Baldwookie wrote:

Hello!

Like many people have posted here I grew up in "The Walk." I am the product of an arranged marriage which led to pretty disastrous results. I grew up moving up the west coast and as result attended services in a variety of locations (South Gate, Grants Pass, Portland (Lake Oswego), Seattle, Yakima). I am interested in documenting, or contributing to, a more thorough history of TLWF. Is anyone aware of work like this being done? Is anyone willing to share their stories. I currently live in the northwest but plan to travel to southern California once this pandemic is over to be available to meet with people in person and record their stories.

My is to provide a fact based coherent narrative to the events while also sharing the stories of those impacted.

Don't be offended if most of the people don't cooperate with anyone looking for information about their experiences in TLWF, in addition to what has already been presented here anonymously (in most cases). They are rightly suspicious of of someone coming into the forum...and wanting something more than what already has been offered, and potentially outing them to people they should keep their distance from. The upcoming civil litigation has obviously prompted quite a bit of action behind the scenes to influence potential witnesses. Personally, I am recommending they exercise extreme caution.

changedagain Wrote:
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A summary of a message Gary brought some months before the exposure of years of sexual abuse within TLWF (and its coverup) went public. It would be reasonable to assume this is a veiled threat toward those who believe the "lies"...implying that God will remove the "covering from their lives, " which could ultimately lead to their death. BTW, since leaving the fellowship in '98, I've always sensed it was much more dangerous to remain a part of it, given the indifference of leadership to the plight of those they were supposed to 'shepherd.':

Our Survival Is Based On Obedience
June 29, 2018 - by Gary Hargrave

"This Word shows us that as we move out of a place
of relative safety in our walk with God and into
harm’s way, our obedience to the Father will
determine life or death. We will face lies about
the Word of God and against the Father Himself
which will attempt to deceive us into being
disobedient and losing God’s protection.

*****************************

Yes, preconditioning people at Shiloh to view any negative accounts regarding TLWF as lies. Obedience will determine life or death.

How novel. This has been the booming "apostolic voice" to keep the faithful in line since the days of The Walk. The trick is to scare the crap out of everybody so that they keep their mouths shut. Once the truth is shouted across the internet, GH waves a white flag and sells the sheep he has been browbeating for years down the river. Predictable.

Reep wrote:
Once the truth is shouted across the internet, GH waves a white flag and sells the sheep he has been browbeating for years down the river.

And then moving on to a "higher ministry," of course.

Post by Reachingforward from January of 2019:

Posted by: Reachingforward
Date: January 10, 2019 09:20PM

I have been reading this forum for several years and am finally making my first post. I was in TLWF for 22 years. It's been 20 years since I left and I still have a difficult time explaining this experience to anyone. Like so many on this forum, my family and I gave everything to TLWF. We attended services 3 times/ week, mustered out for Saturday work days, assisted APCO on numerous "kingdom" projects, made dozens and dozens of trips to Shiloh and gave of our finances. We had no time left for anything and were working the equivalent of two full time jobs. I still struggle with why I believed God was in this and that the leaders had integrity. It makes me question my own intelligence and sanity.

I struggle with why I stayed so long. Why did I waste that part of my life and sacrifice family and personal relationships to remain in TLWF. I was never comfortable with the rock star treatment enjoyed by JRS, Gary and Marilyn and the control and authority the church exerted over it's members. Eventually we did get burned out and left. We were also fed up with being used by APCO.

What freedom after leaving! It felt like a weight was lifted off our shoulders. We moved into a different city and started a new life. And eventually I stopped worrying about the lightening bolt that was going to hit us. However we had trouble finding a new church since nothing seemed to fit our expectations. The problem was us.

I was an atheist as a teenager and was looking for meaning in my life. I thought I found it in TLWF. I was one of the elite who was bringing in the kingdom. Now I needed to be deprogrammed. After we left, I had to start over and reevaluate what I thought about God, Christianity and organized religion. I reexamined everything from the ground up starting with arguments for the existence of God. I studied apologetics and started reading my bible. Jesus Christ is now the center of my life - not JRS, Gary or Marilyn.

Thanks for the posts made in this forum and the insight you all have provided. Hearing about what went on behind the curtain was especially helpful. It confirms what I suspected for a long time. I'm sure your postings haven't always been easy but I'm grateful for your honesty, candor and wit. I'm especially grateful for the courage of those like Shalom who have stepped forward and have shown a bright light in a dark place. God bless you all.

Just want everyone to know that, even if it was great, I think Queen Esther should have kept her sex life to herself. I doubt anyone was really that interested in hearing about it. A few may have looked like they were, but they were just faking it (IMO).

(Marilyn as the personification of Queen Esther)

Post by Saw Enough:

Posted by: Saw enough
Date: March 10, 2017 06:14PM

The Feast of Purim is coming up. Which means that just around the corner the flock can expect to hear the annual messages comparing Marilyn to Queen Esther who went before the King and interceded to save the Jewish people from destruction. Some of the more zealous faithful will claim that she ever lives to make intercession for them.

Post by TheJewel from January of 2016. Yes, I chuckled about a few things he mentions:

Posted by: TheJewel
Date: January 08, 2016 12:51PM

I wanted to make a comment in answer to someone’s post (too lazy to go back and hunt down who) regarding whether JRS was a member of the John Birch Society. While I cannot say one way or the other whether JRS himself carried a membership card, I am pretty sure that many of the key players in the walk at that time were followers of the major conspiracy theorists of the day and subscribed to a lot of their ideas. This was particularly true of RD Cronquist. I know he was following Dr. Peter D. Beeter (how do you get a name like that?) who was dredging up some of the most amazing stuff. You can do a Google search on this guy if you like. I remember one night in late ’77 RD called a restricted elders meeting to play one of Beeters tapes (#26 dated 9/30/77, I believe) regarding a particle beam weapon that the Russians had built on the moon and how they were holding the US hostage, blah, blah, blah.

I remember a lot of this sort of thing at the time; it dovetailed nicely with the Nephilim thing and the Rockefeller – Illuminati conspiracy theorems that were also popular at the time. JRS wove some of this stuff into some of his preaching but never seemed quite as into it as RD was. At the same time I doubt that any of these guys were dues paying members of the JB society, they wouldn’t need to be the info was pretty freely available and I suspect that some of the congregants were.

Someone else asked about storing food, ammo guns etc. Some were doing all of that (preparing for the tribulation, the zombie apocalypse or whatever) but I don’t think anything but the food part was being strongly pushed from the pulpit. The trouble with the food part is that while they encouraged people to buy it (from the church store – I forgot what the name for that “kingdom business” was), they didn’t really educate people in how to prepare it for storage. I popped the lid on some of that stuff about 5 years after leaving the walk and it had gone pretty bad. Had the apocalypse come, I think some people would have been awfully disappointed (not to mention hungry).

Food for the apocalypse.
warning: once the lid is removed, the food is not edible.

"The trouble with the food part is that while they encouraged people to buy it (from the church store – I forgot what the name for that “kingdom business” was), they didn’t really educate people in how to prepare it for storage. I popped the lid on some of that stuff about 5 years after leaving the walk and it had gone pretty bad. Had the apocalypse come, I think some people would have been awfully disappointed (not to mention hungry)."

Does anyone remember when Marilyn first lay claim to being Queen Esther or even being "like" a queen Esther? I don't remember it starting while JRS was still alive.

Or when did the churches started celebrating Purim so wildly?

In my memory, it started after JRS died because Gary Hargrave & Marilyn Hargrave had their "first" of many wedding on March 17, 1984 (the first one of course being private/secret). It was Purim that day and the drunken celebration at the Kling House didn't feature much in the way of costumes unless you count Marilyn's red and white torn up t-shit mini (MINI) dress as a costume because it barely covered her ass.

I thought the celebrations of Purim in the Valley, etc., started after that because it was a way to have a big whoop-de-doo in disguise for their anniversary.

Anyone else perhaps have a better memory?

Onion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone remember when Marilyn first lay claim
> to being Queen Esther or even being "like" a queen
> Esther? I don't remember it starting while JRS
> was still alive.
>
> Or when did the churches started celebrating Purim
> so wildly?
>
> In my memory, it started after JRS died because
> Gary Hargrave & Marilyn Hargrave had their "first"
> of many wedding on March 17, 1984 (the first one
> of course being private/secret). It was Purim
> that day and the drunken celebration at the Kling
> House didn't feature much in the way of costumes
> unless you count Marilyn's red and white torn up
> t-shit mini (MINI) dress as a costume because it
> barely covered her ass.
>
> I thought the celebrations of Purim in the Valley,
> etc., started after that because it was a way to
> have a big whoop-de-doo in disguise for their
> anniversary.
>
> Anyone else perhaps have a better memory?

No, I don't remember, but I also think it was later.

I do remember being at a summer camp in 1968 when JRS was prophesying over Marilyn (after a night service, when most people had left the building). He said that she would no longer be called Marilyn, but would now be called Miriam. Marilyn was a lot of people, wasn't she?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2020 06:24AM by Reepicheep.