Tag: recovery

Recovery Innovations is a service which seeks to create opportunities and environments that empower people to recover, to succeed in accomplishing their goals and to reconnect with themselves, others and meaning and purpose in life. My son is in the program and they have set him up in his own apartment, provided him with all he needs for day to day living, while being independent and having more flexibility and freedom than he has had in a long time.

My wife and I went to a seminar last week they held in their local office and met the staff and some of those who are served by their programs. They are based in Phoenix, Arizona and serve mentally ill and disabled people around the world in places like New Zealand. Their recent history begins in 2006 when Meta Services became Recovery Innovations. We learned from the Director that they have been a presence in Pierce County for several years serving within the Regional Support network. I talked with the staff member who used to work in the County Mental Hospital when it was first privatized and then closed down. Pierce County has had special problems with the mentally ill, since mentally ill patients come from all over the State to be treated in the State Facility in Steilacoom only to be put out on the street near the hospital when their treatment ends for one reason or another.

The program that Recovery Innovation offers is for disabled people who want to live and work toward being independent. I talked with one of the young women who is something of a “success story”: Recovery Innovations provided her with the training and set her up in her own apartment (which all is done at a significantly lower price than government programs can offer); she then went to work as a volunteer at not one, but two food banks. For one of the food banks in Kent, she has to take three busses to get there and it takes several hours for her to get to and from the facility where she does quality control inspection of food that is contributed. Her job is important: As she said, some of the food is yukky. The other food bank is just blocks from where she lives. She is justifiably proud of the important and necessary work she wanted to do — but before Recovery Innovations she could not “connect the dots” to do it — and now she can.

I talked with her for awhile after the presentation to learn more about what she was doing and she told me all about her cat. She is responsible and takes care of her little kitty. We shared our experiences with cats. The director was listening in when I explained that cats have about the same attention span and short term memory as corporate managers — ten minutes. The director laughed and laughed. I explained to her that I was a corporate manager at Weyerhaeuser at one point in my career. She laughed even harder and told me that she had also been a corporate manager at one point in her career.

Recovery Innovations does more than just give people hope: They have practical programs and practical experience in helping people shape their lives. They work with people on a daily basis and manage to help people through the rough spots even when the going gets a little tough and challenging: They help find solutions to problems and they know their stuff as compassionate and competent people.

Contrast all of that with this posting at Banned by HWA — Philadelphia Church of God: Take Your Disabled Child To The Mall And Abandon Him – Let Someone Else Take Care Of Him:

Just when I think the depth of depravity of Armstrongism cant sink any lower, along comes more horror stories from Gerald Flurry’s cult.

PCG Told Me to Get Rid of My Mentally Handicapped Son With Cerebral Palsy:

June 17, 2013

I was told by a minister in PCG to “get rid of” my mentally  handicapped son (who also had cerebral palsy) or don’t return. He told  me to put him in some facility, or if I couldn’t afford that, then take  him somewhere that he would not know and abandon him in the mall or  somewhere  that people were. He said someone would find him and put him  away, and that I was to turn and not look back, and just leave him  there! I guess you can imagine just about what I told them!!

What helped me the most were people having the same objections and questions that I was having, wondering if these ministers in PCG really have the authority they say they did over us. The ministers try to make you feel you’re isolated in your thinking, that you’re the only one  questioning anything. So you better get back under their submission,  their rule–or suffer the consequences. (I decided to take the  consequences). I am free and I am staying that way.

 The ESN has been a Godsend. You have saved many people, including me  and my family. We saw how others were questioning things, as we were,  and realized things were just not right in there! Our feelings were  right; we weren’t as crazy as others trying to pull us back in would  have us think. They practice mind control there. All it takes is a few  mentioning of buzz-words from them (i. e., “the Work,” “the Church,”  “Mr. Flurry,” etc.) and you start to question your own common sense and  your sanity. Well, not anymore.

 None are so blind as those who will not see. Well, now I see! Thanks for everything. God bless you. –Former PCG member

A comment from a reader here adds to this story:

 I did relate this story to the folks at Recovery Innovations. They weren’t particularly surprised: Their reaction was that this is the sort of thing that people in cults do.

The Church of God Seventh Day minister I related this story to was amazed and appalled: He shook his head and simply could not understand how a supposedly Christian minister could have such hubris. He doesn’t understand how anyone could follow advice like this. It certainly looks as if that all the leadership of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong have become so jaded, so filled with hubris, so set in a mindset of entitlement, that they believe that they are above the law and God will protect their interests no matter how wrong-headed or illegal they might be. It is embedded in the core of the lives of those who have lived with it; it’s like wearing old leather — after awhile, no don’t even notice it any more. They are totally comfortable with this sort of abuse and have been for a very long time, to such an extent that they have lost their conscience — what little of it they may have had — and given themselves over to doing evil wickedness of the sort that is extremely objectionable to the average person.

We have had similar advice from the Worldwide Church of God and United ministry concerning our son. We also ignored it.

What people in the CoHA don’t realize that the minister and leader have absolutely no skin in the game: If they give you terrible advice to perform illegal acts of child abuse, they have absolutely positively no consequences: You alone are going to bear this. If the gambit turns out, all the better, because you can spend more time on church activities and give more money to the cult leader.

This is so preposterous, it is beyond words and there are some questions if we pause to take this out to its logical extremes:

• If you are supposed to do this with your disabled child (ask how Robert Thiel would feel about leaving his child in the shopping mall for someone else to take care of), why can’t you do this with all your children?
• If this is successful, can you continue to use your child as a deduction on your Income Tax?
• When and where are the best circumstances to do this?
• If you leave your child in the airport between flights on the way to the Feast, can you spend second tithe for the one way flight to the terminal?
• Should you sell your daughter as specified in the Old Testament (typically Eastern Europeans will give you the best prices) and give part of the money as an offering to your own CoHA (times are tough and you need to be innovative)?
• How does this work in the light of the judgment in the Old Testament concerning kidnapping (the penalty of which is death)?

One would suppose that under such a dispensation, as long as you continue in your cult church to support it, the ends justify the means to achieve a happy, care-free, prosperous, life of egotistical narcissism for the cult leader, you are good to go. Be warned though, if you get into trouble, you must bear the consequences and your cult is not involved in any way.

Some of us will be sending letters and emails to Child Protective Services of State Governments and perhaps even engage with such media outlets as the New York Times and Fox News. We’re pretty sure, those of you who are inclined to follow this terrible advice from your cult leaders don’t have a clue and believe that nothing bad will happen to you and it all things will work together for your good. You will be free of the blessing of children and will be able to more fully engage in the selfish pursuits of your cult leader without any fear of any sort of retribution. You may even think you will completely avoid the Lake of Fire while engaging in this living lie. More power to you. And even more power to the governmental agency convicting you.

If everything works out, it may well be that your minister will be able to give you Sabbath services in prison where you are both serving out your terms. It certainly works if you go to the Federal Prison where Ronald Weinland is locked up, but that is highly unlikely, since you probably won’t be going there and you probably won’t live very long after the other inmates learn what you have done as they serve up their own brand of vigilante justice which will certainly not bode well for you.

Herbert Armstrong was a monster. Not the sort of cuddly monster like Barney or those cutesy monsters of Disney’s Pixar. No, he was the sort of monster one finds in Jurassic Park — all filled with rows of teeth as exemplified by our own version of the Jurassic Park theme song:

It’s Jurassic Park,

Don’t go after Dark,

Even if they seem to greet you,

For all the while,

They seem to smile,

They’re planning how to eat you….

Jesus said that false prophets were ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing. It’s more like it’s a Wolf (Herbert Wolf Armstrong) guarding the chicken house with the able assistance of some foxes he has on his payroll as hirelings of the worst sort: Maybe some of the chickens will survive, but we don’t much have hope for the eggs and the little chicks.

So Armstrongism is little more than Monster’s Inc.

It should be apparent that the children are at risk and that you have no reason for paying Monster’s Inc. for the privilege of putting them at risk.

Stalkers, fondlers, pedophiles, false prophet felons in prison for income tax evasion and now this: The average member seems to have all the mental power of a tranquilized gnat.

This is no Recovery Innovations: It’s Monster’s Inc.