Up The Way Tree

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The following piece is part one of two.
Click here for part two:  Extirpation

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God how I loved Luke.

I was 19.  He was 18 when we met that summer of 1978.

We met at the Statewide Way Summer Outreach Program.  I was assigned to the city of Fayetteville.  I don't recall where Luke was assigned.  It was at the end of the program in July, at the Certificate of Completion Ceremony, when Luke and I really connected.  We both stayed the night in someone's home in the eastern part of the state.  Both of us were going out  as Word Over the World Ambassadors (WOW) in August, immediately following the Rock of Ages Festival.

The Rock was held every August. For about one week believers from around the world would gather in New Knoxville, Ohio, USA, at The Way Headquarters.  So thrilling, so important, so spiritually high.  This wasn't religion.  It was God's family, His household.  We were free in Christ. This was my first Rock of Ages, and I was going WOW.

How many people were at the Rock in '78? Fifteen thousand maybe?  The Way boasted about having the largest big-top tent in the world.  I guess it was true.  That tent could seat a multitude in the 70's and 80s' as it towered over the gigantic tarmac or whatever those big paved-type areas are called.  Hundreds, probably thousands, of folding chairs were set up by volunteers on the smooth, hard pavement under the blue-and-white striped giant canopy.

The chair set-up crew would "string the chairs," a tedious but important job.  A straight-stretched string was used to make sure each chair was in line. One person held the string on the ground at one end of the row with another person at the other end of the row, while the two or three middle-of-the-row volunteers scooted the front legs of the chair to meet the straight-stretched string.  Then the chairs were eyed, to make sure all was decent and in order.  Decent and in order kept out confusion. Confusion could attract devil spirits, distract the mind of the receiver and the spirit of the teacher.  Dr. Wierwille, the Teacher, was the man of God for the world; he wasn't perfect, but he heard God's voice clearly.  Father would tell him when things weren't right, or if peoples' hearts were unthankful.  It could distract from his evening teaching.  Keeping the physicals in proper arrangement was a priority so that the spiritual nourishment would be accurate and we could receive the greatness of the Word.

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The WOW Ambassador commitment was for one year, wherever The Ministry sent you. Like summer outreach, WOWs didn't know where they would be assigned until a day or so before they headed out to their designated cities.  Some people decided at the Rock to go WOW.  I had decided months earlier back in February.  Dr. Wierwille had signed me up on stage in front of 100s, if not 1000s,  of people at a Heartbeat Festival in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  He had called me up on stage at the end of his teaching.  Me and him, and the sea of onlookers.

After I signed the card, I stayed on stage with him as he heralded, "Who else wants to go W - O - W!?!"  The call bellowed from him with that charismatic smile and love of God in his heart.  He wasn't showy or pompous, but rather glowed with the excitement of a child receiving a much prayed for Christmas gift.  Doctor believed in this cause, Word Over the World.   It was God's cause, God's calling.  To give every man, woman, and child the opportunity to say yes or no to God's rightly-divided Word as it hadn't been known since the first century. This was God's Ministry.

There I was at that Heartbeat Festival in February, 1978, on stage with Dr. Wierwille, handing out WOW Ambassador sign-up cards to people who came forward.  I had to bend down to hand them cards; the stage was elevated. I was wearing my Holly Hobby dress, as I called it.   A one-piece frock-type dress with a ruffle at the bottom of the dress that landed midway between my knees and ankles. I think I was wearing tights and some sort of laced dress shoes.  It was chilly in February.  Little 18-year old me, on stage with the man of God and part of his security team with their suits and stoic stances, handing out the blue over-sized index-type Word Over the World Ambassador Registration cards.  Dr. Wierwille didn't have that stoic look; he was alive with life and the Word of God.  So was the security team, I was sure.  It's just they had to stay spiritually aware, like the Secret Service around the President of the United States.

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And now here I was, August, 1978, 19-years old,  at the Rock of Ages anticipating my WOW assignment along with other saints who were also going out WOW.  Were there 1000 of us heading out to move the Word?  I don't recall the exact number.

Luke and I sat together through WOW training knowing we wouldn't see each other for a year due to our commitments.  We were in love at that point but had been 'behaving' ourselves sexually; we wanted to keep God first.  Our WOW commitments were vows to God, to serve Him for that year, to put Him first.  My WOW year was also my Apprenticeship Way Corps year. I would be going in-residence into The Way Corps at The Way College of Emporia in Kansas the following September, after my WOW commitment.

Electricity was in the air the night of the assignments. There were  hoots and hollers as the WOWs discovered their destinations and who they would be assigned with.  The saints not going WOW, thousands of them, were also there under or around the Big Top to celebrate the WOW commissioning.

When my section was announced from the Big Top stage, I opened my sealed envelope. 

I was headed to a state in the mid-west!  My heart thrilled! I had told God I wanted to go where it was cold.

I was the WOW Ambassador Family Coordinator for my household.  There were 4 of us:  myself, Mary, Lenn, and Luke.  Luke!?  Luke!?  How could that be?  So many were going out WOW, how could he and I end up in the same family? But there was his name.  I was excited momentarily, and then reality hit.

Luke and I couldn't be WOWs together, living in the same house.  We were in love, teenage hormones raging. How could we focus on our spiritual growth and God?  This couldn't be.  I needed to find whoever the leadership was that would be overseeing our WOW branch for the year.  His name was Drew; he was Interim Way Corps in his third-year of the four-year Way Corps Program.

I spoke with Drew, sharing that Luke and I couldn't be together; we were in love.  To be in the same house together, well, it needed to be changed. Drew took it up The Way Tree, the leadership hierarchy for The Way International.

They would understand; the leadership watched out for the individual. 

I prayed.

The decision came back down the Way Tree.  The assignment stood; God had worked in leadership at the time of the WOW assignments. The WOW family placements were divinely inspired; God's will.

Luke and I were to stay together, in the same family, in the same house, sharing the same bathroom.