sorry for a late reply. busy with the holidays.

agreed!

i think what you say RR is very true. the emotional and spiritual trauma that we & other friends of ours experienced took years to get over. i think there needs to be more done to stop the cycle of brainwashing.

there needs to be more leadership from YWAM the organization to YWAM the bases. if it can be fixed who knows, maybe not. maybe it is time for it to end.

peace,

jason

I can say yes and amen to all that has been said. my story is similar. I was interested in missions and went to a Twila Paris concert in '95 and since her dad runs a former base in Arkansas the recruiters were there. I signed up for a medical trip to Borneo for the following summer and was constantly called inbetween time, we had to raise our own support, well something went wrong with visas and the destination was changed to China. looking back on this trip it was poorly pland and executed and a fly by the seat of our pants excursion. upon returning home i got contant calls to do a DTS and to find out later points were obtained for how many people you recruited. i went to dts in jan '96 and was told i could wk while there and upon arrival told no there was no time for outside wk. we were in class from 8am to 5 pm each day with mandatory wk on the campus in the afternoons (freel labor). we did go to Belarus for a month as our outreach after traveling for 2 weeks to local churches to raise funds. I went home after dts and then went to SOE (school of evangelism) for another 6 months and we went to India for our outreach. I did pick up on the dont ask questions of leadership and just do it, but after a time back home went on staff to wk in the 'medical outreach' office. i arrived finding the 1 lady left to have a baby and then the founder of the office left in a month because of health reasons leaving me with managing the office. i am a hands on person not a secretary. the outreach director took over overseeing the medical office and as a nurse i was looked down upon beacuse of my 2 degrees, outside education is looked down upon. during my yr there i saw much spiritual abuse and a 'new and older' staff attitude, the older staff had different rules than the nebies ie they were sometimes exempt from 'mandatory' wk during programs, could drink alcohol etc. i was punished for asking too many questions and not jumping through the hoops and placed in the kitchen to wk which was actually a blessing to be out from the administrative office control. during this time i sunk into major depression because of 'not feeing worthy or living up to expectations' as a nurse i have to keep up hours so i worked in a local hosp on weekends but was told by my 'spriitual' head that i couldnt because i had to be on call for weekend wk and that my money made there had to be turned in for general support, needless to say i didnt listen and didnt turn in my money. i also joined a singles group and was told i couldnt and needed to spend more time fellowshiping with the guys on base, give me a break, i lived in a 3 bedroom apt with 5 other guys how much more time did i need. there is more to say but i broke free after a yr and my last meeting with my spiritual leader i told him i was leaving and he had the nerve to say ' you didnt ask permission'. my best friend packed her car a few weeks later and left too. about a yr later it was found out that Oren Paris the founder of the base and his son the new overseer were getting 80-90,000 a yr paid out of the 10% of the money we turned in for support. the accounting firm that did the books was sworn to silence about that paractice. needles to say the base was asked to be accountable to YWAM after investigation but decided not too. they are now not an official part of the organization. by the way Oren Paris Sr is Loren Cunninghams cousin. a letter was sent to our churches if we left without permission stating that we had 'moral and spiritual problems'. i have not given up on the church but after this it does leave a bitter taste and i do have trust issues with spiritual authority even though i am one myself. any questions or want more answers please feel free to email, there is much more and i cant type anymore, lol.....

hi mantony!

yeah i have heard horror stories about the "base" in kansas. we were always assured ours would never be like that. HA! funny how history repeats its self.

did you happen to hear about Frank Naea? the former president of ywam, well he may be still i dont know & dont care but he pretty much got busted for laundering money, went to court was charged and then later travelled around to conferences within ywam and justified it and said that he was wrongfully accused.

geesh!

peace,
fula

hm... knew a couple of people who were in YWAM and DTS thing... and they changed so much after that. (in a good way). Maybe I'll get them to say something here as well.

YWAM has a deeply troubled history of problems.

See [www.culteducation.com]