15-On to San Diego

 

I was at work at Sambo's restaurant when my dad called me from San Diego to inform me my great aunt Elsie had died and left me an inheritance. I barely knew her. I had seen her only on Thanksgiving or Christmas, perhaps five or six times, but in her will she had left me a good size trust fund to be used only for college. This was, to my dad, a "sign'  God wanted me to go to college. School's were cheaper in California he said. He counseled me that God wanted me to move to San Diego, as soon as possible. He said he would help me get settled, but that was yet another lie.

Neither myself, nor my wife, had ever been to Southern California. We were not sure we would even like it. Both born in the Pacific Northwest, southern California seemed like foreign territory, so we went first on vacation; see if it was to our liking; and, if it was, then we'd commit to a move. 

It took a couple months to prepare for this visit but we finally hit the road to San Diego. We drove straight through, except for one brief stop, for lunch, at a relatives' place near San Francisco. We arrived in San Diego dead tired, just in time for a meeting at Susan's house.  My eyes may have been open that evening, but my brain was definitely asleep.  I remember only my dad taught but I have no idea who was even there.

We spent less than a week in San Diego on this visit. We saw a few of the sights, including a jaunt north to Disneyland for a day, but the highlight of the trip for my wife was the beach at Coronado. She loved it more than Disneyland and this convinced her San Diego was the place she wanted to be.  I am not much of a "lay on the beach" person so I was not as thrilled about the beach as she was, but there definitely were a lot of other places to explore.

We returned to Klamath Falls. Shortly after the birth of our first child, I gave my notice at work; we loaded everything we owned in the car's trunk and set sail for San Diego.  This time, since we had our infant child with us, we did not drive straight through. We stopped just south of San Francisco for one night before continuing. Our daughter was born sick with some rather severe intestinal problems. Suffering chronic colic she was in constant pain from the condition. It made for a long drive with a continuously screaming infant in the back seat but we still arrived in San Diego in one piece. Only after the death of her son Cameron did we learn she carried a genetic mitochondrial defect and that was likely the source of her chronic colic as an infant.

On the vacation trip we had been introduced to Susan and a few others  but, this time, we were given the address of someone I had not yet met named David North. David,  and his wife, lived  in Imperial Beach;  just south of San Diego, and very close to the Mexican border. When we arrived at their apartment, the front door was wide open, inside were Navy guys laying all over the floor listening to music, talking, having fun and doing lots of eating.  Unlike most guys up north who had long hair; this was the 70s after all; these guys had neat and trim Navy haircuts. Everyone said "Hi', we were invited in with open arms and given something to eat.

David North was the brother of Jackie;  one of the original attendees at the Wilcrest apartment. She had introduced him to “the group”early on. David was in the Navy and these guys laying around the apartment were all friends he had introduced to "the group".  Everyone seemed  happy, the mood was mostly raucous, and the most prominent memory I have of that day was of a man named Gabriel who showed up with an enormous bag of figs. Not finding many takers for his figs he consumed nearly the whole bag by himself then became sick and had to leave the room. 

David North was on duty when we arrived but showed up later that evening. He seemed to me a nice guy, laid back and both he and his wife were tolerant of this gang of Navy guys just hanging around their house, relaxing, acting as if it were their own place. The David I knew then is not the David I know today.  He was a kind and gentle person then, very tolerant of others and had a quick smile. This would change. Years later, he would assume a leadership role in the ABC and was told his new name “given to him by God” was  "Face of Flint". This name was given to him  through “prophecy” by Andy Atwell; the "evangelist". I did not  regard the name given as a complimentary but it is however fitting.  The David I met on this first trip to San Diego was a man of  love, tolerance and was  seemingly very compassionate and humble. The David I know now, years later, is indeed stony faced and stony-hearted with little tolerance showing.   It is sad  this  man I once knew with a huge soft heart is now praised as having a hard face of flint. To me this only evidences the stone cold heart beneath.  If this was truly a prophecy of God by Andy, I do not believe it was meant to be complimentary as has been assumed.  A heart of mercy will always trump a stony face of judgment. The Pharisees of Jesus day were men with "faces of flint". This is not the example we should emulate.

So speak, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that has showed no mercy; and mercy triumphs over judgment.  James 2:12-13 

There was seldom a time when there was not at least one Navy guy lounging around David North's apartment; day or night.  The whole aura in San Diego seemed to be one of love and acceptance of each other's blemishes and wrinkles. I felt welcome at Dave and Cindy's house. We lived there for just a short while, on their living room floor, while I found work and a place to live.

Work was much more plentiful in San Diego than it was in the northwest. Finding a job took only about a week. My dad and Yvonne were still in San Diego when we arrived but,  soon after,  major trouble erupted up north. This was actually the same issues over tithe and autonomy that had been brewing under the surface since nearly the beginning. It had now erupted completely and was visible to all.  Even the “new babes” knew what was happening this time so my dad and Yvonne  left San Diego in  a rush and headed north and quell the problem.

I don't recall exactly how long they were gone. I believe it was about a month. When they returned, my dad had a letter he distributed to all the people in San Diego. He had already distributed this same letter in all the other areas on his way back down. It addressed the “problems up north", detailed the "disciplines" laid down and ordered the men “causing trouble”, and their wives and entire families, to be shunned as "rebellious".  Some, including myself,  also received a tape of that meeting.

There had been discipline in the group prior to this event but this new level of discipline; born as a result of that Bob Mumford meeting a couple years earlier; was a massive ex-communication of peoples. It would leave the subjects completely humiliated and devastated. This practice is in stark contrast to scripture (which the ABC contends they follow more closely than all others) which tells us we are to build each other up and show mercy.  A few who were not in  leadership positions were  "disciplined" rather than fully ex-communicated that day, but these people were still forbidden to take communion and were told they must sit in the back of the room and could not speak.

Paul, in the scripture, realized he had it within his nature and temperament to cause such destruction by weight of his authority so rather than visit Corinth personally he sent them a letter instead. At the end of his letter to the Corinthian church (a church with some huge issues) he wrote:

Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is honorable, though we are as reprobate. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. And this we also pray for, even your perfecting. For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not deal sharply when present, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for tearing down. 2 Corinthians 13:7-10 

The tape they gave me was ninety minutes long but still did not contain a recording of the entire meeting. It is my understanding the meeting ran about three hours, or more, but there was only one blank tape available so only the first half of the meeting was actually recorded.  Ninety minutes was plenty of tape to realize the room was full of puffed up egos on both sides of the issue. There was a great deal of shouting back and forth with little true communication. Nothing in that room was being done for anyone's edification. The meeting bore no good fruit and it should have never happened. I listened only to a small segment of the tape before turning it off.  It was not edifying to listen to and only brought me sadness. These were people I knew very well and had been good friends with for many years. Many years later I found that tape again, during a move, so I listened to the entire ninety minutes. It was mostly just incoherent shouting, bickering and arguing over what seemed like petty matters. The predominant issue on my dad's side was still the differing viewpoint over when a person receives the Spirit; going into the water or coming  out; and the main target of the inquiry, Gary, tried to acquiesce many times, saying it was a minor point to him and he did not wish to argue it. My dad refused to let it go and continued to bulldog the point for the entire ninety minutes of tape and presumably for the entire three hours of meeting. The real issue was still money and autonomy but this subject was still being pushed aside to argue out this minor point.

All the people involved in this latest scuffle I would never see again. This would be the first of many arguments that would rise and "the group" would split again and again after unbearable "disciplines" were placed.  Based on my own event, a person is now even considered  "eternally judged" and is now forbidden to even speak in their own defense.  This new twist ends any arguments, makes the accuser always right; at least in their own eyes; and nearly finishes the progression of conquering people completely. I find it interesting that the accepted Revelation teaching is that people will become a conquered people.

I found work within days of moving to San Diego with Aero-Pacific vending. It was a good job. My wife and I would settle into our own place, and everything went well at first. I had a few conversations with the bank that held my college trust fund, discovered it was not large enough to pay my tuition and books, plus living expenses for a guy who now had a family so decided full time college would have to wait. I took only one night class for one year (1975-76).  Unlike high school, college was enjoyable and this small taste of higher learning made me look forward to continuing my education.  

After living in San Diego a short time  a man named Robin, and his first wife,  felt "impressed by God"  that I, and my family, should move with he and his family to Phoenix Arizona and begin meetings there.  My job with the vending company was  requiring me to go to some rather obscene book stores to service the machines so I decided it was probably best to quit that job anyhow. I gave notice at work and our apartment then one month later moved to Phoenix Arizona. Robin, and his family, intended  to follow us a few weeks later but his wife was pregnant and, since Robin had been in the Navy when she became pregnant, she wanted to give birth in San Diego at the Naval hospital. This way there would be no cost for the delivery. We waited and two short weeks later received a call from Robin telling us the baby had died shortly after birth and the plans to move to Phoenix had changed...they were no longer coming.  We now found ourselves alone  in the middle of a hot Phoenix summer with a small child and a  car with no air conditioning.  Phoenix was not turning out to be the picnic we had expected so we decided, that night, we would not stay. We begged the apartment manager to let us out of our one-year lease then made plans to move at the end of the month. After the dreadful heat of Phoenix we missed the Northwest and so decided not to return to San Diego and instead headed north. We drove back to San Diego, made a brief stop to visit, then headed north to the Apex Airpark. On our route, we also made a brief stop in Beaverton Oregon at Gilbert Larson's house. We lingered in Beaverton briefly and I spent a few weeks working with his surveying firm. I had previously spent part of a summer working with Gil as "rod man" on a crew in Northern California but I still knew very little about surveying. We went north to Silverdale but did not end up staying long. My dad came back to the area, sat us down, told us we were wrong to have left San Diego, and said “God wanted us to return to San Diego”. We were of course, obedient and returned.

We returned in the spring of 1977. I enrolled in Southwestern College as a full-time student and declared my major as undecided. My unspoken goal was to attend Southwestern for two years then transfer to a four-year school and pursue a degree in Geology. My goal then was to work for the United  States Geological Survey. I would have continued on this path except, in my first semester, I enrolled in a Psychology class. The class was part of the requirements to receive a transfer certificate from Southwestern to a four-year school.  My dad quizzed me about the classes I had enrolled in. When I mentioned the psychology class he chastised me and demanded I drop the class. The reason given was that it would “teach me earthly wisdom" and “shake my faith in God”.  I had attended only one session of the class so I dropped it rather than fight my dad on the issue.  I then sought a major that did not require psychology and by necessity opted out of the transfer certificate.  I found only one path that did not require psychology and declared this new major. I have regretted not fighting my dad on this issue. It altered the career path I wanted and I truly do not think a few psychology classes would have shaken my faith in God. In fact it may have actually opened my eyes to the abusive manipulation of my father and his church. This is likely the real reason I was pressured to stay away from this class.

I continued at Southwestern College through Spring of 1978 when Proposition 13 closed the school. I was advised by the college there was a school in Hayward where I could finish my credits. The Hayward school would transfer these credits back to Southwestern for my degree.  I moved to Hayward but this school also ended up closing due to Prop 13. I called Southwestern and  they advised me I could attend an out-of-state school and they would still accept all the credits as their own and issue me a degree. I chose Rogue Community College in Grants Pass Oregon since I had known people in Grants Pass for years and loved the town. We gave notice on our apartment in Hayward after living there only one week and moved north to Grants Pass. 

Next, after a short "corporate history primer" I will cover my Grants Pass days and the turn of events that caused me to be ordered by my dad (who was now calling himself my "father in the Lord") to suddenly vacate Grants Pass and move back to San Diego. It would prove to be a very terrible decision to follow these instructions.

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14-Apex Airpark

 

Some who left the Assembly of the Body of Christ (ABC), and then found peace, remarked that looking back they must have been wearing rose-colored glasses.  I have pondered this statement for quite some time and have often felt the same. One day I realized these glasses were not rose-colored...they were actually polarized. These "polarized" glasses masked the glaring errors that were right before me, even though they were plain to one not viewing them in a polarized manner.  There have been many glaring problems, and upheavals, over the years. We in the ABC just put on our polarized lenses and pretended they did not exist.

As I look back at my life in the ABC, and how I and my family were treated, I realize how much fallacy I  just blocked out. There have been several periods in my life when I could escape all, or most, of the ABC's influence and it was during these periods I found times of peace. Why I left that peace and returned to the ABC is not really a mystery as I returned the second time out of a sense of imposed guilt. More on that later.

Much of the "under the surface" tumult; glare if you will; is invisible to the newcomer. They are deliberately shielded from it as they are "love bombed". This way, by standard practice in the ABC, the "new babe is not harmed". It is impossible to keep these glaring problems hidden forever though, and when it finally does come to light the new person is advised, "for the sake of unity" to put on polarized lenses, ignore the glare of problems and upheavals all around you, and continue on in the same direction.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace. James 3:17-18 

The goal in life should be peace. There is not a great deal of  peace in the ABC.

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I lived just a short time in Santa Cruz after my dad and Yvonne suddenly left. The restaurant where I worked shut down and I found myself in an even worse financial situation than when I first arrived. My single option was to call my dad. I was surviving only because my neighbors were very generous and were providing  me with food and companionship. I had been ordered by my dad to have nothing to do with these neighbors since they would “pull me away from the body” but they were kind, generous and very good friends. It was no longer just  a matter of food. I was now no longer able to  pay my space rent and was soon to be evicted to the street. I knew I could not rely on others generosity forever and I had two choices left. Live on the street or return "home".

I called my dad and told him about my situation. He told me to come back to the Seattle area to the Apex Airpark in Silverdale Washington where they were staying but offered no assistance to get there.  I was told if I could find a way to Silverdale someone would buy my trailer from me and he would help me out until I found work.  I borrowed $40.00 (about $260.00 in 2022 dollars) from my charitable neighbor with the promise to repay them when I sold my trailer. I headed north up I-5 to the Apex Airpark arriving two days later after a brief stop in Grants Pass. 

The Apex Airpark is a small private airport community then owned by a sweet woman named Roberta Walker.  Most called her either Mom or Grandma, depending on their age, since she was so generous. Roberta's husband had built Apex Airpark from a raw piece of ground decades earlier and had unfortunately died before his visions of a planned community were completed. Roberta now ran this private airport all on her own with a little help from a few of the residents.  They have now paved the runway but back then it was just dirt and gravel with crude lighting.  

Roberta was  introduced to "the group" through her daughter Janet who was one of the original group members in Mountlake Terrace. Roberta offered my dad the use of a large space next to her home to park the bus and, since the bus was not handling the strain of the additional weight of the conversion, my dad used this as an opportunity to rebuild the engine. He was in the middle of that project when I arrived. 

 

On the very evening  I arrived my dad told me to clean out my trailer, had me sign over the title to him, then told me to tow the trailer over to Ralph and Karen’s house on the back side of the air park.  It was my understanding  they were buying the trailer from me; I had made all of the payments on it except for the first sixty-dollar down payment, but I never saw a dime from the “sale”. By the next morning the trailer had been gutted and converted to a goat shed. It was sad to see since, even though it was tiny, this had been my home. I was angry, felt cheated and lied to, but I still remained gullible, obedient. I felt if I did not do what they told me, God would punish me.

After I dropped the trailer at Ralph and Karen's house I asked my dad where I was supposed to live. He showed me to an old bus that had been left at the airpark by Jim; the man who had help construct my dad's bus. The bus had no bed, no stove, no table, and was basically just a ramshackle space full of garbage and mouse droppings. They threw an old mattress on the floor for me and this was to be my new  home. My dad promised he would help me fix it up later and told me he envisioned me traveling on the road with him. It was a lie. I slept in the bus on the old mattress the first night. Roberta heard of the arrangement and offered to let me live in her back bedroom instead. This would supposedly give me an opportunity to make the bus more livable. I went along but the bus project never got off the ground when my dad reneged on his promise to help me fix it up. Instead recommended I drive it to Ernie’s house so he could work on the engine. I found out later my dad had actually given the bus to Ernie since I was “no longer using it”. On the trip to Ernie’s the bus caught fire and ended up scrapped. Oh well.

Within two weeks of arriving at the airpark I found myself married to a girl I had met only once before, for just a few hours, when she attended a church picnic in Santa Cruz.  There is a much larger story to all of this, but for the sake of this narrative "matchmaking" or "arranged marriages" were common in the early days of "the group" and still is, but to a smaller degree. I was nineteen then, she just seventeen. We had each been counseled separately God wanted us to marry.  We were both young, impressionable, gullible and believed this was something we had to do to "stay in God's will".  My dad officiated the marriage at the airpark, and Roberta's daughter, Janet, made the cake. About a dozen people attended, most of them I had never met.

Arranged marriages in the ABC are no longer arranged in exactly the same fashion but marrying someone from outside the group is frowned upon. I heard recently of a very young child that was already being matched with another for a future pairing so arranging is still happening.  The ABC do not accept marrying someone from outside  as valid. Marrying this person would mean you  had "unequally yoked yourself with an unbeliever". The only solution, to make the marriage valid, is for the person to volunteer to be baptized by the ABC.

It is 1974 now and I find myself married, living in the back bedroom of Roberta's house with my new wife and unemployed. Seattle is in a major recession and finding a job is difficult. I barely graduated high School, have no college education and am forced to take whatever odd job I can find through temporary employment agencies.  Emotionally, and in every other way, I was not ready for this marriage and neither was my new wife.  The marriage lasted only a short time; less than a month; before things fell apart. She left and ended up living at the home of a couple that had broken off from "the group" to start their own ultra-authoritarian, mostly communal, "Shepherding / Discipleship"  group.  More on that later.

The Shepherding Movement / Discipleship teachings had been  introduced to "the group" when Bob Mumford, and others from his movement, came to Seattle and spoke.  Mumford was directly connected with Derek Prince and Ern Baxter from "The Sharon Orphanage" days (and thus Broadway Tabernacle as well) and it was this connection to Derek Prince that attracted my dad to attend his Seattle meeting.  My dad came back from this meeting excited  about what he had learned about "church discipline".  It is this meeting, and this moment in time, that would paint a great deal of havoc into many peoples lives. It ushered in decades of even more repressive discipline.  

 
The "shepherding movement" affected both mainstream and home-based churches but, regardless of the structure of the church or group, the scripture still states, in Paul's words to Peter:

"…not as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock…" (I Peter 5:3, NKJV)

Below is a short excerpt from an article in the Cephas Library. It is a rather long article, and I encourage those following along on my historical narrative to read the entire article. It explains well the "discipline" abuses still happening in the ABC.  These abuses directly result from this teaching by Mumford in Seattle my dad and a few other men attended.  This excerpt has to do with Bob Mumford's alleged repentance in 1990. There is a sign he did not truly repent however, as many individuals in his movement, have had to seek treatment for severe PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc.   Here is that excerpt:

... in a subsequent Charisma & Christian Life article published in February, 1990, reportedly after having sought the advice and counsel of Jack Hayford and others, according to the article, Mumford spoke more as one who was genuinely chastened, repentant, and willing to deal with the issue in a more direct fashion, accepting full responsibility for his error. According to the article, Mumford read a statement in November of 1989 "to a gathering of pastors at the Christian Believers United meeting in Ridgecrest, North Carolina,"11 in which he said,

"I repent. I was wrong. I ask for forgiveness," Mumford said about his involvement in the discipleship movement.
The article went on to say:
...Mumford decided that he needed to publicly 'repent' of his responsibility in setting up a system where so many people were hurt by misuses of authority. "Some families were split up and lives turned upside down," says Mumford. "Some of these families are still not back together."   

Ripping  families apart has been a recurring theme in the ABC and it is  justified by stating "the body is your family now” and the quoting of this scripture:

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:36-37 

 This is a wrong interpretation. 

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One of the men who  listened to Bob Mumford speak that night, split from "the group" then began his own "discipleship" gathering at his home in Everett Washington. This gathering was not officially part of  'the group" but he still kept in touch and would still attend ABC meetings. This man demanded complete submission, in every way, the setting was mostly communal and all of his followers lived together in his large home. This is the group my new wife would align herself with when she left.

As a single man again I was able to find only a straight commission "job" selling Electrolux vacuum cleaners door to door. That did not go well. I was still broke, and my  future as a "married man" was pretty uncertain. At the time I had no idea where my new wife had gone. Frankly I did not really care. I was not financially or emotionally ready for marriage. I wanted out. After a few weeks, the man who was operating this spun off “discipling” group called me, then visited me, and told me my wife was now living at his house and had "submitted to his authority". This meant they had shared a bed together. He told me I should come and join her and "submit to his authority" as well. I did not. Word of our separation and her joining this other man's group began to get out to people  and was causing scandal so my dad knew he had to take some sort of action.

He called a man named Tom in "the group" who managed a store in Bellevue where I was now living.  Tom searched me out, had me come by his store and told me to use his phone to call my dad. On this call my dad asked if I would come to the airpark and teach on the Armor of God. I agreed. Being asked to teach however was just a ruse to get me to the airpark. My new wife, who was now living in Everett, was also called and asked to come to the airpark "just to talk".  I arrived at the meeting that night and was surprised to see my new wife sitting there. She too was surprised to see me walk through the door. We were both whisked to the back room and "counseled" God had put us together and wanted us to stay together. We were told God wanted us to move to Klamath Falls Oregon where we were told, we could get our marriage stabilized. A couple named Don and Darlene would help us patch up the marriage. Need I say again I was young, gullible and my back was against the wall?

Both my new wife and I, wanting to stay in "God's will", and under "spiritual duress" to stay together, agreed to go. We were very confused kids, broke, dependent on others for our support, thrown together into a mixing bowl and  given a good stir. We had both been trained that what we must do what we were told by “the elders”. Anything else was rebellion and rebels will suffer eternal punishment. We left Silverdale the next day and traveled to Klamath Falls to live with Don and Darlene.  

I had known Don and Darlene since I was about sixteen.  Don and I fished together often in the Puget Sound. We had many good times together.  I babysat their kids often when they went out. They were good friends, fantastic people; gentle, kind and admirable. Our time in Klamath Falls would be just as pleasant and, through their love and encouragement, my new wife and I calmed our marriage and lived mostly peaceably. My new wife and I worked our way off welfare, and I took whatever odd jobs I could find for additional money.  The winter of that year I found a job full time as a cook at Sambo's restaurant and got off welfare, except for food stamps and medical. This would be my second time living in Klamath Falls and it was mostly a time of peace. That would end when I would receive a phone call from my dad which, for a second time, would take me to California.  But this time it would be San Diego, not Santa Cruz, and this time I was not a boy....I was a married boy.

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In the next post, my wife and I travel to San Diego, meet David North (the prophet) for the first time, and settle in to "real" life.

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