Bramble

We have avast on the family pc and my three teens haven't picked up any nasties while using it--and it is free!

Joined-- 21. Left-- 40.

Hubby--joined 18, left-- 46

I have bought heirloom seeds from here: http://rareseeds.com/.Finding heirloom seeds in a local store is always iffy.

Maybe you didn't quite buy into the belief-system perpetuated by twi, but anyone who does almost has to run headlong into a brick wall to wake up. Sometimes the wall is built brick-by-brick, day after day, slowly but surely, by the hurtful experiences you go through over the years. This was how about 2/3 of my brick wall was built. Time after time of leadership playing people against each other with everyone getting hurt. Time after time of contradictory instructions. Time after time of no apologies when apologies were due. Time after time of accusations and banishments of people I felt were decent human beings.... But the last 1/3 of my wall was built in an instant. The moment I found WayDale and read credible accounts by people I knew and respected, BOOM, my wall was finished and I ran into it full tilt. I felt like my heart had stopped and all the air had been sucked out of me.

Your whole post was avery good explanation of how people in TWI think and feel, but this paragraphrang particularly true to me.

To leave the One True Ministry with the exceedingly rare and precious Doctrine given to us by VPW, the greatest man o gawd since the apostle Paul, and runaway to the devil spirit infested world requires a brick wall experience. It's not pleasant or easy, more an act of desperation.

Lots of people in TWI have two lives, I think--the life they pretend to live in order to look good, and a life they know they actually live, which they try to avoid looking at. Thankfully, the busy busy schedules ans 'renewed mind' practices help keep those thought unexamined. Until there is a real crisis.

My house is a wind break from the west wind so i think the corn will do all right, but I might have to stake it.

I thought about planting some Lovage. I hear it tastes like celery. I thought I might research more tea herbs since we all like herbal teas in the winter.

Why is a shift leader necessary?

Has TWI changed their Internet is full of debbils belief? If not then innies who surf probably don't want to leave any type of record! You never know when someone might rat you out.

I'm not a church goer now, but i was for a few years after leaving TWI .

Perhaps there is a reason no one wants that job!

Perhaps instead of a shift leader you could spread the tasks out--a refreshment person, a paperwork/secretary etc, a street coordinator. Or let the group coordinate itself.

One thing I noticed about churches, unlike TWI--people have the right to disagree with anyone in the church, including the pastor. It is not lock step obedience like in TWI--and I think that is much healthier. Life is certainly easier for a leader if they can just issue orders and be instantly obeyed, but how healthy is that, anyway? Certainly makes leading more difficult and communication more important, when people can say NO.

Odd that the writer's of the New Testament would use well known Greek words for well known concepts/beliefs, but mean something entirely different than the accepted use of the words. Seems like that would be horribly confusing to all the newbie gentile converts. Or maybe it was one of those'Christianize the pagan belief to win converts' deals.

Already been done. Sunnydale sat on the Hellmouth, but luckily Spike blew it closed with his fancy necklace. Though rumor has it another Hellmouth exists in Cleveland.

I think they'll pull the next prez from the region coords. Those all stood with Rosie and before her were Craig's men, and promoted his insane policies, mimiced him. They know all the dirt and are content to cover it up, probably because they have dirt under their own fingernails. They are tainted and have self interest in keeping TWI afloat and unenlightened.

There are people I look forward to seeing or chatting with everyday. My hubby and children and all they are doing interests me. My sister and I talk several times a day, I hear from my good friend who moved to Scotland(we IM) daily, also hear from my brother who travels, and one or more of my local wichy sisters, my online writer's group, my cousin who is retired and travels and iMs, my niece who has a new baby. Work friends. I look forward to all that communication daily.

I like to read, I spend time writing everyday, I play with my cats, maybe cook something tasty, plan or work on the garden, watch TV with Hubby, give my (largley unwanted) opinions to my teens and ask all manner of snoopy questions.There is often something to do that is fun or interesting or comforting that I enjoy, though none of it is life changing important stuff, just day to day things. I'm thinking of buying one of those Learn to Knit kits.

Many of those activities were not possible or were put down or limited when we were in TWI , because we had so many ministry responsibilities to fufill to be 'good.' Now my life is more in my control and I like it much much better.

There's enough sad stuff in life...we lost both my parents and mom in law just a few years ago, hubby has type 1 diabetes that is difficult to manage, I have some health issues due to autoimmune disease... making home and life pleasant and comfortable is important to me, people I love are important to me, helping my kids be successful is important to me, giving what I can is important to me. Life is full.

looks like most of the folks here who answered are in the same demographic as me

but why wasn't "followed pretty girl in" one of the choices for how to join?

Or guy! I married one of the wows who got me in the class.

In TWI submitting yourselves to one another pretty much went like this: The wife would submit to her hubby, then to another--the HFC, and another--The Branch coord, still another--limb coord, and don't forget another--region coord and a random group of others--any loose corps you happened to deal with.

Plenty of people to keep you on the straight and narrow. Plus they could communicate amongst each other about you, and even have your ministry 'friends" knowingly or unknowingly spy on you--that kept you 'honest,' and kept the household pure.

I have no interest in anyone having authority in my personal or family life In my relationships with hubby, siblings and friends, I do not have to submit. I can say yes or no, agree or disagree, compromise, take advice or ignore it. My well being does not hinge on my 'obedience.'

I did the same thing, Ham. I had a wide margin oxford, all written up, even had color coding in places. Sent that one to the dump. We still have seven or eight bibles, New Testaments etc around the house, dfferent versions and types--even have my mom's old Catholic Bible with color illustrations. But none of those are filled with notes and teachings from ROA etc. Sheesh--bad thought I had once, that after I'm gone the kids would look through the old Bible, all sentimental, and contact the Way international.--After all, Mom must have really liked it.

I think one of the reasons so many of us bought it was due to our age at enlistment time. Many of us were in a late adolescnt developmental stage, not entirely adult, willing to take risks that a more mature individual might not. How many of us got involved in our late teens, early twenties?

My wow team of twelve was sent to a college area, with housing boundaries, to live in the college area. Kids, Kids, Kids everywhere we went. We held many public ex and classes at the college too. They were our target.

IF the only way WD can maintain his pro TWI stance is by bullying and taking threads off topic, and by stalking a certain poster, then yeah, I say he's in violation of the rules--by behavior, not by belief system.

If you cannot distinguish wrong behavior because it is tied to your doctrine and the great debate/battle stance--or are willing to turn a blind eye to wrong behavior because it is in defense of the TRUTH, then you are so very sad. And kind of scary.

If your belief system tells you it is okay to bully for the Truth... Hmmm... I do remember that from TWI.

Criminy. Playing the victim card.

I was wondering if those vacuum pack amchines are a good idea. We can and freeze what we can.

We can't have chickens in the city limits, but one of my neighbors has a pygmy goat smaller than many dogs. I'm not sure if its allowed or that no one has bothered to call the city! It sure is cute.

I can't see JL as any type of believing authority now, though I did when we first left. The nose spider stuff pretty much did it for me. I figure he and many others who have paying ministries(livelihoods) built on TWI will try to call the flock back now and then. That's their audience. Their power lies in continuing the movement of the Word like it hasn't been known since the first centurty church via VPW.

I have not found worldly people to be more shocking and live in shocking ways. I'm not talking about gang bangers, meth dealers, addicts, hookers etc--my life rarely if ever intersects with those type of lifestyles, other than what I hear on the news.

I was surprised when I got out of TWI(20 yrs in) that people in the world were more kind and generous than we had lived with our last decade or so in TWI. More concerned with their communities, schools and willing to donate time and energy to those. Hobbies and interests brought zest to their lives, and many had maintained friendships from childhood and were deeply involved with their families.

Hubby and I are still somewhat social misfits due to all our years of isolation-- while others were maturing and building relationships, we were working very hard to stay obedient children in a small circle of people, putting aside interests etc because of our bizybizy ministry lifestyle.

I do have high hopes for the quinoa. We have sandy soil so drainage is NOT a problem and the backyard gets tons of sunshine. Hubby is diabetic and we've been buying it from the health food store to serve in place of rice since it does not elevate the blood sugar like white rice and cooks faster than brown rice. Sprouts nice for salads, too.

We live in the Rockies where the growing season is short. We plant our garlic in the fall and mulch it heavily. During early spring(which is pretty much winter weather here) we will water it during thaws, when the temps are in the forties. We get a really nice crop in late summer.

Moving here from the midwest, we heard all kinds of dire warnings about the difficulty of gardening here, but we have found it best it ignore most of that. We do have to start plants early in a home made greenhouse( mostly peppers, tomatoes and broccoli), and we mulch alot due to high winds and dry air, but we've been able to grow most things we love. We finally have asparagus established, and this year we are trying a big bed of quinoa. I'm also doing a three sisters hill, just for fun (corn, pole beans and squash planted in the same hill.)

We also have lots of tarps for those awful hail storms!

We've decided to take all the lawn out of our back yard and replace it with raised beds, fruit bushes(elderberry, chokecherry, gooseberry) and wild flowers. The lawn requires alot of water here, and all we do is mow it and look at it, the kids really don't play in the back yard now they can drive.The quinoa is supposed to look much like a wild flower patch so I'm excited about that.

If anything, the posts of the last few days on this and the other thread have portrayed a belief in a powerful god--but not a just god, or a loving god, or a god who feels any responsibility about wht he created--unlike a parent --or even a rational god. A god who does what he pleases.

Seems quite different than the Jesus of the gospels who seemed to care for the needs of actual individual people. But Jesus doesn't have much gong on in the fear motvation category.

Seems to me that fear motivation is deeply ingrained in some types of Christianity, and accepted as a good thing.

If God, in a righteous, just, loving act, can kill a lier for lying, what then prevents his children followers etc from doing the same? Are they not supposed to imitate their God? Isn't that the type of thought that fuels religious violence?

I have many friends on facebook, my kids and their friends, my siblings, some cousins, a local mother's group and a couple of school friends( I'm there under my maiden name). Plus I use it for networking for my writing and have had a couple of neat opportunities through there.

I don't play the games but my kids and my brother who travels alot have really connected over some silly games. I've never spent time figuring out the millions of games and applications, but I do pop in and see what everyone is up to everyday.

Rascal, many things can be learned from not actual accounts, but myths and storytelling...perhaps some records are just that. Didn't Jesus teach in parables--maybe others did, also, adn stories such as Jonak were perhaps not MEANT to be taken as black and white literal truth.

A&S reads like a 3 act play, with repetition that seems not true at all to real life. Stylized.