10. Heading to New Mexico

© 2019 Daniel Yordy

July 1979 - December 1980

The Albuquerque Community
During the Bowens Mill Convention, July 1979, I spoke with some of the ministry regarding my leading to be part of the Albuquerque community. Visions were sought which confirmed that leading. Because Jimmy had returned to Oregon, I caught a ride with someone down to Citra for a short visit. Then I bought a week-long Greyhound pass and spent the week zig-zagging across the states on my way back to New Mexico.

The Albuquerque group had purchased 80 acres of dry scrub seven miles north of the town of Edgewood, New Mexico. When I look at the map now, I see no relationship to what the area was then. There was no other house within three miles of us, and Edgewood did not have any real stores, let alone a Walmart Supermart as it does now. 

I will give the map showing the approximate location in relationship with the Sandia Mountains, Interstate 40, and the city of Albuquerque in the Rio Grande valley on the left. 60 Kings Highway seems to be the right spot, but I can hardly tell. No house you see now existed. The street view was taken during April or May, the only time there is a hint of green anywhere.



The adobe house being built was not visible from the road, blocked by a slight rise in the land. It was maybe 150 yards back down a dirt lane that never muddied because it (almost) never rained. The 80 acres were slightly rolling, covered in sparse tumbleweed and the occasional tuft of grass or other weeds. Nothing with a woody stem grew. There was no well or water anywhere near. We got our water with a 300 gallon tank on a small trailer from a place in Edgewood. The property was as opposite from the green paradise of Oregon as one could get.

Here is the layout of the adobe house as it was when I arrived, on the left, and then the rooms and walls I added over the next few months on the right. This is a rough guesstimate.



The walls were adobe blocks 10” thick and the roof was southwestern style, almost flat behind a small parapet with rain channels running through for the half dozen or so times it actually rained a bit. Halfway down the lane towards the house there was a cow shed and a chicken run next to each other. To the left of the house was pitched a large green army tent used for storage. The outhouse was already in place to the right and a bit back from the “Boy’s Room” and a makeshift shower was set up behind the house. There was a propane stove in the kitchen, otherwise there was no other modern convenience.

But, hey, I loved adventure and this was new and exciting. At no point is a young man deprived with the lack of plumbing, electricity, or anything such.

The three elders in the fellowship when I arrived were Pepi Navarrete, her sister, Helen Rodriguez, both Hispanic, and a sister from Arkansas, Judy Jones. Pepi was the leading elder, although she never lived at the Edgewood “farm.” Pepi’s husband was not a believer; they lived in the city of Albuquerque with their three children, Tony, Reici, and Roseanna, around my age and a bit younger. Pepi and her children were part of the move fellowship and came out to the farm two or three times a week. It was a forty-mile drive.

Helen, Pepi’s sister, did live at the farm. She shared the “Girl’s Room” with Judy Jones and her three girls, Jeanie, Susie, and Sarah, who were on the younger side of teenagers. The “Other Room” was occupied by Cherri Kidd, the niece of Judy Jones, who was in her early thirties, along with her son, Chris Kidd, about six or seven years old. In the “Boy’s Room” were a young man my age from Denver City, Texas, Richard Hernandez, and another young man from Canton, Ohio, Doug Brown, who was courting Reici Navarrete. There were also two young men, teenagers, there for the summer, who were Rodrigues cousins of the Navarrete’s. Pepi and Helen’s mother and father were also in the fellowship and also lived in Albuquerque. They came out each Sunday for the main service.

As you can see, there were basically two family groups, those related to Sister Pepi and those related to Sister Judy, plus the three of us young men unattached. I would continue to know Judy and her girls and Cheri and Chris Kidd at Blueberry in later years as well as Richard both at Bowens Mill and Blueberry. Richard would be my best man at our wedding.

I joined the young men in the “Boy’s Room.” The community now consisted of twelve individuals, from age 6 to age 40 something. I was 22.

I will divide my time there into the second six months of 1979, the first six months of 1980 and the final six months of 1980. These were three quite different times for me. 

The First Six Months
The first six months of my time with the Albuquerque fellowship was mostly wonderful. I fitted right in and felt at home.

Life in community falls into a simple rhythm. Richard and Doug had jobs off the farm, so they were gone during the day. The ladies did the cooking, and I led the two Rodriguez boys, first in pouring the slab for the addition on the east side of the house, and then in building the adobe walls. Building with adobe blocks is a great idea, one I would use in certain situations. We bought the adobe blocks themselves, but made the mud for the joints from the wind-blown silty dirt on the high end of the property.

I have never eaten better in my life than I did when Cherri Kidd and Judy Jones were the cooks. Because this was mostly an Hispanic community in New Mexico, we ate lots of Mexican food. I learned to enjoy hot peppers – I had no choice. We ate lots of pinto beans.

The Navarrete’s had made an agreement with a local grocery store to pick up their barrels of thrown-out stuff each week and replace them with empty barrels. Tony brought the loaded barrels out to the farm in his pickup once a week. It was mostly vegetable waste along with yogurt containers, etc. About half was fine for cooking, the rest went to the chickens. This fresh food made a huge difference for our diet. Cherri and Judy were quite creative with it.

At the end of the summer the Rodriguez boys returned home for school. Around the same time, Roseanna Navarrete moved out to the farm, joining the women in the “girl’s room.” I remember Doug working some with me, but Richard continued working out most of the time he lived there. 

My dad had sent me a letter asking if I could come home for a couple of weeks to help him put the roof on a barn he was building. I flew home in September to do that. It was a good time working with my dad. When I returned to the Albuquerque community, however, I felt as if I were returning to my real home. Roseanna said she was worried that I would not want to come back. I said that this was my home now.

And so Roseanna. Roseanna was everything a young man might desire in a young lady, good-looking and attractive, but most of all, Roseanna loved to talk – to me. I had not talked with girls since first and second grade. Roseanna and I became friends. 

The Navarrete’s were talkers. When we visited in their home in Albuquerque for a meal, they all talked non-stop through the meal. My family never talked at meals; it was not part of their culture. This was very different for me, but I enjoyed it, at least for the first several months.

We had good services. The Navarrete’s and others came out from Albuquerque, or we drove into town to their house. Of course, once our main room was usable, that’s where most of the services were held. 

We put a roof with skylights on the addition. Then we built the front wall of what became our main room and roofed it. This wall was framed and mostly filled with windows. At first the main room had just a dirt floor, but later I poured a concrete slab. Once the outside was done, I began the long process of plastering, sheetrocking, and painting the interior. At this point I worked mostly by myself.

In October, most of us in the community, along with the Navarette’s, piled into a couple of cars and drove to the Bowens Mill convention in Georgia. I think Cherri and Chris stayed home to tend the place.

Then, sometime in the fall, Doug and Reici decided they were not meant for each other, and Doug returned to Ohio. 

In the move fellowship, young men and young women are to remain just brothers and sisters. Any closer friendship was to be witnessed to by the elders first and then closely covered. If a young couple wanted to marry, they must first “walk out a year.” This time together, never alone, was not engagement. Engagement came after the year and after it was witnessed by all that this union was of the Lord. I mostly agree with this practice. It gives the couple time to get to know one another without the intrusion of sexual feelings. And it allows a couple the chance to discover if they are not suited for each other. It is painful to end a time of walking out a year and to part ways in the view of the whole family, yes, but not devastating like a divorce. 

It became apparent that Roseanna and I were more than “brother and sister.” We asked the elders about walking out a year. Pepi suggested that we wait until the Lubbock convention in December where we could talk with the ministry of the move first. This was difficult for us.

One time, most of us in the community piled into Richard’s large car to drive to Edgewood for something. I happened to swing into the back seat next to Roseanna. Soon, I felt her hand creeping over onto mine. This was nice. Then, after we arrived home, I was the first into the house. Roseanna came right behind me before anyone else. She put her hands around my neck and kissed me. This was very nice. At this point I was “in love.”

Roseanna and I spent too much time together. We were asked to back off, but we did not. Finally, the elders called us into a meeting, and Pepi said that she was no longer in favor of talking to the ministry about our relationship, that it should cease. This was impossible for either Roseanna or me. 

At that same time the Lord began to speak to me in a certain way. This voice of the Lord would become utterly familiar to me over many years.

The Lord said, “No.” This was just a whisper, a knowing inside. A deep wrenching feeling that something was not right.

I rejected the thought utterly.

The “No’s” continued, slowly growing louder. I refused them all.

The Flesh
I have two points of move doctrine I want to bring into view because they are pertinent to my time at the Albuquerque community. The first is the doctrine of “the flesh” and the second is “submission.”

Pepi was very sharp. She was a strong woman, with a non-supportive husband and with Sam Fife’s drive against “the flesh” and disregard of others as her example. I have never had a defense against an angry woman. Pepi “raked me over the coals,” more than once. I remember once I was on a ladder trying to teach myself how to mud sheetrock when she came from town. As I heard her voice upon entering the house, I could not move. I was trembling and frightened inside.

Sam Fife and the move had one answer only to internal human difficulty – “Die, brother, die.” But of course no one ever explained how we were to accomplish such a thing. The reason they did not was because the idea of the human soul “dying” is simply absurd. It’s not real, and no one has ever done it. Nonetheless, when “Just die, Daniel,” was thrown at me, I thought it was the truth of God. Because I always woke up the next morning, I became more and more confused.

Pepi said that we are friends only with Jesus. We are not “friends” with anyone else, just brethren in the Lord. The result of such thinking, then, creates relationships of form only, and not of heart.

I would refer you to the list of things Sam Fife taught that I also teach now, and the list of things that Sam Fife taught that I teach against.

Sam Fife believed he had restored the missing ingredient, that is, the teaching of the “cross” to the church. He had done nothing more than re-invigorate the cross of Constantine, a cross of unbelief, a cross meant to hack “the flesh” endlessly.

Now, we had the Spirit of the Lord moving among us. We had genuine Christian love. We generally moved in good order together. But there was an unholy trinity, one might say, in our doctrine, common to all Nicene Christianity, that worked always against the truth and against individuals on the inside where it counts.

The first was applying Jeremiah’s statement to the believer in Jesus – “Your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” This fixed belief meant that we could never know Father by heart and we could never know one another heart with heart. Yes, Christ was in there somewhere, but the heart of each one was “known to be” evil. We did sing, over and over, “Create in me a clean heart, Oh God.” But we never once believed that we had received such a thing from God.

The second was the curse of the serpent in the garden – “You have a life not Christ.” And so this belief, that, yes, Christ is in us, but so also is a life not-Christ. And that other life “has to die” before the Christ-life in us could ever be truly known,

The third was that the will of the Christian and the will of God were utterly and perpetually opposed. There was no peace between God and the individual. This belief was pure Calvinism, though no one knew that. This meant that to be “led by the Spirit” was to go contrary to one’s own self. This was the doctrinal position out from which “submission to the elders” grew.

We were taught at the Albuquerque community that it was God’s will for us to submit to the elders, regardless. Now, this was something Sam Fife had taught, but it was not a belief held by any of the other ministry in the move fellowship. Others were clear that if you were asked to do something you considered to be wrong, then “submission” was not of the Lord.

Nonetheless, this grappling with “submitting to the elders” was a huge deal, something I did not come to terms with successfully during my time in New Mexico.

But, as you can see, calling your own heart and your brother’s heart “evil” is to drive out any knowledge of Father with us, Father at home. Believing that we have a life not-Christ that must yet “die” meant that we could never really know Jesus Sent into us, now our only life. In some ways, though, the worst of all was the human will always at war against God’s “will.” This kept us from knowing any actual and personal relationship with the Spirit.

The belief in an evil heart is anti-Father. The belief in a life not-Christ is anti-Christ. And the belief in a war of wills is anti-Spirit. And these three have ruled in God’s church for nearly 2000 years.

Now, none of this is real. These are all just mental ideas that cannot prevent the Lord Jesus from living as each one who belongs to Him, nor can they prevent the Spirit from moving among us. God was with us because of the Blood of His Son, not because we “had it right,” as we imagined. What these false ideas did, however, is they prevented us from knowing the glorious Salvation in which we already lived.

But the other thing they did was prevent us from ever knowing one another. There was good relationship and Christian love in the move, but, for the most part, no friendship. The idea of knowing one another’s heart or asking someone what they were feeling deep inside, those ideas never existed. We were lonely ships passing each other in the dark and in the fog.

In December, we went to the Lubbock convention, held during the Christmas break. This was my first Lubbock convention. Pepi did not talk with the ministry about Roseanna and me.

The Second Six Months
Roseanna and I were now in a quiet and muffled rebellion. We tried not to spend too much time together, but we could not let our relationship go. The “No’s” inside continued. Slowly, they began to limit my ability to speak. This was not a problem at first because Roseanna had always done most of the talking.

I must confess that I have never really looked at this situation with the eyes of an adult and with the care over a community of precious brethren. Roseanna and I had created a real difficulty for the three elders of the community and for all the others as well. I am feeling a bit ashamed of myself right now, something that is right to feel from time to time.

I was wrong in my conduct, and I would ask those who lived there with us to forgive me. 
From my side of things, I had wanted to be married since I was twelve, yet I could not talk with any girl. Roseanna talked with me, joyously and comfortably. She was very attractive to me. Emotionally, I could not draw back. This relationship filled an empty space inside of me. I held to that deep emotional sense, even against the ever-growing voice of my spirit saying, “No.”

This relationship was not the whole of our life, however, and so I want to continue with life at the Albuquerque farm.

Because there were so few of us, we became close. Once, probably in January, we went up onto Sandia mountain to play in the snow and to look out over the crest to the city of Albuquerque below. This was a good and fun time.

Sometime in here Lester Higgins came through. He shared his word of Christ our life, but he did so in sorrow. I knew he was speaking the truth, and I longed to know what it meant, but such a word was far away from me. I could not know it. He went on, and I never heard him again.

During this time period I worked for a couple of months framing houses with a crew of men in the area just to the west of us at the base of Sandia mountain. This job was okay; I do not now remember why it ended. 

I finished the “school room” in the addition first. A family from Clovis, New Mexico had sent their two children, Matthew and Naomi Sanchez, of junior high age, to the community for school. Roseanna taught them as well as Chris Kidd and Sarah and Suzie Jones. Sister Judy was not much on formal education.  

Richard and I, then, shared the new bedroom in the front right corner of the house.
Cherri Kidd’s mother was an elder at the Blueberry Community in northern British Columbia. In February, for reasons not shared with us, she and Chris headed north to Blueberry. Their leaving left a big hole in our community.

Once, as I was quietly working, minding my own business, a strange thought entered my mind. I thought, “These other people are just like me inside.” That was the most astonishing thing I had ever imagined. It was so foreign and so absurd that I immediately threw it out. I did not know or understand other people. When I learned that I was Asperger’s, the official definitions explained that my “problem” was an inability to read “social cues.” That’s only a little bit true. Most people don’t bother to know other people inside their bubble of self, and most don’t care. Most succeed because they are gifted at pretending they know something when they are actually bluffing completely. Asperger’s are no good at pretending and are among the few who begin to wonder about the possibility that other people are real.

But things were not going well for me. I was confused and lonely. I was clinging to a relationship with Roseanna that the elders and the witness of my own spirit were against. At one point I remember trying to explain something about myself to Roseanna. She understood it wrongly and shared how she understood it with the elders. Up until then, Sister Judy had been somewhat sympathetic towards me, but now her face was hostile. No one asked me; such a thing was not done. 

The relationships of the community were becoming strained. I thought for sure that it was all my fault. Then, probably in March, an older couple with a young son came to visit from the Lubbock community, George and Freddie Young. They were thinking of moving to the Albuquerque community and wanted to check it out. They had lived for some years in the move communities in the jungles of Columbia in South America. 

Brother George was a wonderful man, filled with a vision for the community and many good ideas. He was like a breath of fresh air to me. I worked together with him to rebuild the engine of Sister Judy’s 1968 Mustang. That was the only time before or since that I enjoyed working mechanics. He had the idea of building houses on the front of our property next to the road and selling them as a way of earning an income.

But Brother George also knew things about the community and the relationships among the three elders that I knew nothing about. When he asked me for my view of things, I discovered that my growing sense that something was wrong was not something wrong with me. That there was, actually something quite wrong with the functioning of the community. I had become discouraged, so this knowledge was a tremendous relief. 

The Young’s were there for a couple of weeks before they went back to Lubbock. They did not return.

A young woman, Mary, from the small move fellowship in Denver City, Texas, came to live with us at the farm around this time, however. She was a fresh addition to our strained community.

One day in early April, Judy and Helen had gone into town for an elder’s meeting with Pepi. Long before we expected them back, Judy came hurling down the drive in a trail of dust. She slammed to a stop, got out of the car, and shouted to her three girls, “Pack your stuff.” Within an hour they were gone, following Cherri to Blueberry. They must have flown because Judy left her Mustang in town until she could get it later. Someone drove it back to the farm for us to keep.

I do not know why Judy left. I do know that Pepi was a very controlling person, but I do not know any of the particulars. I learned later that after she arrived at Blueberry, she spent time with the leading ministry there, Brother John Clarke, one of the apostolic ministries of the fellowship, expressing her concern, particularly for Richard, Mary, and myself. Judy was firmly convinced that the Albuquerque community should be closed.

Then, also in April, several piled into one car and we went to the April Bowens Mill convention. At this convention I slept in an addition to the men’s bathroom that had been built, but into which the plumbing fixtures had not yet been installed. It served as a “men’s dorm” for the moment. The result was that I hardly slept since the bathroom on the other side of the wall was used through the night by men talking.

After the convention, Pepi wanted to leave right away. I asked that we wait one more night, so that I could sleep in order to be able to drive. She refused; we left that afternoon with the intention of driving through the night since we had three or four drivers. I was too sleepy, however, to take my place at the wheel except for less than an hour each time, maybe, before I had to trade with someone. It was a long and strained drive home. Finally, somewhere in eastern New Mexico, we simply had to stop alongside the road so that all could sleep. The result was that, in the end, the time Pepi thought we would save was wasted.

Helen was now the only elder at the farm. Helen was much more quiet of a person than her sister, Pepi. Helen would have sided with Pepi, of course, but I never had any difficulties with her. My memory of my relationship with Helen is neither good nor bad. But having just one elder was not a good situation. Nothing was shared with us, but one day, probably in May, another elder showed up to be part of the community, a Sister Hilda from McAllen, Texas. She was cheerful and strong, but we knew little about her.
Roseanna had continued at the community because of her teaching obligations. But in early June, with her task completed, she moved back to town with her family. Matthew and Naomi Sanchez returned home to Clovis. I would know them in later years because Matthew became my brother-in-law.

The Final Six Months
There were now just five of us at the Albuquerque farm, Helen Rodriguez and Sister Hilda were the elders, and then Richard, Mary, and myself, their “flock.” A dull numbness settled over our community experience. 

I want to bring in a few more things that were part of my life at the Albuquerque community that spanned more time than these last few months. First, early on, I had taken on the care of the farm animals. We had a couple of cows and a flock of chickens. We also raised a pig for meat.

Sometime in the spring we prepared to butcher the pig. I had helped in the butcher shop at Graham River, so I had some idea of what to do. Nonetheless, I needed Richard to help me and since he worked out, Sunday was the only time we could do it. For that reason, even though the Sunday service was in progress, Richard and I were released to begin the job.

Pigs are smart. They know when their time is up. Richard wanted to do the job there at the pen; I wanted to do it up at the house so that we would not have to drag a heavy carcass up there. I tried to kill the pig behind the house by shooting it in the brain. It’s hard to kill a pig with a bullet because their brain is not where you think it should be. The pig took the bullet and ran. I ran after it with a knife, and with Richard running behind me. The pig, with us behind, ran right by the large picture window filled with astonished faces looking out wandering what on earth we were doing. Finally, back behind the house I managed to grab the pig and kill it with the knife. Needless to say, the experience was awful and lessened my enjoyment of butchering.

But the cow stall was a place of refuge for me. Whenever I needed a retreat, I would go there and sit in the hay against the wall with the cows. Only there could I find peace.
Also, probably in the spring, we had a bonfire and a picnic outside in front of the house. All the time we were around the fire, enjoying the food and talking, I felt that something important was missing from our experience. Only later did I realize what it was – there was no sound of water running over rocks. In fact the nearest running water of any kind was the Rio Grande, 50 miles away and dry several months of the year.

It rained a bit in April and May. For a few weeks the land turned a slight shade of green. Our property was situated just so that any thundercloud dropping rain would move across to the south of us or to the west of us or to the north of us or to the east of us, but never over us. And when it did rain, the top quarter inch got wet. Just beneath of that, the dirt remained dry dust.

By the summer of 1980, I could no longer bear to lift up my eyes. It was brown everywhere. There was no water. I never want to live in a land without water again.

There had been a small garden behind the house the summer before. I enlarged it, and we added another garden in front of the house. I spent long hours working in the garden, all by hand. I double dug everything and made raised beds in both gardens. Planting the garden was fun. I remember that Roseanna was still there for that. We had to water by hand, making trips a bit more often out to Edgewood to fill the water trailer.

I dreamed of having a hose with water coming out. You have no idea just how valuable such a thing really is. I would have watered everything all day long.

We had also heard that the move fellowship had started a college with one of the branches being at the Blueberry Community. I imagined that I would never have the opportunity to go to such a thing, but I thirsted for knowledge so deeply that I dreamed of offering my services as a builder just to be near such a wondrous thing.

The last six months was a time of great personal sorrow for me. I wanted to stucco our adobe house. Pepi asked if I had ever stuccoed before. I said, “No, but I can quickly learn how on the back wall.” (I had never mudded sheetrock before, but that task had come earlier.) She said, “No, you can’t, since you don’t know what you’re doing.” This was the only time in years of experience that “not knowing what I was doing” ever stopped me from being successful in any construction task. 

We wanted to build a small adobe shed in order to raise some rabbits. Pepi said, “Not until all the money comes in for the entire project.” Before then, as I had worked on the house addition, money had been donated, a bit at a time just as we needed. Now, all donations ceased.

I put everything into our garden. Sometime in the late spring, Pepi announced that they could no longer justify the time and effort to bring the barrels of fresh produce out to the farm. With Judy and Cherri gone, our eating became very plain.

I had two large rows of chili peppers growing in the back garden. They were thick and green and loaded with growing peppers. When they were big enough, we harvested a few. They had no heat. Helen said to me, “It’s okay, Daniel. It’s okay.” No heat in the peppers meant they could not be eaten. Eating the peppers as fresh food was unknown. All of that bountiful harvest went into the compost.

I grew a nice bed of Swiss Chard. I love Swiss Chard. When it was ready, I brought some in to Sister Hilda. She had never heard of Swiss Chard. I explained to her carefully how simple it was to prepare, but it did not show up on the table that evening. The next morning I found the Swiss Chard in the compost bucket. Nothing else was said, but we ate no Swiss Chard. For years after the memory of that Swiss Chard thrown out always brought tears of sorrow to my eyes.

The truth is, in spite of all my work, we ate very little from the garden. I cannot blame Helen or Sister Hilda, for that was all they knew.

For six months we ate pinto beans, breakfast, lunch, and supper. Once in awhile we had liver, the only protein because it was cheap. The truth is, if one had to eat only one kind of food of necessity, then pinto beans are a great choice. I did enjoy my last plate of them as much as the first.

Mary became very sad because she had no companions, only two older ladies who were both elders. I sorrowed for her. I wanted Richard to help me with some of the work, but he always had a job. During that summer the job he had ceased, and he spent the next few weeks at home. Now I had plenty of help but we had no money, so it benefitted nothing. Richard’s meagre earnings had been all we had. 

I do not remember what happened that pressed me beyond measure. But something did. There was to be a meeting in town that evening. Everyone else was in town; I was to come in later in Judy’s Mustang. Again, I don’t remember the circumstances, but the rift between Pepi and I had become complete. I was ready to call it quits. On my way into Albuquerque that afternoon, I realized that I could simply keep on driving. Judy wanted to sell her car; she would have no problem selling it to me. I could go home to Oregon.

I was caught between two all the way into town. Going home to Oregon meant not knowing God. Community meant knowing God. My decision was firm and final.

But I did not go to the Navarrete house, rather to someone else’s house to drop off the Mustang. I did not want to go to the meeting at the Navarrete’s. I communicated that to Roseanna on the phone. Pepi came to get me. I submitted quietly and climbed in her car. All the way to her house, my heart longed for her to ask me what was wrong. She never said a word; I assumed, rightly or wrongly, that she did not care.

One day in late August, Pepi came out for an elder’s meeting. After closeting themselves together for an hour or two, the three elders called the three of us non-elders, Richard, Mary, and myself, into the meeting. “We have no money for the community,” Pepi announced, “and we have decided that you all will go out and get jobs to earn it.”

Richard and I got jobs with a carpet cleaning company in Albuquerque. Mary also announced finding work in Edgewood. Pepi immediately chewed her out for her arrogance. She was too “immature” to go out to work. I knew how devastating this blow was to Mary, how wrong. But Richard and I were gone most of the day; we did not know the lonely months she now suffered.

Mary, oh Mary, please forgive us for the great wrong we did to you.

I lasted only a couple of weeks cleaning carpets. The job was contrary to me in more ways than one. I then found work with a construction crew framing houses in Albuquerque. Richard stayed on cleaning carpets for awhile until he got a job working with Mr. Navarrete installing carpet.

The one bright spot through this time was my friendship with Richard. It was a forty-five-minute drive each way to town and back. We had much time for good fellowship. Contrary to move doctrine or experience, we became good friends and remained so for years. 

Below is a picture of Richard and me together.



I was not sleeping well. I wondered if part of the reason was that I was eating stuff not good for me, specifically Dr. Pepper’s. But natural health was considered “of the devil” in the move. Pepi assured me that we could eat candy bars and drink coke and God would bless the food to our bodies. I thought why not get the banana and the orange juice right next to it, but I dared not say such a thing. I was not able to stop drinking Dr. Pepper’s.

Sometimes it was more convenient for Richard and me to spend the night at the Navarrete’s on foamies on the floor rather than the long drive back to the farm. That did not last long. The furnace in the house going off and on kept me awake. Because I could not sleep, I had a really hard time at work.

Relationships became more strained.

Roseanna and I still related together in hopes of things working out. One day through this time, however, I was in their house for a meal. My lack of talking at the table had become, in their minds, a fleshy bondage. Roseanna wanted to talk to me before the meal, so we sat in a private room together. She insisted that I talk with her, that I say something, or our relationship would be over. I cannot tell you how much I want to say anything, just one word. But no matter how I strained, no word came out. I could not speak. The inward “No” had become impossible.

Roseanna rose up angrily and left the room. I could do nothing. Our relationship was over.

My relationships with the men on the construction site were not good. One day I had enough and quit. Pepi got on the phone with one of the move ministries who advised her that I needed to go back to work. She insisted, and so I submitted, humbled myself, and asked for my job back. It was just a few more weeks until the Lubbock convention.

One final note. My mom and dad came down to New Mexico to visit me at the Albuquerque community. I had a good time with them; in fact, this was the first time that I actually conversed with my father side by side as adults and the first time he actually shared with me things about himself.

Helen returned to town before the Lubbock convention. Mary and Sister Hilda left. Both would return to their home towns. Richard and I were the last ones at the Albuquerque farm, for a couple days, I think. Finally, we boarded up the door and drove away. Our community had failed.

We spent a couple of days at Richard’s home in Denver City, Texas before going on to the Lubbock convention.

It was there that I observed the faces of Pepi, Hilda, and Helen after they had spent a session with the leading ministries of the move fellowship, including John Clarke. I do not know what was said to them, but the Albuquerque community was closed down. From their faces, I got the idea that messing with God’s people was simply not the thing to do.

Pepi Navarrete
What can I say about Pepi Navarrete? I have known many bullies in my life, male and female. Female bullies are different from male bullies; Pepi left me far more “shredded” inside than any other before or since. 

I also know this, that having only women elders in charge was out of balance. Having only men elders would be imbalanced on the other side. God gave mothers and fathers to families because both are needed. In my experience women “in charge” have been more controlling than men. 

But I do not pretend to know or to judge what Pepi was inside. I know she loved the Lord; I know she moved in the anointing of the Spirit; I know she believed that she was moving in the love of God.

I have never looked closely at this time before. I never knew that my deepest sorrow was for Mary. I had not realized just how much difficulty my infatuation with Roseanna was causing everyone. 

Where is the blame? I place the blame entirely upon a wicked theology, Nicene thinking made hyper by John Calvin, a theology that keeps Father far away from our hearts, a theology that keeps us from knowing Jesus now our only life, a theology that prevents us from walking in the confidence of our Salvation, our every step embedded in God’s tender regard for us. – It is an enemy who has done this.

But my Father is with me now, and with Him, I have the authority of His Mercy Seat, that is, my own heart.

And so, as I shared in the last letter, there is no question in my mind that Pepi loved the Lord. Of course she did. And that is all I need to draw my heart out over hers right now just enough to seize her into God and into His throne.

“Father, You and I together draw Pepi Navarrete into my heart, a heart I now share fully with You and You with me. You and I together, Father, draw Pepi into love, here just above the Blood of Your Son sprinkled fully upon me. Father, I love Pepi, with Your own out-poured love, and I set her and You together completely free of me, that You might rise with her into all newness of life.

“Pepi belongs to You, Father, and with the Lord Jesus, I give You and her place to meet together in my own out-poured soul, set forth for her. I break all darkness and the ignorance of Your Salvation, and I release Pepi into the glorious liberty You have given to me. She belongs to You, and in joy, I see her returned back to me as a dear friend forever.

“And Father, let us not leave out Helen and Sister Hilda, Judy Jones and Cherri, and especially Mary, and all the children. You and I together, Father, draw each one of them as well, by name, into our shared Hheart. And we release each one into the knowledge of the JOY of Your Salvation, the only place they live or have ever lived.

“And Roseanna. Father, I thank You that I live in Your forgiveness for not hearing Your voice in my heart. Father, I wronged her. Roseanna, I ask for your forgiveness as well. Father, I go back with Jesus to those moments. I see Him living there as me, sharing all things with me, responsible for all that I am and was. I place my desire for a woman’s love and all my loneliness and inability into You, Lord Jesus. You were sharing Yourself with me, yes, but I did not understand or know what to do. 

“Father, I do not know about drawing Roseanna into my heart, for she does not belong to me, yet I do know how much You care for her and that You utterly carry her through all as well. I release her into You, Lord Jesus, into Your most capable hands. You are her life and her Salvation.

“Father, I ask that You seal all these things inside my heart, that You finish all You intend inside of me, that You heal the broken places and make smooth the rough ways. Father, I believe that I have received all that I ask. Thank you, my Jesus, thank You, with all my heart.”