships being really nice, but now that I've read other peoples' stories and other information about TWI, I can see that some of my experiences were a bit disturbing. Mostly, I remember being happy. When I was nine, I developed a sense of purpose and felt really committed to the group. I imagined that someday I would marry a nice guy from TWI and that we would raise our kids in it. I always felt happy and spiritually fulfilled at fellowship. One of the most negative memories I have is that I was terrified of praying in front of the whole fellowship. The teachers would always have the kids pray for the abundant sharing and that was usually my sister or me. I had a memorized prayer for that and I hated it. I looked up to people who could pray well but I was too shy. The big shock came when I was a teenager. I noticed that my sister was losing interest and I freaked out and was really distressed. I was absolutely convinced that she was becoming an atheist or something. Then my dad stopped going, which distressed me even more as he was a great teacher and I looked up to him. My mom and I still went to fellowship, but our coordinators had to step down and so we were divided into separate groups. The one in which Mom and I were in was boring. That's why we stopped going. Seriously. I think if we had more charismatic teachers, we would still be in there. Of course, I was still committed to TWI so I felt like we were abandoning our faith. When my parents told me they were looking for a church, I thought they were nuts. I remember praying for my whole family to find God again. I went to college and became best friends with my roommate. We described our religious beliefs to each other and she said TWI sounded like a cult. I brushed that off, but I did gain a wider perspective of the world that year. In college, I became involved with a lot of internet communities like YouTube and LiveJournal and I learned a lot from other people. This April, out of curiosity, I looked up TWI on Wikipedia. The information on that page was shocking. I had never known any of it. Ever. I had no idea it was a cult (despite what my roommate said) and I had no idea there was all this scandal involved. Today, I'm not in any religious group, though I'm still a Christian. Anyways, that was long, but I'm very happy to be here and I'm eager to learn and share.