Part XV :: Adventist Frontier Missions
I was quite nervous to train with AFM. I later would find out that I was not the only one. When we arrived we played some games with the other new missionaries and I think that we were all somewhat shy and reserved. Later on one would say that he didn’t know what to expect from the rest of us. I suppose that is how it can be when one’s religion is very conservative and works-based. I was still coming off of the heels of the Countryside cult and the fiasco with being disfellowshipped and I honestly had no clue how others would receive me. I thought back to my time in Egypt and how I felt as an outsider. I thought back to my time in the church and how I never really fit in. I didn’t expect to fit in here, and I told myself I was going to learn, not to make friends. There were about 5 other missionary families with us at AFM. Four of those families had young children. We were unique in the sense that we were not actually with AFM (something we would be reminded of often). We were just training with AFM. We had not done the fundraising that AFM members were required to do before training.
I found the other families to be friendly, as Adventists generally are as long as you don’t rock the boat too much. One interesting thing about Adventism is that you can tell how liberal or how conservative one is by appearances. How a person dresses or what kinds of toys the parents allow their children to play with says a lot. More conservative women dress like they are in another age, with long dresses that go down to their feet. A more liberal woman will wear pants and a shirt, which can cause a lot of contention with more traditional Adventists who are anti-pants. The pants issue comes up a lot in church.
The families at AFM ranged from conservative to liberal. I was definitely on the liberal side. It took a while for all of us to warm up to each other, but once we did, we found that we had a unique level of camaraderie that I had not felt in the past 20 years in the church. After a couple of weeks, we all started to let our “Adventist hair down” and acted more like regular human beings rather than hiding behind the facade that I see many in the church do.
Right away I made it a point to not try to be someone who I was not. I truly
wanted to see if the people here were accepting and I tested the water in various ways by being myself. I no longer felt the need to pretend to be a “good traditional Adventist” as I had done in past years. I was starting to realize that this was not who I was. I had reverted to my past lifestyle, which included eating cheese, talking about movies I liked, and talking about doing things that were considered wild. I discussed how I enjoyed traveling for traveling’s sake and not as a means to evangelize. We wore tie-dye shirts to our first class. We didn’t even think anything of it. We were later told that this was a point of interest to others and we were thought of as “hippies.”
Before our daughter was born, we lived a more unconventional life that many in the church seemed to question. We lived in San Francisco and New York, moving around often. We didn’t hold ourselves to any expectations of holiness other than being kind and respectful to others and showing love. We would joke and didn’t take life too seriously. Since our daughter was born, something snapped, and I felt the need to be a “perfect” Adventist. This was when I started reading Ellen White for the first time (I had never picked up one of her books previously). I started to internalize the things that she wrote and our lives changed dramatically. I found that I was deeply insecure about who I was, and wanted to distance myself from my former way of being—even though the former way brought with it much more happiness. Everything was weighed, and everything could be a sin. From reading fiction to how I ate, it was all questioned and scrutinized. I didn’t want our daughter to be lost, and based on what I had read, I felt hugely responsible for her salvation. The professions I chose were weighed under Ellen White's and the Church's rules. The idea of working for money was considered wrong, and instead, being pastor or a missionary was far better than anything else.
Now I was starting to snap out of those thoughts. After being disfellowshipped from the Ellen White cult, Countryside, I subconsciously decided to move away from that way of thinking. I saw how the obsession with Ellen White’s teaching had changed my brother-in-law and other family members. I saw how it affected others in the church. The more conservative Ellen Whiteheads were definitely more fearful and worried about their salvation. They questioned and weighed everything. Having fun and letting their hair down was seen as suspect. I realized that the way I had previously been was not what I wanted for myself anymore.
I had noticed that, while my wife and I had rarely fought before becoming
missionaries, afterward we fought quite often. I had changed from the man she had married into some kind of religious beast. I hated myself, as I felt called to do. We were told that “Satan would cause us to argue” and bring all kinds of discord into our lives after becoming a missionary, but I don’t think that is the case. I think that it was the insistence on a life of complete holiness and perfection, as well as the idea that we could never attain. It was also legalism and works-based religion that brought on the arguing and fighting. Looking back, I truly see and believe that it was the insecurity brought by internalizing the literature that was a source of the dissension that arose in our home. The pressure to bring my child to salvation when it was something that I could not even do for myself was too much. I wanted out of this way of thinking, but I never realized just how hard it was to get out of it.
This group seemed different than many other church groups I had been a part of. We didn’t judge each other on what we ate (at least not vocally), we did not judge each other on how conservative or liberal we appeared. Even the most traditionalist couple opened up. Even though their family was vegan, they were interested in trying the Chicago-style pizza I recommended and made a trip to try it. We had a lot of fun during the four months of training that took place in Berrien Springs, and I wish I could say that all of Adventism was that open and accepting.
I spent a lot of time in class writing, as I was working as a freelancer and could not give up all of my work. I had decided to quit my English teaching job due to it being when the morning worship took place. The job paid very well and it was a way for us to fund ourselves back in the US (and was a part of the reason I moved back to the US). While I had never expected to have to quit, I felt that I would have been negatively judged if I had continued to work during the morning worship. This was another part of the works-based thinking that affected me, and as a result of quitting this job, it greatly affected our finances when we moved back to Queets. Many of the students would joke that I was writing about them. I was not. It would be a year later when I would pen this book. Even now I wonder what the other missionaries would think if they read this. Some likely will.
Little did I realize just how much the contrast between this period of my life and my past as a Countryside “member” would shape my views. I now felt more alive than I had for many years. I still had low points, and my spouse and I had quite a few fights during training. It was exhausting and I was starting to wonder if I wanted to return to Queets. I longed to return to Ukraine at this point and was dealing with reverse culture shock while also wondering what my own religious beliefs were. I was also learning that the church was not quite how I imagined it to be. Strangely, it was an Adventist organization that started to open my eyes to that reality. I kept telling myself that these were attacks of Satan, and that is what our teachers also told us.
While our time at AFM seemed like a sanctuary from the insanity that went on in the past, I can’t say that I agreed with all that we were taught. There were still some ideas that I had never fully adopted as an Adventist. One of those was the idea of deception to bring others into the church. For example, one well-meaning teacher mentioned that we should plant a fruit tree so that others would see that we would be around for many years. I felt that this was deceptive. I felt uncomfortable with the idea that we should show interest in people just to bring them into the church. I felt that if we were interested and had things in common with one another, we should be friends for friendship's sake, and if there was no connection, then being kind was enough. Why force something? It would be unnatural to try to forge a connection to bring people into the church. That also would seem a bit deceptive to me.
I appreciated how AFM took an integrated approach to its training program.
Some of the teachers were gifted individuals that seemed to have a considerable body of knowledge about the bible and life. Many were also less legalistic than the Adventists that I had met during the past few years. I know now that Eastern Washington is a hotbed for legalism and extremism within and without the church. It is one reason that I moved away so many years ago.
During training, we joined a sports cup to engage in cross-fit twice a week. These classes also incorporated some yoga. I was surprised by this because I know how the general church can look down on yoga. Later on, this did come up in our demonology class (AFM called it spiritual warfare). During this class, we were told that certain yoga moves can cause demons to enter you (more on that class later).
AFM was like a Hogwarts for Adventist missionaries. We had all kinds of classes. These ranged from cross-cultural integration to living abroad and family life. I appreciated how the church seemed to be moving towards a total wellness lifestyle versus a nose-to-the-grindstone form of missionary work where the human is taken out of the equation. We are people and we burn out. Speaking of burnout, AFM had a lot to say about taking time away and preventing burnout. I appreciated this.
One of our teachers, who was a missionary in Papua New Guinea, had much to say about how hard missionary life can be. Some of our teachers talked about the toll it can take on marriage. One thing that I found interesting was how so many previous missionaries burned out and had serious relationship and family issues. This was the cost, and the culprit was the devil. I think differently. I think the culprit was perfectionism and the cost was one’s relationship with themselves and their religious beliefs.
The most important aspect of AFM for me was how it opened my eyes. One of our classes was about abuse and spiritual healing, and this was the class that opened my eyes to the church in ways that brought about this book. One day an AFM member will read this book and I will get raked over the coals for it, possibly threatened with litigation, and become a pariah. However, it was THIS CLASS that made my future deconstruction possible. Had I not taken this course, I don’t know if I would have looked deeper into the abuse that was a part of the church. This course opened my eyes to it. I learned about sexual abuse, and how such abuse is swept under the rug. I learned how “if we don’t like someone in the church” we just “wait for them to die.” I found this incredibly morbid. I learned how abuse forms, and I saw how this abuse had formed in others in the church. I saw my brother-in-law, Albert, father-in-law, and others, who had been either subjected to or perpetrators of a continuous cycle of abusive doctrines. Strangely, these classes were full of Ellen White literature, but at the time that did not bother me. I was more shocked by the messages that I was hearing and how abuse was so integrated within the church.
The demonology course was both the most interesting and troubling to me. We learned about a world that I had never given much thought to. I enjoyed reading the book “Spirit of the Rainforest” which was about a missionary who went to Venezuela. I did not enjoy learning about how Dungeons & Dragons could cause one to be possessed. Spiritual warfare is not something that is seen in modern US culture and it’s easy to disregard. At the time I felt on fire at the idea of helping others expel demons. Now, as I write this, I take a far more skeptical view once again (and now have begun to enjoy dabbling in some of the once-forbidden things). This class was taught by one of the more conservative and traditionalist members of AFM, and many of our ideas on religion vary drastically.
Despite the disagreements I had with some of the courses, the training was a positive period in my life. While many of the other missionaries had done full fundraising, we had not yet. That was supposed to come later for us. Many of the missionaries in this group were multi-generational. I think only one couple and one of the women were not. Many of these people would not question Ellen White or some of the more traditional teachings of the church. To be fair, I had yet to start questioning her. I shared my previous book “Disrupting Adventism” with a couple of the people in the group. They were interested in reading about the offshoots, and at least a few had experience with such groups. Yet, I still felt a deep confusion within me. As we parted I still had questions. These missionaries seemed far less insecure than other Adventists I had met, yet as we talked about our time at AFM, I could tell that many had battled that insecurity for a long time. In the classroom, it would pop up now and then. There was something invisible working on everyone. It was as if we all longed to escape from something that was holding us back. I wondered: how many of us would go back into the old ways? How many of us would be expected to conform to the old dietary
restrictions and ideas that we had let go of for these past few months?
One of our teachers had us do an exercise called “three cups.” One of the cups represented things that were “always okay,” another represented things that were “sometimes okay” and the last cup held things that were “never okay.” We were instructed to close our eyes and raise our hands if an idea should go in cup 1, cup 2, or cup 3. Questions such as “eating unclean meat,” “having sex on the Sabbath” or “it is sometimes okay to drink a beer” came up. We did not see who answered each question a certain way. Yet, we were told that our group thought differently on many of the options (although not as different as previous cohorts). It brought me back to how I observed so much arguing in adult Sabbath school classes over the years.
The three cups exercise was something that stuck with me. No matter what one’s religious experience was, we all thought so differently. Yet, I found that Adventism tried to bring people to think more or less the same. As I read Ellen White’s books, I could not help but notice that there was a desire for us to all live a very uniform life and Ellen White was adamant that there was little room for differences in lifestyle and belief. Although we all looked at the world in different ways, Ellen White seemed to argue that we should all follow a pretty set course for our daily existence. If one took her writings at face value, there would be no “three cups.” Having read Ministry of Healing at least 3 times and doing an in-depth study of it, it was obvious to me which answers were correct. Yet I raised my hand on questions that I knew were “wrong” in her eyes. Something inside me was changing for the first time in years. It was strange but wonderful. I was slowly waking up.
To move on and “graduate” from training, we had to create a strategic plan for how we would lead others to the cross. Much of the plan had to do with relationship building. Building relationships with other churches, with people who would be helpful, and others who would be “saved.” I wonder, does God look at people as a strategy? Why can’t we befriend others without an agenda? Later I would state, to the ire of some, that religion is a game. When one uses strategy to create tithe payers, it’s hard to not see religion as a game.
I feel no desire to write in too much detail about AFM. I feel that I was given an opportunity to train with this group of people. Yet, I also believe that it was the training within this group, juxtaposed with the extremism in the previous church, and further juxtaposed with what was going to happen next that brought me out of Adventism.
In the end, as I look back, despite the cross-cultural education and the idea that each culture is unique, I wonder: Are we just modern-day colonists? The goal is still to get people to think like us. In one class it was asserted that it would be great to have an Indian reservation that was all-Adventist. “Could you imagine?” someone said. I later did. A people who all observed the Sabbath, who all prayed to Jesus, who all gave up unclean meat and clamming and their cultural forms of earning. A people who gave up meat and dairy and instead ate vegan and vegetarian diets. A people who had homes that looked like Ellen White’s “Adventist living” dream. Tidy, neat, uniform people who had thrown away their uniqueness to be Whitewashed with Adventist ideas on what culture should look like. No theaters, no billiards, no chess, no bicycles, no sweets, no mixing fruits and vegetables, no masturbating, and not having too much sex. Can I imagine the Croatians living this way? Can I imagine the people of PNG living this way?
Can I imagine the native Americans living this way? No, I can’t, nor would I want to.
Adventist culture is unique, and that’s fine for those who choose to live that way. But it’s not the way that others should be told to live. It’s not necessarily any better than the ways that people who live in many parts of the world I have visited live. In some ways, it is worse. More disturbing still is that much of that culture is lost in time. It’s an 1800s culture that makes no sense in the modern world. It’s a dinosaur culture that few would ever want to be a part of. For people like Albert and the Countryside ilk, it may work well. For those who are not used to it, or who have no desire to live it, it’s irrelevant. As long as books like Ministry of Healing and Adventist Home are the ideal books on living and lifestyle, it is pointless (and insane) to try to bring that kind of lifestyle to different people groups. Maybe it is the hippie in me, but I think “live and let live” is a better idea.
I would never want a reservation or an island to look like Deer Park or Berrien Springs. They are fine enough places, but the whole world does not need to look the same. As we departed, I felt a strange sense of dread for the future. I would be visiting my in-laws again, who had now moved in with their daughter in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. This was still a dark period for them, and Freddy was still constantly in and out of the hospital. The sickness that had started when we came back from Egypt never really went away. There was a part of me that blamed much of it on the stress. Albert was still sending material and DVDs to the couple at this point, and he wanted them to be involved with the church.
We had learned about the importance of having a “learning conversation” at AFM, and I realized that it would be very important to talk to them about the things that had come between us in the last few years. There was so much I wanted to say, and I was angry for the years I had been involved in their little religion. I was starting to fully understand how much time was robbed from me by this toxic way of thinking. The idea that I was still expected to think this way to be “saved” maddened me.
Yet, as we drove west in a race to beat the December snow, I became more apprehensive about speaking with him. He was now sick (again), and I had been led to believe that he could have a heart attack or stroke at any moment if made too upset (this has been a reoccurring theme in life). Yet, for some reason, it was okay to listen to Albert talk about the end of the world or population control—at church—on Sabbath— and the phone, and in person during each visit.
On the way home I learned about past sexual abuse that had taken place in the family. I was absolutely shocked by this, but it also made complete sense to me. I had known something was wrong all these years. Sadly, this was never addressed by the individual that was abused. I saw all the insecurity for what it was. I began to realize why Ellen White was worshipped. This was a way to cover one’s sins and regrets for dark deeds done in the past. This was a pivotal moment in my deconstruction and was one reason I would end up pulling away from the church as a whole.
When we arrived, we shared a pizza (with cheese) and the discussion never happened. Freddy looked like a frail wreck and there was no sense in bringing up the past. I felt relief and disappointment at the same time. After a very short visit, we made our way back to the coast after a short Sabbath visit. I opted to watch Gordon Ramsay rather than sit at the table and talk about religion and the fire. The truth was, I was also terrified to open up to them, as it was something I had never done. We came from different worlds, and those worlds were now more apart than ever before. They knew how I felt, but didn’t know that I knew that they know. If that makes sense. More smoke and mirrors. Welcome back to Eastern Washington.
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