HomeARC ML 1358
OUR LOVE STORY! DFO 1358 Switzerland, 1/4/78
1. THIS IS THE LITTLE GIRL WHO CHANGED MY LIFE & CREATED A REVOLUTION! She hasn't gotten nearly the credit she deserves! (Maria: I always say, "If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else!"--So there isn't any credit involved!) It couldn't have been anybody but you, Honey! (Maria: You had to work on me for about three months, I was a very reluctant subject.) These Leos! (Maria: As persuasive as he is, can you imagine, it took 3 months to convince me!)
2. THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT TOOK ME THREE MONTHS TO KISS HER, it just took me three months to persuade her to join my harem as a permanent member! I was working very hard & very fast for that whole three months! (Maria: He had to go through the whole Bible with me to try to convince me by Scriptures, & that began to soften me up!) What finally worked was me & the Lord! (Maria: The power of love!) Her love! (Maria: Your love!) TYL! And it gets better every day! Thereby hangs a tale, how Maria & I got together! It's quite a story!
3. I THINK IT WAS REALLY LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT FOR ME!--It took about three months for her, love at last sight! (Maria: When I first saw you I felt like I'd come home & that's where I belonged.) Isn't that sweet? She was such a cute little girl, only 21 or 22 then. You were 23?--You didn't look it! I thought when you came in you looked like you were about 17, like she still does! I don't think she's ever going to change. And when she lets her hair just fall down, she looks like she's about 14! When I used to take her out places with her hair down they looked at me like I was really robbing the cradle!
4. I THINK IT WAS THAT FIRST KISS THAT DID IT, standing in my Mother's living room. Mother was already gone then. They told me dear Eve had brought us a new secretary back from Tucson, this little Systemite preacher's daughter turned Pentecostal, then turned Body. (Maria: I was a Son of God & I turned into a Child of God!) She was very spiritual & had really gotten into spiritual Latter Rain Pentecost. I thought, "Uh oh, preacher's daughter, a real Systemite!"
5. WE WERE STANDING AROUND THE TABLE CLAPPING & SINGING, waiting for everybody to gather for brunch, & they brought the newcomer in through the kitchen door! In bounced this twitty little bird, little miss secretary, a cute little girl looking like she was about 17! She had short hair then, a little wavy system bob, but it was cute though, soft little gold curls, very curly! (Maria: It was artificially curly!) She was real cute & sweet, charming, just like she is now! (Maria: I'd never seen a hippie before in my life, I didn't even know there were such things until I went to California!)
6. SHE CAME BOUNCING INTO THE ROOM & THEY SAID, "HERE'S THE NEW GIRL!" She was so cute & so little, & I always did like little girls, & I thought, "Wow, she sure looks like a little Systemite!" But she was bright & cheery & smiling just like she always is! And as it is my custom, I of course opened my arms to receive her & kiss her. How come you walked up & kissed me so cheerfully? She just walked right up & stood on her little tippy toes & put her hands around my neck & gave me a sweet little kiss!
7. WE WERE USED TO KISSING FREQUENTLY ON THE MOUTH, but I thought, "Of course this little Systemite won't expect that!" But she gave me a nice sweet soft little tender kiss right on the lips! Of course, I was aiming for her lips, hoping she would, but usually the girls suddenly turn their cheek. (Maria: I was definitely not in the habit of kissing people on the lips!)
8. JUST ONE LITTLE KISS & THAT DID IT!--January 29th or something like that. She gave me this soft tender sweet little kiss, only I think it lingered a little bit longer that time, I lingered it a little bit. (Maria: I must have been in a daze & didn't realise what I was doing!) It was her first time to meet us & she was probably a little self-conscious. Well, Honey, that kiss really did it! I thought, "Wow! That's an awful nice little girl, she sure is sweet!"--And it went on from there!
9. WELL, IT DIDN'T EXACTLY GO ON FROM THERE, BECAUSE SHE PROMPTLY FELL IN LOVE WITH MY SON-IN-LAW JETHRO! You know how it is with Jethro, if there's anything good around, he always cops onto it right away & he grabbed her for his secretary! (Maria: He trained some good secretaries though!) He was a good trainer--made them jump through the hoop! Ha!
10. (MARIA: I WAS SO UPSET THOUGH, BECAUSE I HAD QUIT MY JOB TO GET AWAY FROM THE SYSTEM, & we'd only gone about two miles from my home with Mother Eve in the van on the way from Tucson to California when she said, "Honey, what job have you been doing?" I said, "Well, I've been a secretary, but I'm glad I'm done with that now!" She said, "Oh, we need secretaries! Maybe you could help out!" And I thought, "Oh no!" I was already so sad I was leaving home, I'd never been away for very long from my parents, & I thought, "How can I bear this? It's bad enough leaving home & my parents, then having to go back to that boring job again! I want to serve the Lord!") Honey, you stood the test, how brave!
11. SHE WAS JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED, THANK THE LORD!--Just what I had ordered about 23 years before! After two years with dear Eve I ordered Maria! But you see, it takes a little while to make a girl--had to pick out the parents & had to wait till she was born & had to wait till she grew up--a helluva long time to wait! But we made it, thank the Lord, she made it!
12. (MARIA: I ALMOST BACKSLID BECAUSE I COULDN'T STAY UP AS LATE AS EVERYBODY ELSE! I'd go to sleep at the Club while we were having classes.) She would sit up against the wall in the Club--everybody sat on the floor--& one night she tried to play hookie! All the members of the Family were supposed to at least attend the nightly teaching session for all the babes--which was about a two-hour class from nine to eleven, sometimes running over, & we didn't close the Club till after midnight. (Maria: It ran over quite a few times!) It must have been me teaching!
13. BUT THE FUNNY PART ABOUT IT WAS THAT NIGHT SOMEBODY ELSE WAS TEACHING & I WAS OUT IN THE CRUISER. (Maria: I told Esther I had a headache & I didn't want to go.) So Esther came out & said, "The poor little new girl says she's not feeling well & has a headache & she just can't go tonight." I said, "Well, I'm sorry, but everybody is required to attend! You just go back & lay hands on her & pray for her & tell her to trust the Lord & at least try. I really believe the Lord will do it, & if she feels bad she can always lie down on the floor or something."
14. IT WAS VERY INFORMAL, WE HAD RUGS & CARPETS WALL-TO-WALL, & HIPPIES WALL-TO-WALL! We had these little low tables about Japanese-height made out of half of one of those huge telephone spools that they wind their cables on, & we just cut them in half & set them down. So everybody came in & sat around on the floor or pillows or backed up against the wall.
15. I'LL NEVER FORGET THE FIRST TIME I WENT INTO THAT CLUB AFTER HO HAD TAKEN IT OVER FROM TEEN CHALLENGE. He was begging me to come down & teach the hippies the Bible--"Like you taught us, Dad!" But I said, "Well, I'll have to come down & see first." So I was trying to get to know the hippies & see what they were like, hanging around all their haunts. I grew a little beard & I put on some old ragged sneakers, a ragged pair of pants, an old ragged black jacket, my beret & dark glasses & I probably looked like a pusher or something! The police used to really give me the eye when I passed by! But that seemed to be the style, to dress as ragged & as bummy as possible! Only they wore a lot of freaky clothes too, & I got to where I was finally wearing a Japanese kimono, a little more fitting to my style!
16. SO I CAME INTO THE CLUB ONE NIGHT, SORT OF STAGGERING IN LIKE SOME OLD BUM! I wanted to see what it was like, because I'd never been there & Ho wanted me to come down & teach. I thought, "Well, I ought to scout out the land a little bit first!" So I staggered in the door & saw a spot over in the corner that was vacant--you had to step over bodies & everything to get to it--& I threw myself down in the corner! And that nice little blond boy beside me, I remember him yet, he said, "Hi Dad, what's your bag?" I didn't even know what a bag was then! But he was real friendly. I was just hoping they'd ignore me, & I did kind of hide out, it was kind of dark, & I just watched them.
17. SO FINALLY WHEN I WAS GOING TO GO DOWN & START TEACHING, I PRAYED & ASKED THE LORD WHAT WOULD THEY REALLY BE INTERESTED IN, & I got the answer: "Bible Prophecy--they want to know about the future!" The future looked pretty black & bleak & uncertain in those days with the atom bomb & the failing Youth Revolution & all that. So I did!--I taught Bible Prophecy & they just really really ate it up! They all got Bibles & they studied!
18. IT WAS A REAL OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD! Those kids were getting saved & filled almost instantly, as soon as they were saved, with gifts of the Spirit, talking in tongues & prophesying! It was one of the greatest outpourings of the Spirit I've ever witnessed personally, really amazing, just like in the early days of Pentecost! I'll tell you, those kids knew more about the Lord than the people who'd been to church all their lives! We were experiencing the Lord!
19. SO I WAS TRYING TO THINK, "HOW CAN I REALLY MAKE AN ENTREE THAT WOULD SORT OF WAKE'M UP & SHAKE'M UP?" You know me, I like surprises & to shock people! So I put on my old bummy outfit with my Bible in my hand. The place was packed with about 75 or 100 & they were having singing & everything. It had been advertised that they were going to have a Bible teacher, & I was supposed to come at nine o'clock. You've got to give them credit for being hungry to hear the Bible, but I didn't want it to be old-fashioned or too much like church.
20. SO I HID OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR FOR A FEW MINUTES, PEEKING IN TO SEE WHO & WHAT WAS THERE & WHAT WAS GOING ON. Esther was singing so I waited till she came to the end her song & she was just leaving the stage, & I knew Ho was probably waiting to introduce me. So I flung the door open & I leaped in & I thundered at the top of my voice--& I can yell pretty loud--
21. "REVOLUTION!--FOR JESUS!" And then they roared: "For Jesus!" I said, "Come on, you can do better than that! When I say, 'Revolution!', you answer me back, 'For Jesus!'" So that got to be our battle cry, & the way I introduced myself every night from then on! I'd bound through the door & say, "REVOLUTION!" And they'd all shout, "FOR JESUS!" So it wasn't dead by any means I really had the age barrier to break, because they didn't trust anybody over 30. I had to really prove I was one of them, & I think I succeeded, I think I'm still succeeding! PTL! Am I still one of you?
22. SO THAT WAS THE BEGINNING, & THEY REALLY ATE UP THE BIBLE, MEMORISING VERSES--WERE TERRIFIC! And we packed that place out! We had so many people in there the police finally came down & told us we couldn't have more than 75 people, & they put up a big sign like in all the restaurants & other public places: "This room occupancy 75." Well, we still got away with around 100. I mean, with all those bodies lying all over the floor in the dark, it's pretty hard for them to count! Real dim lights sort of like a night club with a low stage.
23. WE SERVED DONUTS & COFFEE & SANDWICHES, & as the Family kept getting bigger, we finally had to start feeding the Family down there. So we'd feed the Family at seven or eight before we opened the Club, & then we would open the door about eight. It had already been open in the afternoon, but we'd close for awhile around suppertime. Then we'd serve leftover sandwiches to any of the hippies & all that came in & were hungry.
24. WE FINALLY CHANGED THAT BECAUSE SOME OF THEM WOULD COME IN, GRAB A SANDWICH, EAT & RUN & WOULDN'T STAY FOR ANYTHING! So we said they'd have to come & at least stay for a Bible Study, like the missions do. They make the bums sit through a church service first--only ours was no church service! I usually was jumping around on top of one of those tables, shouting & screaming! I was very athletic & acrobatic! That's why the Lord gave me all that training, three years teaching junior highs, 7th & 8th grade, because that's what I used to have to do with them to keep their attention! I had to be an acrobat, a clown, a gymnast, everything, to hold their attention! I was going strong all day long!
25. SO IT WORKED WITH THE HIPPIES TOO--SCREAMING & CUSSING & EVERYTHING!--Ha! I had to convince them I was no ordinary preacher, & it really worked, TTL! We had a good time! But finally we told them they'd have to come at nine for the Bible Study & stay through that if they wanted a sandwich, coffee & all that. We'd serve coffee & donuts first to everybody anyhow, sort of like our dessert after our meal & their little refreshment, but if they wanted something really substantial to eat like sandwiches & milk etc., we said they'd have to stay through the Bible Study. Well, some of them didn't mind, some enjoyed it--some were kind of glum about it.
26. SO WE'D HAVE THE BIBLE STUDY & SOME KIDS WERE DRIFTING IN & OUT. We even had a few adults, usually narcs, coming in & out. They were convinced we must have drugs there or we wouldn't have such a crowd, because the church people hadn't been able to hardly get a hippie through the door though they came down there every Friday & Saturday nights & had a good old rootin' tootin' Pentecostal church service, but no hippies!
27. THAT'S THE NIGHT THE HIPPIES STAYED AWAY, THEY DIDN'T WANT TO COME!--Especially when a few of them did go in just out of curiosity & they were told, "Don't you come back in here till you dress like a Christian!" Can you imagine?! It was nothing but church, just a bunch of church people coming down to have a church service! They packed the place out with so many church people there was hardly any room for hippies anyhow! So Teen Challenge finally just gave up because they couldn't get any hippies in.
28. WE WERE HAVING GREAT SUCCESS WITH THE HIPPIES, JUST OUT ON THE BEACH WITNESSING & PLAYING & SINGING, & then Ho finally got the use of some bleachers & a stage where we could set up instruments & we could really swing away with the band & all! And these two boys who took care of the mission got really turned on--& they were no church boys! One was a former criminal, Harvey, & the other was a drug addict who was supposedly saved by Dave Wilkerson, two of his prime products. Well, they really liked us & liked what we were doing & saw we were really getting through to the kids with the music & personal witnessing.
29. THEY ONLY OPENED THE CLUB TWO NIGHTS A WEEK, FRIDAY & SATURDAY, & then packed it with church people, so Ho was bugging him to let us have a meeting on Sunday nights. Ho said, "Why close up shop? How about letting us use it on Sunday nights when you're not using it?" And at this Sunday afternoon meeting that was such a success & drew quite a crowd, I'll never forget, this former gangster guy took his keys out of his pocket threw them to Ho & said, "Take her away, boy! Go ahead! It's all yours!"--The Club!
30. SO WE ANNOUNCED THEN THAT WE WERE GOING TO HAVE A MEETING THAT NIGHT AT THE CLUB: "Everybody come! We're going to have refreshments!"--& we were talking to hippies & young people, not church people!--And they came! We had a good little crowd, about 50 kids, & that was the beginning! Teen Challenge would then have it on Friday & Saturday nights, all church people, no hippies, & we had it the rest of the week.
31. WE HAD SUNDAY NIGHT, & THAT WAS SO GOOD THAT HO ASKED THE BOYS, "WHY NOT LET US HAVE IT THE OTHER NIGHTS YOU DON'T HAVE IT?" They said, "Okay, let's try it!"--& we just kept it all through the week while the church people came on the weekends. The hippies all stayed away, of course, when they were there, they knew the difference between us & them!
32. SO FINALLY, ONE DAY WE SAW THESE TWO WELL-DRESSED BUSINESSMEN STANDING OUTSIDE WHO THEN STEPPED INSIDE THE DOOR. Hardly any Systemites would even be caught dead going through that door amongst those hippies, they were afraid they'd get crabs or fleas or catch something contaminating!--They probably didn't even know what crabs were! So I knew these guys must be important people! I thought maybe they were police again, because plainclothesmen were always coming in to see what was going on. And boy, when they'd come in, I'd preach away!--Hellfire, damnation, America's going to Hell, really sock it to the System!
33. BUT IT TURNED OUT THEY WERE TWO TEEN CHALLENGE BOARD MEMBERS, TWO CHRISTIAN FULL GOSPEL BUSINESSMEN, real nice guys, typical church but really interested. That's why they had put the thing down there & had opened up this mission for the hippies, but they had seen that the church people were just a church service & there weren't any hippies & they weren't doing a thing!
34. SO THEY WROTE ME A LETTER & SAID, "WE'D LIKE TO TURN THE MISSION OVER TO YOU FOLKS ENTIRELY BECAUSE WE'RE NOT ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING THERE. The rent is paid for two months, our rental contract goes for another two months, & we'll also take care of the utilities for those two months to get you started!" They just turned the whole thing over, equipment, the works! The only thing they took was the grand piano, & I thought that grand piano looked silly in there anyhow!--Ha! Only one guy could play it & he'd come in & play classical music, which wasn't exactly hippie-style!
35. SO THEY TOOK THEIR GRAND PIANO, BUT WE JUST WENT RIP-ROARING & REALLY HAD A GOOD TIME! I think we finally got too hot for Harvey & the other guy too. Well, Harvey had married a little girl that I told you about, that wedding I went to & objected! I was so mad at him for getting married to that little Systemite girl, I knew it was going to ruin his ministry & he wouldn't want to work with us at the Club anymore.
36. WE SNEAKED IN THE BACK DOOR OF THE WEDDING & when the preacher said, "If there is any one here who has any cause for which these should not be man & wife, speak now or forever hold your peace!" So I jumped up & screamed out & gave some Scripture verses! And I've got to give credit to her father, he said, "Give that man a cigar!"--Ha! And about that time I saw these big bruisers, these watchdogs of the faith, edging over toward me. I thought, "Well, I might as well go out rather than being thrown out!" So that was the Summer of '68, the famous '68, the year the U.S. Youth Revolution was crushed by the System, & we carried on, packing that place out!
37. THAT'S WHEN OUR FIRST PROVISIONING BEGAN! The sandwich companies weren't even allowed to give the sandwiches away at the end of the day, they were supposed to throw them away, but they told us we'd find the box of sandwiches sitting outside the back gate every evening if we'd just be sure & get there before somebody else did! So we knew right when they closed at six o'clock & we'd have somebody there to pick'm up! And they were good--chicken, ham & all kinds of good sandwiches! We really fed'm good! Fed us good & fed them too.
38. BUT USUALLY IN THE AFTERNOON WE'D JUST SERVE COFFEE & DONUTS TO THE GUYS THAT CAME IN. (Tim: That was before "Food or Poison"!) Honey, if you're starving, you'll eat anything! Those poor hippies! What first got us out there, was because my Mother got so concerned about them! At 83 she would everyday make a whole tray of about 40 sandwiches, peanut butter & jelly or whatever she had, something that she thought would at least be nourishing, & she'd get in her little electric car & steer that thing down to the end of the pier & had that tray of sandwiches sitting there! The kids got to know her, that she was there every afternoon about four o'clock.
39. WELL, PTL! THANK YOU JESUS FOR A WONDERFUL HISTORY! The Lord just did it all! So that's when Mother started begging us to come. She saw Teen Challenge wasn't reaching the hippies, the church people weren't doing a thing & there was virtually no personal witnessing, nothing. So we finally came!
40. UP TILL THAT TIME THE KIDS HAD WORKED A LITTLE BIT WITH TEEN CHALLENGE IN SOME OF THEIR COFFEE HOUSES which they were opening up like clubs in some of the big cities, New York & Philadelphia etc., but their idea was still not much personal witnessing at all, more like the Bum's Missions that have a service every afternoon & a preaching service every night. But my four little kids would go in & just start mingling with the hippies with their guitars & singing & talking to them & really getting somewhere, leading a lot of them to the Lord & I think accomplishing more than those church services every night.
41. BUT AT THAT TIME WE STILL WERE A LITTLE LEERY OF THE HIPPIES. Before we got into the coffee houses with the hippies, we were almost as bad as the Texas rednecks--every hippie was some kind of a Communist & criminal & drugster & you ought to line them up against the wall & shoot them all!--That was the Texas cowboy attitude, & they tried it a few times on us, too, at TSC!
42. OF ALL THE PLACES FOR US TO EVER WIND UP, DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS WITH 250 HIPPIES! The cowboys used to ride down the road at night shooting their guns, deliberately trying to scare us! We had to keep guard dogs, fence, gate, flood lights & 24-hour guards with rifles & pistols! Because those cowboys, they used to joke with each other in the bars, "Let's run out to the camp, it's open season on hippies, let's shoot a few!"
43. BUT IT'S A FUNNY THING, WE FINALLY REALLY WON THEIR LOVE & RESPECT! When we finally began getting national publicity, the reporters went into the towns & the bars asking the people their opinion, & not one of them ever said a bad word against us! They said, "They're good people, they behave themselves, they're good kids & they're doing good!" All of those old cowboy Texans vouched for us! I was really amazed! I didn't think we had made a dent on the local community, it didn't seem like any of them ever came to see us or anything. Visitors came from afar, but the neighbours, the local people, they wouldn't come near us! But apparently we made a good impression anyhow! Well, that was much later!
44. OH, I WAS GOING TO TELL YOU OUR LOVE STORY! Well anyhow, that was the famous year, '68, at the Club, & we stayed on through into '69. Maria came early, in January of '69, & by this time the Revolution had spilled over into a lot of other places around us, & the Jesus People finally arose & began to imitate us.
45. IN FACT, ONE OF OUR GIRLS, TERRY, WHO WAS A MEMBER OF THE HOLLYWOOD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH where the Jesus People originated, she wanted her church to get something like us started out in Hollywood, so she went home & persuaded the preacher & some of the men of the church. She was a real driver, go-getter girl! Her father was a multi-millionaire who owned several big department stores, Jewish of course, & she went back to Hollywood Presbyterian & persuaded them to start a program like ours.
46. SO THE BASEMENT OF THEIR CHURCH WAS OPENED TO MAKE IT A CLUB, & of course the church kids just packed it out! It got to be so popular having these youth clubs or hippie clubs, that they finally did bring in a few hippies. So the Jesus People Movement began to spread like wildfire from church to church, always trying to figure out how to get young people into those dead refrigerators! But they did pick up a few hippies on the way & with personal evangelism won some souls, thank the Lord, just dragged them into the church! But we were really a radical dropout revolution, anti-church! I'd been to church 50 years & that was enough for me!
47. NOT ONLY WERE A LOT OF THESE OUTFITS IMITATING US, but our own kids even went in & helped them get their clubs started in several churches. One guy at Manhattan Beach was a huge success! He copied exactly the way we did it, finally just throwing all the pews out of his church, carpeting the floor, putting in tables & just inviting the kids in. His older congregation were so furious they left him, but he didn't care, he was just going great guns with this Youth Club! He was doing just like we were doing, having great success!
48. IT WAS THE LORD & WHAT THE CHURCH WOULD HAVE CALLED A GREAT REVIVAL, AN OUTPOURING! But it wasn't a revival, they were first-timers! They hadn't been alive & died like the church people. The churches used to keep having to have revivals to try to wake them up & get them alive again, but these kids, it was their first time. They'd never been saved before, a lot of them didn't know anything about church, they hated the System & the Systemites that it represented!
49. SO OUR APPROACH JUST SWEPT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, THEN BROKE OUT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AMONGST THE GROUPS THERE & the University of California, & they called themselves by all kinds of different names. But the biggest was the Jesus People Movement because it had such good church backing & cooperation of the Ministerial Association. They all agreed to back the Jesus People Movement because it was "bringing the youth into the church where they belonged"! They even had big huge parades of thousands with police protection & flag-waving in downtown Los Angeles, carrying "One Way" signs! If you get the churches together they can really get up a crowd!
50. SO OUR LITTLE REVOLUTION & OUR KIDS, THE REAL THING, BEGAN TO GO OUT TO OTHER PLACES LIKE THESE CHURCHES & ALL, & Brother Ware, a former friend of mine who had a church in Tucson, Arizona heard about us & invited us! He had been a missionary to Spain in the days when it was illegal to even be a Protestant there, thrown in jail & beaten & persecuted, had to have secret meetings, wouldn't dare have any kind of known meeting. So he was a real sincere man who loved the Lord. He was a real missionary at heart but he'd sort of retired from the field & had this little church in Tucson.
51. WHAT HE HAD IN MIND WAS TO HOLD LIKE A REVIVAL MEETING, only he called it a Youth Evangelistic Meeting to win the youth. But when Faithy & Miguel, two of our most radical kids got there, they told him, "Well, you'll have to move all the benches back out of the way & we need carpets on the floor, because it's almost against the hippie religion to sit on a chair!" That's System! He was sort of shocked, but he thought, "Well, OK, we'll see! If it works, fine!"
52. THEN THEY STARTED GOING DOWN TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA CAMPUS & WITNESSING ON THE CAMPUS & IN THE STREETS & EVERYWHERE, inviting the kids to come to what he called the Gospel Light House, which was a nice name! We called ours the Light Club, so that worked real well! The kids just dropped the name "Gospel" & said, "Come to the Light House!--Our Club! We'll have fun & refreshments!"--And the kids began to pack the place out!
53. THEY WENT OUT & INVITED THEM PERSONALLY & REALLY WITNESSED TO THEM, & THEY BEGAN TO COME & BRING THEIR FRIENDS. There was no church service at all, nothing but different musicians getting up & singing & playing & testifying, then the different ones of our kids that went there would give their testimonies, how they were saved & freed from drugs etc. And it really went over, just like the Light Club, the same thing!
54. IT WAS REALLY A HARVEST TIME FOR YOUTH! It was no doubt the Lord. And not only us, but God was just pouring His Spirit out everywhere! We called ours "Revolution" because I didn't like a revival, but it was a sort of a youth spiritual revival or revolution! The Lord just seemed to be pouring His Spirit out on youth everywhere! A general outpouring just swept the country, even to where Time Magazine recognised it & Jesus Christ finally made the cover of Time Magazine! They called it the "Jesus Revolution!" I thought, "Hallelujah! At least they didn't say 'Jesus People'!" That's what we called ours to begin with--the Jesus Revolution, & we really were! Although the Jesus People had more numbers than we had, we were the best-organised & strongest. We were literally the leaders & founders & pioneers of the whole Jesus Revolution.
55. SO TUCSON IS WHERE THEY FOUND MARIA! (Maria: Where I first saw them was in Phoenix, Arizona at a Full Gospel Business meeting I went to with a friend.) Yes, we were getting invitations right & left from churches & Full Gospel Businessmen & different kinds of meetings: "Come tell us how you do it, what's happening?" (Maria: That was a huge meeting, of the whole State, thousands of people there!) And the kids were on stage? (Maria: Yes, Ho, Faith & others.)
56. YOU KNOW WHAT A POWER-HOUSE FAITHY IS! If any of my children ever inherited my mantle it was she! And I used to also say my Mother's mantle, because she was a lot like her, her power & her spirit! Faithy is her Daddy's own daughter & her Grandmother's own child! Poor Deborah! Jeth got drugged in--or dragged in, not drugged--& he was a real Florida redneck! Deborah was a real Systemite, sort of Johnny-come-lately. I think she saw her sister was out-stripping her in the Lord's service while she was tied down with a bunch of kids & a working husband. Although she'd dedicated her life to the Lord's service, she'd gotten so far away it was pitiful!
57. BUT I'VE GOT TO GIVE DEB CREDIT, WHEN SHE SAW SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING SHE INSISTED ON COMING, & she started coming over & singing first. She really wanted to get in on it, God bless her, but it wasn't exactly natural to her. She was probably the most Systemite of all the children, more like her Mother than any of the rest of them.
58. EVE SEEMS TO BE PRETTY REVOLUTIONARY NOW, BUT SHE IS AS STUBBORN & REBELLIOUS & DISOBEDIENT AS SHE EVER WAS! Eve likes to have her own thing & do her own thing, more or less have her own ministry, so she has it now. She got pretty revolutionary sexually, but otherwise she never really got too revolutionary, she still had faith in the churches & wanted to go to churches & have meetings.
59. I JUST WISH SHE WOULDN'T GO AROUND LIKE A LABOUR PIRATE, RIPPING OFF PERSONNEL & throwing monkey wrenches into the machinery! (Maria: And mixing & matching & pulling apart marriages!) So many mis-matches that she put together, it's pitiful! When she finally got revoluted sexually she went wild! Poor Mom, she means well, but her whole problem is the same as it was our whole married life, she just never was obedient & never respected me & never had any faith in me & was always rebellious & stubborn & did as she pleased.
60. YOU KNOW, I THINK HER GETTING THAT HAIR PERMANENT IN HUNTINGTON BEACH WAS THE LAST STRAW! She was already spending most of her time away from me & I was living alone. I wish I'd known what I know now & I wouldn't have been living alone! I had a house full of pretty girls right there beside me, & I must say, I was tempted! Now I realise it would have been perfectly all right! TTL!
61. BUT MOM WAS GONE FOR WEEKS & MONTHS, HITHER, THITHER & YON, & on one of her visits home I was trying to get her to let her hair grow like the other girls. Long hair was the thing, it was so beautiful, & I always knew she'd look beautiful with long hair. She finally did let her hair grow long it was gorgeous!
62. SO I BEGGED & I BEGGED HER THIS TIME, I SAID, "EVE, PLEASE LET YOUR HAIR GROW LONG! You just look out of place with all the other girls here, they all believe in long hair & they don't think you should cut it, & I think that's Scriptural!" She said, "I'm going to go get a permanent & have it curled, it'll look better then." I said, "Don't you dare! It's bad enough for you to have short hair without getting a permanent, that is the last straw!"
63. THE GIRLS DIDN'T BELIEVE IN DOING A THING TO THEIR HAIR EXCEPT WASH IT, & IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! Long hair is a woman's crowning glory, I believe it with all my heart! (1Cor.11:15) You girls are just gorgeous with long hair! I said, "I absolutely forbid you to get a permanent! That is not a request, that is an order, don't you dare!" It didn't phase her, she went right out the same afternoon & got a permanent anyhow! Well, that's Eve. It doesn't matter what you tell her, if she doesn't want to do it, she won't do it anyhow.
64. WELL, THERE'S NOTHING EVE LOVES LIKE GOING ON THE ROAD WITH A TRAVELLING SHOW TEAM, SO SHE WENT TAGGING ALONG TO PHOENIX & she was going to manage the little team that went around. She was kind of good at that, she's sort of a pioneer & likes the road shows & she eats that up, especially if it's in churches. She loves to get back in the churches, she's about as bad as the Apostle Paul on that. She still thinks she can get the church people converted. I don't know whether she's given that up now or not. Even in the beginning of the Revolution there in Huntington Beach she still thought, "Oh, this would go great in the churches!" So she tried to get the kids booked in churches & Gospel meetings. Well, it did go over with the businessmen & the church people because it was obviously a tremendous thing that was happening & spreading all over.
65. SO YOU MET THEM IN PHOENIX THE FIRST TIME? (Maria: I met Faithy in the bathroom after the meeting in Phoenix. That was amazing, too, that with so many thousands of people there, we just happened to meet in the bathroom at the same time! I said, "I'm really interested, I really appreciated your talk!" She said, "Where are you from?" I said, "Tucson", & we talked a little bit. She said, "Oh, we're going to be in Tucson in a week, why don't you come?"--& she gave me the address. They were only supposed to be there one night.
66. (A WEEK WAS ENOUGH FOR THE CONVICTION TO SORT OF WEAR OFF A LITTLE BIT & I ALMOST DIDN'T GO THAT NIGHT IN TUCSON--BUT I WENT!--And I left with them the next day for California!) It was really Faithy that talked to me the most.) (Tim: And you quit your job the next day?) (Maria: I'd already quit my job & was about ready to start another semester in college.)
67. WHAT DID THEY DO, OFFER TO HAVE YOU COME FOR A VISIT & JUST SEE WHAT IT WAS LIKE? Not if I know Faith!--She's hard-sell, all-out, forsake-all, total 100%er--& that's what we were preaching! I think some of the kids have gotten away from that now, in a way, they don't seem to get that many disciples like that anymore! (Maria: But it was funny, they didn't tell me to bring anything, & I had lots of books & record player & all.) Maybe they thought that would have been a little too much. (Maria: I think they did, & it probably would have been--for my parents at least--so it's probably a good thing.)
68. YOU WERE RIDING IN A VAN, WEREN'T YOU? (Maria: Yes, Ho, Uriah our driver, Mother & I. Faith & Miguel stayed in Tucson.) Uriah of Tabitha & Uriah, big tall fellow, always wore a big beard, real sweet brother. So you drove all the way back, non-stop from Tucson, right? About 800 miles. I remember you guys arrived at night.
69. (MARIA: I REMEMBER WHEN I FIRST WALKED IN THE CLUB LATE AT NIGHT, ABOUT MIDNIGHT. WE'D JUST ARRIVED & I DIDN'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!) You came to the Club first? (Maria: Yes, because the kids were still in the Club. I walked in & there was a group of people there singing & the thing that really impressed me was Aaron standing there with his guitar. The light was shining on him & his beautiful blonde hair & it looked like he had a halo around his head!)
70. AARON WAS SO WEIRD ANYHOW! The cops were always stopping him on the street & inspecting his eyes, thinking he was on drugs, he was always so absolutely flipped out in the Spirit! I never saw anybody like him! Well, it was his music & songs that really turned the kids on at first, & of course the others too, Faithy & Esther. Ho was sort of like the little preacher, the MC who managed & introduced them. (Maria: It was good, because each of them could relate to different sorts of people. I liked Ho because he was a little more System & I could relate to him a lot more than I could to Aaron.) A little bit more conventional.
71. AARON WAS SO TOTALLY SPACED OUT!--BUT INSPIRED, I NEVER HEARD SUCH SONGS! Miguel too, in those days, & Shad too:--Like "Cry of Revolution" & some of those songs we sang! The Revolution was born in the ballad-type of folk music, it never got into that Hard Rock until Jethro came along in London with the Disco. Never! We just despised it, I hated it! I'd been through enough of that with those devilish clubs I went to, to mingle with the Hippies there in Huntington Beach.
72. MY LORD, I CAME HOME & I COULDN'T HARDLY HEAR FOR ABOUT TWO HOURS! The music was so loud it would just absolutely blot out your mind as well as your hearing! We hated that stuff! My kids always hated it, we never liked it! How they ever got into that is beyond me! Well, I know it was Jeth, because he loved it! And as soon as they got that disco rolling in London they had it rocking!
73. I WAS DUMBFOUNDED WHEN I HEARD THE KIND OF MUSIC THEY WERE USING, because up to that time we had had no music like that! Even when they had those 18 guitars & huge band there near Denver, it was still all beautiful music like Micah Teddybear played, "Starlight on Dark Waters", "Gypsy Caravan", "Mountain Children" & all that sort of thing. Music with words & a message & sweet & tear-jerking & sometimes sad, but romantic & usually played mostly by soloists.
74. WE HAD NO BANDS IN THE BEGINNING AT ALL, EVERYBODY WAS A SOLOIST & they sang their own little ballads & their own little message in song--beautiful music! This horrible rock band music was strictly Jethro's idea, & then it just absolutely spread & contaminated the whole Revolution! They kept saying, "It's the kind of music kids like today, that's what they go for, Dad, blah blah, blah blah!" Whew!
75. WELL ANYHOW, MARIA CAME, & I GUESS IT WAS THE NEXT MORNING THAT SHE CAME IN & I FIRST MET HER. It was our noon brunch. Can you imagine that little prim & proper preacher's daughter walking into that hippie club? She must have been absolutely horrified! (Maria: No, I wasn't! It was so new!) You got a sample of it at Tucson anyhow before you left, didn't you? (Maria: No. It was just the first night they'd come, and they were just having a regular church meeting with the usual congregation. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into except that I was going to go work with the hippies, & I didn't even know anything about hippies then.
76. (MARIA: I GREW UP IN A SMALL BORN-AGAIN PREACHER'S FAMILY, my parents, I & my two younger sisters, & my Grandmother, & often a relative or friend that needed a place to stay would live with us temporarily. From the time I came home from the hospital as a baby I was taken to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening & 14-day evening revival meetings every three or four months in our poor little Evangelical non-Pentecostal churches. I was saved when a very small child.
77. (AS A CHILD & INTO MY TEENS my time was divided between attending small schools & attending small churches, both filled with nice small-town & country people. As a consequence, I never learned much about the big bad outside World. I was even more sheltered than most because I was taught by my parents & church that it was displeasing to the Lord to smoke, drink, dance, wear make-up, jewelry or have short hair, attend movies or even watch TV. We didn't have a TV until I was 16 & we listened to radio seldom.
78. (I SPENT MOST OF MY TIME ON MY SCHOOL WORK & MADE GOOD GRADES. Had crushes on my teachers, who also liked me. Was rather bored with school, church & life in general, but didn't really realise that there was anything else to do, & if I had, probably wouldn't have done anything else anyway, out of a desire not to hurt my parents. I tried to be the good girl they wanted me to be & that I knew the Lord wanted me to be. I wouldn't have wanted to do anything to hurt the Lord & His work. To me, obeying my parents was obeying the Lord, & this I always had a desire to do,--unlike my sister, two years younger, who was very rebellious & expressed it in rebellious behaviour as she got to be a teenager. I always thought I'd grow up & marry a preacher & we'd pastor a small church as my parents had. The prospect looked pretty dull & uninspiring, but I couldn't see anything else ahead.
79. (MY PARENTS WERE GOOD PEOPLE, I never saw them as hypocritical, saying one thing at church & living another at home. My parents protected us children & didn't discuss church problems or their personal problems in front of us. I'm thankful for that now, as the Lord used it to keep me free from bitterness at hypocritical church people. Our parents loved us, did all they could for us, kept a unified front but weren't very close to us or affectionate with us.
80. (WHILE GROWING UP, I WAS SHY & RATHER LONELY WITH QUITE AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX, not only as a result of being a small-time conservative preacher's daughter, & not participating in any of the things the other kids did, but also because I had quite a severe case of acne or pimples which started around 11 or 12 years old & lasted throughout my teens.
81. (THE ONLY MAJOR CHANGES IN MY LIFE THAT OCCURRED WHILE I WAS A CHILD WERE MOVING FROM ONE STATE TO ANOTHER & ONE CHURCH TO THE OTHER, but these did not make too much of an impression, as the churches were all largely the same & even the schools were not much different from one another. I was very jealous of my younger sister as she was prettier & didn't have acne. Always under condemnation & frustrated over my selfishness & jealousy, I would frequently go down to the altar in church to ask the Lord for forgiveness for my backsliding & to regain my salvation, as we believed that by sinning we could lose our salvation. I had a few close friends who gave me more confidence in myself & who were a real help to me as I was growing up. One in 7th & 8th grade, Cheryl Stahlman, was a good Baptist witnessing Christian from a fairly wealthy home who gave me the conviction to likewise stand up for Jesus.
82. (WHEN I WAS ABOUT 14, I BEGAN TEACHING SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASSES & YOUTH GROUPS in our churches, & over several years taught all ages of children, even college-age kids my own age just before joining the Family. Took piano lessons while I was growing up, which I never really put my heart into & only learned to play simply by sight, but had to use what little I knew, as a church pianist, as we were so short on good talent in our very small churches. My father insisted that I take shorthand & typing in high school, even though I protested that I was going to go to college & only needed the college prep course. It was one of the best things he ever forced me to do, as it enabled me to, after high school, get secretarial jobs with a good lawyers firm & also a public relations office.
83. (I LIVED MOST OF MY LIFE IN THE EAST IN NEW YORK & PENNSYLVANIA & IN MY LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL MOVED TO THE WEST & LIVED IN ARIZONA. Coming from the East to the West was like a liberation, a spirit of freedom from the old conservative East with its strict legalism, to the new pioneer West with its much greater sense of freedom in every area. Our churches there weren't as legalistic or strict on prohibitions, & people's attitudes were freer & more loving & more permissive.
84. (I DIDN'T DATE MUCH UNTIL AFTER HIGH SCHOOL, & THEN ONLY A FEW GOOD CHRISTIAN BOYS met through Campus Crusade, who then attended the Sunday School class I taught, two of whom I got pretty serious about, one a student studying for his PHD & another a divorcee & university teacher. Only a little bit of necking & petting involved, no fucking, as it was against our religious convictions as well as my personal ones, as well as my mother's warning that, "If you have sex you may get pregnant!" But as I look back on it now, even more than that, it was almost as though these men knew they were not to go too far with me, that they had to save me for something or someone else, an impression I'm sure the Lord gave them in the Spirit.
85. (I WENT TO COLLEGE OFF & ON FOR A FEW SEMESTERS & WORKED AT SECRETARIAL JOBS OFF & ON, but was very bored with it all & got really desperate to get close to the Lord, which at that time I didn't really understand that I should equate with serving Him in fulltime service. Used to get up early before school or work in the morning & go out in our yard under the trees & pace back & forth praying that the Lord would help me to be close to Him & find His will for my life. Started to attend Campus Crusade while going to College, & made some sweet Christian friends there who believed in witnessing, but of course couldn't put too much time or heart into it because of their studies. Then met & began fellowshipping with a Latter Rain Pentecostal group who were deeply dedicated & into the things of the Spirit, which was what I was longing for. I was very happy at this time to have found them & almost decided to make the long trip from Tucson to Miami to live & study with one of these groups, but decided to quit my job & instead go back to school.
86. (IT WAS IMMEDIATELY AFTER I MADE THIS DECISION THAT FAITHY & HO & THE TEENS FOR CHRIST CAME TO ARIZONA to speak at the Full Gospel Businessmen's meeting in Phoenix. The decision to leave my home & parents was difficult, since I was a help & support to them, but God's call was stronger, & I took the most daring adventurous step of my life to leave, not really knowing where I was going or what I was getting into or even if it was the right thing to do. But I thought at least I could go & find out. It didn't take me long, however, to see that this was God's move &, like it or not, difficult or not, I couldn't go back.
87. (THE DEVIL REALLY FOUGHT ME THOSE FIRST TWO MONTHS, to see if he could make me give up, & then at the end of that time, David asked me if I wanted to go on the road in the Cruiser with him & Mother Eve. And from then on I knew I could never go back. I think the Lord more or less kept me on ice all those years while growing up until He could bring me to the point where I was ready to begin truly living & working for Him 100%.) Dad: She's my old-fashioned girl who grew up much like I did, almost like part of my generation! She knows all the things I know & all the hymns I know, & the Lord had just prepared her for me! So that's how she came to be with us in California.
88. AND YOU REALLY HAD A FEELING LIKE YOU WERE COMING HOME WHEN YOU WALKED IN? (Maria: Yes, even though it was new & strange, it still seemed normal to me.) And when you walked in & saw me for the first time, what did you think? They called me Uncle Dave then. (Maria: That you were the father of the house & I was glad to meet you!) She takes everything in stride! I'll get upset or nervous or worry about something, yet she's just cool & calm!
89. WELL ANYHOW, THAT'S HOW SHE GOT STARTED, PRAISE THE LORD, & THEN SHE STAYED OVER IN WHAT THEY CALLED THE "GIRL'S HOUSE". (Maria: I stayed with the ones that they weren't too sure of! I stayed with Gracie.) "Green Door" Gracie & Terry & some of those. They had bunkbeds & about six or eight girls sleeping in that one room.
90. I THINK I REALLY DID SORT OF FLIP OUT OVER HER THAT FIRST TIME, SHE WAS SO SWEET & SHE GAVE ME SUCH A TENDER LITTLE KISS. (Maria: You were flipped out over Becky too, & Esther!) I still am, Honey, but mostly over you! (Maria: Esther was usually busy supervising so I had more contact with Becky. I loved Becky, she was my best friend, we'd go to the beach together.) Oh, Becky's an angel!
91. WELL, THAT DAY MOTHER EVE WENT AHEAD & GOT THAT PERMANENT! She'd already been fussing at me & saying I was no good & I'd never get anywhere, I was too fleshly, I always wanted to be fucking her all the time, & "why don't you be spiritual, why don't you read your Bible, why don't you pray?" Well, I'd spent 50 years reading my Bible & praying! I got my education then & I already had it! I had the Word & knew the Lord well!
92. BUT EVE, SHE WAS THAT TYPE OF HOLINESS CHRISTIAN that had to get on your knees when you prayed & you had to read your Bible at least an hour every day. You had to quote your Scriptures by the yard. I could do it, & although I didn't always know exactly where it was, I could find it! I had never been taught to learn references, that was a sad thing.
93. BUT ANYWAY, THE MORNING AFTER EVE GOT THE PERMANENT SHE HAD SO CUSSED ME OUT THAT I SLAPPED HER, ONE OF THE FEW TIMES I EVER LAID A FINGER ON HER! I think it was the Lord, because the Holy Spirit just rose up in me & I said, "Now listen, I don't care what I'm like or what you think about me, I am still your husband!--And the Bible you're talking about says the wife is supposed to respect her husband & obey him!" I was so mad at her I cussed her out that night for getting the permanent & told her I was just fed up with her disobediences & rebelliousness. And so she cussed me out next morning, we really had a free-for-all of words!
94. I SAID I WAS JUST FED UP & I WAS THROUGH, & IF SHE WAS NOT GOING TO OBEY ME, HOW COULD SHE BE MY WIFE? I hadn't been married to Eve even but a few weeks when I started praying, "Lord, please deliver me from this woman!" She was such a case! Well, she really loved the Lord, but she just couldn't see that I was ever going to do anything, be anything or get anywhere. 50 years-of-age & I was still nobody! She wanted me to be a great evangelist & great church leader! Well, now I'm 60 & I'm still nobody!--But the Lord has used me anyhow!
95. SHE SAID, "THE LORD'S NEVER GOING TO USE YOU!" She was fed up with me & I was fed up with her, & so she took off on some other trip or something--I think that's when she went to Tucson! And while she was gone I prayed, "Lord, I am through with this woman, I am fed up with her, I cannot stand her any longer, I need somebody else!" She wasn't home half the time anyhow. "Here are all these pretty girls in this house & me out here all by myself, I really need somebody!"
96. SO I PUT IN MY ORDER! I told Maria once that I ordered her just like you'd order off a menu! I told the Lord exactly the kind of girl I wanted. Eve was through with me & I was through with her, & I could see that we were never going to hit it off anymore. She was just totally totally disrespectful & disobedient & rebellious & stubborn, had no confidence in me whatsoever. I mean, she just almost spit in my face! So that morning I slapped her for being really disrespectful & it kind of shook her up, I think, & she got mad & she stomped out & went off with the team to Phoenix!
97. AND WHEN THEY CAME BACK, HERE SHE WAS WITH DEAR LITTLE MARIA! Well, I didn't know it then, of course, but I did really like her when I first met her, she was my idea of a woman! I guess it was the Holy Spirit, I just felt that there was something there that was unusual.
98. AND SO SHE THEN WENT TO WORK FOR JETH. Give Deb credit for bringing Jeth along. She told Jeth that she was going to join the Revolution whether he joined or not, so he came & talked to me & said, "What would I do, Dad?" (He'd been working with Fred for four years.) I said, "Well, do what you're doing now, you can be my business manager & handle the correspondence & take care of things." I knew he didn't like me, he never really did, & with him it was strictly a business proposition. He never actually joined the Revolution at heart, I just hired him as a business manager.
99. SO, DRAGGING HIS FEET, HE RELUCTANTLY CAME & ORGANISED OUR OFFICE & THINGS WERE BEGINNING TO BOOM! We were getting a lot of correspondence, publishing Mother's book & so on, & Maria was his secretary & handling the correspondence. I was trying to shove as much of that off of me as I could.
100. SO, ANYWAY, MARIA PROMPTLY FELL IN LOVE WITH JETHRO, OF ALL PEOPLE! (Maria: Well, I must say that he's very sweet--especially if you're on his side & working for him!) And with a new woman he always turned on the charm!--And he can be charming, I must say! (Maria: Well, he was the only one I worked with all day, I hardly saw anybody else out in that little office all day & he was nice to me.) Yes, in the garage. It was my Mother's little study that she'd fitted with carpets & desk etc.
101. (MARIA: SO YOU FINALLY DECIDED TO COME OUT & SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE GARAGE!) Well, it was Winter & I was afraid she was cold, so I went out there to make sure she had heat, & she said she was cold, so I think I put her sweater around her or something. Then she said, "I wish you'd pray for my back, I'm having back aches lately."
102. SO I SAID, "WELL, WHERE IS IT? IS IT HERE? HIGHER? LOWER? IS THAT IT? I'LL GIVE YOU A LITTLE MASSAGE." (Maria: I started to forget Jethro right away!) Now, Honey! (Maria: I hadn't really seen you very much, Jethro's about the only man I'd had much contact with there.) I hardly saw Maria at all, except at the dinner table. She was working all day, & I was working all day in the Cruiser or elsewhere.
103. BUT I JUST FELT LED TO GO IN THAT DAY & SEE HOW SHE WAS DOING & tell her something about the mail, I've forgotten what it was. I said, "Well, your backache sounds to me like maybe it's your kidneys. Of course, a lot of women get backaches from congestion back here because of sexual tension, they don't have any sexual release, & you're not married." I was being honest & I wasn't trying to feed her a line or anything! (Maria: Even back in those days he always got around to that subject!)
104. AND THAT REMINDED HER OF A PROBLEM SHE HAD & she started to boo-hoo a little bit. She said, "I'm in love with your son-in-law!" (Maria: Did I cry, really?) Yes, you did, you cried. "But he's married & got five children--I couldn't steal another woman's husband!" And I said, "Well, that's true, you certainly couldn't have him." Of course I hadn't boned up enough on our doctrine of having an additional wife in those days, but I got around to it real fast after I got hooked on Maria! So I didn't know enough then to tell her, "Well, you wouldn't have to steal him, maybe you could just be added!"
105. WELL, I HAD HAD THAT IN MY HEAD FOR A LONG LONG TIME! Even my Father said it! And I didn't know till recently that even Martin Luther believed in plural marriage & even helped officiate at one! But that's one of the doctrines he kept under his hat to keep from having too much trouble, he had enough already! Well, I didn't really realise then what I was saying, but I said,
106. "WELL, YOU KNOW, THERE'S ONLY ONE SOLUTION IN A CASE LIKE THAT, THE ONLY CURE FOR AN OLD LOVE IS A NEW LOVE!" And really at that time I had no idea! Well, I might have had some idea. And I began thinking about it then, I thought, "Well, let's see, what can we do for that poor little girl? We can't let that go on, I'd better take her away from Jethro at least, so that that gets no further."
107. IT WAS ABOUT THE END OF MARCH, FIRST OF APRIL, & WE WERE JUST GETTING READY TO FLEE THE CITY & GET OUT OF THERE PERMANENTLY, BECAUSE THEY WERE REALLY HOT ON OUR HEELS! We had ripped off so many kids & gotten them saved & everything, the whole community was up in arms against us & giving us all kinds of persecution & problems & trouble. They'd doubled the rent on the Club after the contract expired & they even raised our rent on the cottage from $50 to $80! And the Club rent had been $100 & they raised that to $200, just trying to get rid of us!
108. AND EVERY TIME WE WENT TO A NEW CHURCH ON SUNDAY MORNING when that church visitation thing began with church sit-ins, a whole slew of cops, several police cars would attack the our convoy & stop them for windshield wipers, tail lights, every little thing, just to harass us & give us a bunch of tickets!
109. AND THEN I HEARD THEY WERE PREPARING A CASE AGAINST ME! They called Rachel, Carmel & their parents into the District County Attorney's office & asked them all kinds of questions, doing everything they could to compile evidence that we were contributing to juvenile delinquency, etc., because some of the kids had been playing hooky from school to come to the Club in the afternoon. It wasn't my fault, I wasn't even there, but they were going to blame that on me & anything else they could dig up.
110. TWO GIRLS HAD STAYED THERE OVERNIGHT ONE TIME & this was "harbouring a minor or delinquent," a very serious offense. Then some guy with a criminal record had stayed there overnight & that's "harbouring a criminal," all kinds of stuff they were trying to cook up in this case, Rachel's parents & some other parents all conniving together.
111. I MEAN, THEY WERE JUST OUT TO GET US, PERIOD, JUST LIKE THEY STILL ARE! And it got so heavy & so much trouble we just decided, "Well, we're through here, we'll just leave! Time's up! Why sit around here like a clay pigeon ready to get shot at?" So we prepared to leave, & I invited Maria to come along with us. By this time she was already working as my secretary, I'd taken her away from Jethro. I said, "I have very important mail, much more important than Jeth's mail, would you like to work for me?" So she used to come out in the Cruiser & work at the table--the famous little table! I think that was the first place we ever made love was at that table!
112. IN FACT, I THINK EVE EVEN INVITED YOU FIRST! I remember in the Cruiser she suggested, "You know, I need a secretary, I'd like to take Maria along with us." That sounded like a good idea, & I said, "Sure, why not? You can use her part time & I can use her part time!" Of course I didn't tell her how I was going to use her! I'd thought a little bit about Maria, but as God knows, I had no really serious intentions at that time. When I thought about her coming with us in the Cruiser, I thought it sounded very interesting, especially with Mother Eve being the one inviting her! That took the blame off my neck.
113. SO I SAID TO MARIA, "HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK FOR THE BOSS INSTEAD OF THE BUSINESS MANAGER? How would you like a promotion?" And what did you say? (Maria: I was so loyal to the person I worked for!) She had a battle making up her mind, can you imagine that? She said, "Well, I'll think & pray about it." (Maria: Well, you weren't insistent about it.) I didn't give you an order, I just invited you. She said, "I'll think & pray about it!" She didn't want to leave her Jethro, of all things! (Maria: I'm sure the Lord put in my heart what I should do & also being the Leo I am, I wanted to be at the top, of course, & not get left behind, so I decided I'd take the promotion!) Well, whatever it was, I'm sure it was the Lord!
114. I SAID, "OF COURSE, IT WILL BE RATHER ROUGH TRAVELLING & TIGHT QUARTERS! To live in the Cruiser you have to kind of all be like members of the same family & you all have to virtually live in one room & live awfully close together!" (Maria: You gave a pretty good sales talk!) I think I had her pretty well convinced, & I think she at least liked me! (Maria: I liked you very much!) So we drove up to Yucaipa where all those trailers were that night, a little town up in the mountains, about an afternoon's drive, to stop & visit with a family who were friends of ours on the way.
115. WE WERE HEADED EAST, TO TUCSON, WHERE FAITHY & MIGUEL WERE BEGGING US TO COME & BRING SOME OF THE KIDS. They said, "Things are exploding here! Booming! The Lord's really working!" I mean, the place was packed out & people were looking in the windows & whatnot, & I don't think they even knew what to do with it! I don't think the Pastor knew what to do with it either, because the place was so packed with hippies every night their own people couldn't even get in! And the church people were beginning to gripe & complain about turning the thing into a nightclub instead of a church! The only church service they had left was Sunday morning, because the kids would come & pack it out again on Sunday night!
116. SO WE HAD DECIDED WE WERE GOING TO GO THERE & "SEE HOW THEY DO" (Acts 15:36) & LET THE LORD LEAD FROM THERE. (Maria: We took Sue & Cheryl with us.) Two other pretty girls! How did we happen to take all those girls with us? Mother wanted them along to do the cooking or something. Well, that was nice, I never objected to pretty girls around! So we stopped up there & we parked in this vacant lot across from this fellow's house.
117. MOTHER EVE WAS ALWAYS THE PUSHER FOR HAVING MEETINGS & PUTTING ON A SHOW ETC., so she took the kids in & had sort of a house meeting, music & testimonies & stuff. I was tired from driving all day & I didn't want to go, in fact, I seldom ever darkened the door of a church once I got fed-up, I just let Mother. I was the driver, chauffeur & business manager, & I let Mother Eve take the kids & put on her show.
118. BUT IT SO HAPPENED THIS DEAR LITTLE SECRETARY WAS ALSO VERY TIRED, REMEMBER THAT? She said, "Well, I'm tired too & I have a headache, I want to go to bed." (Maria: It must have been with your help, maybe you suggested it.) No, you were tired & had a headache & you wanted to go to bed too--& I probably agreed! So she climbed up in the top bunk. The Cruiser came with a doublebed in the back, but because we were always carrying these teams around, I built a double-bed bunk above it. Sometimes we slept three in each of them!
119. WE SLEPT 12 PEOPLE IN THAT THING ONE NIGHT--six in the back in the doublebed bunks, & two people each in the two front beds.--There was a bed divan that made down into a double bed, & there was a dinette that made into a double bed, & that made ten. And with cushions we made a bed across the two front seats & the motor, & we slept one person on the floor--12 people!
120. SO SHE STAYED IN & I STAYED IN & I GOT READY TO GO TO BED. She was already in bed in her cute little nightie. I slept downstairs, of course, & she was sleeping decorously upstairs. And I always was very affectionate & I always kissed everybody goodnight, to this day I always want to kiss when you come in & kiss you when you go out, sort of a Family rule! So I'd made sort of a little step box so that the girls could get up there where they could climb in the bed. We didn't have a ladder, but you could step up on this 3-step box that was high enough you could climb into the bed upstairs.
121. SO BEFORE I WENT TO BED TO GO TO SLEEP, & before she was asleep, I stepped on the top of the box to kiss her goodnight & make sure she was comfortable on the top bunk. And she put her little arms around me, bless her heart, & she was very loving & affectionate--& so was I! And that got to be quite a kiss!--Our first real kiss! We kissed & loved & petted a little bit & I thought, "Well, that's nice!" But I knew she was quite a prim & proper little preacher's girl, so I figured I'd better watch my step. It was a little hard to cut it off, but I decided, "With this little girl I've got to go very slow!" I'm glad she couldn't see below the bed!--How I finished it off afterward! (Maria: I probably never even thought of it!) She was a very good little girl! And so to my sorrow I went to bed.
122. BUT THAT WASN'T THE LAST TIME, IT JUST SORT OF GREW FROM THERE! Every night we kept staying in the Cruiser & Mother Eve kept taking her team out somewhere, & we got a little more ardent all the time! (Maria: I stayed back under the pretext of working, & we did work at night. But that loving was your idea, I never would have initiated that.)
123. WE ALWAYS STAYED HOME TO WORK WHILE MAMA & THE KIDS WENT TO CHURCH! (Maria: I had to do my work at night because during the day when we were travelling I couldn't.) Right, Honey. As soon as the rest of the Family were gone, why, we got to work! I'll never forget, Honey, the first time I put my hand on your dear little bosom, what a thrill I got! (Maria: Wasn't it the first night?) Was it that first night, really? How did I get up that much nerve the first night?
124. AND IT JUST GREW & GREW UNTIL FINALLY ONE NIGHT WE GOT PRETTY ARDENT--did I get up in bed with you or did you come down in bed with me? (Maria: I came down & got in bed with you!) And we never have been able to fix the night yet, the exact date of our Anniversary. (Maria: I wouldn't have thought of keeping a log in those days! It was in Tucson, wasn't it?)
125. I ALWAYS USED TO SAY IT WAS IN RICHARD'S DRIVEWAY, that fellow who had the house there who was thinking about forsaking all. He had invited us to park the Cruiser in his driveway just a few blocks from the church, one of the church members, & we proceeded with our usual staying home--which usually meant a very interesting evening together. We did do some work. (Maria: You sat on one side of the little table & I sat on the other & we tried to get some work done.) But I'd be busy with my toes playing footsie!
126. IN THE DAYTIME, BROAD DAYLIGHT, WE'D SIT SIDE-BY-SIDE. She would sit beside me with her little typewriter & I was sitting there furiously dictating, & then we'd get to kissing & hugging! (Maria: We always tried to find reasons why all the rest of the Family ought to go out during the day or at night.) It wasn't hard to do, Mother Eve always liked to run around & go shopping or something. (Maria: I think the most exciting part of it was at night when we were together in bed!) Let's get us married first!
127. ANYHOW, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT! Mostly we were just what we used to call when I was a kid, necking, just kissing, cuddling & fondling, petting, & she was a virgin, so it took me a little while to get her opened up! But finally, one night in Richard's driveway we got it together! PTL!--Her first! It was wonderful! So our anniversary is some night in April, we don't know for sure. (Tim: This is the 1st of April!) (Maria: This must be our celebration!) It must have been the first part of April, because I recall we left about the last of March, & we finally got it together! TTL!
128. IT WAS QUITE A THRILL! IT WAS ALMOST LIKE GETTING MARRIED FOR THE FIRST TIME! It was almost as new to me as it was to her! So once we'd made it, well, it was every night, every night, every night! (Maria: Every day too!) In the daytime we'd sit side-by-side working away, she's typing & I'm dictating & going through the mail, & every now & then the typewriter would get a little bit quiet because we were hugging & kissing & loving!
129. QUITE FREQUENTLY SHE'D HAVE ME GOING UNDER THE TABLE & I had her going, when somebody would pop in the door--thank God for the table! It was located in such a way that if they came in they couldn't see. But the big problem was, the most exciting as she started to say...you tell them! (Maria: When it got around toward the end of the church meeting & we were in bed together & never knew exactly when the others were going to come home.) We had to make sure we were separated & she was nicely back in her bunk again!
130. (MARIA: MOTHER EVE WOULD GET MORE SUSPICIOUS & MORE SUSPICIOUS!) Once or twice dear little Mother came home early & came bursting in the door! All we had was a little curtain across the aisle to hide the beds, & suddenly we heard Mother coming & Maria would scramble out of my bed as fast as she could & back up in the top bunk & pretend to be asleep! (Maria: And Mother would race down the aisle, pull the curtain back & say, "What's going on here?") She was beginning to suspect, but she never caught us once, did she? (Maria: Except one time when I think you wanted her to.)
131. THAT MUST HAVE BEEN THE SEARS PARKING LOT, ONE OF OUR FAVOURITE PLACES TO PARK! We used to park a whole convoy there on the weekend when there was nobody there. It was a good place to park, vacant & lots of room. I think Mother began to suspect something was going on for sure, & I hadn't quite sold her yet on the doctrine of polygamy. I was even having a hard time selling Maria on the doctrine of polygamy, I don't think I got her sold on that until we got to Texas. But she was at least enjoying participating, even if she didn't understand the doctrine.
132. (MARIA: I MUST SAY, MOTHER EVE WAS QUITE NICE TO ME ALMOST ALL THE TIME, BECAUSE SHE WAS BLAMING IT ALL ON YOU & SHE WAS MAD AT YOU. She still continued to be quite nice to me.) She knew me pretty well, didn't she, Honey? She knew it was probably my fault. Well, we were in pretty thick then! I mean, that was it as far as I was concerned. I think it was there that I got that first prophecy. It was in the afternoon & we were fully dressed, lying side-by-side on the back bed praying & talking, & Maria was praying & began to speak in tongues.
133. SHE GOT A LOT OF MESSAGES, & THAT'S WHAT REALLY MADE ME EXERCISE THE GIFT! I knew already that I had the gift of interpretation & had exercised it a few times after my Mother was gone. Mother was a marvellous prophetess & had a marvellous gift of interpretation, but I didn't know that I had the gift of prophecy. I knew I had the gift of interpretation, because almost always when I would hear a message in tongues, even in a church, I knew what they were saying, even if I didn't interpret. So Maria began praying & giving a message in tongues.
134. WE HAD A LOT OF PRAYER TOGETHER, BELOVED, IT WASN'T ALL SEX! We're sort of having fun exaggerating that part of it, but it was really very very spiritual. We were really in tune spiritually & we had a lot of sweet fellowship in the Lord, a lot of discussions about the Lord & His work. And we were back there really praying that afternoon & we got the most beautiful message!
135. IT WAS THE MAGNIFICAT!--Mary's message about "He hath exalted the maiden of low degree" etc. (Lk.1:46-55.) That was when the Lord called her Maria, the Lord named her in that message, & we hadn't even started changing names to Bible names then, we didn't do that till we got to Texas. But I think that was the thing that led us to do it, was the fact that I got that message & it was all about Maria, a beautiful message about how the Lord was going to use her.
136. NOW YOU CAN SEE, BUT THEN, I THOUGHT, "MY LORD, WHAT IS THIS? It sounds like something great is going to happen, that God is going to mightily use her in some very great way!" All about "through thee shall all the Earth be blessed" & all this sort of thing! I thought, "How can that be?" I was sort of like Mary was, she said, "How can these things be?" You'll have to read it some time, it just really is a marvellous prophecy of how the Lord was going to use her to bless the whole World, the same prophecy the Lord used about Mary. Well, the first Mary had a baby, Jesus, who blessed the Earth, & I guess I'm your baby, Honey! She was the one that really started it all, & the Lord did it all, of course.
137. BUT THEN WE BEGAN REGULARLY HAVING OUR SWEET LITTLE TIME OF PRAYER TOGETHER & she had this gift of messages & tongues. So we began getting a lot of messages & interpretations from the Lord that way, wonderful things the Lord was predicting about what was going to happen. I mean, they were hard to believe, that this was going to be all over the World & the Lord was going to bless the whole Earth & "all nations shall call thee blessed," etc., etc. Marvellous! It really took a lot of faith to even give the interpretation because it sounded so far out, really far out! I mean, who were we? We were nothing but a little handful then, only 50 of us who left Huntington Beach to go on the road. And I think at that time there were only about a dozen cars.
138. SO WE WENT TO TUCSON, & THEN THINGS GOT HOT IN TUCSON! The Catholics were preparing a campaign against us & had gotten 9,000 parents to sign a petition that they presented to the police to get us out! Tucson's a very Catholic city, rich Southern Spanish Catholic city. And when we heard about that, we knew the System, it would think of some way to get us one way or the other, because they make the laws & they're made to protect them & they've got the System on their side. They get you one way or another, sooner or later, that's why you have to keep running!
139. THE LORD SAID, "FLEE THE CITY!" So we thought it was about time for us to leave, at least for me to leave. So the Rambler & a few kids went with us, & we got as far as that windy cold little cowboy town near the border of Texas called Lordsburg. The wind was blowing & it was a cold, horrible little town! We parked in this little campground out on the edge of town, & lo & behold, in the middle of the night if dear Rachel & her sister Carmel didn't show up! Lordsburg, New Mexico of all places! I wouldn't have ever called that place the Lord's Burg! It's more like the Devil's Burg!
140. SO WE LEFT TUCSON, AND ONCE THIS GIRL GOT LIBERATED & EMBOLDENED, WHEW! I remember when I used to be sitting there driving the Cruiser half the night, she'd come up & sit on the engine cover. (Maria: You'd sing me songs.) Yes, I'd sing her love songs & she'd reach over & do me! Bless her heart! It was wonderful! Usually Mom & the kids would be back in bed sleeping.
141. FINALLY THE REST OF THEM LEFT TUCSON TOO & WE WERE ABOUT 14 VEHICLES BY THAT TIME: Shad & his bunch first, then Jethro was the rear guard bringing up the last contingent. We all met at Tucson & were there about a month till things got too hot for us, then we began moving out in stages again. A few cars move out, more cars move out, then we'd have staging areas where we'd meet. We said, "We'll meet you at a certain town!" I was pretty familiar with all the campgrounds & places to park, or big truck stops where you can drive in the back like the trucks.
142. IT WAS EL PASO WHERE WE MET HO. This fellow in Tucson had given them this old yellow bus, & he & his team & Simon Black, the first little band we had, used to get up on top of that thing. They built a platform on top of it, & we also had a little VW van & he built a platform on top of that too, so that they could get up on top of the vehicle with their sound system & blare away!
143. THEY'D DRIVE UP ON THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS & START SOCKING OUT THE MUSIC & THE SONGS & THE KIDS WOULD COME BY THE HUNDREDS TO HEAR! Then they'd give their testimonies & preach the Gospel! We were just winning disciples right & left! They were forsaking here & there & everywhere! Those universities were just a real ripe field for kids dropping out. I think more kids dropped out just before graduation than any other time! I don't know whether they were doing it to escape the exams or what! They were under terrific pressure worrying about the future, what were they going to do & everything else, & here was the answer!
144. SO, PRAISE GOD! PTL!--ON WITH OUR LOVE STORY! You can call this "Our Love Story", Honey! So everywhere we went the police were hot on our trail, of course, hounding us, so we decided the best thing to do was break up into three parties so they wouldn't know which one I was in or which way I went. So we broke up there into three different groups at El Paso. We made up a map of the United States & we coloured the routes each of us were going to take.
145. WE WERE ALL TO COME BACK TOGETHER AT LAURENTIDE, up near Montreal, Canada, but we were going to cross the whole country together & preach & win disciples all the way! We left with 50 from California & by the time we arrived at Laurentide there were about 100 of us! We won 50 totally forsake-all disciples on the way who just joined the Caravan & went with us!
146. AND THEY WEREN'T JUST A BUNCH OF BUMS, THEY WERE THE CREAM OF THE CROP, MOST OF THEM FROM UPPER MIDDLE CLASS! Well, that's because they were fed-up! They'd had everything already, their parents were wealthy. They knew that money didn't satisfy, they'd already dropped out of home & were fed-up with the older generation, their parents. They dropped out of church & then they dropped out of school, & when we came along it was unbelievably easy how the Lord just harvested them like that!--Won souls by the hundreds, & just easily got these disciples to join us on the spot! Some just joined us--boom--like that, & never even went home again or anything!
147. SO WE TOOK THE SOUTHERN ROUTE because Mother Eve wanted to go to Miami for some reason or another, or we had an invitation or something. Then Ho with his old yellow bus & a few dilapidated vehicles were going to take the middle route across the United States. Then Joab & his crowd, which included Rachel & Carmel at that time, & I think also Joel, had a car & a trailer & a couple other vehicles & were taking the Northern route. We were just going to really comb the whole United States!
148. WELL, THAT WAS IT, WE WENT ON CLEAR ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, & WE ALL JOINED UP AGAIN AT LAURENTIDE! By this time we'd heard from Josh that this doctor, Dr. Martin, had offered this campground to us up there in the beautiful mountains & woods of Quebec, about 50 miles North of Montreal. It was a beautiful place, we loved it! But I think Mother Eve was getting more & more suspicious all the way. By the time we got to New Orleans she was definitely suspicious!
149. AND DEAR JAVAN, BECAME MOTHER'S CHAUFFEUR. HE WAS A GOOD DRIVER & HANDYMAN, SWEET BOY, & MOTHER LOVED HIM VERY MUCH. He could cook, he could clean, he was so sweet, he would do anything. She was always running around with the car, & she wanted a chauffeur, so she recruited Javan. He'd been won in Arizona & was on Ho's team for awhile, but somehow or another Mother got him to come down & join us at Texarkana where we got Amos. We stayed at Amos' house in Texarkana, or at least in his driveway. (Maria: We had Martha with us then too--Martha, David Z & Javan.) We picked up Amos there & he went with us.
150. I'LL NEVER FORGET HOW I TRIED TO PAWN MARIA OFF ON AMOS! I thought, "Oh, it's terrible! Here I am an old man, this young girl shouldn't marry an old man like me!" Amos was young & handsome & was more her age, he was about 30 then, & his wife had left him because he was such an ardent witnesser. He was already a witness for the Lord before we met him, working in a defense factory.
151. ANYHOW, WE GOT TO TEXARKANA & MOTHER SENT FOR JAVAN & was always running around with the car. But I didn't mind anymore now, because I was no longer lonely. Then we went on to New Orleans to attend the World Baptist Convention. You talk about flag-waving rednecks, the American Baptists are it!
152. AND DEAR AMOS & AARON & HO & DAVID Z, YOU TALK ABOUT COURAGE, they got out there on the sidewalk in front of this huge auditorium where they were having the World Baptist Convention--I think they only have it about every ten years--& they marched up & down with placards! Something about: "Why don't you really serve the Lord, why don't you drop out, why aren't you witnessing, why don't you win souls?"--Some real convicting things about Christians! Whew!
153. THEY WERE ATTACKED ALMOST VIOLENTLY BY SOME OF THOSE BAPTIST MEN, ushers called the police on them & everything else. But it was perfectly lawful to picket. The cops came & talked to the boys & said they were going to call them in for vagrancy if they didn't have $5, but thank God they had some money. So we stayed there, & of course Mother & them went into the meeting every night, & Maria & I, of course, stayed out at the Cruiser, very chummy & cozy!
154. BUT I THINK IT WAS THERE ONE NIGHT THAT SHE CAME OUT DURING THE MEETING & SURPRISED US, SNUCK UP ON US! I think she realised something was going on by that time. She suddenly flung open the door of the Cruiser! (Maria: It was easy, she didn't have to fumble with the key, she could just stick her hand inside & turn the knob real quick.) She knew this little trick because she was always forgetting her key, so she'd made a hole in the screen & reached in & turned the inside knob. Was that the night that she caught us in bed? I think we'd practically gone to sleep or something when she came, so it sort of surprised us.
155. (MARIA: WAS THAT THE NIGHT WE WENT TO THAT REVOLVING RESTAURANT?) Yes, yes, on the top of that building. One of the few times I ever took Maria out, I couldn't afford it most of the time. We went up there & got a bowl of soup or something on top of this new tall building with a revolving restaurant that was right next door. It was very romantic & we really enjoyed it, & we came back, made love & then we went to sleep.
156. THEN MOTHER EVE CAME OUT BEFORE THE END OF THE MEETING & SURPRISED US!--And from then on we began having a little altercation with dear Eve about it. (Maria: I'd sleep upstairs, & I'd wake up in the morning & Mother Eve was just giving...) Giving me Hell! (Maria: Nagging & criticising, it was really terrible, on & on & on! I felt so bad for all the trouble I'd caused!) Talk about a hen-pecked husband, I was a hen-pecked husband, I must say! My greatest relief was every time Eve took a trip or left or anything, & I didn't have to listen to her anymore! Dear Maria was always so quiet & sweet, you could never imagine her hen-pecking anybody! So Mother snuck in & said, "What's going on here!?" I was afraid she might kill Maria or something, she was violent! She blew up! And from then on we really had it out with dear Mother.
157. IT PAYS TO TAKE A STAND, BELOVED! IF THE TRUTH KILLS, LET IT KILL! From there to New Orleans to Miami & from then on I just decided to be bold about it & I insisted on both of them sleeping with me, one slept on one side & one slept on the other. Mother Eve was still grumbling & grouching & murmuring away, & I said, "Well, Maria's just here to stay, that's all, take it or leave it!"
158. AND SHE PUT UP WITH IT FAIRLY WELL, PROBABLY BETTER THAN MOST WIVES WOULD HAVE. Most wives probably would have left or shot me or something--or shot Maria! But she put up with it pretty well & we went all the way to Miami. That's when we got Tony the lawyer! We had little Bible Studies out under the tree in his yard. We were teaching Bible Prophecy, Forsake-all & all the things we taught about witnessing & all. His wife had left him already, saying he was crazy, because he had already gotten saved, I think through the Full Gospel Businessmen, & was witnessing like a house-a-fire!
159. SO WE & OUR DOCTRINE & PRACTICES JUST ABSOLUTELY FLIPPED HIM OUT BECAUSE WE WERE JUST WHAT HE WAS LOOKING FOR! He was about 45, a wealthy lawyer, living in a big mansion there in Miami. His wife had left him, & yet when she found out he was getting in with us, she came back. She was afraid we were for sure going to steal him away--which we did. And his mother came too, a Catholic, & she gave him Hell!
160. HIS WIFE DIDN'T PUT UP ANY VIOLENCE WHEN WE LEFT, but as we were pulling out & he was going to go with us to Laurentide, his mother grabbed the door of the car as the car was moving, flung it open & grabbed him by the hair to try to pull him out of the car! It was about all he could do to pull away from her & get the door shut, & I gunned the car & off we went!
161. WELL, WE GOT TO SEARS PARKING LOT IN WASHINGTON, D.C. I had a Sears card & you could always get a cheque cashed, up to $100 without any question, if you had a Sears card, which made it convenient, & which also helped to make you welcome there & use the restrooms or café or whatever. It was a really handy place to be, except it was shut up over the weekend. But under our toilet we had a 50-gallon retaining tank so that we could get by easily. We used to get by sometimes as long as two weeks at the World's Fair before I had to empty it!
162. TALK ABOUT BEING ECONOMICAL WITH WATER, LET ME TELL YOU, WE KNEW HOW TO DO IT! Nothing went down that toilet except what had to go down the toilet, & any other water we threw outside. We parked for six months in the World's Fair parking lot & lived in it! I'll never forget when this carload of policemen drove up to have a beer party right beside us one day, a bunch of guards, & they said, "Oh, this is the boss's camper!" They thought it belonged to the director of the Fair or security, so they didn't bother us. We were inside with the windows all sealed with black paper so it would never show a crack of light!
163. WE DIDN'T HAVE TO BE VERY CAREFUL IN SEARS THOUGH, hardly ever were we made to move on. Carmel, California was the one place where they made us move. We frequently parked right on the street. We parked right across the street from the Capitol Building in one town. We'd just draw our shades tight & wouldn't make it obvious somebody was sleeping there at night.
164. SO WE PARKED AT SEARS PARKING LOT THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON. I think everybody else was gone & Mother Eve decided it was her chance to let us have it! And whew, she just exploded! She was like a crazy person! She said, "I'm not going to have this woman taking my place, blah blah blah blah blah!" I tried to keep calm & I said, "Well, Honey, she'll never take your place, you have your own place! You're my first wife, you've borne my children, that's yours. You're the first." But that didn't matter!
165. SHE SAID, "WELL, I'M LEAVING!" I said, "Well, OK, if you want to go, you go! I'm not making you leave, I never told you to leave." I believe like the Bible says, that if you marry another wife you're to continue your duty of marriage to the first wife, continue to make love to her, in other words, & to try to treat them equally & love them both, & I think I really tried to be fair. I'd make love to one, one night, or take turns, sometimes the same night. Usually I'd make love to one at night & then one in the morning, sometimes another one in the middle of the night! But I was young then, I can't do it that much anymore!
166. SO I TOLD MOTHER EVE, "IF YOU WANT TO GO, THAT'S UP TO YOU, BUT MARIA STAYS!" And Eve just went berserk! I was never so thankful that Sears was totally deserted! She burst out the door & in this huge gigantic parking lot she went around screaming & praying & talking in tongues at the top of her voice, just like she'd absolutely lost her marbles! (Maria: First she went after me!)--Yes.
167. MARIA'D GONE TO THE RESTROOM IN THE MALL & EVE TOOK OFF AFTER HER! I thought, "My Lord, I hope she's not going to kill her or attack'r!" I didn't know what to do! But dear Maria handled it very wisely, she said, "It's none of my business, you talk to David, not me, he's the boss!" That was a pretty wise thing to do. Poor little Maria came back to the Cruiser with Eve tagging along behind her, yelling & screaming! I was afraid somebody was going to hear & call the police or report us, it was horrible! And Maria came back in & sat down beside me.
168. I'LL TELL YOU, SHE CAN KEEP HER COOL BETTER THAN ANYBODY I THINK I ALMOST EVER SAW! No matter what happens, she never gets upset. Really! She has got nerves of steel & real faith! She just kept so calm & collected & perfectly cool. (Maria: I just didn't show it!) Well, Honey, that's poise, not to show it. So anyway, Eve came storming in the door after her, still screaming & yelling & praying in tongues at the top of her voice!
169. THEN SHE BEGAN TO PROPHESY AGAINST US! She said things I knew were not of the Lord & I stopped her in the middle & rebuked her in Jesus' name! I said, "You shut up! That's not of God, that's of the Devil! Absolutely of the Devil, that's not of the Lord!" She called me all kinds of names, it was horrible, just terrible! I think finally I slapped her & told her to shut up! I said, "Shut your mouth, that's not of the Lord, it's of the Devil!"--& that kind of woke her up! It was almost like she was out of her head, demon-possessed!--Like Saul! (1Sam.19:24)
170. I SAID, "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DO, I KNOW THIS GIRL IS OF GOD & I'M NOT ABOUT TO THROW HER OUT! I have been fair & good to you & tried to give you equal time & love & everything else, but I am not going to by any means throw her out! If you want to go, you can go, but that's it!" And she finally calmed down & sort of clammed up & went back in to lay down on the bed. We could hear her every now & then praying away or jabbering in tongues & whatnot, or crying.
171. BUT SHE FINALLY GOT OVER IT & JUST SORT OF CLAMMED UP & WOULDN'T TALK TO US AT ALL THEN. Then she & the lawyer started running around going to meetings. She'd run off with him all the time. I guess it was the Lord's way of giving her something to fall back on. We had to stay there about two weeks in that parking lot because we'd burned out the engine just as we were coming in. It'd been over 100,000 miles! That thing's had about four or five engines now!
172. TONY BOUGHT US A NEW ENGINE & THEY PUT IT IN RIGHT THERE, & I HELPED THEM. I had to do all the work of dismantling & detaching the engine & preparing it. They said, "If all we have to do is stick it in & mount it & you do all the other work, we'll give it to you at a real cheap price!" Have you ever changed an engine? You'd never dream how many things are attached to that engine till you have to change it! It was a big job! So we were there about two weeks, & then we drove on to Montreal.
173. WE PICKED UP LEO IN NEW YORK, THAT FUNNY OLD FELLOW WHO WAS SORT OF PSYCHIC. He was sitting on the curb at Sears Parking Lot having a heart attack. Tony saw him there & sat down beside him & said, "What's wrong?" He said, "I'm having a heart attack." Tony said, "Do you want me to call an ambulance? Want me to call a doctor?" He didn't seem to know, so Tony said, "Well, I'll pray for you." And he prayed for him & the Lord touched him just like that!
174. SO TONY TALKED TO HIM & WON HIM TO THE LORD & HE WAS SO IMPRESSED WITH TONY, HE PICKED UP & WANTED TO GO WITH US RIGHT THEN & THERE! He was about in his 60s, wealthy & had this big apartment on Roosevelt Boulevard, New York. So he phoned his wife & told her, "I'm going for a little trip with these people & I'll be back after awhile." I don't know if she knew how far he was going to go!
175. I'LL NEVER FORGET WHEN HE WAS TELLING US GOODBYE! We parked outside the World's Fairground in Montreal & I think he decided by that time he'd had about enough, & he'd better get back to his wife. But he really enjoyed it. He & Tony usually rode in the car & talked while I drove the Cruiser. He was so funny, sometimes I wondered if he was a little cracked or weird, but he was really kind of psychic as well as psycho!
176. SO AS HE WAS TELLING US GOODBYE AT THE MONTREAL FAIRGROUNDS, HE WENT AROUND THE CIRCLE & POINTED TO EACH ONE, "You're so-&-so, you're the so-&-so, & you're so-&-so & so-&-so"--in other words, he had us all pegged, what our particular mission or characterisation or calling was. And finally he pointed at me & said, "And you are the fuse that lights the bomb!"--Ha! That was really something, almost like a prophecy!
177. SO WE FINALLY MADE IT TO LAURENTIDE & WE ALL GOT TOGETHER, ABOUT 100 OF US THEN! Maybe 125 or something like that. And there at Laurentide I think dear Eve finally gave up. She was still sort of fussing away. She'd begun to be real cutting & mean to Maria, which she hadn't been before, & she'd fuss at her & say cutting things & I'd rebuke her for it. It just got to where we just couldn't live together very well at all. So the first opportunity that came to go someplace else was when Tony wanted to forsake-all & give up his mansion & everything, she decided to go down there & make it a colony or school or something.
178. SO HO, FAITHY, MOTHER & A TEAM OF ABOUT TEN TOOK OFF IN HIS VAN WITH A COUPLE OF CARS TO GO BACK WITH HIM TO MIAMI. By this time his wife was begging him to come back, "I'll come back to you, dear, & I'll take care of you, I'll love you, blah blah blah blah!" So he was saying, "Looks like my wife is getting won over!"--But it was just trickery, she was just trying to trick him to come back. He said, "Now I'll be able to use the mansion for the Lord," etc.
179. SO THEY WENT BACK, & THAT'S WHERE SHE HIT FAITHY OVER THE HEAD WITH A BILLIARD CUE, NEARLY KNOCKED HER OUT! Oh, they had a horrible time! Faithy & them locked themselves in the bathroom to get away from her, she was screaming & violent & said she was going to kill them, & I think she would have! I think they finally called the police, & the police came & rescued them & they had to go to court. I think Javan was with them, he's been with us a long time, GBH! And of all things, the wife brought the charges & said that Mother & Faithy & them were the ones that did it! But when the Judge heard the story & dear sweet calm Javan told what happened, the Judge threw the whole thing out of court! He ought to have sentenced the wife, because she was a devil!
180. BUT SHE REALLY WORKED TONY OVER & PERSUADED HIM TO STAY. Really tricked him! You talk about pouring on the charm & the love & the sex & everything else, she really did everything she could to keep him, & she did, so they finally left without him & came back. So Mother went with that team, & then she was going out different places all the time & we didn't see her much anymore, TTL, it was a relief!
181. SO MOTHER & HER TEAM WERE GONE & THEN MARIA & I WERE LEFT ALONE IN THE CRUISER WITH CANDY FOR OUR COOK. What's her name now? (Maria: Sunny!) She slept on the front couch, Maria & I in the back, & by this time Rachel was there at the camp. We were trying to keep it pretty well undercover that Maria & I were together, because we didn't want to cause anybody with weak faith to stumble or anything, we didn't know just how the kids were going to take it, but apparently they were all beginning to get the point!
182. RACHEL SAID SHE KNEW WHEN SHE PASSED BY THE CRUISER ONE DAY THAT SOMETHING WAS GOING ON IN THERE, I think she heard us making love or something. (Maria: She felt it in the spirit. She said she was happy for us, but she was jealous.) She said, "Lord, why couldn't I have been the one?" Because she claims now that she fell in love with me in Huntington Beach! Anyway, I was a little worried about Rachel because I think she figured, "Well, if he can have her, why can't he have me?" And she was giving me these come-hither looks & looks of love & whatnot! I thought the situation was complicated enough already, so I real quick betrothed her off to Sam Warner in a real fast operation! She was practically dumbfounded, because she wasn't ever that fond of Sam!
183. THAT WAS THE ONLY MATCHMAKING I EVER DID, LORD FORGIVE ME! But the Lord showed us afterwards that in a way He sort of used Sam to reserve & preserve her so that she would be sort of earmarked for the future. I really did have some marvellous visions & messages in those days, still do, now & then! I had a lot of prophecy then, & I've had a lot since then.
184. BUT THEN IT WAS NEW & IT WAS JUST AMAZING! I was so amazed & marvelled at these things that were coming out of my mouth that weren't even going through my head, you might say! It was marvellous what the Lord was doing. Well, the Lord had to do miracles in those days, in the beginning, He really had to do some marvellous things! It was just like the days of the Early Church, a new church was being born, a new people of God, & He had to do miracles!
185. WELL, THAT'S THE STORY, OUR LOVE STORY! That was the birth of the Revolution, too!--Richard's driveway! We spent virtually all our honeymoon & courting days in parking lots!--Ha! There're a lot of weird things going on in parking lots! Well, when Mother Eve got away & began to have more or less her own ministry, her own little team & everything, she was happy. She was fine, & she always had some boyfriend. (Maria: Alf was her boyfriend for awhile!) What happened that you got ripped off? (Alf: I met Sara!)
186. SO THEN ALONG CAME STEPHEN! Steve was a good boy, he took good care of her, TTL, & I was so happy when she finally got somebody that really loved her & cared for her & chauffeured her. She always needed a chauffeur, somebody to drive her, & she was perfectly content then. She's had quite a few since then! When she finally abandoned her self-righteous attitude about sex, she went to the opposite extreme! I wish she had been that way when I knew her! Whew! She's a hot one now!
187. THEN SHE STARTED HER LITTLE SEX REVOLUTION, going around visiting all the different Colonies. Her ministry was to upset the fruit basket & get everybody scrambled up & mismated & whatnot!--& it looks like she's still at it! Well, I hated to have to put those things in the FN, but we have warned Mother Eve so many times to stop causing trouble, stop going in & bringing division & defying leaders & ripping off workers & all kinds of things, doing everything she's been told not to do, like going back to [EDITED: " ____ "] all the time. So that's the happy tale & the sad tale!--Our happy tale & Eve's sad tale.
188. SO PRAISE THE LORD, THE LORD HAS WORKED IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS HIS WONDERS TO PERFORM, & HERE WE ARE! And without Maria, there wouldn't have been any Revolution! (Maria: There would have been somebody else!) No, Honey, nobody else could ever have been you, nobody else but you! You're the one the Lord raised up for it. She had faith in me, she believed, she really loved me no matter what, & she had faith in the Lord. She just expected it, so I couldn't fail either her or the Lord.
189. SO HERE WE ARE TEN YEARS LATER! (1978!) Well, almost ten years later, it was '69. Nine years ago this month. This is our anniversary, Honey! I guess this is our little Anniversary Party tonight. Since I don't know what day of the month it was, we'll just celebrate all month long! (1983'll be our 14th!)
190. WELL, THE LORD SEALED IT, & IT WAS SEALED FROM THE BEGINNING, BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, I'M SURE! It just was God's design & it had to be, PTL! I love you! I love you all, every one of you! GBY! Maybe the Lord wanted you to hear that story some reason! Maybe that's the only time I've told it so completely! There're a lot of these stories of the early days I think the kids would enjoy! Talk about tales of faith, pioneering & on the road, never knowing where the money was going to come from or the meals or the gasoline! Can you imagine 125 people on the road, 35 vehicles, all that gas & oil? I must admit we had very few flats, very little car trouble, but that was a lot of gas & oil & a lot of food! The Lord just blessed & kept us & supplied with everything all the way! PTL! Jesus never fails!
Copyright (c) 1997 by The Family
