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Simply tell what happened Carol; where you were, internally and externally, at the time. It's o.k. if you don't recall the physical details; you do recall the impact on your soul.
Simply tell what happened Carol; where you were, internally and externally, at the time. It's o.k. if you don't recall the physical details; you do recall the impact on your soul.
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It was a Monday or Tuesday sometime in July, 2001. The wall phone in the kitchen rang; it was Denise. She was calling from Florida.
At the time my husband, John, and our almost teenage son and teenage daughter and I were living at the Westbrook Plaza house in Winston-Salem. We had moved there sometime in the early spring of 2001, our fourth move in five years.
Part of our moving so much was due to John's employment; another reason was because of the no-mortgage policy of The Way. We wanted to continue as Way Household Fellowship Coordinators and remain in good standing in The Way and to "owe no man anything;" thus we followed the directive from Way Headquarters and had started renting, much to John's financial hesitancy to do so.
When we sold our house in Hickory in 1997, our mortgage was under $500 a month and that included escrow. We then moved to Charlotte to be closer to the Way Household; our rent was over $900 a month. John was not happy. Our next move, in 1998, was to Greensboro to a much smaller condo than our previous living quarters. Rent was under $800. After that we moved to Winston-Salem on December 31, 1999, to another condo where rent was right at $800 and was continuing to go up.
Time for another move, if the savings was significant. I refused to again pay over $800 a month for rent. We got the Westbrook house for under $700.
Despite the savings, John still wasn't happy and the quality of our housing continued to go down. It would bother him often, this no-mortgage policy. He was becoming more and more disgruntled with the situation.
The Westbrook house was old, built in the 1920's. It was a unique house and would serve well if someone wanted to invest in it to bring it up to date. It had no storm windows and no central air; it did have three cooling window units and we used box fans to circulate the air and cool part of the house. There were no heat ducts that went to the upstairs. We managed to keep it warm up there by leaving the stairway open for the heat to rise and using one of those economical and safe upright space-type heaters. The office, Sarah's bedroom, and a bath were upstairs; along with black widows which we promptly exterminated.
The den, living room, kitchen, two foyers, two bedrooms and one bathroom were downstairs. When I'd have the windows open in spring and summer the furniture in the den would get damp from humidity. We used to joke that we were camping inside.
The yard was a large corner lot with about ten or so giant oak trees. Autumn was a lot of work. In spring oak trees sprouted everywhere; I liked them. They reminded me of giant clover. Of course we had to pull up the sprouts, except in one five-by-six-foot area behind the breezeway. Baby oaks completely covered that square; there was no grass. One would think tiny people lived in that tiny oak forest.
With the long cord connected to its wall base in the kitchen, I walked with the receiver into the den and sat in the rocking chair. Densie and I exchanged greetings and friendly catch-up talk.. She then told me the reason for her call; she and Alan were going to quit attending Way Fellowship after decades of involvement which had included serving as Way Corps graduates and as Way International staff. Because she and Alan were guardians for our children, they felt they should let us know.
Alan and Denise had no children. They were kind and principled people and were faithful to the rightly-divided Word. That was of utmost priority to John and I regarding our children; we wanted to make sure they had the accuracy and integrity of God's Word which could only truly be found within The Way International. Anyone who was hungering and searching for the undiluted and pure scripture would eventually come to The Household of The Way.
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