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The "more than abundant life" as a wow.


Zshot
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Something on another thread got me thinking about that “more than abundant life” on the wow field I so richly enjoyed…

I remember all those “peanut butter and jelly” sandwiches for lunch. It was 4 years after that year that I would even consider having anything that had either peanut butter or jelly.

To this day, I refuse to have any apple butter!

Of course, my favorite is/was leftover’s from “Pizza Hut” (where my wow sisters worked). We actually counted on 2 dinner meals a week for a while from “Pizza Hut”.

We shopped for the meat and poultry that the stores marked down for quick sales (close to or on the “sale by” date).

In all fairness, one of my “wow sisters” (Pam) knew how to cook. Between her and me, we were able to cook some decent meals. We couldn’t afford very many “pre-packaged” name brand foods. When possible we bought in bulk (dry goods/non-perishable). (I should also point out that my other “wow sister and brother” each tried to cook once and were not allowed to cook after that)

We developed many ways to have “Mac-n-cheese”.

With hamburger and peas with extra cheese (my favorite)

With hotdogs

With ham

With tuna and peas

We also had meals we cooked when that was favorites (sometimes used as bribes). Pam made chicken and dumplings when she wanted me to do something, like work on HER car. I cooked creamed beef over toast when I wanted something.

For beers...

One of the things I did… We lived in an apartment complex. When I saw people moving in, I offered to help. The people that I helped gave me beer and sometimes, “extra furniture” (this is how I got my bed, kitchen table and some lamps), and sometimes a little cash. I was a “scrounge”. The “FC” would say, “a blessing from God”. I would think. “and, my hard work and sore muscles”.

We didn’t really “starve”. But, we were rarely ever full.

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ZShot,

WOW - I was thinking the same thing this morning.

I went WOW in the late 70's. I can only remember 2 times during the entire year that I got hungry. Once was when we had a state get together type deal and a bunch of us stopped at a Shoneys to eat...but I had no money. Everybody ordered big burgers/fries and stuff. I didn't ask anyone for $$. Glad the water was free.

One other time we only could scrape up enough money between us for some pancake mix or something like that.

For the most part we ate well, but usually we ate out.(Waffle Shop!! icon_biggrin.gif:D--> icon_smile.gif:)--> icon_razz.gif:P-->)

I think we could have eaten more home prepared meals had we planned better, but considering that we only had like 3 family meetings the whole year..... icon_eek.gif

I don't blame the WOW program for any lack of material abundance on the field. The way we lived seemed to fit at the time, given our 'mission'.

The problem is I kept that mindset for too many years after the WOW gig.

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Wow ISTW...that really sux....somebody should have bought you a hamburger....I cannot IMAGINE everyone eating and not at LEAST sharing with those that didn`t have anything...I am sorry.

I can only remember 1 time that I didn`t have anything to eat in a 24 hr period on the wow field...It seemed like the food was good and sustaining...but then I was a petite woman...maybe the guys were starving....

It seemed like the local believers in the area would throw parties and picinics and contribute to feed us on a fairly regular basis...all of those who fed a hungry wow...let me say now, thankyou....the kindnesses are still remembered..

In one state the all the believers contributed gifts for Christmas....really really nice gifts...we all cried, It was the best Christmas ever...

I think that we lived well....but only due to the wonderfull folks that lived in our area...

The worst struggle I had was in a way home in North Dakota.... As a waitress, I didn`t make nearly enough money to keep my vehicle running in that harsh environment....I had to walk a lot....brrr can you say *frost bite*???

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Having been around several families of Wow's for a year before I went Wow myself, I was not expecting 3 sit down meals a day.

While I could hardly describe my time as a Wow as physically "more than abundant", I never missed a meal or was lacking in anything materially that entire year.

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quote:
While I could hardly describe my time as a Wow as physically "more than abundant", I never missed a meal or was lacking in anything materially that entire year.
Me too Goey... we got jobs, we always ate, we had furniture... we may not have had abundance of material things, but we always had enough...

The believers in town helped us out now and then, that's how it was done back then, we did it for the WOWs when they came to our towns as well...

Times were simpler back then... I guess we were "lucky"... icon_smile.gif:)-->

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quote:
Originally posted by Goey:

While I could hardly describe my time as a Wow as physically "more than abundant", I never missed a meal or was lacking in anything materially that entire year.


Goey,

I would say the same for my WOW year. Saw some signs, miracles and wonders too.

I'm basically glad I went.

I would add, though, that my definition of 'more abundant in the physical realm',at that time, was somewhat narrow.(Lesson learned: Don't expect to live in opulent conditions on minimum wage)

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I got my Indiana State Employee retirement money while on the field. Several thousand. Gave 15% and put the rest into the household account of which I was the steward. We ate rather well. I can cook like a son-of-a-gun. We lived in furnished apartments, had nice dishes (mine). When money ran low or someone was out of work, my WOW sister forbade that person to eat anything purchased with household money until he/she acquired employment and presented the first donation to the account. I actually defied her by eating a mayonnaise and parmasan cheese sandwich with my bread and common mayo and parm. Boy did I get reproved! Luckily, my parents came to see me and gave me money. They were not impressed and begged me to come home with them. But then I would never have gone into Fellow Laborers of Ohio, met my Mr. Wonderful, etc etc.

WG

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When I was a WOW in leesville La. near Ft.Polk we happened on this property with a FOR RENT sign in the yard. The "retired" Army sargent rented us his house immediatly, furniture and all. We move in. 4 months later there was a knock at the door with a mad real-astate owner screaming bloody murder. Apparently the good Sgt. was not retired but kicked out of the Army and was sub-letting the house to us. Well when he showed up for rent ,he got an ear full and we kept the furnture. To the real-astate guy we only paid $5.00 over what we were paying the good Sgt.

Mostly that year I was on a liquid diet. I tended Bar. I did learn to like Black beans and rice and carring a gun was a way of life in that town. Had a shot gun behind the bar. Oh yes...I played hard and moved the bible. It was a good year.

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never went hungry in my WOW year, I worked as a cook and we did good budgeting so every weekend we could go to the grocery and buy food for the 7 PLANNED meals a week. we always ate dinner together and each one of us took a week of cooking duty. most of us could cook, one of us tried hard and did the best he could, no one complained because we knew his food was cooked with love. may not have tasted the best, but it was always very filling.

our family changed in the middle of the year because we had to trade one of our WOW brothers with another family who was having troubles with one of theirs. he was a good cook also.

a note of interest:

at one point, 2 weeks before the end of the WOW year I was "asked" to leave the field cause I smoked a joint. I called HQ and told them my commitment was not to TWI but to God and I was staying, they said I was right and I did finish the year. abundance isn't only the food you eat or the bed you sleep in, it's the love of God. in that I was abundantly blessed and still am.

love to you all icon_smile.gif:)-->

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One wow year ...our wow bro was a professional chef...lol...we volunteered to do ALL of the other household chores and leave him free to cook every night.

Even though on a very strict budget....that was the BEST I have ever eaten...The man was truly gifted.

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quote:
Originally posted by Goey:

I can't imagine living in Leesville....

If the world needed an enema, Leesville is where they would insert the hose.


Goey,

It could have been worse...

I was a wow in Bossier City, LA

We lived just outside the main gate of Barksdale AFB, by the Red River and down wind of a paper mill...

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quote:
Originally posted by rascal:

One wow year ...our wow bro was a professional chef...lol...we volunteered to do ALL of the other household chores and leave him free to cook every night.

Even though on a very strict budget....that was the BEST I have ever eaten...The man was truly gifted.


I should mention that my wow sister Pam and I worked as cooks in full service restraunts before we went out as wow's... What ever quanity was lacking, was made up in taste.

I still enjoy cooking.

Currently, the only group I sometimes cook for is, the people in my office.

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When I went WOW in 73, it was the first year there were "families" instead of couples. We had two girls and two boys in my family, and the boys had a separate apartment from us because well, in Greenville South Carolina, girls didn't live with boys they weren't married to.

About two weeks into the year, the family coordinator left (a whole other story) and that left me as the only girl. The Wow Rover lived with me instead. I had a good job and the Rover and I rented a nice furnished duplex together, but she was only home a week or so out of the month.

We kept finances separate as well back then, except we shared the phone bill because I was the only one who could afford a phone. We also ate meals together in the evening at my place and shared cooking duties. But I made sure there was plenty of lunchmeat and tuna salad in the fridge for the guys to make lunches with.

My two WOW brothers had a very hard time staying employed that year and for half the year rented an unfurnished house and slept on the floor in sleeping bags!!!

My landlady who lived next door was a little strange, and used to spy on us through the keyholes on doors that led to her side of the duplex. When my parents came to visit me over the Christmas break, they were barely out of the car and my landlady came out to greet them and my Mom told me later she claimed the Rover and I "had men over at all hours of the night!" --Which by the way Mom laughed at because she knew it was totally false.

Then after we moved to Columbia mid-year, I got a weird call from the guy in charge of the state. Apparently my batty landlady accused us of stealing the mattresses off the bed, the lamps, the couch from the livingroom, and all the carpets off the floors. How we supposedly jammed all that into my little '64 Malibu and my WOW brother's little sports car, I don't know.

She said she knew we took them because we needed them and she knew that because the boys didn't have any furniture at the house they used to live at. The only way she could have known they had no furniture was to go over there and actually peek in the windows! Nobody knew that but us. Someone from HQ eventually talked to the landlord's son who confirmed the furniture was actually still in her house, and that yes, his mother was a little off her rocker!

In Columbia, the guys ended up with a really nice furnished apartment, which was a relief to them. My WOW Rover felt sorry for them having it so hard in the previous town, so instead of sharing my rent, she kicked in for their rent but still slept at my place a week out of the month.

But the guys still had as much of a problem staying employed in that town as the previous one and could not afford a phone. They had a key to my apartment so they could use the phone, and one of the guys racked up several hundred dollars in long distance phone calls to his girlfriend in the previous city, and still owes me.

The guys never did contribute much as far as grocery money was concerned, but I made enough money to feed us quite well. The guys just seemd to have a really hard time getting part time jobs in construction. I had no problems at all getting a job as a seamstress in Greenville, which was a big textile center. And in Columbia, I worked at an ice cream and sandwich shop around the corner from the State House, so got lots of moneyed people who left hefty tips. Plus.....FREE FOOD!

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I had a hard time financialy for the about half of the year.

I worked part time at "Wendy's".

The later part of the year I got "permission" to work in the next city over (Shreveport, LA). I worked 1/4 mile from where I lived (Wendy's was about 3 miles). There I worked as a painter and doing maintaince work. One of the things that helped me out was... I was in the Army Reserves and did the weekend drills. That "extra" money was very helpful.

Towards the end of the wow year, I decided to work a "few" icon_rolleyes.gif:rolleyes:--> extra hours... Actually, I was working full time. I got tired of not have money in my pocket.

I was a bad wow...

After my wow year I went active duty Army. The only person to contact me from my "wow family" was the "FC". She was in the corps and needed money.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As I recall, we always managed to eat okay, but not sure how. icon_confused.gif:confused:-->

Our finanacial problems manifested themselves in crappy furniture and zero decor in the places we lived. It was like we were monks or something.

The biggest factor in our lack of financial abundance was the lack of a consistant job by our interim Way Corps WOW Family Coordinator. The rest of us worked continually throughout the year, but our fearless leader went through a number of them with gaps in between.

The worst was right after we moved to another city mid-year. He got a "job" putting a lawn and doing some landscaping at the apartment we rented in exchange for a break on the rent. We were on a financial plan where we each contributed our whole paycheck to the family fund, and the treasurer paid the bills and doled out money for incidentals.

Our leader, as it turned out, did not do a lick of work on the lawn, but went back to sleep each morning after we all went to our jobs. This went on for several months. Eventually the landlord figured out that he wasn't getting a lawn, and demanded the money that he had deducted from the rent. Since leader-boy didn't immediately get another job, the three of us had to cover the back rent, as well as paying the full monthly rent until our mini-MOG started working.

I'm kind of fuzzy about how much longer he went without a job, but it may have been another month. His dad lent us a sum of money so that we could get caught up on our bills. We paid him back out of the family fund before the year ended, but our leader claimed that his dad was giving the money to him as a gift. I'm sure that if we checked with his dad we would have found out differently.

So not only did we carry him for 2-3 months while he slept in dreaming about lawns, and while he was out-of-work for another month, but we had to borrow money to cover his butt, and then handed him the money that we had saved up to get us out of debt. Double (maybe triple) screwed.

Yup, that was abundance

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I was in Italy in '74 as a "missionary" for OM (Operation Mobilization). Met many fine folk there. We were given 7 course meals (complete with home made wine), and yes -- we were total strangers to those who fed us.

Came back to the states, went wow in '78, and we had to fend for ourselves. Go figure. icon_confused.gif:confused:-->

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I was already a grad by the time I met my first set of WOWs. They may have eaten well, but they seemed to be barely making ends meet and always needing hand outs. I swore I would never enter that program or the way craps. I guess I am much too materialistic to appreciate a the abundant life in those two programs.

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I read all the horror stories here and

feel even more then abundant on my WOW year.

we had:

a realy NICE 3 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor with a balcony on the back as long at the

apartment itself.

we all worked the same jobs the whole year with the exception that I stopped working 10 miles

away to working less than 2 blocks away for a vet who gave me a job cleaning animal cages and

doing vet laundry, that was awesome. that was for the last 2 weeks.

I had some WOW brothers and sister that were totally the best people I've met to this day.

it was one of the best experiences of my life because I DIDN'T go into it for TWI, I went into

it for God. I never got anyone to take a class, tried to help some who did take the class.

most

of our time was spent at work, then when we got home we had dinner then went to the mall, door

to door twice or maybe 3 times and actually got a few people who were interested but no one

who'd stay, thank God. my FC was kind of a rich

kid who's dad seemed to send alot of money, his whole family was TWI. they sent USE enough money to go to eat at the most expensive place in town. I'm sure the dinner for the 4 of us was well over 500.00. the owner came out at cooked at our table. looking back on it now, THEIR problem with me wasen't the pot, one joint a year ain't evil, it was that I was interested in 2 girls that hadn't or ever would take PFAL and not one of my WOW sisters.

I'm not saying there weren't a few disapointments, but all in all we did have fun and we did love each other no matter what happened becuase we had our share of fights.

the best thing that happened, and I can remember it like it was today, is my mom came up to make sure everything was ok. she is a southern catholic lady and had to make sure her baby boy was ok lol. when she left, my FC told me, she really loves you. I said yes I know. he said, no she REALLY loves you. I said yes I KNOW. hehe

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Well we did not go hungry. We lived in a beautiful condo in Tempe. But, I disliked my lazy family coordinator. My wow sister Marianne and I supported her because she was unable to find/keep a job. One day I came home early from work to find her sleeping in the middle of the day. She was suppose to be finding work.

She also thought she was our boss and tried to tell us what to do all the time. She came to the dinner table wearing a bra and nothing else and was offended when asked to wear CLOTHES.

We complained about her to no avail. We were told that God had wanted her to be our leader. Yeah yeah yeah. Geez

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Papajohn,

you DO realize that you said

"We had a great year!

We broke the rules because we were independently

financed, and we NEVER ate bad!"

right?

I mean, having someone off-field sending money

even ONCE was a no-no.....

I'm not saying you shouldn't have done it,

just that your story is not a "fair"

representation of wow years.

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Adios,

I did the same thing (working "too many" hours)toward the end of the year...

I also got yelled at for doing so...

The funny thing is, no one seemed to mind the fact that we were: eating better, the bill's could be paid on time etc.

And my (lazy) wow brother was only working less than 15 hours per week at burger king the whole year, and no one yelled at him.

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