AssemblyBoard

I was once Vernes roomate, so when I found him in the middle of all the fireworks here on the BB, I thought, 'Man, I love this guy, What's new?'
As his roomate I saw Verne on his good days and his bad days. I have no doubt the man loves Gods people, I have witnessed it first hand, he never did it for an audience, Verne did it for his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who I know Verne loves.
Being roomates we pissed eachother off at times, Verne is a pitbull, but the bottom line was that he consistantly sought to do what's right in Gods eyes. Looks like he still wants what's right in Gods eyes....Gotta love that Verne

Yeah...  I've never met Verne in person, but I thought that the "Nobody loves you, Verne" line was a hoot.  No offense, Sondra, but that was kid stuff-- hope you're over it now.

In Christ,
al

I'll stick up for him as well.

I've never met him, and I don't even know what he looks like.  But I am impressed with the way he humbled himself.

It isn't easy to do, each of us has one area or another where it is all but impossible, but Verne took the low place, and I think it's awesome.

I remember having to do much the same, with people I despised for excommunicating me for telling the truth, etc.  I didn't want to , I felt my sin was so small and petty compared to theirs, etc.  However, the real issue was my pride, and when I did humble myself, within ten minutes we heard about George's excommunication.  The timing was incredible.

Anyways, this is about Verne, not me.  I just think that Verne will be a stronger voice now that he has put this issue behind him, and demonstrated that he is a man of integrity, in spite of his flaws.

Brent

I have an old picture of Verne which I can post with Verne's permission.

I remember when Verne bought a new bungalow in Champaign (or Urbana) and one Mid West seminar we (Claude and I and kid??) were invited for lunch along with a whole bunch of others.

Marcia

So...when are we goin' fishing Mark?
I still hope you can make that Tortola building crew buddy...
You are indeed most kind...
Verne
p.s Remember how ticked off I got when Kevin Matthias ate my last piece of Nancy's Pizza?  That guy had some nerve huh? :-D

I never attended a MWS in Iowa so it must have been in Illinois.
It had to be before '95 I suspect, for that is the year I got married. I am curious to see what I looked like back then...;)
Verne

Folks,

Here's what I remember about being Verne's roomate (not picking on him, just relating funny stuff): He snored like the dickens and I was a light sleeper. That used to really irritate me. Verne, do you remember how you would fall asleep with your light on kneeling next to your bed while spending time with the Lord at night? I had to go to work at Kraft at Midnight two nights a week so I was sleeping and you' do that. Wasn't really your fault. It was my screwed up work schedule. I can laugh now, bro, but back then, it was tough sometimes.

Actually the best quiet time sleeper was Kevin. Faithfully kneeling next to the bed, yes. Conscious, no.

Bob.

After I got married, my wife sent me to a very good ear-nose specialist and they used a laser to trim some overly narrow airway passages. It made a great difference Bob. You should hear me now...she sometimes puts her face close to see if I am actually breathing...
Verne
p.s yes Dr. Beasley I remember; the problem was that both you and I were hard-headed intellectuals as I recall...you turned out O.K. though...:-D
I also once got pneumonia because Kevin liked to keep the window open in the dead of winter...those were strange days...

Hi Verne,
We can go trout fishing anytime you like, you have an open invitation.
As far as Tortola, I truly would love too, but it would be tough to find the time. When you are ready to get your project off the ground, let me know because there is always the possibility of things changing.
Yes I remember the Pizza incident....apparently you had been dreaming of that last piece of pizza...you came in from work and went right to the fridge searching for it and it was missing. You turned and there was Kevin enjoying every bite. We all just busted up laughing, including yourself.

I was kinda funny how my annoyance just evaporated as I saw him snarfing down the last morsel; it really was a good laugh indeed....
Verne

Bob,
I remember the uniform hat you had to wear when working at Kraft and the hard time we gave you about it.
You also cleaned my clock when I played you one on one Basketball, but do you remember the game of pool we played....loser does the others stewardships for a week...you still owe me buddy.

Mark,

I don't recall the b-ball game but I'm quite sure that was the outcome! ;) Don't remember the pool game either. I must have scratched shooting the 8-ball. Did we really bet stewardships for a week? That was pretty stupid of me if so. Please forgive my debt bro. I do remember one night when you came into the room after just getting out of the shower. I hid under your bed and right when you came over to it and threw your towel on it, I screamed and grabbed your ankles. I was always into scaring guys like that. Still do it with my sons once in awhile. They get me pretty good sometimes too.

Bob.

P.S. Did any of you guys play b-ball with Kurt and me at the YMCA down on the corner? I always really liked him.

An interesting chat.

This was part of the better side of the brother's houses.  A lot of fun was had by the inmates in spite of the system.

Once some guys in my house waited until Chris Small had gone to sleep, then they carried his bed through the sliding glass door and put it down in the middle of the back yard.  When he awakened the next morning, he was outside.   :)

Thomas Maddux

Yes we bet stewardships and your debt was forgiven.
The scaring thing was hysterical...you always had to be on your toes...we had a good time.
I remember the basketball at the Y....I liked Kurt also.
I remember getting rid of the pigeon problem with your pellet gun, we could never figure out where the carcasses went, until one day on his way in Verne observed the neighbor ladies cat looking upward and licking its' chops.

Remenber when they made Jim Tucker head steward?
He and I used to really but heads in the beginning.
Frankly I thought I was just a little too old to be getting consequences.
What a strange thing that grown men subjected themselves to this kind of idiocy, and some for years and years.
The funny thing is that Jim Tucker and I ended up becoming really good friends.
Two more unalike people you will never find and that's a fact.
Verne

p.s Kurt Green had his problems but I think he had the best of intentions at the start. The "work" ruined him persoanally and financially; George and Betty destroyed that man's family and that is the truth.
Strange that Andrea used to be George's assistant or some such thing...

I think the assembly consequence system was for many the writing on the wall that something was seriously wrong.
 

Howdy,

I once had a telephone converation with GG about consequences.  I told him the scriptures say nothing about people being assigned consequences.

His reply was that the NT constantly speaks of consequences.

I said that yes, that is true but it is GOD who hands them out, not church officials.  The only consequences ever inflicted by the NT church were rare and for serious moral wrongdoing, not getting the table set five minutes late.

He told me that consequences were practiced in the Navigator training homes he knew when he was a young christian. 

Not believing him, I called Navigator headquarters and talked to Betty Skinner, author of "Daws", the offical biography of Dawson Trotman.  She lived in several of his brother's houses, including the big one in South Pasadena that GG visited.

I asked her about consequences.  She didn't understand what I meant, so I repeated the question with some examples.  Her answer was, "No, we never did anything like that.  Isn't that sort of....well....high school?"

Blessings,

Thomas Maddux

You mean to tell me that the man was also a pathological liar??!!
Verne

Some of the other guys I really liked were Matt Wells, Volker Hutch (remember him and his brother Mike?). Who else was with us in Champaign? Oh yeah, Paul Sonstegaard. Liked him too. I used to like Jim Tucker as well. Now that I think of it, I don't think there was anyone there I didn't like. For me, consequences didn't seem too out-of-line at that time as I was just an 18-year-old college student who had just been out from under my parents' roof for the first time.

You know what really horrifies me? If I was in that situation as I am now (42 years old, wife of 16 years, 4 sons), how I could have been the recipient of consequences myself if in that environment. I mean, as it is now, my sons would be completey freaked out if some 20-something guy made me scrub the bathroom floor for not replacing the toilet paper roll. Isn't that amazing? Put yourself (now) in that situation (then) and see if you get the willys too.

Mark, speaking of Paul Sonstegaard, I'll never forget the wrath you endured when you asked Paul what he was going to do with his degree from the U of I. He said, "concert pianist" to which you immediately said, "Yes, I've always wanted to be a concert penis too." Remember how furious he got? Well, it was funny to you and me!

Honestly, I think the humor we found in that situation was one of the things that sustained us and made it bearable.

Bob.

You guys remember the night we were all sleeping quietly in our beds on Church street, when off in the distance we heard these screeching tires and the growl of a 440 hemi heading in our direction?
The roar reached a crescendo as the car approached our house and then suddenly ended with a heart-sickening crash just outside our door.
Mark I think you were still around but I don't remember if Bob was.
We all rushed outside to find the car completely wrapped around a tree on the front lawn and the driver (totally inebrieated of course) walking around and actually in a mood to joke about what happened.
As we heard the wail of police sirens approaching, he turned to one of us (was that you Mark?) and asked with a grin:

"Should I run?"  ::)

What a time that was...!
Verne

I don't want to totally redirect this thread, from the good-time memories, so consider this a short aside.

What you describe above is EXACTLY what happened in several homes that I am aware of.

In SLO, David made his 17 year old son, David Micheal, the "head steward."

What this meant is that a 17 year old boy, who never had a job, never saw his parents earn a dime, etc. gave consequences and verbal correction to married couples in their 30's.  He even gave consequences to one man's wife.  So, what you say gives you the willys was normal "life together" in San Luis Obispo.  Similiar stuff in the Lehmkuhl home, although the "boys" weren't married, they were only over 30.

As a grown man with wife and children Jim Hayman and others lived under George and Betty's tutelage in their home.  This kind of thing went on more often than we might like to realize, more so in the areas that were raising up "workers."  These "workers" would then be sent out to podunk places like Champaign, Lincoln, Spokane, etc.  So, people from these Assemblies didn't know what life was like back at the fountainhead.

Brent

HEY!!!!


At what point did a sense of personal dignity trigger some kind of flight of fight response in the folk put in these situations???
This lends credence to the theory that some of us attracted to the assemblies in the first place may have been harboring some serious emotional and psychological shortcomings.
I will frankly tell you considering the ways in which we were supposed to display our humility in that environment, I get extremely nervous whenever I hear ex-assembly people invoking that argument to coerce a particular course of action on anyone's part - for whatever reason. It does indeed give, and should, one the creeps...
Has anyone noticed how many of the former assembly leadership's families ended up in difficult straits?
God has been wondefully merciful to some of us...!!!
Verne

p.s the most incredible thing is the still-made-claim by some about how good this all was for us...!!!   ???   ???    ???

What I do distinclly remember is calling you after I found out you purchased a new car....You had just got back from a road trip where you rolled your new car down a ravine, crushed the roof, broke out the front windshield, then drove it up out of the ravine and a couple of hundred miles down the interstate back home until you were stopped close to Champaign by a state trooper who informed you it was illegal to drive without a windshield, when you told him how far you had already driven, he was shocked and  let you go....must have been all the bugs stuck in your teeth.
I still laugh when I think about that.

Well, here's something interesting.

I have heard more than a few ex-assembly wives say things like, "I was a doormat for so long, I'm not going to submit to my husband anymore," or some correllary of the same.  They have taken a biblical concept, had it horribly warped by the Assembly, and have gone to the other extreme.

I think something similiar can happen to some people regarding the "humility" thing as you list below.  Yes, it was horribly warped, where being humble meant turning off your brain and tolerating abuse. 

However, what is also bad, maybe worse, is to refuse to humble oneself out of fear that one may be taken advantage of, etc.  That isn't going to help anyone either.

I think it takes some time for people to recover and get their heads on straight.  Then there is also the possibility that each of us still carries a character flaw or two.  (Not me, of course, but others could have these flaws.  Certainly I've noticed them in many of you people....)

Brent

I took that corner at over 100 mph and did not touch the break pedal...until it was too late...
One of too many situations where I stared death in the face and walked (in this case drove) away Mark...God must have some purpose...that drive back from the Ozarks was one of the most bizarre experiences of my entire life!
Verne
p.s. That car was an 87 turbo-charged RX 3-door coupe. I still have the one I replaced it with..if I wasn't buckled in I would be dead....

I absolutely agree with this. I just think we all  need to be careful...the key is walking in clarity before God, not men...
Verne

From A.Word.A.Day, daily e-mail newsletter (a "Verne" word):

vernissage (ver-nuh-SAZH) noun

   A private showing or preview of an art exhibition before the public
   opening; also the reception celebrating the opening of an art exhibition.

[From French vernissage (varnishing), from vernis (varnish), ultimately
from Berenik, the name of an ancient city in Cyrenaica in northern Africa
where natural resins were first used as varnish.]

Traditionally, the day before the official opening of an art exhibition
was reserved for the artist to varnish or put finishing touches to their
paintings.

  "On the night of the Vernissage, which must surely provide perfect
   art-buying conditions - lashings of bubbles and money in the same
   rooms - the red stickers are going up."
   Michele Hewitson; Kiwi Hard-sell in Aussie Art-land; The New Zealand
   Herald (Auckland); Oct 10, 2004.

  "Marsden, the artist, has become the art, as she swims under the
   water in a gold vernissage of late summer light."
   For Marsden Swimming at the Quarry: Christian Science Monitor (Boston);
   Jul 2, 1991.

This week's theme: toponyms.

---

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Imagine if the prodigal son came back to the assembly....he still be doing consequences, but even worse he never would know the character of his Father.

Are you kidding?
The farm dorkeepers would be meeting him at the farmgates to inform him unless there was evidence of repentance and deep humility, say 'bout ten years' worth, no way he was ever getting back into Daddy's good graces...and that was just for starters! ;D
Verne

Wouldn't be able to "partake" for a while either, once he did get past the keepers, so the feast would have been postponed indefinitely.

Folks,

Sorry for the thread redirection again, but I love thinking about SOME of the old days and the funny things that happened. In the early days, mid-70s in Tuscola (near Champaign), my family used to get to worship early...just so we didn't have to sit behind this one girl (my age then; about 12; will withhold name so don't embarrass) because she would always take a big swig of the cup and then spit some back in. Delicious huh?  :P

Bob.

You guys remember when Paul Hohulin put a frog in a whopper box and gave it to his then fiance Debbie.
In Stl, Paul had an envelope with 'RATTLESNAKE FANGS' written on it. The envelope contained a device that would buzz when you opened it...got me good with that one

HAPPY VERN- EQUINOX!!!

-aL ;)

Yeaahhh, Baby!! Bring on the Sunshine!!  :)  :)  :)

Gadzooks!
I just looked over my third grader's materials from her math enrichment class and they are teaching her about the Fibonacci series...!! What next...fractals??!!
Verne