| A Secretary's Story |
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Posted on Factnet.org on Monday, May 23, 2005 - 9:19 pm:
I was a secretary for Carl Stevens from 1978 to 1984.
Even before I became his secretary, I saw many things as an eyewitness. In Lenox in 1977-78 there was a room adjacent to the rap room in Fokine. Stevens had a young, leggy brunette, (my closest friend), secretly live in that room at that time. I owned a key to that room. He secretly met with her in that room very often every day. She was available to him almost 24/7. It was in that room, that I saw Carl rolling around in the bed with her, holding and touching each other. His first wife was still alive. In fact, at the time, she was very sick and dying of cancer. Scott Robinson and I saw it all. There were times that Scott and I saw her rolling on the floor with him, screaming and laughing, trying to grab his wig off. We were dying of embarrassment. It was wild. These are only two incidents out of hundreds.
I took care of all his personal life, his checking, his bills, his hair, his apartment and home. I made his bed every morning after first class. I bought his clothes, washed and ironed them. I took care of “Telephone Time.” I read his letters and wrote replies to them. I corrected all his student homework and made up the tests, that included the branch extension schools. I took care of his office and worked in the secretarial pool. I also kept tabs on the 2 girls for him, reporting all the time. I would go to the drug store for one to get Demerol, or take her to the emergency room in order to get it for her headaches. $40.00 a week, and my room in Schermerhorne, was my pay.
On Friday evenings, he would go out of town with one of the beautiful women (after speaking at Framingham). Only one motel room was rented. I paid the bills. The girl tried to cover for it by explaining that she always slept in the car while he stayed in the motel room. Sometimes I brought one of the 2 girls in my car to Framingham, then when everything was over, I would drive home and they would take off together for the weekend.
I was on call 24 hours a day and weekends. I arranged countless things. Countless times I met Carl and one of these girls at the tollbooth in Lee. They had just finished spending a weekend alone together. They would drive as far as Lee. Then the girl would get in my car and we would drive back onto campus so no one would know they had been off together. He would drive through Lee and Lenox alone, waving and smiling.
If you ask if I saw them having sex, my answer is, No. This I DID see:
I saw them going into a bedroom together and coming out in the morning.
I saw him unlocking their bedroom door and walking in, in the middle of the night.
I pulled earrings out of his bed in the morning.
I saw Polaroid photographs next to his bed in seductive positions and mostly naked of one of the girls.
No, I did not retrieve the forensic DNA.
It was also part of my responsibility to see to it that each girl did not find out about each other, or bump into each other in the night. The two girls were extremely jealous of each other, and one could not even admit that the other was in his life. Sometimes evidence of one or the other was left in this room. Once, one freaked out and tore up, into a thousand pieces, a whole set of professional photos of the other, because Stevens had forgotten to stash them in his locked safe.
I saw Carl in Fokine, the afternoon his wife died. He was with Scott Robinson. Scott and I stayed in the rap room while he and the young woman went into the secret bedroom. He did not look like a grieving husband. Take my word for it
I was asked to do many things, not only to cover for these particular atrocities but I was asked to spy on people, to listen, to report back to him about people, to report to him about dissention, to report about each of the women, to spy and go through people's waste baskets to find evidence that people were going to other churches. One of the girls and I were sent by him to spy in the windows of the “Ice House “ in Lee when he found out that a group was meeting there to discuss the CRI Report, and the abuse of spiritual authority issues.
This is only the tip of the iceberg.
I have not told everything by any means. There is much, much, MUCH more.
I lived under a wave of defilement during my years there. I have dedicated much time to recovery. I have, and will go on, and it’s a miracle to me that I do have a deep and meaningful relationship with many friends, my wonderful husband and daughter and with God as well.
He is a God of redemption.
Posted on Factnet.org on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - 9:51 am:
I just got up and read these responses. Thank you for your love and support. I feel slimed this morning after thinking about it all and writing it down. I had very weird dreams all night. [A poster] wanted some facts and it got me thinking. People should know the truth.
I do not fear God for myself, however, for a long time after I left TBS, I did think I was going to come down with a sickness and die. Finally, while driving home from work one night, I just screamed out to God, "OK...if you’re going to kill me, do it now because I'm so sick of living under this fear, and it would better to be dead than to live like this. Go ahead and do it now, or forget it."
I made it home fine. I realized that it wasn't going to happen and that it was a LIE implanted by a manipulative, self-serving man to us all to keep us there and in fear. A form of Brainwashing? That’s what the Cult experts say.
I want you to know though, my heart was pure in that I thought I was serving God there and it never crossed my mind that they were actually "doing it". Call it being naive, brainwashed or whatever, my mind didn't think in those terms. I was 28 when I married my husband, and our wedding night was a first for me. So, I simply did not think that could be a possibility. After all, you “don’t question God’s man.”
Maybe I didn't want to think "an evil thought" against God's man.
After I got out and some time passed, my mind cleared and I began to see things and remember things. That’s when the remorse set in for me and the defilement. Also the loss of my friends left back in TBS because I was then considered the “Enemy”.
Now I can see that that too, was for Carl’s benefit because he didn’t want me talking. HE is the one who was in fear. He knew everything I knew. He is very good at what he does the best, he’s a master manipulator. That’s when I got help.
I thank God for all of you and it's really my prayer that He can use this to help others get out and get free. I am so thankful we are all together in this and not alone as before. It’s good that everything is coming into the Light.
Posted on Factnet.org on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - 4:21 pm:
I remember Stevens pounding his fist on his desk one day in his office. He was so angry and screamed, "Other ministries get millionaires, I want one too."
This was a about a year before Betsy [Dovydenas] came on the scene. He set Barbara onto her immediately to befriend her. Betsy had no idea what was about to hit her.
Like so many of us, she was just looking for God and friendship. What he had planned was a masterpiece of manipulation.
The question about ministry funds? He always dealt with cash. I had his checkbook and he gave me whatever I needed to cover the bills but not anything much. He had a safe in his bedroom and one in his bathroom (for the toupee).
I don't know what he was paid weekly, but it was in cash. Always cash.
Posted on Factnet.org on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 8:50 pm:
...remember, he has gotten himself into, by any other man’s standards, a pretty precarious situation.
His form of recreation was to keep each [girl] from finding out about his deep involvement with the other. They had an idea that something was going on with the other. But they didn't know the extent to which he was involved with the other. I don’t know what he told them to keep up the charade.
BOTH girls confided this to me on separate occasions:
Carl had told each one that during each wedding he performed, the way he got the vows for the wedding couple was to think of her during the ceremony. He told them to take each word of those vows to their heart because he was saying it to her personally. They didn’t know that he had told the other the very same thing!
He also had to find a way to keep the two apart. To do this he used “gift of knowledge” manipulation as a way of keeping them apart. “God is telling me that you should not go to this place or that, because if you do, blah, blah, blah will happen". They would obey. It worked.
He would also mercilessly tease them in front of a table full of people in a restaurant. He would say he got a “gift of knowledge”, then would begin to razz her about liking some good looking single guy in the body. He would then laugh hysterically.
Publicly, he could be very cruel to one in particular. It was socially an inappropriate thing to do, and the people at the table were so stunned, that they practically stopped breathing. It was cruel and manipulative.
He also had to rely on other people to carry out deeds such as taking one or the other to various places. One time, I even went to the brunette's home far away in a different state, only to have him call her many times during the day and in the middle of the night. No cell phones then, and it didn’t go over too well with her parents.
To be involved in what we called, in the office, a “Secret Mission”, was a high honor and a privileged. Believe me, “Secret Missions” happened very often and were carried out by several people I have previously mentioned..
Basically, he was able to carry on a full time juggling act. (How he found the time to come up with messages, I often wondered.)
So keeping the two women at the same time, took the art of a skilled manipulator who not only did that full time, but also kept up on everyone else’s business and ran the ministry. I often wondered how one person was able to keep so much “categorical intrigue” in his mind all the time. This was mind boggling to me. But I saw it every day.
Finally, the handsome prince arrives: (Thank God!)
A very dark and handsome young man, who was the brother of a pastor, came into TBS to go to Bible College. The minute he saw the brunette, he was completely smitten. He was aggressive, and he was not going to give up. He also didn’t know much about the TBS culture, or even that she had been strung along by Stevens for 6 years.
Now, in the past, others had tried to date the brunette, because she was supposedly available, but those men were under scrutiny by Stevens and intimidated either by him or her. He said he had “Gifts of Knowledge “on some of them, and said he knew what they were “thinking about”.
Once he called Fokine and asked her if a certain guy was standing around her. When she said yes, he told her to get far away from him because he “knew what he was thinking sexual thoughts about her”. She obeyed.
The brunette liked this new Bible Student and his attention toward her. She was torn in her loyalty to Pastor and we talked about it a lot.
We went for a ride one day and she confided that she was attracted to the new man. She liked how he treated her and that he was strong and not intimated by her or anyone (meaning Carl?). He was in love with her, and she was “responding” to that “initiation“ from him.
He proposed to her, and she told him she would wait on God for her answer. She STILL believed she was to be the “One” to marry Stevens. She said that even though she was never physically attracted to Stevens, she wanted only what God’s will was for her. She felt it might be her calling to marry Stevens. On the other hand, she was very attracted to the young man, even though he was ten years younger than her. We hashed it over and over. She made the young man wait for her answer.
Meanwhile, back at the Ranch:
The blonde told me that she told Stevens she was sick and tired of the long 6 year wait. Carl had told her that he was waiting because of her "jealousy problem” and that she needed deliverance before he would propose. Even though she believed this, she was becoming more and more angry.
I don’t know that much about how she tried to get deliverance from "jealousy," but I do know that if that was me, and my future husband was seeing another woman on the sly, yet holding it over me, I’d not only be jealous, I would be furious, hurt, and end it. That’s exactly what was about to happen.
Barbara pulled out the guns and gave him an ultimatum. She told him she was giving him a certain amount of time, and if he did not propose, she was absolutely leaving Lenox and Carl, and moving on. She was dead serious about this.
Stevens knew that he needed to do something. He asked anyone and everyone, “who should I marry, the brunette or the blonde.” I’m sure some of you remember him asking you that very question. (He used their names of course.)
One day he decided on one, the next day, he decided on the other. One day the brunette’s legs were too skinny, the next the blonde was too jealous. It was THE question on campus. “So, who do ya think he will marry? _____or ______? “
At this point, the brunette accepts the young man's proposal!
Finally, the blonde wins, (or does she?).
Stevens proposes to the blonde. She immediately started buying up the wedding magazines and preparing her wedding plans with her mom. She was gone most of that time, getting her dress and flowers and getting ready for the big day which would be in another state. It was a whirlwind time.
This was also not long after Betsy Dovydenas had been befriended by Kathy Hill and the blonde. Their job was to win Betsy over. I simply throw that in, because there was A LOT going on behind the scenes. Everything was fairly hushed up about the upcoming wedding.
In the meantime, even though the brunette was engaged to the young man, Stevens strung her along by continuing to express his desire to marry her.
Only days before the brunette's upcoming wedding to the young man, she needed to talk. She told me that Stevens still wanted to marry her. I was shocked and stunned to say the least! I loved my dear friend, and this was just way too much. I was furious that he would do such a thing but hid my anger inside.
The conflict I saw in her was terrible. It was all so wrong. The other girl was already practically walking down the aisle. He had no intention of changing his plans!
Stevens always said to us and to many, he would not take any “left-overs”.
Therefore, it was planned, and carried out, that he marry the blonde, ONE day before the brunette married her young man.
As so it happened!
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 12:25 am:
He did say something, which to me as a woman, was very inappropriate. Over the past 20 years I have tried to rationalize why he would say such a thing. To me, it was disturbing.
He called me into his office the very afternoon he got back for another haircut. I had just given him one before he left.
As I trimmed his hair he was silent and then said, " (my name), you know, Barb and I never had sex on our honeymoon. Why do you think Barb and I didn't have sex on our honeymoon?"
I was stunned.
Gulping, I tried to think fast and replied, "Well, I'm not sure. Maybe you just had the No-Touch Love doctrine so ingrained in you, that you decided to go for...spiritual intimacy?????"
Then he turned his head toward me. I wasn't sure if he was going to laugh hysterically or cry. Neither happened.
In a weird, raspy voice, he said, "But dear, I had sex with her 9 times a day, and as a matter of fact, I can't wait to ___________________ when I get home!" What I have left blank was the most graphic and disgusting thing I have ever had anyone speak to me. After he said it, I wasn't able to hear another word he said.
What he said to me was so defiling that I feel embarrassed to even think it. I did, months later, tell my husband, and he was incredulous and disgusted.
It was the most vile thing I have ever heard a man say (and this was his new bride he was talking about!). On top of that, the way he so quickly changed his story was just scary.
That was my point of NO RETURN. I just "checked out" at that very moment.
I left TBS within 2 days. I had to return one time to get my furniture out of storage, but I never saw him again, until the trial.
Posted on Factnet.org on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 9:02 am:
In the past week, thinking about all that happened, all I saw, and all the rot I swallowed, has left me feeling slimed, and almost physically sick. This feeling is reminiscent of how I felt EVERY DAY during the years I was there. For almost 20 years I have not felt this oppression unless I “go back there”, to face yet another memory.
Today, and for many years, I have been free, productive and happy. It's a rare occasion that I even think about my TBS years. I have faced it, owned only what I needed to own, and walked through my fears, doubts, shame and guilt. Overcoming these demons, for me, was tantamount to being born again!
I look back at it now, as a way to help and encourage those who have been brutally emotionally and spiritually abused. Walking out into the light in our mind and hearts is where inner healing begins. God was with me in the darkness at TBS, surely he is with me in the Light as well.
I encourage those who are still in doubt; there is abundant life outside of GGWO
I pray that others will see that if one who saw so much evil in a supposed man of God, can FIND HER VOICE, then surely any one can.
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