Losing the Way Written by Kristen Skedgell M.S.

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Kristen becomes further engrained in The Way International, she grows quickly in the Ministry and soon becomes a twig leader and is leading her own classes. The Ministry is made up of roots (the headquarters), trunks (Countries), Branches (States), Limbs (Counties), and twigs (Cities). By now she has grown her local twig group so large that she has convinced her parents that she should go away to Prep-School to study. This is what her Spiritual Father, the Dr., wants so she can help witness to the students and build the Ministry.

She does not seem to be able to build the group at her new school as quickly as she did in her city. This is when her doubts about herself begin taking hold. The Doctor has said that this means she is not believing like she should and that “devil spirits” are possessing her. She is depressed because she is letting the Dr. down. She is supposed to be better than this, she must try harder or the Doctor might become disappointed in her and if he stopped loving her she could not handle it. She experiences her first episode of feeling out of control. She begins feeling dizzy, her arms and legs are like lead and she can’t move them and she hears voices telling her that she must die, she needs to die. She thinks of ways to commit suicide but knows that she won’t do it because God and the Doctor wouldn’t love her if she gave in to the 5 senses and didn’t stay in the spirit. This is only one of many episodes yet to come.

Kristen attends college at John Hopkins University; however, her main goal is to build the ministry. She has now had several meetings with the Dr. during his Rock of Ages conference and she has become one of his favorites. This makes her feel like she has truly found the love of a father. However, she does not know how to socialize with the other students unless she is preaching The Word. A few male students have showed interest in her but once she told them she wasn’t going to have sex before marriage they left her alone, this satisfied her as she needed to devote her energy to building the Ministry so the Dr. would be proud of her. Kristen learned that telling the men this made them disinterested in her and she was glad. She experiences more episodes of depression with thoughts of suicide. She decides to speak with the Dr. and maybe he could pray the “devil spirits” away from her. She contacts him and he tells her to come to Headquarters to meet. During this time, she still has contact with her parents. Her father has been sober for 2 years but now she just feels sorry for him as he is a shell of a man, nothing like the Doctor. Her mother tells her that the Ministry is a cult. Her mother just doesn’t understand the Doctor the way she does. Her parents do not try to change her thinking or get her to leave the Ministry as they believe that they raised her to make her own decisions by not meddling in her life, she will just pray for them more so they can be saved like she is. She meets with the Dr. and he wants her to join The Way Corps which is just for the most devote believers. She is excited again because he must see something in her for him to want her to join The Corps.

By now the Ministry has grown to over 100,000 members around the world and has purchased land and buildings in several States. She is sent to The Corp College in Kansas. There she is surrounded by other believers and is happy again. However, once again she becomes a victim of sexual abuse; one of her Way brothers, convinces her that she can have oral sex with him and God won’t mind. All that matters are that you are pure of spirit, meaning, belief in The Way Ministry. The Doctor has told them that they are living in the Age of Grace; therefore, things of the 5 senses do not count against you. God wants you to be happy. After all, the Doctor has been teaching them Family and Sex classes since she first started the Ministry. He would even use the slang words for oral sex and he particularly liked the term “69”. His classes taught that man was here to please God and woman was here to please man, he even used charts and diagrams to help better prepare them in this area. With reluctance she agreed and this began a turbulent sexual relationship with Ben. After she found out he was married it was too late, she was in love with him and had given herself to him. Suddenly, he disappears and she never hears from him again, this seemed to happen to many people that displeased the Dr.

During her time at The Corps College she is subjected to hard labor, more sexual exploitation, and even called upon to participate in a drill of “National Security” where they are taken prisoner, marched through fields of mud, forced to sleep in the cold, and they cannot eat unless they learn to cut off the head of a chicken. Kristen does not see anything wrong with any of these things. She has totally engrossed herself in becoming the best Way Corps graduate ever. She has met Alec another Way Corp brother. Alec does not try to have sex with her so even though she is not attracted to him, she becomes begins dating him. They become engaged because the Dr. likes him and thinks it would be good for the Ministry. The Doctor has come to visit the campus on a few occasions and on one occasion he began personally teaching her how to please a man sexually. This made her feel dirty and incestuous because he was supposed to be her “spiritual father”, but, once again she could disassociate her feelings from her body and she wanted him to keep loving her.

Alec and Kristen get married and take over a limb in Oregon. She is trying to be the perfect Way wife but Alec isn’t being a good Way husband by protecting her and loving her. He’s behaving the opposite and being distant and physically abusive. Her episodes of depression are happening more frequently. They are always accompanied by feelings of dizziness, heavy lead feelings in her arms and legs, and thoughts of suicide. Kristen finally opened up to another Way sister about what Alec was doing. They invited them to their home to pray for them and cast out the “devil spirits”. They told her if she was a better believer that God would take care of things in her marriage. It seems like whenever anything bad has happened to her it was somehow her fault so she accepted it like always. If she was a better daughter, wife, follower these things wouldn’t always happen to her. Kristen finally starts to see some truth with the birth of her son.

When her son is born she finally feels truly loved and decides that she needs to leave her husband to protect her son. Alec promises to change and stop being abusive so she stays. Things do not change and she continues to be abused. She finally tells the Dr. and he says that he will talk with Alec but she must believe harder in God. He turned it all back on