Thanks Ray for your answer to my post (below). That was helpful.

I was on a camping/fishing trip for the last few days so I couldn't respond sooner.

There are a number of exmembers and Fmers that I see occasionally. I even visited an ex member the other night who lives not far from were the campground I stayed in. I hadn't talked with him for years. He left the F more than 15 yrs ago with his wife and kids, she was not as willing at first to leave the F. At the time we all thought of him as the big bad boogie man backslider that took his wife and kids out of God's will.

He said he finally came to the conclusion that Berg was simply not God's end-time prophet and God wasn't going to judge him if he cut all ties with the F. At first he worked as a caretaker with the city park authority, then he studied and got a certificate as an horticulter(sp?) He has done well and lives well.

He told me that as his children grew up he said: "I have only three things to tell you never to do, other than that you decide and choose your own way in life and what you want to be. 1: Don't get Aids. 2: Don't get addicted to drugs. And 3: Don't join the Family."

I like the way put it that the way you now look back at your F experience with your wife is as a "bad joke". Bad jokes really can make you laugh, and during my visit with this old friend we surely did get a lot of laughs sharing different F experiences.