Adventist Frontier Missions of Berrien Springs (or Adventist Frontier Missions Europe of Cluj Napoca, Romania) is an ministry that is not affiliated but closely aligned to the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church. I was a member of AFM at the very start of my deconstruction process with the SDA church, and it was AFM that jumpstarted that deconstruction process. This article is for you if you are considering joining AFM or have recently joined, or just want more information about Adventist Frontier Missions that their website will not tell you.
If you would like to discuss AFM with me in more detail or have questions about this organization, please reach out to me at disruptingadventism@gmail.com
I also talk about my time in AFM in great detail in my book "The Ellen White Cult." Links to the chapters are on the right.
I had lived in Ukraine when my wife and I decided to enquire about joining AFM. We filled out the application and sent it in. We were told that it would be better for us to work with the ministry we had been working with previously rather than become career missionaries (which I thought was strange). My wife and I accepted this, and within a couple of months were at orientation with AFM in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
Orientation and training at AFM was a huge wake up call for me. One of the things that I immediately noticed was how broken the people are. Now, Adventists will tell you right off the bat that we live in a broken world. But the brokenness I saw at AFM was far, far unlike anything I had seen "in the world." Everyone, from the teachers to the students wore their brokenness on their sleeves. Now, I loved the people a lot who I trained with. I kind of wish we kept in touch, but I think that they thought I was the devil's toenail. You see, I wasn't raised in the Adventist bubble, and that was obvious from the start. It's like Adventists have a radar on that helps them to discern who is truly Adventist and who is not. I mean, we were taken on as "not really AFM" if you will. We were a part of a special "side project" with Steve Huey and Monte Church and Native Ministries to bring Adventism onto Native American reservations. I look back at that and honestly cringe. How f*cking deluded I was.
Where was I? Oh yes. Adventism is LOADED TO THE HILT with brokenness, and now that I have been on Reddit and talked to people who have left the church I know why. But we were always taught that Adventists who left were deluded by Satan. We were not told how they were abused, touched by pastors and leaders, or pushed out. We were not told how they studied the truth about Ellen White for themselves. Instead, they were deluded by Satan or Jesuits. It's so sad. So so sad! And that's where my beef with pastors like Monte Church, Steve Huey, and Conrad Vine lies. These people should KNOW BETTER! They should have done their homewor and researched. They should care more about the truth rather than their status and possessions. I mean, I saw a video of Conrad Vine bragging about how he should buy "another house in Southern California." Yet, general Adventists are supposed to live in poverty and give everything to the church. FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU********KKKKKKKK TTTTTTTHHHHHAAAAATTTTTT
Now I have gotten off topic again. This is about the RAMPANT BROKENNESS that was like a cloud over the Berrien Springs AFM campus. This is about how almost EVERY career missionary trainee had parents who did not accept them. This is how some had been gravely abused. This is how they could never live up to the exacting rules of Ellen White. How she asserted over and over again that the works-obsessed demon god of Adventism would NOT HEAR OUR FU*KING PRAYERS!
So, when you step foot into AFM. you can expect to be surrounded by the same broken people who have been raped by the same religion that they think is the truth. It's sad as hell to see. But there's so much more.
AFM's training program includes a lot of classes on a mix of topics. Some of those classes involve demon possession training. And that's where stuff gets weird. By this time you've already invested a bitch ton of time in the program and raised funds to go. So, the cognitive dissonance is easily pushed aside. For me it wasn't because I didn't raise a single cent. While the Vasiles and Cardonas were pushing away the feelings that they had about "demons going up your [ass] during yoga," my sirens were blaring! While the Vieras were excited about raising tens of thousands of dollars to go abroad, my mouth was on the floor when I was told about the grave abuse that Adventism was full of, and nobody was doing anything about because it's our job to "protect Ellen White's church."
It was AFM that finally woke me the hell up after ten years of being a missionary. It was AFM that slapped me across the face after an entire adulthood entertwined with this crazy ass church! I didn't want to think it was all as crazy as the Countryside offshoot that I attended before, but now I was seeing that mainstream Seventh-day Adventist was off it's rocker! And I was seeing this in all its glory in the hallowed halls of conspiracy theorist vaccine denier Conrad Vine! Holy FU*K!
I would not wish Adventist Frontier Missions on even my worst enemy
I tried to wake up my classmates to the lies of Ellen White, but they peddle this nonsense as if it's their souls that are on the line. In their eyes, I am deluded by Satan because I refuse to apolgoize and say that I am wrong. How Steve Huey, with the knowledge he has, could sit there and smile through all this bullsh*t is beyond me! How he could later come to my home and tell me that Ellen White was not a false prophet is absolute insanity to me. How they could tell me to "just trust her" or "take some time away and come back when you are mature" is beyond asinine.
Seventh-day Adventism is a religion where people are broken up into tiers
Adventism is a religion with tiers. If you are raised in it, go to the schools, and have parents who are pastors in multigenerational families you are tier one. I saw this at AFM, and such families get respect. Tier two are second generation Adventists who go to the schools and have done things like coulporting, Pathfinders, etc. Many of them are raising the third generation of Ellen White devotees. The third tier includes people more like us. They were not raised Adventist, or were first generation. They probably went to an Adventist college or high school. They are firmly in the church and know it to be the truth. Now, we were fourth tier imbecile Sadventists. We did not go to the schools. We did not go to an Adventist college. We did not do Pathfinders. We never did coulpourting. We were bound to leave because we were not in the system. Conrad Vine KNEW we were a threat basically because of my background in law and the fact that I went to a Jesuit school. I think he KNEW we were going to see through it all and bail. Hell, he said that right at the interview. He just had no f*cking clue that I would write about it and tell the whole f*cking world!
You see, I was a bottom-of-the-barrel bastard tier SDA who was a liability to AFM. That's why Vine didn't want me as a full-fledged member of the club. I could never fit in because I wasn't indoctrinated in the same way everyone else was! That's why in Adventist circles I used to get the side-eye. I tried at times. Damn, I tried so hard at times. But no matter what, the cognative dissonance always fu*king steamrolled me. I always thought Ellen G was full of shit, but I tried to integrate it into my life because some of it made sense and I wanted to identity with the church I was baptised in as a young adult.
Now, if you are about to join AFM and are reading this, you probably think that Satan has grabbed hold of me and is shaking out these words. Well, that's on you. I will say this: Ever since leaving the SDA cult I have felt a hell of a lot better about myself as a person. If you are raised in this nonsense you are probably not going to see it in the same clear way as someone who came into it as an adult. But, if you can think for yourself and remove yourself from the Adventist bullshit bubble, then more power to you!
Conrad Vine, Steve Huey, Monte Church, Jay Coon, and all the others who push this baloney onto others are the bottom of the barrel of humanity. They trade inner peace for cash, and if there is a Jesus who said "the love of money is the root of all evil," then these folks definitely fit that 100%. Their cronies who refuse to research deeper and ask the hard questions are just as culpable, especially in the so-called message of Ellen White who says "sins of omission also will keep you out of Heaven."
Oh, I'm so glad I'm free. Let the gates of Adventist close and AFM fade into beautiful obscurity. Forever and ever. Forever and ever and ever.
Amen.
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