26. Becoming an Elder

© 2020 Daniel Yordy

August 1995 - May 1996

The Pure Seed Company
The issue of income is a big deal inside the arena of Christian Community. Many of the communities in the states simply saw everyone working at completely separate jobs out in the secular world. This approach is not healthy for the life of community, however; neither was it an option for the wilderness communities in the north. And so the need to earn an income was increasing in the discussion and attempts of the communities. 

William Brown, the brother in charge of the gardens, had come up with a plan for a business that could be conducted almost entirely from within the community experience. That business idea was to grow and sell potato seed, but not just regular potato seed, rather, to provide organic and specialty potato seed. By the time we returned to Blueberry, this new business endeavor was in full swing and the Blueberry community was fully committed to it. The business name was The Pure Seed Company.

Brother Alan Franklin, an elder, the brother from England, was working with William in starting the seed-potato business. William’s primary focus was to go small, developing potato starts in a greenhouse lab and specializing in organic specialty potatoes only. Brother Alan persuaded him to go big as well, and thus twenty acres of potatoes were planted in the Blueberry property on the other side of Evergreen, just for the Pure Seed Company.

As August continued and the potatoes grew in the fields, the excitement towards the Pure Seed Company grew among the family at Blueberry. I have never seen such a concerted witness and effort of heart coming from a community family towards such a project as I was part of now.

During the month of August, I helped Dani rebuild a small building in the greenhouse area into a seed-potato development lab. William Brown had gotten a huge chunk of money as a grant from the government and we put a lot of it into this lab. Nonetheless, this was again a study of the fallacy of “saving money” by using an old building. We saved nothing, and when we were done with all the work converting it, it remained an old building. It would have cost the same and have gone more quickly if we had torn it down and started from scratch. Nonetheless, this was a pretty cool lab/greenhouse with lots of high tech equipment. 

School was beginning in September, and I was lined up to teach some college courses. Nonetheless, I was not given the liberty to develop my own course, but rather handed the exact layout by Sister Delores. That wasn’t really the problem, though, rather that experience caused me to realize that nothing inside of me could go back into that school. I shared that with the elders; they did not understand, but they gave me the freedom. Instead, I turned my focus towards The Pure Seed Company.

Then, that August, we were sitting in the dining room for dinner. There were not a lot of people there, many were busy elsewhere. There was a sense of quietness resting upon us. Awhile later, a pickup drove by with several of the field-crew men on the back, on the way past and on to Fort St. John. The sense of doom grew. We soon learned that the field crew, on their return from the fields, coming down the steep ravine, had found Alan Franklin lying off the road next to an overturned three-wheeler. He had come down the hill too fast, with no brakes, his three-wheeler had flipped, and he was killed with a broken neck. The difficulty his family went through after that is not a part of my story; I say that not meaning to be indifferent, but rather to be kind.

I would not learn until the following spring the great pressure that Brother Alan’s death placed upon William in that now he was carrying both sides of the Pure Seed Company himself. But William was up to the task, or so it seemed, and he was extremely positive concerning the wonderful prospects for the company. He was very confident in sharing with everyone how many tons of potato seed would come out of that large field and how much money would come into the community from the sale of those potatoes. 

We all got excited. Many put all their effort into the things needed to make the seed potato business successful. Altogether, from August through October, we spent around $250,000 coming from government grants, from many family members, some giving a lot with some pitching in their little bit, and from various community and North Star reserves.  

[Some might imagine that spending this much money on a business to support over 100 people is “greed” or “wasteful.” But that’s only because they do not rightly judge their own situation and all the millions spent on the infrastructure and services they enjoy every day. Think of all the facilities you use in your own town; then think of how much all that costs, all for your support and benefit.]

The hearts of the Blueberry family, in giving themselves in excitement towards this endeavor, were true and good.

Two major things were needed to handle the seed potatoes. On the one hand we needed a state-of-the-art storage system and packing facility, along with large crates to hold the potatoes and a forklift to handle the crates. On the other hand we needed some significant pieces of equipment to harvest and process the potatoes. 

Our own root cellar was not adequate to handle the tonnage of potatoes we imagined were coming in. Neither was there a constant electrical power source nearby. The closest power line was on the side of the Blueberry property next to the Evergreen Community. There was a house on one side of the road and a former farmyard on the other side. It was there that the large potato storage building was built. The outfit from which we purchased the Quonset style metal building erected it on the site and sprayed it with a thick interior of insulation. This building had two rooms, the back larger room where the potatoes were stored and the front room where we would process and pack them for shipping. 

With others helping, I built the large crates, about four-foot cubed, for potato storage and the woodwork needed in both rooms. Bryan helped me with the installation of the heating-cooling system that would hold the temperatures throughout the entire large storage room at a precise point year-round; that is, the seller installed the computer and heater/cooler equipment, and Bryan and I made the rest of it work by his specifications. Then, Randy designed a potato harvester and a potato washer and he and Bryan constructed those. These were large pieces of equipment. We leased a forklift from Edmonton.

We harvested the potatoes in September. The school closed for those days and the entire family was out in the fields along with the potato harvester. It was quite a day. The potatoes were loaded into the crates and I helped run the forklift into the storage unit, stacking the crates three or four high, with air spaces in-between.

Except  at the end of the harvest, only about half the tonnage we had prepared for came out of the fields.

Of course, in a business like this, all the production expenditure happens in the fall of the year, but sales do not happen until February through May. Thus all your investment has to sit and wait for the time of sales.

The most important business question, in fact, the only thing that makes investment and labor into a business, is – Who are our customers, where are they, and how do we connect with them? Some thought was given to reaching the customers, but, in the end, not nearly enough.

Further Steps 
During the time of the harvest, Maureen and I moved into a cabin that had become available for us. This was the former Ebright cabin, behind the former Raja cabin. It was a full three-bedroom, and since we needed the use only of two bedrooms, we agreed that Jennifer Hanna would live with us in the third bedroom.

Jennifer Hanna was a few years younger than Maureen. We had a good time with her sharing our home, although the relationship was never as close as it had been with Kimberley. Jennifer had her own solid life and was often busy elsewhere.

In October, Maureen and I with the children spent about a week at Blair Valley. This was a wonderful time. We renewed our friendship with Rick and Shirley Annett and just loved their little cabin. We got to know Bob and Connie Newman and their children and spent much time visiting in their home, one of the larger of the old cabins, restored. Typically, in our visits to Blair, we stayed in the upstairs rooms of the cabin that Kars and Minnie Kiers had restored. They were very kind and hospitable. Sitting and sharing life with them would become a significant part of our own lives. I also took a box of organic seed potatoes with us and gave them to the Blair family for their own gardens.

In late October, I asked the elders if I could share with the Blueberry family the teaching I had given in the services in Oregon, the teaching that would become “The Two Gospels.” They agreed that I could have a week or so of an extended morning devotion time to share that series. What I shared was well received. In fact Brother John Clarke was in attendance in some of those meetings and was greatly impacted by what I shared.

In the first part of December, I was asked to come to the elder’s meeting. When I had sat down in that circle, Brother John Clarke said that the Father ministry of the move had agreed with him that I should walk out a time as an elder. This is a similar concept as walking out a year, in that I would move and function as an elder for a year or so, and, at the end of that time, as the Lord proved Himself through me, I would be set in as an elder by the apostolic ministry of the move by the laying on of hands with prayers and prophecies. 

I did not expect this, and I was, of course, overwhelmed. 

Brother John shared that they had based this decision on three things. First was the way I had moved in Oregon, not just in faithfully holding services, but in the pastoral care for those whom God gave to us. This had been reported in part by Gary Snow. Second, the sharing of the word in the anointing there at Blueberry that all had witnessed to. But third, and most important, was Jennifer Hanna’s report to the elders concerning the environment of our home when the doors were closed and we were alone. She had shared that there was only kindness and peace in our home, with full respect towards the elders, regardless, and never any speaking against.

Before I could be recognized as walking as an elder, however, I needed to visit with the Apostolic ministry of the move so that they might connect personally with me. The next place and time they would gather would be the Lubbock Convention near the end of December.

To Lubbock and Detroit Lakes 
Maureen and I prepared for a trip to Lubbock.  At this point, Ryan Louden also wanted to move to the Lubbock Community to join his mom and sister there. Frieda’s belongings also needed to be transported down. We made arrangements to use the large Blueberry van for our trip. We loaded the van with Frieda’s stuff at Graham and headed south with Ryan. This was winter time, but the Lord favored us with no wintry weather and no snow or ice on the roads all the way down and back again.

We attended the convention in Lubbock. During that time, I met with the Father ministry of the move, Buddy Cobb, Joe McCord, Tom Rowe, John Clarke, and Bill Grier. I knew each of these men personally and had sat under their teaching for years. These were simple and good men, filled with the love of God and faithful in service to God’s people over decades. 

The meeting with them was little more than their asking me for my perspective and then sharing wisdom and encouragement with me. Nonetheless, when I left the meeting with them, I was now recognized throughout the move as walking as an elder.
Ryan remained permanently at Lubbock and became an important member of that community for the next several years, working with Stan Martin in his sound-system business.

Because Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, is not far off the route from Lubbock back to Edmonton, Maureen and I stopped there on our return trip. Although we had good roads, it was winter time and the land was covered with snow. This would be the first time we would see the place to which Mom, Glenn and Kim, and Katie Bracken had come.

At Detroit Lakes, we stayed in the house belonging to Roger and Jenny DeHaan, as they were away on a trip. We had a good time visiting with Glenn and Kim and with Mom and Katie. 

The Detroit Lakes elders and family were good people, of course, but somehow there was not the same care that is found in some of the communities. And so Mom had been given a single room in the basement of someone’s house. It seemed to me that she felt kind of lost, that she didn’t fully fit or feel at home. Mom was one who would make the best of it in her trust in God, but I was not happy with where I had sent her.

As an elder, I was fully free, now, to share in the regular services, and so I ministered the word that Sunday in the Detroit Lakes fellowship. I don’t remember what I preached, but it was a good word and they were greatly blessed. They also gave me the offering, a few hundred dollars. This was a pleasant, but unexpected blessing.

We then drove the long wintry miles back to Blueberry. 

Katie wrote us a letter soon after our visit, however, that best expresses my sense of unease concerning this place to which Mom, Glenn, and Kim had come. She shared that the elder’s held a “natural family” sentiment that gave greater favor to those in the “in-families,” and non-related people were treated not quite the same. This is one of the “giants in the land” that must always be guarded against. Katie’s need for a special diet was not honored; she was told to just eat whatever was served and “God would bless it.” Had she followed this direction, she would have soon died. She shared with us that Glenn had found no friendships inside the community, and that Mom was quiet and withdrawn, feeling misunderstood. 

Again, this did not mean that they were not walking with the Lord Jesus and seeing Him in every moment of their lives. 

A Low January 
This is a chapter of my life towards which I have prepared carefully inside of God, that He would give me the right words to share. I cannot impart to you the meaning of His words to me in March of 1997, “Son, you passed the test,” without conveying to you the deep press in which I found myself through all of 1996. Nonetheless, I cannot share that press with you without also holding each individual person involved in the highest regard.

And so I write this chapter and the next inside a deep peace that has come out of fear and trembling before God through the past few months, knowing that giving an account for 1996 must come.

We are in no game; we have been seized in the determination of a holy and a mighty God who desires with all His heart to reveal Himself through a people given utterly to Him. Neither do we ever set ourselves against His anointed ones, for those who do such a thing never want to know Father with them.

Driving two thousand miles into southern lands and then returning again to the cold north in the darkness of January is a shock to any immune system. In fact, people becoming sick after returning from Lubbock, that is, a winter convention, was common.

Both Kyle and Johanna came down with a high fever. Maureen and I were both committed to the natural approach to health, convinced that, except for immediate emergencies, the world’s medical system is based on a non-scientific paradigm of control. But whooping cough was happening elsewhere that January, and Johanna got much worse. She was not quite two-years old. Her fever went to 104. That evening, Maureen applied first a homemade salve and then crushed garlic to her feet and wrapped them in plastic and socks. The next morning, to our complete amazement, her temperature had dropped to 99 and she was fine. Garlic gives tremendous strength to the body’s own immune system.

Then Maureen and I both came down with a fever.  The gist of the story is that it was not until probably January 29, that I first sat in the elder’s meeting as an elder.

The Elder’s Meetings
Most of the things discussed in the elder’s meetings were personal and private and not to be discussed elsewhere. I have no intention of violating what is proper in this account. 

Nonetheless, I must share the larger picture as well as those things that directly impacted me that can be shared with a larger audience. Yes, all things will be unveiled as each one gives an account of their own life. But that is the point. Each one will share, in all honesty, only those things pertaining to their own life story. This is the only Godly way by which all things will be made known.

The elder’s meetings were held in Sister Charity’s front living room. The room was not large and we were close together, though not uncomfortably so. The primary elder’s meeting was held each Monday evening starting at seven and typically lasting until around one AM. I took the chair nearest the front door, right next to Wes Shaw. It seemed that most sat in the same spot each time, though this was never a “rule.” 

In the elder’s meeting were John and Nathel Clarke, when they were home, which through this particular year was well over half the time. Then Charity Titus and Sue Sampson, who lived with Sister Charity. Then Delores Topliff, Edie Dwyer, Gary Rehmeier, John Austin, Dave Smillie, and Bill Vanderhorst, a Dutch brother who had moved with his wife to Blueberry from Ontario while Maureen and I were in Oregon. Then Edna Smith, Alvin Roes, Wes Shaw, and myself (that is not in order of where each one usually sat). Six women and eight men.

I testify that I was sitting among the most loving, the wisest, and most anointed group of shepherds over a church of Christ that I have ever known. I felt absolutely privileged to be among them and cherished every moment.

Two primary types of things were discussed and decisions made in the elder’s meeting, first things pertaining to the ordering of the community, to the work and to life together, and second, private things concerning individual needs. My layout in Symmorphy V: Life, 11.3 Building Shelter, of how the governmental meeting of a community should be conducted is drawn from this experience. The things needing to be discussed were presented quickly by each one and written down by that evening’s moderator. Then the moderator would lead the discussion, working through the list until we were done. Each one that shared, did so concisely and with great respect for the others and each one listened to the things shared by each with all honor and regard. 

Decisions always had to be unanimous. If one elder was not sure in their hearts concerning any decision, it was put on hold until the Lord would make things clear. 
At the same time, there were many more impromptu elder’s discussions. Often, after a meal, one would say, “The elder’s need to gather,” and we would join with each other in a corner of the dining room as the family was cleaning up, in order to make a decision needed in that moment. I must confess that, after observing such meetings as a non-elder for the prior nineteen years, being one of those who stood up to gather with the elders was rather a heady feeling, at least for the first few times.

And I must say, with all affirmation, that sitting and gathering with the elders, hearing and seeing how they conducted themselves towards each other and the great care and wisdom towards every member of the family was for me a rich treasure of learning the power and reality of God in His Church.

Many, many good things that I have shared with you in my Christ Our Life letters through the years have come out from what I heard and learned there.

Nonetheless, in order to rightly convey to you the great crisis of soul in which I was soon caught, I must develop the story step by step.

The Potato Business
One of the first things discussed that February was the potato business. John Austin had temporarily served as the elder covering The Pure Seed company after Alan Franklin had died, but he was also heavily involved in the cattle program and this was calving season. I volunteered to take on the potato project. This was accepted by the elders, and so I became the elder covering the work part of The Pure Seed Company. 

That did not mean that I superseded William Brown in his role, for most of it belonged to him. It meant first, that the needs of the potato project went from William to the elders through me and vice versa. And second, I took on the task of handling the potatoes as we got them ready for sale. In that role, I served under William.

In that task, a young man named Michael Kuntz, who had worked in the gardens during the summer, now worked full time with me. When we needed more help, Fritz Hanna joined us as well.

And so I began what became a deep friendship with Michael Kuntz over the next several months. Michael was in his twenties, a bright and outgoing young man. He had fallen in love with Deborah Austin through that prior summer and at this point they were walking out a year together. That summer soon after we had returned to Blueberry, a young man had foolishly attempted to drive his jeep across the creek at Ted’s Gate. He succeeded only in sinking it to the bottom in the mud. Randy had to pull him out with the tractor to everyone laughing. That young man turned out to be Michael Kuntz. It’s not that he was dumb, just adventurous and daring.

Michael and I shared many interests and our work allowed us to chat most of the time. Nonetheless, the primary topic that concerned us was how can we earn a living inside of Christian Community. This was a major concern and our discussions were extensive, varied, and from the heart. I don’t know that we came up with many answers, but we did search out the questions, which is the first step, and we discussed many possible answers.

Meanwhile, Michael and I began to prepare the potatoes for sale. The plan was to sell potatoes in two ways to two different markets. One way was in large bulk to potato farmers, and the other way was in small bags to home gardeners. There was a gardening show in Victoria, BC, coming up in March, which William planned to attend in order to present The Pure Seed products to the gardening public. One of the things we did, then, was to fill a couple of crates with small bags of seed potatoes of many different varieties, each nicely labeled in preparation for William’s upcoming trip.

We would get a crate of dirty seed potatoes out of the large storage room with the forklift, and bring it into the front processing room. There, we had a layout of washing and sorting equipment into which we would dump that crate of potatoes. After washing them, we went over each one, rolling them as needed, in order to find and throw out the bad ones. There were quite a few with defects.

William did have several potato farmers lined up to buy seed from us, and so we also prepared those larger orders. 

In March, William went down to Victoria with his family and all the bags of potato seed we had prepared. All of their expenses for the trip came out of the Pure Seed Company operating fund. At the gardening show, however, he was allotted a space at the end of a run and most of the huge flows of people did not find their way to his table.

William returned with a few hundred bags of potatoes unsold, and now crumpled. He had sold only a few. At first I did not quite understand this large pile of bags that we would have to re-bag before they could be sold again. 

Not a Viable Business
Meanwhile, before we could deliver any seed potatoes to farmers, they would have to be inspected by government agents. In fact, the seed potato business was centered in Edmonton, Alberta, and so this was a common enterprise in that larger area.

Except, our potatoes did not pass inspection. First, only after the inspector came out did I discover that it is against regulations to wash seed potatoes. BUT – if we did not wash them, we would have been unable to see and remove those with defects, either knicks or small bits of rot on the surface. BUT – that didn’t matter anyway, because even though we had carefully gone over the potatoes, the number of defects in the top of the large crates being inspected were way above the limit required to sell as prime seed. 

William said, with all enthusiasm, that that would not be a problem. We would just lower the price a bit and find farmers who wanted to pay less for potatoes that had not passed the inspections. He did find buyers and so potatoes began to flow out of our building.

Soon into April, however, as I walked through the storage room looking at all the crates remaining, the enormity of the situation slowly dawned in my realization. You see, up until that moment, I had trusted William implicitly, as had everyone else. For the first time I had to break that trust and begin to assess things myself with a cold eye. 

You see, farmers in the north country have to get their potato seed in the ground by the end of May. To be successful, the ground would have been fully worked the fall before so that planting would be the only thing needing to happen on the fields in the spring.

By mid-April more than ninety percent of the potatoes were still in the storage room. They were simply not going out to buyers. I shared that realization with the elders and so they commissioned me to search out the problem and to find any possible solutions. I took on that responsibility, then, including Michael in our search as much as possible.

By this time William Brown seemed to have retreated into himself and thus the primary task of continuing the seed potato business and discovering the extent and causes of the problem now rested on Michael and me.

I went to Fort St. John to visit with the government agents with whom William had set up this whole endeavor and through whom he had received the grant money – around $75,000. In the various conversations with them, they talked about “Bill this,” and “Bill that.” It slowly dawned on me that they were speaking of William Brown and that the face he had presented to them was not a face we had ever known in the community.

Now, I do not want to lay a “blame” on William Brown. He had wanted to start small, but the enthusiasm of Alan Franklin and the whole community had pressed him to go big. Once committed, then, he simply kept on the show of what we wanted to hear. The truth is, he was overwhelmed after Alan was killed; the problem was that he did not share that fact with anyone.

Bit by bit, over time, I began to understand the reality. A seed potato business cannot exist in the British Columbia portion of the Peace River region and especially as far north as Blueberry. For that reason, no license to grow seed potatoes was ever granted to anyone in BC, that is, until William came along and talked them into it. Seed potatoes grown in our neck of the woods cannot ever pass inspection, unlike those grown in the gentle soils around Edmonton. More than that, William’s original idea was to grow small amounts of high-valued specialty potatoes. As a business that could have worked. It would have required less than half the money that we spent on the larger business, except that the BC agricultural officials were not willing to bring potato inspection to BC for what was to them only a few bags of potatoes. 

The thought comes to me now that we could possibly have negotiated to take our much smaller amounts of seed potatoes to Alberta for inspection there before offering them for sale. That thought did not come to us then; nonetheless, it was much too late for that. We had drained the funds of every other part of the community and many family member’s life savings as well. All of that money was now at risk. In the end, none of it would ever come back.

The other side of the problem was that we just did not have customers lined up ahead of time to buy our seed potatoes. After the harvest was in, everyone relaxed. I guess we just expected that William had the selling under control, yet the layout of any “plan” he had was not generally known. 

They did not sell. The only small bags of specialty potatoes that sold were those few that went in Victoria. Almost ninety percent of the harvest remained in the storage building. The money that did come in barely covered the cost of planting the twenty acres. 

Yet there was another significant problem as well. The old root cellar at Blueberry was in a very poor condition. Of the potatoes that would be put in there in the fall, around half were thrown out as rot in the spring. That fall, all of our eating potatoes would come out of the crates in the new wonderful storage unit. BUT – because we were going to make “so much money” from selling them; all through that winter, I brought only the cast-offs back to the kitchen for the family to eat. This was not well-received, but it was accepted because of everyone’s great hope.

Many tons of large and good potatoes became fertilizer that June.

John and Nathel Clarke had been away on a ministry trip through this time. Near the end of May they were on their way back. The elders asked me to bus down to Prince George and join with them there. That way I could share all I had learned of our dilemma on the trip back up to Blueberry.

I did that. It was a good ride back with them, but very somber, and with much prayer.

Blair Valley and Immigration
Through 1996, I want to stay closer to chronology. In March, Maureen and I spent several days at Blair Valley. This was soon after the February convention. This time, Eric and Lynn Foster and Sister Barbara James were there with us as well. We all went along with Sister Barbara, who had planned a time of prayer and deliverance with the Blair Valley family. This picture is Rick and Shirley Annett in their little cabin with Johanna tucked between.



Except for one strange thing, we again experienced a wonderful time of peace and belonging there at Blair Valley. A number were prayed for and received much joy and healing from the Lord. 

That strange thing was that at a certain point, Sister Barbara James wanted  to counsel with Maureen and me. We were in our bedroom in the upstairs of the Kiers’s cabin. Maureen and Barbara were sitting on the bed, and I was sitting on a chair against the closet doors. In that conversation, Barbara shared with Maureen about me and about my problems and my responsibility in God. She did not address me, even though I was right there listening, but only spoke about me. Yet the things she was saying, though real to her, had no meaning or connection to me. They simply did not fit. This felt very strange to both of us. 

And – the moral of the story is – don’t make up stuff in your head about other people and call it “God.” God does not share with anyone what He Himself does not remember. Paul said that only the spirit of a man knows the things of a man. The only thing anyone of us knows is ourselves, and all judgment we create concerning “other people” cannot be anything more than our own analysis of our self. But, as I have shared, asking was not a policy of move ministry.

Now, I bring in this incident because our ongoing relationship with Sister Barbara over the next few years would create some great puzzles for me.

Through this time, however, Maureen and I were slowly piecing together our immigration application package. One of the things we needed, for instance, was full chest x-rays to determine that we had not ever had tuberculosis. Kyle and Johanna (and Katrina) are full Canadian citizens, and thus had no need to immigrate. 

We had dropped the pretense of starting a business as our means of immigrating. Rather, we relied on letters from the Blair Valley community giving us a house and full support. In other words, we were basing our immigration on provision in poverty and not on material wealth.

A Growing Disquiet
Many things discussed and said in the elder’s meetings were outside of my “comfort zone.” I had no idea concerning Asperger’s, nor why certain things, particularly talking about other people’s private business, was overwhelming to me. But I would come home from the discussion, often around one in the morning, and sit in our rocking chair, rocking back and forth, for nearly an hour before I was able to go on to bed. 

I am very slow to understand what things mean. And the truth is, as I share with you the meaning of my distress, mostly in the next chapter, I understand these things fully only now. At that time, I went, in the end, by the instinct of my gut, not actually knowing what any of it meant.

Before continuing I must raise the question – Was the great loss that The Pure Seed Company became the “judgment of God?” The answer is an unqualified, “NO!” The “judgment of God” is the cross of Christ – “It is finished.” 

God’s answer in any circumstance is to give thanks, and to turn, together with God, all such difficult things into the end result of good, by our expectation of God and by speaking good grace into every ongoing moment. 

The problem was that we trusted the “anointing” separate from sound business sense. And inside of that trust, we left much of the business stuff with one person who, as it turned out, was in over his head. Yes, Philip Bridge, a professional accountant, did work with William on the business plan, but he was not an elder. And our system of governance inside the move communities seemed to work against the kind of common-sense managerial approach required for a successful business. 

In fact, the North Star logging company was successful only because after initial difficulties when it started, the wise decision was made to separate that business completely from the community governance and to place it entirely under the management of Gary Rehmeier. But North Star operated outside of the community, whereas The Pure Seed Company was inside our life together.

As I think about it now, I think that William’s original idea could well have worked. And that, with an investment of maybe $150,000, a sum that would not have placed stress on anyone, we could have created the smaller specialty seed-potato business, including maybe $40,000 being spent on establishing viable marketing channels. But all this is hindsight. 

Before finishing the rest of 1996 in the next chapter, I want to remind you of that issue set before me by God back in April of 1985, that became a twelve-year path of the dealings of God inside of me. Here is what I wrote in Chapter 14 “A Song in Great Difficulty.”

“I now understand the necessity of God’s dealings with me; I certainly did not understand it then. As I look back now, I see that God was preparing me for a most confusing experience with Him during the April 1985 convention. In that convention He would begin a work inside of me that would not be finished until twelve years later, sitting in the same place in the same Bowens Mill Convention Tabernacle in March of 1997.”

Later in the same chapter, I wrote – “This convention (April 1985) marked the beginning of a twelve-year assault of God against that thing inside of me that could not remain – contempt. Or, as Gene Edwards puts it in A Tale of Three Kings, “What do you do when someone throws a spear at you?”

 And so I have titled the next chapter as “What Do I Do?” And I would suggest to you, dear reader, that this is the most important answer of the proving of Christ in you as well.

Completing the Chapter
My wife has found her calendars on which she recorded her activities for many years. She did not include some of the things I was doing, but she did jot down most of what we did together as well as her involvement with the children and with her friends. These calendars are filling in some of my missing pieces.

At the same time, I have been reminded of the very real hurts many who lived in these communities experienced, some of which were devastating. My choice to forgive, to embrace, and to extend all redemption is not a flippant or an easy thing. I do so now because of the Salvation of God coming through me. Nonetheless, healing only comes with resolution; continuing to blame only increases one’s own injury. 

I am convinced that every conflict ever experienced between two humans will be resolved, most usually with both on their knees towards one another (every knee shall bow). Things said to me may have hurt me, but even if only in my own internal accusations and fear, I also hurt others. Nonetheless, none of us are innocent except in God; all of us have done overt acts of injustice or spoken cruel words of hurt, and we will be on our knees before the one whom we sinned against until that one releases us.

This is God’s justice, and no human will escape. It is a River of Life.

Before establishing the balance we must have, then, I want to add two more things that took place during the early months of 1996 while I was first sitting among the elders.

Two Late-Winter Experiences
There was a really cold stretch through this time. I was asked to watch the North Star Logging Camp for a few days because it was too cold for machines or men to work. The camp was situated to the east of the Alaska Highway, much further north. I drove a new Suburban up, so I felt quite safe. It was one hundred miles north from the Alaska Highway on a snow-covered logging road, fifty miles on beyond the closest other buildings where there may have been people. 

Through this time of year the days are short and the nights are long, with the sun rising around 9 AM and setting around 3 PM. It was likely colder than -40 F. The logging camp was a series of trailers, including one in which was a large diesel generator. My job was to check all the buildings once a day and to check the oil in the generator every other day. I stayed in one of the bunks. The freezers were filled with good food, and I could eat whatever I wanted. 

I found a book in one of the bunks, The Frontiersman, by Allan Eckert, the story of Simon Kenton, a significant figure in the settlement of Ohio and Kentucky. From this story I learned the meaning of a blood covenant and I read the account of Simon running the gauntlet set for him by Shawnee Indians, only to fall at the hand of the last old lady in his way.

This picture of the gauntlet, in which a man runs for his life between two rows of Indians striking at him from both directions, is a critical picture of our run into the knowledge of God-in-us and we-in-God, for we have always had enemies, both demonic and human, trying to stop us or to divert us by any means possible.

More than that, this picture described how I felt through this time. I loved the experience of sitting among the elders, and I moved in full integrity, but I still felt inside that we had come to the wrong place. More than that, I wrestled with the fact that “moving in the anointing,” which seemed so easy for many, seemed at times almost impossible for me. The conviction that there was something terribly wrong with me had begun during my last year of college and had only grown more difficult ever since.

And so through these days, all alone in the bitter north, far from any human help, I walked the boardwalk outside, back and forth, shouting at the top of my lungs. “God, what is wrong with me. God fix me. God, if it be possible, save even me! God make me to be anointed like all these other people.”

I never heard a word. I did not know! I did not know – that He had already answered all my cry inside of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One other thing that happened during these late-winter months was that, as I was sitting waiting for an elder’s meeting to begin, one of the elders arrived with a note for me. The brethren at Graham River had called, needing my help.

The note said that the front window wall of the Tabernacle I had designed, the one facing the gardens, had shifted. They had braced it immediately, but they needed to know how to fix this problem. As I read that note, the realization struck me that I had made a great error and that, indeed, my grand design was quite capable of falling down, even to crushing people inside the building. 

Here was the problem. I had designed the building originally to be an L shape, and we had put in the foundation for adding the short leg of the L. In that larger design, the forty foot window wall facing the gardens continued on for at least twenty more feet with enough solid wall to brace it. However, we did not build that further wall, which meant my window wall did not have enough sold wall in-between the windows to prevent it from shifting. It could easily collapse, and only the strength of the roof kept it up.

As it turned out, I was able to give the brethren at Graham the advice they needed, and the problem was fully resolved. Nonetheless, I was shocked to the core, a sobering up that I needed, most certainly, but that also ended my youthful self-confidence. 

A Life-Saving Balance
What do you do with abuse of authority in a Christian gathering? Where is the balance between respect and justice, between honoring those whom God has anointed and protecting those who are being hurt?

I have used the phrase from David several times in this narrative, that is, “Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm.” Both Jesus and Paul brought this same principle into the New Testament by stating it this way – “Do not speak evil against a ruler of My people.”

I can safely assert concerning anyone who believes in Jesus, that the primary intention of God in your life is to shape your heart to fit His, that He might share His compassion through you, even towards those who offend. A second intention of God towards you, then, is a necessary companion of this first intention, and that is to remove every vestige of contempt for others from your heart. And the removal of that contempt must include the removal of contempt for those individuals who positioned themselves in some way over you and who abused that position.

At no point and in no way, however, does God’s removal of contempt from our hearts ever remove justice. Even forgiveness cannot remove justice.

There are few actions more wicked inside the church than when those who are anointed and who are in a place of leadership, use “God” as their whip to assert control over other believers in Jesus. And one of those whips in the hands of such people is “Touch not Mine anointed.” Another one is, of all things, “Bloom where you are planted.” These statements can be true when the one showing you the kind intentions of God towards you places him or herself beneath of you in all honor and regard. In the hands of abusers, they become great weights of despair.

My terror through these years was that the God I wanted to know with all my heart was against me and that I was in trouble with Him. This teaching is the greatest of all Christian evils.

This is 1996; two years later, I will make the decision to leave that fellowship because of the false actions and the false teachings of some of the individuals named in this chapter. And a significant element in our decision to leave was to protect our children from a false use of authority.

This gauntlet in which we are caught is no light thing. And in showing the mercy and kindness of God through me towards my brothers and sisters in Christ, imputing just innocence to them in spite of their wrongful words and actions, I am in no way condoning those actions and words.

You see, if we stand against wrongful actions done by others, yet we ourselves possess hearts filled with rancor and bitterness, and we ourselves do wrongful things against others without thought inside our own spheres, then our “standing against” is an equal crime with those who abuse God’s people for self-exaltation. We accomplish nothing but more destruction.

True judgment comes only through those who impute the just innocence of God, especially where it is not deserved, as Jesus did upon the cross. Yet that judgment, by its very nature, pierces like a sword, and requires the one receiving it to humble themselves and confess, “I was wrong,” and even to say, “What I did to you was wicked.”

It is certainly my hope that some, in reading this account, will be moved by my forgiveness extended freely towards them, to repent of the wrongful things of self-exaltation they have done or even continue to do.
I must extend this critical and life-saving balance a bit further. 

Abusing one’s authority is not a move community problem, nor is it a Christian problem. Abusing authority is a human problem. One of the most important pieces of understanding God gave me inside the public school and inside a Spirit-filled Christian school, is that the exact same elements of abuse and the arguments supporting it were found in those two realms, just like they existed in the move communities. And thus it is incorrect to say, “Well, it was that ‘cult.’” The world is always much worse.

Now, I do not want to bring in here things that ought to unfold through the flow of this narrative. But I do want to draw one line of distinction. 

Most who abuse places of authority inside the Church still love Jesus, more or less, and still can be good and kind. Of all the people towards whom my own attitude has changed through my giving of this account, my father-in-law stands at the top, having passed from the “worst elder” in my experience, to my realization that I, also, was wrong and to my ability to see his heart and to extend compassion and understanding.

BUT – there are a few who are vicious religious abusers. They are anointed of the Spirit, they hold a place of authority, but their actions and intentions are wicked. Part of the heart of wisdom God wants to share with you is the ability to distinguish between these few and the many.

Consider the enormous difference between my placement of Nathel Clarke and my placement of Lloyd Green. I receive Nathel as a friend forever with all joy, but I do nothing more with Lloyd Green than to place him into the capable hands of my Savior. I have no further thought towards him. I do not know him – yet I do know Sister Nathel well, that she loves Jesus.

So, here is the balance. Abuse cannot be allowed to continue inside any fellowship, especially abuse of authority. Abuse that is not stopped will destroy the lives of many.

BUT – if those removing the abuser have contempt remaining in their hearts, and not the imputation of the just innocence of God, then all you have going on is a power struggle, one set of abusers removing another set of abusers. 

“Touch not Mine anointed,” does NOT mean allowing abuse to continue. It does not mean submitting to that abuse. It does not mean that the hurt caused by the abusers is anyone’s fault but theirs. It does not mean that you should not point out wrongful teaching that drives fake wedges between precious believers and their Father. And it does not mean that you should not warn others concerning that abuse. The hard reality is that allowing abuse to continue makes you part of it.

What “touch not Mine anointed” does mean is that we neither hold contempt in our hearts nor speak against that person. Saul was an abuser, anointed of God, but David did not strike against him. Yet neither did David remain under his abuse, nor did he ‘sugarcoat’ or excuse it. But then, of course, David was caught doing a similar abuse and had to repent of it.

Allowing abuse to continue makes one a passive part of the abuse. Striking against the abuser, however, out from the same heart of disconnection from God, and with the same contempt and desire to hurt, makes the original “victim” an equal abuser, with an equally twisted self-story that will come to open confrontation inside the presence of a holy and  just God.

And so I want to reference again the picture of Eliza found in Chapter 20, “In the Womb of the Church.” The slavery she has escaped is, in my case, the Nicene definitions of “God” and of “salvation,” that is, the gospel of the serpent. The dogs are the voices of elders and apostles. Eliza is me. The babe in her arms is the precious word of truth and the knowledge of God which I carried. The distant shore is my present knowledge of our wondrous union with Christ. 

BUT – the icy St. Lawrence is the death of falling into my own speaking against, my own joining the abusers by abusing them. And that is one of the primary issues of this narrative.

I am no victim. All my life has been ordered of my Father, and I see the Lord Jesus upon me inside every step. I justify God and give thanks inside of and for the sake of all.