[awareness]

Freedom indeed. Hope you're very grateful.

You said, "we thought that the elders were simply looking out for our best interests."

As it turned out this was not my case at all. I'll keep my story as short as possible.

I came into the church in Santa Cruz, Cal. circa 1970. I spent about a year there. I went to my first conference at Witness Lee's The Kingdom Conference in L.A.

Well my stomping ground, and where I grew up, was the Detroit Michigan area. Lo and behold, unbeknownst to me, there was a small local church there, of about 40. Kangas was the leader elder.

At the conference, when Kangas, or one of the other elders, found out I was from Detroit, they approached me, pressuring me to move back, and be in the church in Detroit. They flattered me. I didn't know it, but the church was full of old people, and they desperately needed young people, for the outreach. So I hopped on a plane, and moved back.

These were the days when Witness Lee was saying, "brother's, it doesn't matter who you marry. Marry any sister, and go on with Christ and the Church."

I was single, and living with one of the elders. They still needed more young people in Detroit. Young sisters would be good too. So at the dinner table one night the elder asked me, "Isn't there at least one sister back in Santa Cruz, that you would consider marrying?" Feeling the pressure, I said, "I don't know. I guess there's one Chinese sister I had a little interest in." He broke out into a mock prayer, saying, "Oh Lord. Show me the sister you want to be my wife. Give me a sign. May she being wearing a polka dot dress, with a cow bell around her neck." Then he turned to me and said something like, "you better contact her before another brother gets her."

I know it sounds crazy. I was very spiritual. I wrote to her, and asked her to marry me. Trouble is, I didn't really know her. I saw her in the meetings, and we once rode in a car together, with 4 others, to a conference in San Fran. And that's all. But what did I know? Wasn't the elder in touch with God? Might it have been God wanting me to contact her?

Turns out she was living in a sister's house, with a bunch of my female friends from Detroit. When they got wind of the letter it became a real scuttlebutt ; at least a sensation in the sister's house. They told her, or shouted to her, to say yes.

Long story very very short. She took it to the elders, they called Kangas in Detroit, we got married in Santa Cruz, she became the next young person in the c. in Detroit.

None of it was "in OUR best interest."