Most of us went back to Bethel, thinking we wanted to make it our life long career......what better place to be right before 1975?.............That dream ended for the vast majority after just few months there, when they found out that something was very wrong. Other wise why would anyone want to leave a spiritual paradice?.... With only 2-5% staying after there 4 year commitment, and a very big percentage leaving before there time was even up. The average stay there in 1974 was only about 5 months. It was not a happy place..............they were leaving in droves.
Getting a girl friend and having sex, was looking better all the time.............Hay! The GB were doing it, all the bethel, the "heavies" were doing it. ....we wanted it too....Just why do you think Knorr got married?....Did he get married for companionship?......NO!.....There are over 1,500 "brothers" back there he could have that with them. He could do things with them .......sit around and talk about the bible.......or go to a movie .......there were plenty of "brown noses" for that.............Did he get married to have children.....NO!.........it is forbidden to have children at bethel .......................Did he get married to have one person to be with, forever ............No!............ He was going to Heaven..........she wasn't. So why did he get married?...............it sure looks like good old....... S.E.X.......to me. Hay, even Germans like sex too.
So he and his buddies were able to enjoy that privilege .............I say privilege, because not everyone was permited to have it ...............Remember the rule HE made up? To stay at Bethel and get married, you needed a tolal of 14 years of full time service...........So you were forbidden to get married for any reason for 4 years, NO matter what, add another 10 years if you wanted to stay..........I didn't say FORBIDDEN did I?........Oppppppppsss I guess I did............But the BIBLE says that only those that have "fallen away from the faith, would be FORBIDDING others to marry!" 1 Timothy 4:1-3..............so that can't be right.......Opppppppppss...I forgot the old double standard rule kicks in again, at this time!.........Catch 22
They would say....... but you signed an agreement!.............Hay! your 19 years old you and you should have known what you were signing,...... right............and some would say..........Well you could always leave before your time.................Yes, If you didn't mind the reproach and the shame...........and the punishment..........you were not permited to pioneer for 6 months, if you left early....Catch 22.
So just why am I so upset about all of this...........For one reason it caused plenty of hardship and heart ache.........plus all the unhappy marriages........and all the unnecessary trips some poor souls had to make to the hookers on 8th ave...................and even DEATH to some ...as I will tell you about in my last chapter..........Come on guys....... Wouldn't you think,........ a LOVING organazition would have peoples best interest at heart?...................as in "OH......Brother we are sorry to hear you are having a hard time here at Bethel..........and so you would like to leave?......GO, my friend and be in peace...........and may God be with you, and thank you for the time, you were able to spend here with us and of course,.......... you can pioneer if you like"........Sounds like something Jeaus would say.
Opppppssss ...........Did I say loving organazition............Let me think.........Yes!.... I think it says somewhere in the Bible......."By their LOVE you would be able to recognize them"......boy isn't that a"truth"?.............but its not "The Truth"..
All the double standards......unwritten laws.......and bull shit.....it was just to much for most of us. I say most of us because, there are some there that LOVE that kind of bull shit and fit right it. .....................In "Catch 22" Yossairan said..."Let the Bastards thrive!!!"
So most of us, we just wanted to find a little love............and leave after out "tour of duty" was up. As the "brother" said.........."just keep your month shut and do your job".........then get the hell out!
So back to girl friends and Bethelites...............As I mention, there was only one guy I knew, who had a girl friend before he went to Bethel and "made his time" there, that was Roy Baty. Part of the reason for that, was she was only 15 years old when he went there, in 1970............So she was waiting for him and he was waiting for her.
That was tough for guys like Roy with girl friends back home, because........you only got 2 weeks vacation a year, (you got no vacation your first year)............so you got 6 weeks in 4 years..........many guys like myself, only got 4 weeks in 4 years, the reason being.............Instead of taking our last two weeks vacation....we would just shorten our 4 year stay. So I came on March 21, 1970............now, I could leave on March 7, 1974........The thought being, that any day NOT at Bethel........... WAS a vacation!
So that leaves us with our next group...........Guys that got girl friends while they were at bethel. With so many Bethelites in the New York City area.........By the time you got there, anything decent was already "snapped up".........with many halls having 10-20 bethelites in them, the competition tough! With 60-70% of the halls being Black and Lantino.........and 80% of the bethelites were white, the sayng was "the longer your there.... the whiter they look" So it was a 14 year old white girl, or a good looking black sister....If you had a car the selection got a little better with up state New York, Jersey or even New England.............But for the vast majority it was just good old N.Y.C.
We saw it all too, every possible combination...... The 19 year old white guy from Iowa, getting married to the 36 year old, 250 lb. black sister with 2 teenagers 13 & 16, his step daugther was just 3 years younger then him! There were guys who got "caught in closets" with bethel house keepers........Which was unusual because most of the sisters that were called to bethel, were beat with an ugly stick. We joked about it and said that Knorr, once a month, would get all the applications of sisters, who wanted to come at bethel ( sorry, I meant come to bethel) He would get all the bethelites in the upper dinning room and have a slide show. He would show a slide of some pioneer "FOX" from California and ask? How many of you guys want this sister to come to Bethel? The place would go crazy with noise..........he would throw the application away..................Next slide was of some "Dog".....how many want this sister?..........................You could here a pin drop ......He would say.....call her in now..............I tell you that man was a genius.....he knew, what we were all about.
There was a guy in the service dept. who ran off with DO wife..........There were married sisters who left there husbands for some single guys..............You know all the stuff you would see in any Kindom Hall.
Bethel tours were nice..............But most of time they were very sad.........You would see these great looking sisters go through on tour...............They would give you "the eye"...........You would give them "the eye"..........Then they would get on the bus and leave............No way to meet them.......Sometimes you would see them later that day in the Bethel home, hanging around with some "Nerd" from there home town........They might have asking the nerd "Don't you know any other Bethelites?'................Sure but they were Nerds too............
Sometimes it worked out great.............I saw the love of my life.......................The lady I would marry, 2 weeks after I left Bethel, standing in front of the "ink room" in the summer of 1972 on a bethel tour!