33. Gone to Texas

© 2020 Daniel Yordy

May 1999 – February 2000

Meadowlands 
We arrived at the Meadowlands community north of Duluth, Minnesota, in the first week of May and spent more than two weeks there.  

Meadowlands was a small community but blessed of the Lord. It was still part of the move at this time, but Mark Alesch shared with me a few years later that he and his wife, Cindy, had felt a growing discomfort towards recent move teaching, very similar to the things I had become concerned about. By the mid 2000’s, they had separated from the move. Mark and Cindy Alesch purchased the main part of the property and made it into a place of accommodation. Glenn, my brother, purchased the smaller part of the property across the road, and he and Kim built a home there.

Here is the property now, as Alesches Accommodations -  https://www.alesches.com/. They have made the interiors of the homes very nice for guests, but the outside is much the same as it was in 1999.

Maureen and I were received at Meadowlands without thought that we had “left the move.” This was unique in move community; people who “left” continue to be viewed as “outsiders.” We were welcomed into the life of the community, and the hearts of the brethren were open to us and to anything the Lord would share through us.

We were given a full apartment in the downstairs of a large building that had three living units in it. Glenn and Kim had the other end of the building, both upstairs and downstairs as their home. At this point they had four children. Maureen and I, with our three children, had just the downstairs on the side facing the shop. The floor above us was another apartment. Mom still had her trailer at this time, situated right across from the Tabernacle. A family from the Ridge, Robert and Rachel Klingbeil, had the trailer where Glenn’s had lived. The Alesch’s older son, Kevin, and his family were also living there at this time. There were several others, but I don’t remember all. 

I had agreed to build a new kitchen for Glenn and Kim’s apartment during our stay at Meadowlands. Kevin had a beautiful woodshop right across the drive from our front door, where he made furniture and other things for sale. He had  top-notch equipment including a heavy shaper and a large power feed sander. He gave me free access to all his tools. Glenn also had tools and his own workroom, so that is where I did most of the work.

I built and installed a lovely oak kitchen for Glenn and Kim during these two weeks. It was a really fun project. At the same time, our children and Glenn and Kim’s children, of around the same age, had a wonderful time playing together. We had good visits with mom. 

The thought to stay at Meadowlands did not enter our hearts, but it would have been awesome if the Lord had pointed us in that direction.

Lubbock and Mexico 
We drove on from Meadowlands, then, to Lubbock, Texas, arriving before the end of May. We stayed for a few weeks with Maureen’s sister, Lois.

Lois was renting a cute, but very small house, situated in the back yard of another larger home. We walked into the backyard filled with flowers and greenery in order to arrive at this little house. Lois’s house had two small bedrooms, so it was a squeeze to fit all five of us in with her. The children were scattered on couch and floor.

I soon made an appointment with Dr. Hall. One of the sisters in the community, Patty Jordan, was his assistant. He gave me a full diagnosis, using an advanced form of muscle testing, that is, judging my body’s response to vials containing medicines of various frequencies. And yes, I am convinced this is a full scientific approach, in contrast to the pseudo-science of pharmaceutical medicine. It is based on how the body works, not on the drugs to be sold.

I signed up for a trip to Mexico in June. Dr. Hall conducted his treatment in a house in Juarez since he could not do it legally in the U.S. So, I flew down to El Paso to join a number of other patients; I remember that Ryan was also along on one of these trips. We stayed in a motel in El Paso and went over each day to a house in Juarez that Dr. Hall rented. There, he hooked each of us up on an I-V and inserted our differing treatments into that I-V. We sat around with our I-V’s, visiting or reading, and drinking LOTS of water. Dr. Hall kept tabs on how we were doing and changed our treatment as needed.

What I received was a healing process, resetting the various functions of my body into a healthier state. At this point, all mercury was gone from my teeth, so I no longer had that particular silent killer in my mouth. At the same time, I had made use of lacquer thinner abundantly all the years I was a cabinet maker, as well as spraying lacquer with little protection. What happens is that your liver removes and sequesters all those toxins very successfully for years – until that moment when poisoning the body has become too much for it, and then it quits. My liver was filled with toxins and my adrenal glands were almost entirely shut down.

Dr. Hall determined that I needed a second round of treatment, and so I went with another group of folks down to El Paso and Juarez a second time. It was my mother’s goodness towards me, woefully undeserved, that paid for all of this. 

I was helped to some extent. In the next year, I would do a full Young Living Essential Oils cleanse. At that time, I thought that this second cleanse was what helped me. I understand it differently now. The cleansing I received from Dr. Hall was as a foundation that the Young Living cleanse was then able to build upon. The fact that I felt much stronger for the next several years came from both treatments together. 

Part of my problem was also a yeast infection. And so Dr. Hall gave me a diet that I “ought to” follow in order to counteract the bad yeast. I made some changes, but to switch to a yeast-free diet in everything was too much for me at the time.

In the present day, I live by a far stricter diet than what Dr. Hall gave me. I have an incentive now which I did not have then. When I eat poison now, it means I cannot write for two or three mornings. I hate not being able to write, so I refuse to poison myself (most of the time). For instance, just a small amount of sugar in a bit of dessert means no writing for two or three days. I don’t eat sugar. I enjoyed some ale last Sunday afternoon, but that meant that I could not write at all on Monday and Tuesday mornings. I do such things very seldom, for I do love to write.

No sugar was the biggest part of the anti-yeast diet. I wasn’t quite ready for that then. Now, I no longer eat any wheat or similar grain, in fact, I seldom eat starches. If I had been able to embrace the diet I practice now, my energy from then until now would have been better. By the time I did begin my present diet, however, my emotions had been too battered by the world to be able to function in it anymore. But that is for chapters coming up.

Lois went on a trip, then, and the owner of the little house preferred that we did not remain. So in July, we moved into Matt and Jessica’s house, Maureen’s sister, at the Lubbock Farm. They had a two-bedroom house, and so all five of us had one bedroom. That is, Maureen and I had the bed, and we inserted the children into various places on the floor around us and on the couch.

Yet here we were, back in a move-of-God community farm. At this point in time, Tim and Frieda were renting a house in town. Ryan and Heather Louden, and April continued in the community. April was preparing for her wedding with Ben Lewis, the younger brother of one of the sisters with whom I went to college at Blueberry. 

We did not attend services in the community, however; instead, we began attending Lubbock’s largest Spirit-filled church called Trinity, with Pastor Gary Kirksey. The praise at Trinity was just wonderful, and Pastor Kirksey was anointed of God with the word Maureen and I needed to hear. The first time I went up for prayer, when the invitation was given to all to be prayed for by the elders in front, I was simply overwhelmed by the brother’s prayer of blessing and goodness into me. I had not heard such words for years, having been accustomed to prayers “against the flesh,” that I understand now as prayers of cursing.

A brother in the community was working at a large cabinet and millworking shop in town, called Hunters Millworks. With his introduction, I applied for a job and was hired. I worked for Hunters Millworks for about a month.

This was the place where I was told, right off the bat, “This is the way we like to do things here. This works for us.” Which actually meant, “We are NOT interested in any suggestions you might have to do things better.” And, of truth, I have never worked in a more inefficient setup than this large cabinet shop. Everything was laid out and every practice along the way was designed to increase greatly the amount of work needed to do a simple job. I used this example in my writing course for years, all the extra calisthenics we did in order to accomplish any task. I won’t bore you with a description here, however.

In the end, the foreman asked me to go into the glue room and spray glue onto an assembly. There was no gas mask for my use. I went to the boss and told him that I needed a gas mask for health safety. He refused. He said that if all the others sprayed toxic fumes without protection, then he wasn’t going to change things just for me. I did not have the money to buy my own gas mask at the time, so, I had no choice. I do not place myself in unnecessary danger for anyone. It is not in me to accuse, however; so I called the next day and said that I was not really the man they needed for the job. 

And the truth is, the toxins from this whole task of assembling cabinets were working against what I had gained from my trips to Mexico, and I could not afford to re-do my physical difficulties.

A Door Opens 
We had come to Lubbock “for the summer.” Meanwhile, we had placed before God the question of my acceptance into the master’s program at Lubbock Christian University, whether He would open that door for us or not.

In July, I applied for the Master’s in Secondary Education Program at LCU. I went for an interview with Dr. C.W. Hannel, a wonderful west Texas gentleman and educator. Dr. Hannel had taught and been a principal in public schools for years before becoming the dean of the Graduate Education program at LCU and its main teacher. Dr. Hannel was willing to accept my bachelor’s degree from Covenant Life College with no further requirements, but on a probationary status. My work in class would prove out the validity of my education. 

My acceptance into the master’s degree program meant that we were eligible for student loans and that God had swung a door wide-open for us. 

Presently, I have sixty credits at the graduate level in Education and English, basically enough for a doctoral degree without the dissertation. I have only ever gotten A’s; at this level, I am unable to mess around. The truth is, I count this training in the discipline of my mind as one of the greatest gifts of this kind God has given me in life, second only to my knowledge of the Bible. My writing to teach, including the Symmorphy texts, is possible only because of this training. When the Jesus of our hearts is our only life, then a trained mind serves as an important and God-given servant. 

One other thing happened this August before school started, and that was my niece, April Louden, was married to Ben Lewis. Ben was living in the Lubbock community while obtaining a degree in architecture from Texas Tech. April had been close to her cousins growing up, and so Sarah Zehr and Rachelle Yordy, Franz and Audrey’s daughter, came to be her bridesmaids. Cheryl, Jenelle, and Mom were also there.

First Semester of Graduate School 
I began the first semester of graduate school at Lubbock Christian University, then, in August. LCU is a Church of Christ college. I had no knowledge prior to this of that particular denomination. They were all wonderful people. I had no evidence through all my time there, however, that they were born again. I’m not saying some weren’t. It’s just that there was no indication of a personal knowledge of God as is found in any Baptist church. They were very sectarian, however, meaning “we are the only true church.” The college did accept non-Church-of-Christ students, but not teachers.

Of course, I am speaking of the college as a whole. The graduate program in which I was involved was wonderful for me, and I was not required to participate in any part of campus or church life. Most of my teachers were superb, and I rate Dr. Hannel as one of the three best teachers in my educational experience. 

My transcript says “Trimesters,” but in actuality, the program was divided into four equal time periods, fall, winter, spring, and summer. And so I began with “Integrating Educational Technology,” that is, using computer technology in the classroom, and “Administrative Theory and Educational Leadership.” I believe Dr. Hannel taught that second course. You see, in order to obtain a Texas teacher’s certificate, I was enrolled in the “Secondary Education” program. However, the majority of my fellow students were wanting to obtain a Texas principal’s certificate and were in the Administration program. Because both programs ran concurrently and some of the courses were the same, I simply took all the courses required for both certificates. 

Because I was now set for completing the master’s degree program at LCU, and because the student loans gave us a living we could count on, our decision to remain in Lubbock was complete. For that reason, I took several days off from my college courses in order to bus up to Fort St. John to get and drive back our blue van with all our stuff. Kyle went with me; he was now eight years old.

We had a good, but long trip up on the Greyhound bus. This one finally had movie screens, which helped pass the miles. We were not long in Fort St. John. We did go out to Blair Valley with Rick, just to see the property again. Kars and Minnie had left Blair Valley just before winter came the year before, soon after Maureen and I had moved to Fort St. John. They were now living at Shepherd’s Inn. A few months after our visit at this time, the move would sell the property to the neighbor who had run the hay fields. It went for around $250,000, very little for a property that valuable to us. 

We pulled the blue van out from behind Shepherd’s Inn and began the long drive back to Lubbock. When pulling into a convenience store in Wyoming, I forgot about the stuff on top of the van and my upside-down wheelbarrow wiped out their awning. We were very blessed to still have British Columbia insurance on the blue van, and they eventually paid the bill, over 10 grand.

Then we headed on down through Colorado on Interstate 25. You see, I had two considerations. First, I needed propane fuel, which was hard to find. I imagined that the main freeway and the big cities would have propane; I did not realize that the truck route across the flat great plains was more likely to have propane. Second, I was shooting for the final two counties in New Mexico, which I could get if I angled across the northeastern part of the state. What I did not figure on was the immense climbs on I-25 with the heavy load in my one-ton van. (We were carrying several tons of load.)

As we were trying to go up one such climb near Pueblo, the transmission of the van went out. I don’t remember how we got to a motel, but the problem was that it was Friday evening. There was nothing open, no garages to look at the van or rental places to obtain another truck. We would have to wait until Monday morning. After getting a motel room, we got on the phone with Maureen and her parent’s and my mom. Both my mom and Maureen’s parents were able to wire us money, enough funds to get us back to Lubbock come Monday. 

It was not feasible for us to have the van worked on in Colorado, especially since I needed to get back to school. For that reason, after a quiet but dull weekend in the motel, on Monday morning, we rented a large U-Haul truck. We moved a large amount of the stuff from the blue van to the rented truck and hooked up a hitch on the back of it to which we attached the blue van. I abandoned New Mexico, and instead, we headed east across the great plains towards the Texas panhandle. We arrived back in Lubbock late that evening, and I was back in the classroom the next day. Meanwhile, we had to park the van in the back of the community property until we had the money to get a different transmission.

James Is Born
Sister Barbara James was living in the Lubbock Community at this time, one of the leading elders. Brother Joe McCord, one of the father ministries in the move, also made this community his home. Meanwhile, Jessica was also carrying a child at the same time as Maureen, but then Breanna, Matt and Jessica’s only child, was born early. For that reason, Sister Barbara came to us with an unusual proposal. She had convinced the elders in the community to offer Maureen and me a home, even though we were not “in the move” nor officially part of the community. In fact, as she shared this with us, she said that she had gotten them to agree that we were not bound to the community, and that we could, in fact, continue our attendance at Trinity Church.

We were family, and in the minds of some, that was sufficient.

Here is a map of the Lubbock Community as it is now. It’s mostly the same, no new buildings, but with a few of the buildings from back then now gone.



 The building with the tin roof closest to the main road is the Tabernacle where services were held. Because everyone worked out on different schedules, this community shared only a meal or two a week together, on the weekends. The larger tin-roofed building nearer the center of the loop had been the school. There were not enough students for them to maintain a school, however, and so this building was empty. It did have a small library, which I made use of. It was here that I found my first Agatha Christie book, and so Hercule Poirot became an important part of our family tradition.

Behind the Tabernacle inside the loop were twelve homes, all the same, most of which were two-bedrooms, but some had a third bedroom added. On the far right, between the loop and the cotton field, at that time, were spaced about four double-wide trailers. The bright silver building on the back side was a shed and then another double-wide across from it. In the southwest quarter, you see three houses. The first belonged to Stan and Jan Martin, the second was Joe and Ellen McCord, and the third belonged to Roy and Kathy Mears. 

Matt and Jessica had one of the regular houses. The one in the front, nearest the Tabernacle was empty and so that was offered to us. At this time, it has been removed as well as two others. They were not well-built and have taken a lot of work to maintain over the years. 

At the bottom of the map was a barn that had been turned partly into a small wood shop. Dan Ricciardelli and his family were living at Lubbock at this time, and the wood shop was his, though I was free to use it as well.

Kyle and Johanna made good friends among the other children in the community. Through these months, Maureen homeschooled them.

James was due to be born mid-October.

Maureen and I talked about her busing up to Blueberry to have James, so that he would be a Canadian citizen. Even if she had him at the hospital in Fort St. John, it would all be paid for. I tried to make that happen. The more I worked on it, however, the less peace I felt. In the end, it seemed to be impossible for us to accomplish.

We wanted a home birth with a mid-wife, however. A few years earlier, a couple now living at the Lubbock community had a bad experience with a home birth, and some were reluctant for us to plan such a thing. We persisted however, and they sought visions. Brother Joe McCord shared the visions with us, and, although some were still dubious, he encouraged us greatly that we would be blessed of the Lord in going ahead with a home birth. Maureen connected with a Lubbock mid-wife who was also a Christian. (Lubbock is a very Christian city.) 

James Allen Yordy was born on October 17, 1999, on our bed in our own bedroom. The quiet peace of a home birth is worth an enormous amount. Besides the midwife and me, April Lewis was also in attendance to help Maureen, along with Roberta, who had come over from Bowens Mill with Claude for this time. Although the community was not gathered as the Blueberry community had been when Johanna was born, James’s birth was attended by much prayer. Everything went fine. And so all of our children were born into community.

James was a large little guy; now he is the tallest of our four children. James is the same height as my dad, and Johanna is short, like my mom. It’s a funny thing, thinking about the genetics that create one’s children. James and Johanna, the two J’s, seem to us to be much the same, and Kyle and Katrina, the two K’s, are similar in a number of ways as well. At this point, however, Maureen’s slogan became “four and no more.” Our family was complete.

A Great Downturn 
A problem was developing in the minds of some of the brethren in the Lubbock Community. You see, every Sunday morning, Maureen and I with our four children, headed out from the community in the Ford Station Wagon, on our way to Trinity Church. As we were going out, we passed others on the road coming to church at the farm. This did not sit well with some, that we would be by-passing the community church on our way to some “Babylonian” church (and yes, it was still thought of by some in that way).

I think that Sister Barbara continued to speak up for us, but it was Brother Stan Martin who shared with me that this “arrangement” was not working out.  By the first of December I caved in and we began attending Sunday services again in the Lubbock Community Tabernacle. 

I had been blessed and helped at the Trinity Church. Pastor Gary Kirksey was God’s provision for Maureen and me all through the three years we lived in West Texas, completely the best choice of a pastoral guide for us. Returning, now, to the condemnation of the move services was not good at all. I very quickly became discouraged and was going downhill emotionally and spiritually. Healing had not yet begun for me and more hurt was not in my interest. 

Kyle has shared with me that, even as an eight-year-old boy at this time, he was deeply disturbed by the agony and pain that he often saw in my face. 

Meanwhile, besides going to school at LCU, I got a part-time job with the Lubbock School district as a substitute teacher. This meant that I would get a call on any early morning and be assigned a spot at any junior high or high school in the city. Because the program at LCU was for practicing teachers, the courses there were all in the evening. This, then, was my occasional job for the next several months. I did not like substituting. You walked into a classroom filled with rowdy kids with no real plan in front of you nor any list of names. When you don’t have their names, you have no authority. Some days went okay, but a few were nightmares. I did one stint of several days at the disciplinary school for the Lubbock School District. There, no student was ever allowed to talk, and police were present to back you up. The thing is that I did enjoy that one location, not so much because the students were quiet (I don’t like too quiet), but because I had a heart for these kids caught in a system they could not comprehend. Plus there I had all the student names on a chart in front of me.

I was not made to be a substitute teacher.

At the same time, I did a number of construction jobs for the community, for which I was paid. One of those jobs was to install a basement under an addition they were building onto the back of the house next door. Y2K was coming up, and the community wanted a place where long-term survival items could be stored. This was all concrete work, including a concrete floor on top of the basement.

Meanwhile, the Lubbock convention came around, again at Christmas time. And the thing is, Mom and Glenn’s, and Frieda and Tim were all still in the move. So, we attended the first couple of services at the convention, which was held in a large hall in town, as many came from all over. Brother Buddy Cobb was one who preached during those services I attended. This did not work for me; I was plunged back into the despair I had known before I left the move. I did not attend any more of the services.

Then, soon after the convention, Brother Stan Martin informed us that the community now needed the house we were in for a family that wanted to be part of the community. He gave us until February to find another place to live. In the moment, such a thing is discouraging, but because the decision was forced upon us, we now had hope for a better place.

Finding Another Place 
Maureen and I went looking for a used mobile home we could purchase and place on one of the mobile home parks in the city. We could in no way rent a regular house, not with student loan money. At the same time, we could soon own a simple mobile home and have no more payments on it. We found a dealer, Quality Lands and Homes, just north of the city. The owner took us back through their rows of single-wide mobile homes for sale. As we walked down the row, I glanced at the one on the end. Instantly, there arose in my heart the thought, “That is our home.” 

Sure enough the man was very agreeable to us and offered to let us make monthly payments, and he would personally carry the loan with little interest and no bank involvement. This was a gift from God. It was a 14 X 80 foot single-wide, older, but in reasonable shape. In fact the name on the trailer in metal letters was "Blair Valley."

We soon found a spot at the back of Applegate Trailer Park on the south side of Lubbock, the most “treed” lot of any we looked at. In January, they moved our new home, the first one we “owned,” into its place at Lot 326 in Applegate, and we made the move out from the farm.

Sometime through these months we had replaced the transmission in the blue van, and it was now working for us. We were finally (almost) free of the move, and this is now the first environment for our family life that I can look back at with fondness, other than the solitary family times at Blair Valley.

We immediately returned to attendance at Trinity Church, and the gentle Spirit of the Lord there was free to begin the slow process towards that time when healing could actually start for me.

The Winter and Spring Trimesters 
Before finishing this chapter, I want to include a bit more regarding the environment of the graduate program at LCU, which was shaping my life in a large way, including my courses in the winter and spring trimesters.  

I love school, and I love the topic of education. By this point, at age 43, I had finally learned to limit my contribution in the classroom, at least to what would be reasonable.
The graduate program had the top floor of the education building; I believe the downstairs was undergraduate education courses. Because we had our classes in the evening, we seldom saw other students. At the same time, some of the teachers also worked at the Education Service Center which supported all the public schools in Texas Region 17.  A number of our courses were held there, including the technology course, since they had the setup. 

Since I was also taking administration courses, I was obtaining a wider view of Texas public education, which I appreciated. In the winter trimester, I took Action Research and Educational Law. I always think about how to improve whatever I am doing for better results, but the Action Research course taught me to do that systematically in the classroom. My writing course later on would be greatly improved by knowing these things. Educational Law was held at the Education Service Center. I enjoyed understanding Texas law.

In the spring trimester, I took Instructional Theory and Curriculum Design, both at the LCU classrooms. The second was taught by Dr. Hannel; from it I learned how to develop educational courses, something I already loved to do. You can see the fruit of that course in my Symmorphy texts.

But more than just a wider view of public education and a better understanding of classroom teaching, I was also being presented with a completely different view of teaching and learning than what I had known in move community. The most wonderful aspect for me was that there was no concern whatever about “the flesh.” These were children, created in the image of God, to be loved and nurtured and taught. Teaching was no longer about what the teacher did, but what the students learned. Of course, Jesus also said that it’s not what goes in that counts, but what comes out, that is, outcomes. 

What that means is that if the students aren’t learning, that’s my fault as the teacher, and I need to change what I do until they ARE learning. When I returned to teaching in a Christian school here in Houston, I discovered to my horror that they had the same philosophy as the move, that what counts is what goes in, and if the students don’t produce, then it’s their fault. This philosophy gives lots of room, then, for really shoddy teaching practices. 

More than that, inside the limitations of the public school classroom, public education in Texas is a finely honed enterprise, with dedicated professionals at all levels who produce the best results one could hope to find, again, inside the box in which they are required to work. And in Texas, and especially west Texas, the majority of those who work in the schools are Christians.

The jaded view of public education I had received from move prejudice was solidly disproven. There are things very wrong with the whole system, but those things have nothing to do with teacher dedication or teaching effectiveness. 

To be free to teach children with joy, without viewing them as “evil” (something I had never done anyway, which had gotten me in trouble more than once), was a wonderful new way of seeing education for me.

My Anger Is Just and Right  
In this narrative thus far, I have been careful to see each person with whom I interacted through the eyes of Jesus and as a redeemer. I realize now that I will, in the ages to come, look at our time together in this present age, face to face with each person, and we will work our way through to a full restitution in the joy and honor of Christ. I am satisfied that I will not be ashamed of what I have written concerning them in this account. 

More than that, my regard for each person is true, and the love of God abounding in my heart embraces all, regardless.

You can see, however, how eager I was to get us moved into our trailer at Applegate trailer park, our final direct disconnection from the move. I had not thought about the meaning for me of the graduate courses until now, but as I was pondering all that was going on inside, I saw the first entrance into my mind of a different view.

I became angry, and my anger is just and right.

Let me explain. On a recent trip sharing this word with others, a certain brother stated openly to many, “It doesn’t matter if what I teach turns out to be deception; I’m still going to keep teaching it until the Lord shows me otherwise.”

To the brother speaking, this must have sounded like a noble and reasonable thing to say. I, however, heard it as it stands in reality. – “I will lie to you, and I don’t care.”
Living inside of lies is anathema to me. Walking into a store filled with people wearing face masks is unrelentingly disturbing to me, for everyone is lying. Living under dishonesty was the root agony that caused me to flee with all my might into Christ my only life, the very moment I knew that I could.

But to lie to you about God and about your salvation, the very thought is a mindless and biting horror entirely outside of my ken.

For twenty-one years the ministry of the move of God fellowship lied to me about God; they lied to me about myself; they lied to me about Christ; and they lied to me about salvation.

And I lived for years in God’s definition of hades as a result, frightened out of my wits.

Here is the problem. For argument purposes, let’s say they lied about half the time. The other half of the time, they spoke the truth to me out from the Spirit of Christ. It’s as Jesus said, the wheat and the tares growing side by side. The terrible thing is that they had no idea which was the truth, and which was a lie – and, of course, neither did I.

If you cannot speak Christ to God’s people, then it is better not to speak at all.

Those who would be a ministry of Christ should consider spending maybe forty years on their face before God in tears, with their Bible wide open and their heart held in His fear, before they might have something to share.

You don’t lie to God’s people.

We are in no game. It’s not a question of life OR death. We have been only in death, and our escape is into life. – Narrow is the gate and pressed in is the way by which you are led (out of death and) into life and few find it.

Sometime in the fall of 2000, two years after we left the move, I had an experience with God that I will share that finally made healing possible. But it was another year after, in December of 2001, before actual healing began, and it was terrible.

I cannot share this season of healing, continuing from then until now, apart from anger.
Look at those people inside the way being led into life; you are looking at a bunch of angry people, angry against lying and angry against death. Certainly, somewhere halfway through, their anger is being placed more and more into indescribable joy, but it remains, and it is fierce.

God gave me the experience of November-December 1999, ending in listening to Buddy Cobb one last time, to show me the ridiculousness of that whole Calvinist awfulness, and the horror of living under it. And it’s the same thing in every Baptist and Pentecostal and Roman church.

I cannot share the healing of God apart from this anger, but I will leave it now as a foundation for an occasional expression of that anger going forward. It is the anger of God, the anger against hurting His people with lies.