Dear Folks:
I used to hang out with Dr. and Mrs. Wierwille and truly felt honored at first. On the grass roots level, Bullinger's words expounded through the PFAL class lips, brought a lot of deliverance to me. The words of God were pure and powerful and it was my allegiance to the word of God, and the actual deliverance by our wonderful God, which made me so loyal to the Way.
When I climbed the ranks swiftly -as leadership found my waist length hair and young body attractive- I began to see an emergence of a ominous inner circle. The Way International's leadership held parties where you could be "with" anyone and drink or smoke anything and it was okay. This inner circle sinned and believed that they lived above the word of God. It was
described to me as a higher plane and only people who "could handle it" were invited to partake. Anyone who objected or reproved their behavior was considered someone who "stumbled" at their freedom in their walk with Christ. Therefore, there was no way to correct them, they exalted themselves as gods deciding what was right and what was wrong. (Genesis 3:5).
One of the worst things that happened to me, while associated with the Way, was I was raped by a Region Coordinator who visited our "Way home" after his teaching. We had a glass of wine and the three of us "Way home girls" went to sleep in our respective rooms. As I laid in my bed asleep, he climbed on top of me, and with my face down, I woke to him being already in progress. I tried to protest, but he put his hand over my mouth and told me, "You are blessing a man of God by taking care of my needs." I surrendered and experience what I later found to be an out-of-body experience. It was as if I was watching some woman that looked like me being pummeled by a man she hadn't accepted into her bed.
The next day, I approached the leader of the Way home ("Rev.Kaylee" we'll call her), hoping she would get me help. After all, Kaylee had been in the corps with this ordained married minister. (But I suspected a cover-up might ensue as I had previously questioned her free sexual prowess among the people she governed in the Branch.)
Among her many promiscuous outrageous acts:
I sat in the living room one night with a man I was dating. Rev. Kaylee and her male companion came into the living room from the kitchen. She yelled, "Swap time!" Then, she pulled my date off the couch onto her and her companion tried to kiss me. I was sickened.
Another time, I brought a young handsome man to fellowship and introduced her to him. It was common practice among the Way "brethren" to greet one another with a kiss. The young man later told me she french kissed me upon my introduction.
As I grew more and more ill by the blatant violation of ethics, let alone Biblical principles, I tried to get help by calling the Limb coordinator. I told him about the encounter with the Region coordinator and about Rev. Kaylee's inappropriate behavior. But, unbeknownst to me, he was of that ilk. The three of them had a meeting about me and decided to hold an area meeting from which I was banned.
Instead of their chastisement, they provided misinformation and told a few hundred people that I was possessed, saying, "she is harmless unless discussing the leaders, then a lying and deceiving spirit takes over and she can not be trusted." As ludicrous as their explanation sounded, the hearers believed it.
I was so despondent, I forgot my rights as a citizen and as a human being. I did not prosecute but rather crawled beneath a cloud of shame for opening my mouth. Years later, two people helped me, John Lynn in 1981 before he also dipped his pen in ministry ink and a therapist when I finally called the Rape Crisis hot line in 1998 (even though I had left the ministry some 13 years earlier). I was so brain washed, I thought my rape had been a result of some form of disobedience. That is frightening. If the government of the United States knows that rape is a serious crime, then how can MARRIED MINISTERS band together to sacrifice me and allow the criminals to stay in power?
I was told that they would "sacrifice one to save many." But when I tried to talk to people I was ostracized. For awhile everything I did was watched. I didn't want to walk away-- I thought they needed help.
I went into the Corps and got to know the Wierwilles. Dr. shortly thereafter, invited me into his motor coach and stood before me naked and (sorry about how graphic this is) asked me if I liked to perform a certain lewd act. My whole world caved in! I thought I was going to get help for Rev. Kaylee and the rest of the "free sex" group. I thought I would tell him what was happening on the field and he would straighten it out. But my God, he was the creator of it!
I prayed to get out of the situation, and Mrs. Weirwille came in the motor coach and I took the opportunity to leave. The look on her face disturbed me. Later I sent to see her and said, "I know the pressure you're under. I know what is going on and how it must hurt you. I didn't involve myself with your husband in any way, and if you ever want to talk you can call me." She clenched my hand and wept using tissue after tissue and never spoke a word as we sat like that for 45 minutes. I was convinced that she knew.
Periodically after that Dr. Wierwille would send for me and we would take. When he would try to lead me into something else, I told him, "I'm not ready. I still don't see it in the Word." I was trying to research all I could find in the Bible about "sex." One day I confronted him with what I found, and he responded, "Whatsoever things are pure... think on these things" (from Philippians). He strongly implied that I was thinking evil about it-- therefore in my mind it was evil, even though it was pure to him. He probably made the perfect sex offender, making it seem as though the victim was the one at fault.
I should have known Dr. was the "sickie" behind all of this, when in 1980, I was on the WOW (the one year volunteer program where you go to a town and promote Power for Abundant Living classes) field and wrote him requesting to be taken out of the town to which we were sent. My letter apparently sounded as if I were weeping about my WOW assignment. His response (I kept the letter in case I ever had to prove TWI's insanity)was: "Oh, if only your boobs secreted as much liquid as your eyes do!"
After discovering Dr. Wierwille was the perpetrator of these wrong doctrines, I studied sex outside of marriage and I confronted Dr. Wierwille around 1982. It is my opinion, that he was too drunk on Drambuie to take my confrontation of the word seriously. As I returned to my final year in the Way corps, I was taken from "head table" in the corps and placed in "refinishing" where I was by myself and could not "poison" any one with what I now knew to be true.
I wanted to leave. But where would I go? I had been involved in this for years. All my friends (there were some people in a group, a maverick element, that were sticking to the greatness of God and rising up against this propaganda) were still in the Way.
Before Dr. W. died I contacted him again and told him he had been deceived by devil spirits, and that he falsely used the word of God to justify his high libido. I never heard from Dr. W. but after his death, but groups of us began to try to save the ministry. Boy, that was awful! Groups gathered to tell people the truth about what was going on and Wafers would show up and say, "that is hearsay." But, when I stood up and said it happened to me, they simply called me a liar.
An X-USA Trunk Leader later told me that Rev. Kaylee was one of Dr. W's darlings and she furnished him with other girls much like a Madame at a brothel. This tied everything together for me. My clarity of what happened to me had been obscured by jagged puzzle pieces I previously could not make fit.
Next, he elaborated on Rev. Kaylee's methods by sharing a story about a woman named Marsha. "What Kaylee did to you was almost identical to what was done to Marsha." Until I read your web site, I never heard Marsha's story. It has been over twenty years and I still consider Rev. Kaylee the most vicious evil woman I have ever known. Today, Marsha's story confirms my belief that Rev. Kaylee was an abyss of darkness. For more than twenty years I wondered whatever happened to Marsha. Today, I found out. God delivered her from a malicious web of deceit carried out by Dr. Wierwille's chief henchwoman.
Ralph D. also had left the ministry and we flew him out from New York to California. It was pretty intense as he (I and others) battled it out with Wafers that showed up to infiltrate the meetings. The odd thing was, one of the guys that stood to defend the Way claimed how the it did not have an open policy on sex and he called me a liar. I KNEW he had several sexual interludes with woman behind his wife's back. He was part of the society that allowed and protected this kind of behavior.
I recalled many incidents where I had seen the abuse of power during that time. I remembered when I went to Rome City Indiana I had a friend in the corps. Steve became VERY ILL. The policy, at that time, was if you were too sick to go to class -- you were too sick to eat. Nobody fed him for three days. I went to see him, so swollen were his legs that he could not walk. Nobody provided any water or food for him IN THREE DAYS!! I brought him fruit and called Mrs. Wierwille and told her he needed help and the leadership in Rome City was deplorable. She had Steve taken to a doctor who found he had a serious condition.
During my interim year, I went out WOW, working under a married leader who I'll call Rev. Mirt. He had meetings constantly and expected us to take off work, which became increasingly difficult. One of the many times I had to swap shifts with another woman, Rev. Mirt canceled the meeting at the last minute. He tried to make it sound like a real spiritual reason for causing so many people upheaval, but I later found out he was having an adulterous affair in a motel room with one of my corps friends.
It took a long time to separate the goodness of God from the badness of that group. Today, I go to Dr. Stanley's Baptist church in Georgia, who teaches of a loving God. And I know enough to know that even though he has a great ministry he is a MAN. Many of the way got involved in other groups where they go to heavy classes and ONE man is again the "chosen one" and I can not fathom how they can be so sucked in! There is something insidious about having once been under mind control -- you become an easy target.
I believe the Internet can be a forum, where God can provide an awareness to his hungry and thirsty people of the dangers of becoming involved with any church. Anytime one gives their power over to a MAN they have betrayed God. We are to worship God. When that group begins to demand your allegiance to the group more than God, or thwarts any suggestions from the members of the organization... it is time to leave. God says in Hebrews 13:5; he will never leave of forsake us.
For those that are frightened to leave -- God promises to NEVER leave or FORSAKE you. For those who choose to stay, remember these leaders are just people and you have a right to have a difference of opinion. Try leaving, just to experience the freedom of loving God without the concentration camp structure of the Way. If your involvement is no longer fun, loving, kind and giving you freedom in Christ, then it is bondage.
If you are hunted down and strong armed into staying; you are in the wrong place. The word of God should be healing and should beckon your inner most core. If it is a chore to stay, then they are not teaching the right stuff. So, get out --if it is TWI or the any other church that is making you miserable-- go find a place that worships a loving God and be free in his love. If "God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and love, and of a sound mind." (II Timothy 1:7), then why do they frighten people into staying? (Like when Craig Martindale threatens, "you'll be a grease spot by morning") I have since studied the psychology of mind control and the effects terrorists have on their hostages. The fear we were captured by is very similar.
God is still God. When people leave TWI they must remember not to throw the baby out with the bath water. God did not hurt or forsake me. I forsook him when I allowed my common sense to be replaced by the words of someone who in my opinion was a mad man, the antics of the prince of darkness, and an organization who demanded my allegiance above all.
God Bless you
"P" Anonymous, Former Way Corps grad, WOW, Limb staff and Branch coordinator, May 1999
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