What happened was that Jim had been working for like 3 days straight, and
with very little sleep, was very hurt and insulted when a brother acted
like Jim hadn't turned in money or some kind of misunderstanding.  It
doesn't matter now, after all these years - the crux of the matter was
that Jim was innocent, and after days of working his brains out, not
eating right, being so broke as to not be able to have access to any
physical comfort, he was accused and insulted by a brother as if he was a
thief.

You can question anything else you want about Jim, but he's an Irishman
underneath it all when it comes to questions of his integrity.  Its hard,
especially for men I think, to feel unappreciated at their work.  Here he
was, straight and true, above and beyond the call of duty, and this is
what was thought of him.  Why?  The rumor was always around, hey, who can
trust an "older brother?"  Weren't they just scum?  Couldn't you always
expect the worst?  Jim was like, 25 at the time!

So, he came back to the apartment downstairs from where I lived, packed
up his bag and went home to Buffalo to think things over for a while.

That day, I was scheduled to pick up a bag of his laundry for him.  I
also had an appointment for the plumber to come to my (sister's)
apartment, so I was off work early.  I went to get his laundry, and his
stuff seemed to be missing... how strange.  I had the weirdest feeling.
I had met his folks once when they came to NJ to visit his aunt.  We had
done a day trip to the shore.  But I didn't even know exactly where they
lived or how to reach them.  I felt so uneasy.

I waited a while and called directory assistance.  I got the number.  Jim
answered.  I had about $32 in the bank near where I worked.  It was part
of a gift my grandparents sent me.  I was saving it for Christmas
presents.  It was around October that year - '79.  Jim wanted me to come
to his parents home.  I couldn't think of any reason not to.  Nobody else
loved me at COBU, not really, not the same.  I mean Irene did, and Terri
did, maybe Darlene, maybe Jane, but she had her own relationship with Tom
that was not well thought of... nobody cared if Jim and I were okay, or
if we were into sin, or how I felt. (When Jim asked me to marry him, I
seriously heard a sister say: "We heard that a sister actually thinks
she's engaged..." with a condescending voice, referring to me as I passed
by!  She was an older married sister herself).  Hurt!

Still, leaving COBU... what did that mean?  It had cost me everything to
"join" as I said.  Did it mean leaving Jesus?  I certainly never wanted
to do that.  Did it mean losing my eternal soul?  God forbid.  I was sick
to my stomach by now.

So, I packed my bag.  I wondered how I could get a cab.  I would have to
make it to the corner undetected so as to not have to defend my actions
to anyone who would just be doing their duty in trying to talk me out of
it.  I just wanted a little space to think.

There had been a couple of other times that I thought about leaving.  One
of them was when my brother did leave.  It was a horrible center meeting
in Philly.  ST even lit into Gail a whole lot.  She was crying publicly.
They had only been married a short while. Poor bride, to have to be put
into her place so - what a terrible Eve number she must have been, right?
And the brothers were getting it left and right.  I don't even know what
was said about my brother, but he was fed up enough without that
happening.

Somehow, we both ended up at my Mom's condo.  I knew my brother had
decided not to go back to COBU.  My Mom asked us, "Would you like some
lentil soup?"  I had recently read about Jacob and Esau and the lentil
porridge... I didn't think I wanted the symbolism of giving up my
spiritual birthright to stay away from the Fellowship, so I declined.  My
brother ate a large bowl.  Then they drove me to the bus station.  It
just so happened that the bus to NYC right before the one I had a ticket
on, had mechanical problems.  They promised our bus load that they would
refund our ticket price if we could wait an hour for the next bus.  Now
normally, I am one for a bargain and a sale.  But that day of all days, I
made a strong resolve.  If I didn't stay on that bus right at that
moment, I would have left the Fellowship for sure.  I didn't feel God
wanted me to leave yet, and it was like I was being tempted to stay at my
Mom's.

But now, with Jim wanting me to come to Buffalo, bag in hand, I made it
to the corner and caught a taxi.  I had to go one block over from my
workplace to the bank to get money for a train ticket, and I prayed my
boss didn't see me.  I loved that job.  They loved me. (It was for the NY
Society for the Deaf.  If I had stayed there, I would have really been a
"somebody" in the Deaf community by now, you must understand.  Here I am
so many years later about to become an interpreter professionally.  That
would have come naturally back then if I had stayed at that job).

I went to the train station and bought the ticket.  When the guy next to
me struck up a conversation, I had a wide open witness.  I thought, "what
if I could lead this guy to Jesus? Where would I tell him to go to
church?"  But it comforted me that being able to witness meant I wasn't
leaving God or His Holy Spirit.  But I still felt sort of sick.

I got in to the train station, and Jim was there with his Dad.  It was
late at night, and they had come a distance to get me.  I was very
nervous as to what this all meant.  I remember the old Buffalo train
station had a huge golden Buffalo statue. I was horrified.   I thought,
"Oh please God, no golden calves for me!"

I don't know who was the first to call us.  I only know that for days we
walked around Jim's hometown talking and talking and talking about what
was said to us by the callers.  It was a work for me to be around his
family, although they tried to be nice to me.  We got numerous calls from
Jeff Bernstein, who did sincerely love us, and of course, at that time
advised us to come back.  We didn't sleep much.

Several days into this, somehow Jim did get to call ST.  He was very "cut
and dry."  See, he had been downright MEAN to Jim when they were in Haiti
- mocking Jim and sticking his camera right into Jim's face.  On the
phone, he told Jim that he had "a spirit of fear..."  which who knows
what that meant?  Maybe that since ST was so unapproachable that Jim
feared talking to him, because he was so unaccepting?  We had been
faithful "members" for almost 4 years, and now at the time we needed
pastoral care and concern that's what Jim got...

But still, Jim was concerned that his leaving was not clearly honorable.
Although it had long been seen that whatever the brother's concern over
the carpet money misunderstanding had been ridiculous, Jim wanted to go
back and try to "practice love," you know, take a personal responsibility
for making the Fellowship better.  So, after about 10 days of putting his
parents through a terrible situation (I'll never forget the time we all
tried to pray together COBU style - poor Mom & Dad are dyed in the wool
Presbyterians) with tears in her eyes Mom drove us to the station to go
back.

I sort of didn't want to go back.  Jim had this zealous resolve that we
could make a difference, that even because we had the strength of loving
each other that we could "show love to others," but I had the grim
sisters as a prospect.  And undoubtedly my reputation was besmirched...
but the main contention the sisters in my building expressed to me was
that I had left on a day when it was my turn to do the dishes in the food
room, and I had missed a couple of turns and now should make them up.  No
one asked me how I was with Jesus...  No one said "welcome back," far
less "welcome home," if they thought (as I think they did) that I had
fallen seriously into sin.

So now I am truly repentant for all the times I ever made assumptions
about anyone's personal state of being with God.  We were taught that the
Fellowship's view of you was equivalent to Jesus' view.  It is a
wonderful thing that's NOT TRUE.

So, for a while, Jim and I did what we could to make the Fellowship a bit
more tolerable in the day-to-day.  One of the ways we did this was to
look for ways to encourage brethren, and to just physically help others.
Keeping the food room in our building stocked meant going to the main
food room about every night.  It was something we could do.  Living with
Jim's folks gave me all the more desire that I just wanted to be
"normal."  I couldn't see how it could be so sinful to be married and
have kids.  I didn't want to live in NYC all my life.  And I had lost my
job that I had worked hard to attain.  I couldn't bring myself to tell my
boss, who was a young Jewish guy, (I'd say in his late 20's), about this
"group" I was in, and how I'd been through turmoil over it.  I was
ashamed of the fellowship, instead of being proud of it like I once had
been.  It was becoming like a shameful family secret, dysfunctional.

It wasn't enough, the little good we were able to effect. We were still
enduring all kinds of weird meetings.  Around that time there was some
brothers meeting where you had to prove you were zealous just by showing
up.  All this "proving" stuff was getting to Jim.  As if the turning in
the checks, living in poverty, living in community and trying to beat the
dysfunctional system under ST wasn't proof enough of anyone's zeal.

All that psychological mumbo-jumbo (is and) was just smoke screens for
ST.  He never checked up on us with anyone to see how we were doing now
that we were back.  He never asked about any plans for marriage... big
zip, zero, silence.  Some pastor.  I'm sure he was busy writing workbooks
or something more important.

So, besides being so hurt ourselves, we saw others getting hurt too.  And
directions came down from on high that we weren't supposed to be going
after "older physically" people to witness to, but to "cherry-pick"
younger people - youth.  And Jim and I had this really great lamb, Kathy,
who we saw Jesus changing and growing... but she was 27.  We were
actually told not to go spend time with her, with the inference that she
was like a "waste of time" when we could be witnessing to teenagers.  Jim
was livid.

I actually don't remember Christmas that year all that well.  Or the Jan.
1 Big Mtg.  We may not have gone much, but Jim says he thinks he
purposefully volunteered for guard duty so as to not have to go... but I
don't remember much of it myself, except I do think that was where people
said to us, "So, you backslid, eh?" and although we said "no" our leaving
was synonymous to backsliding - it couldn't have been that we were really
going through some serious doubts about the Fellowship - entertaining
those kind of doubts was the same as backsliding, wasn't it?

So, the next time we left I packed more "looking for work" clothes,
because I didn't know what we'd do, and I had been working all over NYC
as a temporary secretary.  We took the bus to my Mom's in NJ.  She rented
us a car to go up to NYC, get our stuff, then go back to Buffalo, a
couple of days later.  When we got to the apartments it was during the
day. We packed our stuff.  Some of my clothes were missing.  After all, a
backslider's stuff was practically up for grabs...  We ran into some
lambs that were trying to be helpful to take our stuff out to the car for
us.  Dave Poli showed up and got argumentative.  (He was doing the duty,
so we can forgive him).  The lambs were confused as to why they shouldn't
help us, as Christians should be helpful, shouldn't we?  It was a mess.

We drove to Buffalo that night in a terrible snowstorm.  It was so bad
that they were closing the highway behind us.  The visibility was such
that you could only see the next reflector on the side of the highway in
the snow.  It was surely a symbol for only having enough sight for the
next step of our lives.  But no worries on our resolve.  We were doing
the right thing, and we knew that for sure now.

Now what?  We looked for jobs.  I liked working for non-profits.  At
least you felt like you were working for more than the Almighty Buck that
way.  They usually didn't pay as much, but the people you worked with
generally had bigger hearts.  I was searching in the phone book when I
came to the church listings.  There were lots of names... hey, here's one
that looks good... Christian & Missionary Alliance Church.  The idea was
nice, Christians and Missionaries getting together.  It wasn't far away.
Jim's neighbors who were Baptist said it was a good church.  Church...
well, what else have you got?  We did want to get married... maybe we
should go check it out.

So, we sat down on Sunday morning, and the pastor's message was just for
us.  Isn't Jesus so very good, and so very comforting?  And so very much
bigger than COBU?  And the people behind us, a middle aged couple, said
"You're new here, aren't you? How would you like to come to our house
this afternoon for some Yucka Soup?"  They were missionaries to Colombia,
and the yucka plant makes some kind of soup like okra ...  Turns out the
guy is an expert on sects and cults and he was so understanding and kind
to us, and he didn't make us feel like "ex-Moonies" but he understood
everything we poured out to him with our tears and anguish of heart.  You
tell me God didn't have them sit right behind us that day?

And the pastor was so kind.  Right away he was concerned for Jim and I
and our situation.  And many of the other people were immediately open to
having us over for dinner, taking us out to eat and talk, paying our way
to go to special retreats... having a bridal shower for me eventually...
they just plain loved us.  We just plain needed love.
I was living downstairs with Jim's sister, and Jim was upstairs with his
brother.  I had lost all my friends besides Jim and Jesus (at least at
this time).

The pastor arranged with another pastor near my Mom's home in NJ for us
to be married in a C&MA church.  We were married May 3, 1980.  We were
glad that self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  Now that we
have daughters of our own, we are glad that we can say we "walked in our
integrity."  Irene and our lamb Kathy attended the ceremony, as did Mark
Callahan.  (Mark arrived late as he had trouble finding the church.  He
wasn't wearing a suit - he had just rushed in - and we said "friend, how
is it that you got in without a wedding garment?" - in COBU we all knew
what that meant!)  Jim and I became a family, and I acquired a home in my
heart.  Imagine sisters, to want a home!  Our forever family had
disappointed me severely.

We went on our honeymoon to Lancaster, PA and to Gettysburg, to see the
Amish country and the Civil War sites.  It was early Spring, and
gorgeous.  We were still uptight.  We went into a candle shop where an
Amish woman was hand-dipping candles.  She began to talk to us, and it
was the weirdest thing... I don't know why or how she got on the subject,
honestly we didn't tell her anything about ourselves other than we were
on our honeymoon.  In a thick German accent she said "Well, sometimes God
knows that the church where we are is not meeting our needs, and He
brings us to a church where He can meet our needs.  It doesn't mean the
first church was bad, no, it means that He has something else for us.
Think about these things, and the Holy Spirit will quicken them to your
hearts."

Did you get that?  Have you ever had the boldness to tell someone "think
about this, and God will quicken it?"  God spoke directly through that
woman to comfort our hearts when she knew nothing of our specific
situation!   And He was telling us that our needs were very important to
Him, and He had a good plan for us, for welfare and certainly not for
evil.  I re-read the verse that says "if a woman marries she does not
sin."  That's in the Scripture. bro.  It seems simple, but it is there
for a reason.

Well, gotta go.  Just thought you'd like to see the story.  God is very
great & very good.  He has been in "my coming in and my going out"  and
He still knows my needs.
love in Him - your sis