Kevin Welsh/My Fullerton Testimony

I came into contact with the fullerton assembly in the winter of 80-81 in the 8th. grade.There was a classmate at my junior high who got me started going.He would bring his bible to school . I was quite enamored by this guy and not only started going to meetings but started bringing my bible to school as well.The kids called us the bible boys and we were quite a spectacle.I had gone from literally being one of the worst kids in my entire school to being a bible boy!.Well at that time I don't believe there was another assembly in Calif. they were all still considered outreaches so all the"saints" drove down every sunday for meetings. Like some of the other testimonies I have read the beginning was great so many people went out to me and I was so busy soaking up everything that was taught that my life 24\7 was all about the assembly. In that spring there was a outreach started for us teenagers called the High School Outreach" those were some good times in Fullerton let me tell you the assistance league was packed literally out to the back patio on sundays the atmosphere was fresh and exciting the young brothers would get up 2-3 at one time to share at sunday mornings and they were really on fire for what they believed (considerably different from the environment of the Sunday afternoon meeting when I went to visit here a couple of years ago right after the 9-11 attacks)Well that summer I stayed at a brothers house which was when I began to see what the behind the scenes stuff was really like and what was being taught during the meetings and it was a life of works!I went to the summer school and anyone who has ever been to one of those knows what that is like M-F 9-11AM lecture about 30 minutes a day required reading (yes there was a person designated that everyone at the summerschool had to report to to tell whether or not they had done the reading)and if you did'nt keep up with the reading or missed classes you would be kicked out. I worked 4 hours a day to pay for my room and board and went to all of the required meetings preprayer to the putting up of the chairs I felt like I was in bootcamp.I'll never forget a young man who moved in at the same time that I did I went into his room to find him passed out on the floor he had fallen to sleep while trying to read his summer school work on his knees. But there were good times still Tim Geftakys was the original leader of the H.S. Outreach and he was a lot of fun at first we would go camping to the beach and just about everything in fact for about 6-9 months I became a sidekick to Tim I went everywhere with him to colledge ministries etc. I learned alot but what I slowly learned most was a doctrine of works and a system of personal control.If you did'nt follow this system you became worse than a nothing in the assembly you became an outcast a paraiah, and if you're a previously mixed up teenager; who comes from a background of everything from drugs to abuse.It will absolutely destroy you. Not only was I not able to fit my life into the works mold but I began to stumble morally. On the first couple of occasions Tim would call me to the side and he had a way of making you feel so guilty partly deserved partly not ;even after confession and repentance on my part it wasn,t good enough for the leading brothers who would not allow me to take the Lords Supper and made me sit in the back of the room as an example so others woud see and fear their reproach.This sort of thing is hard for anyone but for a teenager whose entire identity was wrapped up in the assembly it was devastating.I began a cycle of falling into sin confessing to the leadership which was a necassary part of repentance they needed to know everything this went on and on I didn't belong in the world because they saw me as some kind of screwed up bibleboy and certainly didn't fit in with the royal overcomers the uncompromising true testimony bearers of Fullerton and clearly was somehow defective would never be like George who I would believe everyword he spoke especially when he made his loud emphatic boasts such as "I've never left my Jesus..." "if my Betty died I would never marry again" "when I walked into this room today I coud see the prayers streaked on the walls..." such a great man of God such great followers and I was such a loser. I know what the young man meant when I read his testimony on this website when he said he felt like his insides were scraping trying to be what he was taught he needed to be I believe I know what Tom Vick must of felt like when he killed himself because I thought seriously in those 5-6 years I went back and forth like that of killing myself and actually did feel like I had died life certainly had lost all pleasure and I was as misrable as a human can possibly be in fact the assembly pushed this already fragile teenager into a succession of nervous breakdowns.My mom had come into fellowship in fullerton a few months after I did and stayed for about 6 years so even though I wasn't around alot of the time they knew what was going on with me and vice versa. In the summer when I turned 22 I moved to Texas and have stayed I was a big time partier who was really just trying to get through each day with his sanity.From time to time I would try to get right with the lord but had become so callosed from going back and forth and seeming so hopeless to ever live like I thought I was supposed to that it never really lasted long finally after having been married for about 2 years having children at home and on the path of ruining my marriage becuause of my alcohol and drug use I decided that although it seemed hopeless but I had to try before I ruined my life God was my only hope that was about 4 1\2 years ago and at first the bible was so hard to read listening to other preachers who seemed so much less than the guys I had seen in Fullerton was so difficult but I perseverd somehow don't ask me how any other time and I reckon there were literally thousands I would have fallen away but I've kept going to bible churches have led my oldest child to the Lord am incremantally seeing my marriage healed and an even participating in a men's bible study with 5 other me who I don't feel in spiritual competition with none of us is in authority of the other but there is genuine repect among us.Until this website came about there was a lingering shadow in my mind "Lord will I ever be in fellowship in a place so great as fullerton again was it as great as I thought it was is George the greatest man of God in modern times ever?..."So that's why I went to Fullerton after the 9-11 attacks I wanted to come to terms with these things.I flew to Ca. the new assembly meeting place to meet a friend who was waiting for me outside because I had called him to let him know I'd be visiting things had changed alot since my teenage years not just because of the differences in me but there wasn't the glowing young colledge atmosphere or anything like that no electriciy no Steve Irons yelling at the top of his lungs with his self righteous fervor which I can tell you back then I think he was giving George competition for zealousy intimidating the flock in fact I don't think anyone else ever came close by the way I forgive Steve and yes George and the others for their spiritual abuse of me but I want to say that from what I read of Steves repentance on this website it was weak and did not truly own up to the depth of his participation in the leadership there. Anyhow as far as that goes back then I would have given anything to be just like Steve, George or Tim I was a boy without a man in the home and was an easy victim.Anyway back to where I was after vising the Fulerton assembly it did'nt seem like that big of a deal anymore but George was'nt there and I really didn't have a chance to go to as many meetings as I would of liked(a quick aside to this is although I met my friend and he did ask me to sit by him we had a burger together afterward I had the clear sense that I was being watched by him you may think that sounds paranoid but if you have ever spent much time there you know that that is a real thing that they do to people who've left and come back)but when in Nov. a past assembly friend woke me out of bed with a phone call telling me that George had been excomunicated and that some leading bros. had stepped down I was so stunned I sat up from the time he called at about 10pm Texas time until about 1am just trying to come to terms with this thing and them I got on the website and started reading over the following week I went from "I can't believe this about all this " to "I can't believe I was ever so blind"
Well I hope this has done more than to serve getting some of these things off my chest Thank you very much for starting this website I know Steve and Margaret have taken over the main site but it has helped me more than I realized I even needed helped and has helped me get in touch with some old friends.
God Bless,Kevin Welsh