Change, ATI & the Gothard Church (10)

Change. Change was always happening in our house, as an adult you would think I would be able to handle change considering all that did change when I was growing up. But, no, I don’t really handle it well, but on the other side of that coin, I expect it and so when stability starts to take root in areas of my life I find myself restless, needing to go and find that urge to find something that can change in my life. Everything in my life growing up was changing. I can recall that our family was always moving from one house to the next, we lived in 7 houses from the time I was adopted around age 3 up until I was about 14 or 15 years old but I would be able to add about another house and a half by the time I left home at almost 18 years old. You’re probably wondering why a half? Let me tell that part of the story.

The house we lived in when I ran away from home was owned by a family and they had rented the house out to us and after renovating it and spending a few years there the family decided to sell the house and we were going to need to find a new place to live. So, we moved just a few streets over in the same neighborhood into another rental house, a huge house! It was while in this house the adopted parents decided that they wanted to live in the country, it had always been a dream of the whole families’ and especially mine. I had always been told  that I would only get a cat if we moved out to the country and I just longed for the day to come when that would happen. Well, it would happen. The parents found 11 acres of land out in the north west part of Houston, out in the middle of nowhere to be exact, it was a small town called Waller.

 I remember the days we would drive out there and look at the land, talk to people about it and then it happened, they bought the land and we had 11 acres of land to our names. The land was out in a part of the country where there were no tall pine trees, in fact the land had been used to plant peanuts and corn, the days we would go out and look at the land, us kids would run all over it and explore it while the parents and adults talked business. We would always see the left over peanut shells and corn stalks, occasionally we would find the foot prints of critters that would walk all over it when we were not around. We would find the prints of the deer, rabbits, birds and yes, the coyotes. The land as dull as it seems now, was always full of adventures for us city kids and I loved it. There were flowers, critters and the famous HUGE banana spiders that would build their massive webs in the few trees that were on the property towards the middle.

The acreage of land was shaped like a flag, with the pole part of the acreage being from front to back and the flag part of it in the back going to the right, if you were looking at the property from the street.

The parents would soon start looking at buying a mobile home to put on the land, it was one of these deals where we would literally design our own house. It was kind of cool but boring as all get out. We spent so much time at the mobile home dealership and we would sit forever while the parents would design and design some more.
 Finally the day came when they would order our house and it was getting closer to the time we would get to move out to the property. But, until that day came, we would start the transition from the house we currently lived in to the new property and I guess to save money or what not, the parents decided to start packing up the current house and they would rent a small single wide trailer that sat on the property of a couple we knew from the church we used to attend.
The trailer was just that, a small trailer probably from the 60s? I thought the parents had gone crazy, we were going from a huge 4 bedroom house that had 4 bathrooms, a game room, dining room, study, living room and huge master bedroom to this little trailer and there were 6 of us! There were 2 small bedrooms and then the ‘master bedroom’, a living room and a kitchen that included the eating area. Talk about downsizing. All of our belongings that wouldn't fit in the trailer would be put into storage and we would only move with the bare necessities. We kids couldn't bring our toys or anything, there just wasn't enough room. Michael and I would share a room and Matthew and Jacob would share a room and both rooms shared a small bathroom. I wasn't too thrilled with sharing a room with Michael, up until this point, I had always had my own room, and at times my own bathroom and so the idea of sharing a room with him didn't settle with me at all, never mind we were ‘teenagers’. I would later look back and regret that they ever did that to me.

So, we moved into the trailer and we would wait for things out at the property to be done, there was a culvert to put in so that they could take the house out there, there was the well to dig, the house to be moved out there and be put together and the electric that needed to be installed. It was such a drawn out process and patience was starting to wear thin. I was ready to be out of that little trailer. While we waited for the house and land to be prepared, we would work on projects. By this time in my life our family was in the process of leaving the church we had known for so many years, things were changing there, they were changing in our lives and the parents for some reason found that the need to be at the church was no longer necessary and we slowly started to leave and eventually we didn't go at all. The church had hosted a Basic Life Seminar, hosted by Bill Gothard and soon discovered that there was a whole home school curriculum designed to support the Basic and Advanced Life Seminars and we would get in to it and that would be our home school.
 The whole thing was just weird, the Home school curriculum/group was known as the Advanced Training Institute of America, better known as ATIA. It was a huge deal, full of thousands of families all over the world. The curriculum would center it self around the scriptures of Matthew 5,6,7 and somehow all the subjects you would use in a regular school setting would be drawn from those verses, history, science, social studies and so much more. I hated it! I didn't really feel like I was being taught practical stuff, I was being taught stuff that was kind of blown out of proportion and it just didn't make sense. The whole thing was taken seriously though and the belief system behind the whole thing was just insane. The seminars taught and hosted by Bill Gothard was go legalistic and so wrong but we wouldn't know that at the time. We thought we were being taught what was truth since you know it came from the Bible, verse for verse. We were taught that Disney movies were bad, that they were of the devil, that listening to music that had a drum beat in it was written from the devil and we were taught that it was only proper for ladies to wear skirts that went to down to their ankles or at least below the knee cap, that men/boys were not allowed to wear shorts because it would cause a lady to lust after them. The list could go on of the ‘beliefs’ that were being taught and brainwashed in to our heads, it was just ridiculous and it would go on until I left home.

So, when the family had found this new home school group called ATIA, they found a church in Houston that mirrored the seminars and teachings of Gothard and I am pretty sure every family there was an ATIA family. All the families used the curriculum, would follow the dress code, and the Pastor would even preach/teach like he had been taught from Gothard himself. Again, at the time, I guess the parents thought they were doing something right, they wanted the family to be taught standards and morals and to be taught how to raise children who would never ‘rebel’ and bring shame to the family name, ever. All the families were like this and they followed the rules right down to the letter of the law. There was more that happened in my life that stemmed from our family moving to this church and I’ll share that later in the story.

So, change was happening all around us but there would be more. Because my Dad was the custodian at the church were we were leaving, he would need a new job and he found one. A family that we knew from the church now worked and managed a Lutheran Retreat Center in Tomball and they needed a cook to provide meals for the guests that would come for different events. So, my Dad took the job and it actually became a family business. It had already been a business in the making, he had started catering while we were at the Bible Church and he would cook for all kinds of events there, he would be known there as ‘Chef Rando’ and people would fall in love with his cooking. His cooking was good too, and he would make everything under the sun and it was just amazing food.

We would work at the Retreat Center, mostly on the weekends when people would come out for an event, and an event could range from anything like a small business group meeting to a full blown out wedding weekend. The Retreat Center was a good amount of acreage with a huge pond on it, the Dining Hall area was up on a hill and at the bottom was the Inn, where 24 rooms. There was a pavilion area next to it at the bottom of the hill and eventually there would be a Olympic size swimming pool put in. The place was gorgeous and family operated and there was always something going on there. I loved it, I loved it even more when there would be weddings and we would get to cater the reception. Sometimes we did more than cater the event, we would decorate the hall for the customers and set it up and then take it all down after it was all over. Us kids weren't really around the people a lot, at least Michael and I were not, Matthew was usually allowed to socialize with the adopted mother but for the most part Michael and I were in the kitchen doing dishes or working. That was the usual for us and at any event. We would usually get used to it. We were allowed to eat though, if fact the getting to eat part started to get a bit more relaxed when we were there, because we would work our tails off, it was kind of our reward and I loved it!
The adopted Dad would make the best fajitas in town and they were my favorite. He cooked the best bar-b-Que, egg souffle, pancakes, fajitas, and party foods like cheddar poppers, wings and meatballs and the list could go on. He would make desserts that were out of this world like Chocolate Eclairs, Dump Cake. In fact, I would watch him or the adopted mother make the desserts so often, that I would have it memorized in my head and know how to do it myself. I remember the one time when the adopted mother wasn't around and it was just my dad and I in the kitchen and a dump cake needed to be made for that evening and as I sat there at the counter watching Dad do what he was doing, the ingredients were sitting right there in front of me and he asked me if I thought  I could make it and I said yes. So, he told me to go for it and I made it, without him saying a word. When I was done he kind of looked at me and said ‘wow’. We never told the adopted mother that I did that, she would get furious that I was doing something she normally did and it would just be bad. So, when I was with Dad and she wasn't around, I got to make Dump Cake and it felt special, I felt special!

Everything was changing and so much would happen in that amount of time. I was getting older and more mature mentally and I started to really key in on things being done and said. I would never intentionally eavesdrop but I would and I understood so much of what was going on around me and between the parents.  She would really think that I wasn't catching on to things but she would be wrong. I was starting to become more and more calloused to things happening and especially to those things happening to me.  The idea that Michael and I were no longer ‘important’ was really starting to grow. Matthew would constantly be given privileges and allowed to do whatever and eat whatever and whenever. He was being allowed to be involved in things like baseball and Little League and all the time and attention went to that. When we would all go to his practices, the adopted mother would sit on the bleachers and just ‘gaze’ at her son play ball while I sat in the car and took care of Jacob or would watch him play near the bleachers. I was always taking care of him, when he needed to eat, I was the one to feed him, since it was very time consuming for him to eat.  He and I would spend a lot of time together.

Again, things were changing and they would keep changing even more so in drastic ways when we finally moved out to the property. I was so anxious to see that day get here, I could hardly wait. I was tired of the little trailer, tired of being cooped up all the time. I needed space and room to live and breathe pretty much. But, that day was coming and little did I know about what was going to happen. 

Until next time, be blessed and inspire to make a difference!

~The Adopted Child