The Way International taught me--and everybody else--to be a wolf in sheep's clothing

[Galen]

Belle:

"Galen, it seems as though you were pretty much in a utopian TWIt environment. I've read several times at your shock and awe of the horrendous treatment, lies and doctrines taught. Maybe you just weren't around enough to have been affected by it or you were perceived as being too strong to bully, but the doctrines were taught from HQ in the STS tapes, the Way Mag and by all the WC, so I don't know how you missed so much of it. I didn't get in until the late 80's, but it was certainly standard _good practice_ to limit all communication with family who "refused the Word", it was _better practice_ to cut off all communication with those body & soul empties."

I grew up in churches, so I have never been big on sucking up to the clergy. I am leery of my money going there, to be spent on weapons to kill missionarys with, or to be spent on prostitutes, or whatever floats the boat of the average reverend.

We rarely met any corpse that i liked, so we largely avoided them. To our expereince they often became total a@@holes, within a few minutes of meeting one.

I spent most of my adult-life around Navy bases, which was very active with Twigs but largely devoid of corpse.

I was once promised a subscription of the Way Magazine, never got it. But at the time, I was living on-board a sub. They would hold our mail in a closet for 4 months, while we were under and then give it all to us when we next came ashore. So it is possible that any magazines that I had 'recieved' were dumpstered months before I surfaced, each time. Other than that I dont think I ever had a subsription to the magazine. Some years Bonnie would listen to the teaching tapes, and if there was anything 'good' she would save it and share with the fellowship. Some years went by wherein not a single tape was deemed 'good' by her, and that was fine with us. Most times when we had to interface with Corpse, it was such a negative experience, that anything the corpse was doing we really did not care.

Our envolvement with TWI? Do twigs, run classes (except in areas where the LC insisted that only Corpse could run classes], send in blue-forms, serve big dinners and have partys.

We usually ran a twig for whatever sub-crews were in port at any time. But again I traveled a bit. When I was under, Bonnie most often continued the twig, in my stead.

In Ct[78-81] I just hung out in a couple twigs when I was not under-water. Got in trouble with the first corpse that I ever met. He was lying to some beleivers and I caught him. He threw me out. In Virginia[81-82], Bonnie once met the Lallys, but we were called "the out-lying areas", we ran a twig there for 2 years. In California[83-87], we breifly lived with a corpse couple (Steve Frampton], we were more hippy than anything else. Then we moved and were again the only twig in a large area, outside of sending in blue-forms and interacted with TWI once a year at the annual limb-meetings. Then we were stationed in Scotland[97-90], Went to Gartmore House, but they did not really want to interface with us since we were Americans. So I became the CC for Americans living in Scotland and we interfaced with HQ directly, though we recieved Gartmore tapes each week. In Ct[90-93] we ran a twig and even had 2 corpse couples who were removed from the 'active-list' in our twig, they were just 'attending' our twig, they really could not talk with us [we were beneath them, and obviously did not have the spiritual maturity to understand anything] so we just ran the twig, ran classes, went to a TC meeting once every three months or so. Granted that did mean that we had to interface with active-corpse three or four times a year, but we survived. In washington[93-97] we were within another's twig, and I ran services under-water. We did not have any corpse locally. One guy in our twig, was going across the sound so he could suck up to the LC, every few days, he did some snooping in our home and he found that we had books that were 'forbidden' that got us booted in 97. In Italy[97-01] we ran a fellowship in our home and ran PFAL classes, sent in forms, but never heard anything back from HQ. I suppose that I was a CC again, but we never met another TWI beleiver while we were there, certainly no corpse.

Bonnie and I have both been in the University of Life courses, though in them none of these mean-spirited doctrines come to light.

Is that utopian? I dont know, it worked for us and enabled us to do the work of the ministry, helping others and bringing the Word to many.

[Belle]

It sounds pretty utopian to me, Galen. (And I do mean that in a very kind way.) TWI would be a different place if we all had the experiences that you did.

It seems as though you were able to use the resources of TWI without all the baggage and strings that were attached to it because you weren't in the direct line of fire from the corpse who weilded the iron fist. I admire your courage in the face of the unscrupulous leaders you did encounter. Since y'all weren't bombarded by the doctrines from hq through the tapes and magazines and forced to regurgitate them over and over again, you were pretty protected from the destructive doctrines.

Your story explains a lot about how you were able to escape TWI with mostly good experiences and no first hand knowledge of the true depth of treachery that most of us experienced. That's a good thing! Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.

[TheSongRemainsTheSame]

posted August 02, 2004 10:37 by rascal:

..."I want to add Galen...it was wonderfull tc`s and believes like you and your wife that made twi bearable....those who honestly loved and gave of their lives....it was with these local leaders ... our loving brothers and sisters in christ we saw the answeres to prayers....the excitement for God....the love of his word....it was sweet fellowship at local levels that we all remembered and clung to when things got crazy....it was those early years of real love that we spent the rest of our time in twi looking for..."

rascal you brought tears to mine eyes. The love for which I was searching, the truth for which I was searching was there and then became as you said,"... we spent the rest of our time in twi looking for...".

I was involved in TWI 75 > 95 as either a TWIg Co Assistant or TWIg Co.

You touched mine heart of hearts.

RoK ON

Song