DO 27073/91

—Story Time with Grandpa!

(With David & Techi:)

1. Amen! Praise the Lord! Thank You Lord! Well, this is March the 5th, just a few weeks before your birthday, Techi! Imagine, you're going to be 12! Wowie! Well, you've already been the equivalent of a Teen for a couple of years now anyhow, so praise the Lord! Amen, let me take a little drink of this juice before I keep going. Thank You Lord!

2. Tonight's the night that I'm hoping to begin the personal story of our family—our little personal family—which I predicted about four or five years ago that I was going to tell some day. And at that time I said I might give it the title, "Now It Can Be Told!", because all of those events & places are past.

3. Before we start I wanted to remind you that it's been quite a few years since these events occurred, & I may not be able to remember every detail accurately after 15 or 20 years! I may have told some of these stories before when I wasn't so far from when they originally happened & I probably remembered the details a lot better. So let's not consider this telling of the story an accurate history in every detail.

4. These are just general incidents & situations that happened in our lives & what our reaction was to them, how we saw them & the things we did! Just remember that even if we miss a few of the details, this is just a fun story for your entertainment to give you a general picture of the major events that took place in our lives! OK? PTL! It might help me if I close my eyes to remember these things. You don't mind if I close my eyes, do you? (David & Techi: No!)

5. I've been thinking & praying the last few days about where to start. The "Book of Remembrance" covers my background history, Family Tree & the Early Days of the Family‚ & a lot of the personal things & occasions when my early family were all together. Mother Eve was still with us‚ & then Mama joined us & we travelled across the country in a great caravan of cars, trucks, vans & trailers, all the way from Huntington Beach to Florida & up to Canada in the Laurentide Mountains near Montreal.—Then back South again down to Texas & finally to the Texas Soul Clinic Ranch, TSC, where we settled down for awhile with the Family that at that time, when we first got there, was about 125 & grew to about 350 by the time we had to leave!

6. We were running full tilt at TSC with classes & more disciples all the time. (Techi: Was Mommy there then?) She was there, yes! From the time we started our caravan in Huntington Beach, Honey, she started off with us. When we first left Huntington Beach I took Mother Eve, of course, & Mama was my secretary.—At Mother Eve's suggestion! She wanted a secretary & she wanted to invite Mama to come with us. Mother Eve also wanted a cook‚ so she invited people along to help do the things she didn't like to do.

7. Anyway, we were having classes at TSC & we were getting very inspired & gung-ho about going to Israel! We'd get out on the hillside & put up folding chairs & I'd teach special classes for leaders there—about 20 leaders & teachers. I didn't want to appear more or less in public before all the new disciples because that was a security hazard. So I just taught the leaders & the teachers‚ & we were getting prophecies about going to Israel! Joel especially saw us in our robes going on great silver birds on wings to fly to Israel someday, & I figured the sooner the better! We went minus white robes, incidentally.—Although even if we'd worn robes we wouldn't have looked very peculiar because the plane we went to Europe on was just full of hippies‚ ha! But I'll get to that in a minute.

8. So from TSC, Mama & I & Mother Eve drove with Ho into Dallas‚ met Faithy at the airport, & then stayed as guests at the home of this lovely older lady, Mrs. Ingersoll. She was real sweet & liked us very much. She was a friend of Mrs. Goode, who later took over the ministry of representing us to FreeCOG & our enemies & friends, etc., & carried on quite a mail ministry in our favour. She started "ThankCOG" (Thankful Parents & Friends of the Children of God) & received all the mail that was coming in to us in the name of the Children of God, or my name, or whatever. Mrs. Goode has recently gone to be with the Lord & to receive her reward, God bless her! So we were visiting with a friend of Mrs. Goode's, Mrs. Ingersoll, who had a lovely home in Dallas & had invited us to stay.

9. Ho had a Buick, a nice, good-looking car, you know, something we wouldn't look bad in, & it was decided that we would drive to New York to get our passports. We had phoned the Jewish Agency about how to join a kibbutz in Israel—a kibbutz is one of those co-op farms in Israel—& they said, "Well, you'll have to go to such-&-such an office in New York City to get the information. You'll have to apply there personally & they'll give you an application, etc." We also found out that we could get our passports quicker in Washington‚ D.C. than we could almost anywhere else, so that's where we stopped & applied for our passports, with instructions to mail them on to New York.

10. Well‚ on the way Eve wanted to stop & visit her brother & his family in Frankfort, Kentucky, so she went along with us that far. Her brother, who was at this time a Church of God preacher & had a little church there, put us up in his nice warm comfortable basement. We spent a night or two with them just so Eve could fellowship with her family, & some of her other relatives came to visit because they hadn't seen her for a long time‚ years in fact. So they had a little sort of family get-together, a family reunion.

11. I'm getting to the point where Mama & I are completely alone for the first time, travelling alone together. By this time Mother Eve & I had formally separated. We'd both decided we weren't able to live together any more, it wasn't working out. So since the kids were all grown up now, she decided to go her own way‚ & Mama & I decided to go our way & travel to Europe, & everybody was happy! It was somewhere around this time that Eve got together with a Family Member named Stephen David, who became her helper & travelling companion. So we dropped off Mother Eve in Kentucky—I think she wanted to stay longer & visit with her relatives—& Mama & I & Ho went on to New York.

12. It was a long trip, so Ho & I took turns driving from Frankfort, Kentucky to New York City, which was several hundred miles. We stopped on the way in Washington, D.C. to apply for our passports—which they said was the fastest possible way to do it—& they said they would mail them in the next day or so to New York City. We told them just to mail them to our names at General Delivery, New York City, & they did! This was September‚ 1970, our first exit from the States!

13. So while we were waiting for our passports we camped out at Cheesequake Park, just Mama & I‚ our first time alone! But that's enough for tonight‚ that's part of the next story! (Techi: That was fun!) Next chapter will be how Mama & I camped out in a pup tent! (Techi: Oh‚ goodness!) We stayed in a two-person tent in Cheesequake Park cooking our own meals on an open campfire, because we didn't have much money & couldn't afford to stay in hotels. But we enjoyed it, & I'll tell that story next time! Remind me that the next chapter begins with Cheesequake Park! OK? (Kids: OK!)

14. OK! Praise the Lord! It's time to quit. Shall we close in prayer? (Techi: Amen! Thank You Jesus! Thank You Lord! Thank You‚ Jesus‚ for this time that we had this story with Grandpa. We really pray that You'll please help us to be able to continue this, Jesus.) And help me to remember things better! (Techi: Well, thank You Lord for how much he has remembered, in Jesus' name. Thank You Lord!) Amen! Praise the Lord! Thank You Jesus!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family