What Really Happened In Tuscola?

[vernecarty]

Goodbye and God bless!
Verne

[auntiefluffy]

Hi Verne,
As a Tuscola assembly kid, i have wondered why many of the leading brothers and their families left.  

Is that the "crisis" you spoke of?  It must have been after we left.

My mom {Noemi} saw your name when she read at the main web site and said, "oh, Vernie is on there".  She was glad of it.  {she is a little computer challenged and is having a struggle getting on the boards.}  

Anyway, greetings to you, brother.  I, too, remember you with fondness.
many blessings and much peace to you,
jada {then, johnson, daughter of Noemi Davis}

[Scott McCumber]

Hi, Verne,

I can give you a general idea of some of what was going on in this post, but I'm still compiling a complete history with the help of my folks. Going to have to get others involved as well.

Betty's involvement on that one thing was probably true but it was a symptom of a larger issue - the autonomy of the local Assembly. Their is a specific story behind it but basically, the ruling synod out of Fullerton was beginning to feel its control slipping, especially on the campus ministry in Charleston.

In typical fashion, they swooped in and wanted to control who was allowed to see whom, diets in the brothers and sisters home, schedules, yadda, yadda. You know the deal very well having experienced it in Champaign.

Of course there was more and it is not very nice, but I want to get the stroy straight before I'd be willing to put it out there. In fact, I'd prefer if my parents, the Fredericks or Mathiases told it. Don't know if that will happen though.

Scott

[Toni Fuller]

I would love to get the scoop about the several times Tuscola had leadership and families that were "removed"  I was friends with many of those people have spoken of.  Many of us did not keep in touch due to the lies we were fed at the time of why they left?  Of course we had no reason to doubt, but now we do !!

[MsMayFlower]

Jim McCumber, Mike Houk, Denny Fredericks:
I grieved over the destruction of the assembly in Tuscola where you all served as leading brothers. We had our problems, but I was well-received and many years profited from your labor. I was told the crisis there was precipitated by the attempt of Betty Geftakys to try and over-rule the decision of the leading brothers that a brother and sister could begin "spending time" together. What really happened???
What was spoken in the secret chamber, shout it from the rooftops...
Still in the joy of His service
Verne

Verne, How wonderful to hear you are doing well!!  Jim and I are working on a Tuscola assembly history, but it will take 2-3 weeks because i destroyed all of my early journals with dates!  However, I have asked several people to help verify dates etc. and Jan Boyer is one of the people who is verifying early info.  She is currently on a trip and will help me when she gets back.  I started this in Jan. but my time is limited and it has been 15 years since we were in the assembly, so have to think and pray!  Amazing how so many feelings come flooding back when you think about all of this.  Brent is doing a great job with this web site; and of course,  Judy and Rachel really were the catalyst that was needed to make people look at the true wickedness of this ministry.  Steve and Margarite Irons have made such an insightful contribution.  Our story is like everyone else's -- just different names and different location!  Our history will only cover 1969 thru 1988.  After that, I hope someone else will continue and bring us up to date.  Please keep in touch!  Maybe we can get together sometime soon!  Brinda McCumber

[brad]

Verne, Scott, Jada and Brinda of course...( spelled it right

I am sure that my family ( Marilynn & Gerald, Kevin and myself) will help in whatever way we can...my father has already agreed to help put the facts together...unfortunately they are on vacation for a few weeks in Florida w/out a computer. Stay tuned...

It has been a long time with many wounds healed and i believe Kevin and Dad both spent some time in person with Steve and Margaret Irons 5 or 10 years ago comparing notes. I have personally buried my memories and would rather keep them that way...but this historical narrative needs to be re-created for the sake of many others.

My summary of what happened in broad general strokes....* I know for a fact, that my father was removed from leadership  in the late 70's or early 80's for standing up to George in the area of "finding the Lord's will" individually. * I remember my father calling GG in a fit of  anger over Davids treatment of Judy...( who lived with us at the house of promise)...GG promised to deal with it and then David & Judy moved to St. Louis....Later....I know Betty and George turned my mother against my father to keep him in line...it worked only for a little while...by 1988 the old issues revived and others were tired of it too. Without presuming to go into too many details I know the basic issues were automony of leadership and the real friendships and respect among the leading families of the Tuscola Assembly. Denny Fredrick, Jim McCumber, my father and Mike Houk, Dr. Bob Middleton and several others would not stand with George's slander and manipulation of the others...their individual knowledge of each others genuine faith destroyed the innuendo's of the Assembly rumor mill.
This growing awareness was arrived at simultaneously by each family and the initial one to leave I believe was my father, then the McCumbers and so on..until within about a months time the assembly in Tuscola was wiped out...I don't recall any organized movement of the "rebels" to leave..rather a similar burden and freedom to leave individually for their own reasons.

I am sure there are many details..including friction with the Workers and the youth outreaches, dating and minestry content, doctrine and insecure leading brothers...but overall I think many had gotten tired, disallusioned and worn out of GG...one little push was all it took for many to pack up and move on.

My personal experiences were varied over a long period of time...From working in David's garden after summer school lectures and recieving my fair share of his abuse, anger and physical punishment for not weeding his Chive perfectly...or keeping the rows straight... to hearing GG berate the leading brothers over the phone when I was sleeping in the room underneath his office at night. I distinctly remember GG railing against my father and Jim McCumber with Cecil Smith on the phone...( 1985-6) explaining that they were ( controlling and weak men)? This really bothered me and i never told anyone but Lee Irons about it ( who was my roomate there)...Later when I was trying to decide whether or not to stay in the assembly after my family had left ( May 1988)...Betty encouraged a relationship with a beautiful "older" woman from Providence RI ...who I had met on the MTT the year before. The obvious nature of this manipulation to keep my allegiance to the Assembly by offering me a beautiful bride...was enough to freak me out...and it did! I realized that to BG... It didn't seem to matter that she was 11 years older than me and that I had just gotten through my first year of college? I refrain her name from this detailed narrative to save any embarrassment...as Betty later did succesfully marry her with another brother on the East Coast. GG wouldn't speak with me ( although I sat on front row and repeatedly requested to have lunch with him or go up to his suite and discuss my fathers leaving two weeks before) during the Midwest Seminar that year and avoided me like the plague...it took me very little time after that weekend to realize how messed up this had gotten and how manipulated our family had been.  My father had been taken for a large sum of money by GG in the early 70's...something I will let him detail...but it was a LARGE sum of money  and it bothered me for years that no one could tell us what had been done with it? My father has forgiven and moved on, but he has many wounds from GG and BG. I say none of these things to grind an axe or to revive a "root of bitterness" rather to reveal further evil actions by a man and his organization that needs to be held accountable!

Verne, I hope this helps to some extent...and i hesistated to add this posting... But someone has to stand up.

B.

[miths]

Excellent question, Verne...what did happen in the Assembly in Tuscola.  I was right in the midst of the crises of which you are speaking, yet I have almost zero data to offer you.  If it was one thing my parents did NOT do, it was gossip about "goings-ons;" therefore, I had almost no information.  Of course, back then I did not know anything about the code of secrecy among workers and all of that hooey.  

Here is what I knew of:  I remember hearing that the McCumbers, Mathiases, and Fredericks had had a prayer meeting in a hotel room? and I had no idea why.  I was also present on the Sunday morning that my father (Cecil Smith- a good man) asked Mike Houk to sit down and not preach that morning when he got up to do so.  

You could have heard a pin drop in that room, and it was carpeted!  I have never forgotten it because I respected Mike Houk very much, as well as my father, and to see the two of them at odds was almost surreal.  As a result of my father asking Mike to step down, one of the other brothers got very heated and stood up to speak and my father asked him to sit down.  Then my father asked everyone to stand up in prayer, and the same gentlemen screamed "So which is it?  Sit down or stand up?!! quite loudly.  This was all quite amusing to me at the time (I think I was about 10 years old) because I was not emotionally invested in what was taking place.  Also, nothing exciting ever happened in the meetings, so it was quite a departure from the norm.  

It was directly after that that those families left fellowship, and with them many of my childhood friends.  I can remember feeling quite jealous, but happy for my friends, like Kyle Frederic and others, who seemed to have fabulous lives and possibilities before them to my young mind.  I remember that my parents were quite upset after those particular families left fellowship.  I felt that it impacted my mother especially, because those really were her closest friends.  I remember feeling very badly for my mother.

In retrospect, I am sure my father was obeying higher commands to not allow Mike to speak that morning, even though someone (I think it was Andrew, his son) told me after it happened that Mike was only getting up to say that he was leaving fellowship, or something along those lines.  

One thing I know for a certainty is that my parents cared about those couples very much, and what happened probably affected them more deeply than I could ever know.  They never said one bad word to me or to anyone else I know about any of the people that left fellowship, and leaving fellowship was a big deal, as you know.  I am certain that recent events have probably cleared up a lot of the issues that were between them.   I am sure that these families left for the same reasons that hundreds of other families have left fellowship.

[Mark Kisla]

 Verne,
 My personal experience with the people in Tuscola was one that they were genuine and their love for God was true. As like other places in the Midwest that  Geftakys polluted with himself, what was pure was choked off and what was left  withered.
 I want to thank those in that place that sought God and love Him, you were a blessing to me.
The truth  sets us free.

[4Him]

Excellent question, Verne...

Hey, "Smith kid with Middle name Elizabeth" I sent you a private message.

PS - I forgot to say in it how much your dad's encouragements have meant to me over the years.  I believe his words and actions have been filled w/grace.  e.g., He once said to me when in Springfield, after the "announcements" regarding the afternoon "outreach", "Maybe the Lord wants you to "outreach" to your family." (Not an exact quote but it gets the gist of it.)

[Robert E. Beasley]

Folks,

This may seem out of place for this comment, but I just read the lastest front page posting about Mike Zach. So, since I don't know of a better place to put this story, I'll do it here.

I remember a run-in I had with Mike Zach when I was JUST on the verge of leaving fellowship c. 1983. It was a Sunday morning or afternoon meeting in Tuscola, and Mike said something to the affect of "I wonder how many people in the world who claim to be Christians really have a faith like us." Again that is NOT a direct quote, but it was something like that. Some of you may remember this. I was well-aware of our improper feelings of superiority by then.

Immediately afterward, I went straight up to Mike and called his bluff. I basically challenged his deliberate attempt to indoctrinate us with the idea that we were somehow special, more spiritual, God's only real followers. His response (and this IS a quote): "I can see this conversation is going to come to an end right now." He walked away.

Anyway, I have only one large overriding impression of Mike Zach, which by the way I have ALWAYS had, even as a kid in the assembly. I always sensed the same arrogance from him as I did with George. That, I think is dangerous, especially in the light of his ambition to succeed George as Pope.

[Robert E. Beasley]

Smith Kid (I know who you are ,

Are Mark and your parents still in fellowship? I saw them and talked to them briefly at our performance in Tuscola a couple of weeks ago. Didn't have time to talk much with them but really wanted to. How are they doing? And you?

Always have loved your whole family and would like to get caught up on everyone!

You can look in my profile for my e-mail address if you want to respond in that way.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Bob.

[MsMayFlower]

Verne,
I finally got my account of our experience in "the ministry" in Tuscola finished.  You can read it on the  www.geftakysassembly.com  website.  It is a little long, but I think you will see "What Happened to the Tuscola Assembly" --at least the first 18 years!  The best part of our experience back then was meeting such wonderful Christians--we always enjoyed you!  Thanks for helping me fill in a few blanks!  Please keep in touch.

Brinda

[ptemplin7]

Its always amazing to me to read all your accounts from years ago and think that it just continued on and on until just as was preached , God will take care of it. Well He did and it wasn't pretty.

Great to see so many of you from other places moving on with the Lord. May we not forget the lessons learned and all the good things too.

Lord Bless you all.... Paris

[Robb]

Dear friends,

I appreciate the fact that everyone seems to have matured and has allowed some healing to happen in their lives since their assembly days.  Scott and especially Brad - I really appreciate your accounts, since you both are my age when we went through this, and Brinda McCumber's account is what really gave me the best foothold as to putting in perspective all the things I remember about this time.

I have never been a very pushy, overbearing, or assertive person, and did little to "rock the boat" at that time.  I probably was perceived as a wallflower - a follower and not a leader.  I definately was not the type to stand up for myself very well at the time, but in retrospect, I wish I had more.

I remember that my family was on vacation in Florida in 1988 when it seems the bulk of this went down with the McCumber's and Mathias' (Gerald and Marilyn and Richard and Joan).  I was staying with Gerald and Marilyn (thank God) while going to summer school at Parkland College.  I went to the first Sunday morning meeting after my parents had left for vacation, when the announcement was made about not having fellowship with the Mathias' and McCumber's because they had left the faith and were dividing the church - or something to that effect.  My biggest impression about what was trying to be communicated was that the Assembly was THE church and anyone who left or was not a member was - can I say this - not going to heaven.

All this about not fellowshipping with the Mathias' and McCumber's because they weren't Christians and had no faith I saw as a whole load of crap, simply because I saw how Gerald, Marilyn, Brinda, and Jim were living first hand.  I thought "HOW COULD THEY SAY THIS?"  when I knew in my heart that they were some of the best examples, aside from my parents, that I had as people who led a Godly and faithful lifestyle.  

Some time after lunch, I was over at the McCumber's house, having arrived there after Richard and Joan Mathias had gone there and explained to Jim & Brinda exactly what had happend.  Brinda came to me and asked me if I understood what had happened.  I told her that I didn't fully understand exactly what they had said, and she explained to me briefly what they were saying.  At that point, I knew that I could not, in good conscience, return to any Assembly function without first consulting with my parents, Bob & Linda Middleton, when they returned.

That Sunday afternoon, Marilyn, who was very accomodating, asked me if I would return to the afternoon meeting.  I told her I wasn't going to go, my reason I gave her for this was because I needed to study for a test the next day, but in my heart I knew it was because of the hipocracy I saw against two dear families.

When my parents did return, I told my dad, Bob Middleton, that the leadership had told us to not have anything more to do with  the Mathias' and the McCumber's.  He was alarmed and I believe spoke to the McCumber's or Mathias' and then right away called Cecil Smith and the leading brothers, who were in a leading brothers or workers meeting at the time and confronted them with this.  I did not hear the whole conversation, but my impression was they basically beat around the bush (I could be wrong).  When dad got off the phone, he called my family together (my mom, Linda, myself, my brother Michael, and my sisters Rachel and Abigail) and we then and there made a decision to leave.  My dad said that he was worried about us, having grown up in the assembly, but knew that my brother and I were mature enough to handle it and Abigail was still quite young to be able to understand all that had gone on.  Rachel he worried about the most, because she was a young teen at the time and had so many friends whom we would be leaving behind.  But the Lord leads, and God blessed us and continues to lead us and protect all of us to this day.  

After leaving the Assembly, we started attending the Hillcrest Baptist Church with the Mathias' and McCumber's, where we reconnected with Fred and Jan Boyer.  I distinctly remember Fred Boyer saying to me that he had always prayed for us and considered us brothers and sisters in Christ and part of the family.  This meant a lot to me to be so welcome, and still means a lot to me to this day.

I appreciate all of you allowing me to post this - it's the first time I've ever shared it with anyone and is a relief to get it off my chest.  Thank God for true freedom in Christ - I feel like I've matured in so many ways since then, and feel grateful for those who helped me during those times I was unsure of myself.  Jim, Brinda, Gerald, Marilyn - thank you for your faithfulness.

[stacy]

WOW WHO KNEW ALL THIS WAS GOING ON BEING THE REBEL I WAS BACK THEN TRYING NOT TO GET BRAINWASHED TRYING TO RUN AS FAR AS I COULD SO I WOULDNT HAVE TO DEAL  WITH IT WELL FOR ALL YOU KNOW ME AND HOW IS WAS THAT WAS ALL ME BEING A REBEL WOW THOSE DAYS IM GLAD ARE FAR GONE BEHIND ME (LOL)

BUT I DO WANT TO SAY EVEN THOUGH I WAS A REBEL GOD ALWAYS WAS HOLDING MY HAND IN MY HARD TIMES OF LIFE SO I DO WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO MY MOM FOR SHOWING ME ABOUT GOD YES ALL THESE YEARS LATER IT HAS MADE ME EVEN STRONGER WITH MY REALTIONSHIP WITH GOD IAM A STRONG BELIVER NOW AND GOD HAS SHOWED ME HOW TO HAVE A HAPPY LIFE HE GAVE ME A AWESOME HUSBAND HEALTHY KIDS 

SO ISNT IT FUNNY WHEN YOU DONT THINK GOD IS THERE FOR YOU ALL IN ALL HE HAS NEVER LEFT YOU
I FIND THAT IS AWESOME IT TOOK AWHILE BUT HEY I GOT THERE (LOL)

FOR ALL OF YOU ASSEMBLY KIDS THIS IS STACY(SPENCE)VIERRA IT WOULD BE GREAT TO HEAR FROM YOU GUYS SEE HOW YOU ALL ARE DOING

TAKE CARE HOPE TO TALK SOON    GOD BLESS YOU ALL