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In Reply to: Re: the frog in the pot posted by goth88 on July 22, 2002 at 14:39:46:
I left the F only a little more than a year ago... after joining the F 31 long yrs ago in Texas. I was an idealist disillusioned hippy a university dropout who had been a civil rights activist in high school, until becoming a member of the drug subculture in the later 60's. My cause became the Revolution for Jesus, I was in the Family to serve Jesus and I was also a devoted follower of Berg and the so called words of David, the end time prophet. But later on, after seeing and experiencing some of the negative things and deep inside sensing something was wrong, I still did not allow myself to seriously think about leaving the F. I was convinced terrible things would happen to me by leaving God's highest will: this was my mindset in the later '70s and '80s when it was convenient to follow the F dictum that "the worst of the F is better than the best of the system."
But in the 90s my doubts about Berg multiplied, and a desire to leave grew much stonger, but as time went on I felt trapped. Porceleindoll describes this quandry really well, she says, "I think one reason many of the first generation is still in the group is cause they truly have nowhere else to go, and nothing to do. They have no degrees, no career choices, they are nearing 50 or probably older, no company they were part of that can give them retirement, leaving at that age is really difficult... "
What got me out was having to leave the mission field we were in in the Balkans because our 16-17 yr old son had taken himself out of the F and was into drugs and girls and etc. We moved to Switz, and realized we needed to become FM members. (That lasted for 2 months, sending 10% gets you mailings and that's it--so we quickly became ex members.) Our son didn't want to stay here, and for 1 year he did not accomplish much. Now he's gone to the States, he just passed the GED, and starts work this week. When he's saved up some money he plans to move in with a friend in LA in the fall, and study music and make a career out of the genuine virtuoso talent that he's endowed with.
My wife had no trouble finding work because she's a nurse.
I did not know what I could do until I was encouraged by some good friends, new acquaintances that I've made here, to get the state employment office to pay for a course I wanted to take. the CELTA course which is the University of Cambridge course for English Language Teaching to Adults. Hey I passed and jsut got the certificate last week! Now I have a contract to give English classes in a language school in September.
This have gone so well since I left the F. But at first I would not consider being judgemental about the F or Maria and Peter and etc. It took a few months for me to accept that God wasn't aiming a huge bat at me getting ready to whack my head off for having left His elite endtime chosen army. I did have those fears, but then I realized that God was helping me in ways that He could not help me before. This was reinforced when I came to the boards. I realized I needed to come to terms with what I had been doing for 30 years of my life, to get a perspective. The interaction here has really helped. Thanks.
