[Dave]

I was in the LC in Santa Cruz and then Detroit when your husband experienced the LC at Elden Hall. I remember attending conferences in 1970 at Elden Hall and I have to say it was a remarkable time for the LC but it was in the midst of a Jesus revolution throughout the country. Young people were getting into Jesus movements everywhere. Also, being in the LC in Santa Cruz was a different experience because we were not directly controlled by Elden Hall which gave us a lot of freedom. In the early 1970s the LC was booming and WL provided projections of increase in the US. He estimated a total increase of something like 100,000 to 150,000 people over the next decade with yearly projections of the number of increased churches and people along the way.

After Witness Lee personally asked me to move to Detroit during the first major migration I found a completely different experience in Detroit (while I was in Santa Cruz I had contacted several of my relatives in Detroit and they began a LC there with some others). First, WL sent two of his well trained disciples to Detroit to be elders which was stifling, and, second, they brought the control of the LC movement with them. In the second major migration most of us in Detroit moved to Ft. Lauderdale which was a disaster with different members arguing over who should be an elder and seeking WL's blessing. I left in 1978 after I moved to Miami in 1977. The LC in Miami wasn't much better than Lauderdale. I never looked back, felt free of essentially a controlling system and never wanted to be in a similar situation again.

I have maintained some friendships over the years with various brothers from those days who also left and the situation in the LC has steadily deteriorated. Your experience with the elders is just symptomatic of the problems within the LC. Obviously your husband after 4 years has to be pretty tight with some of the other LC members which makes it even more difficult for him and you for that matter. You probably will have to reach a waterloo at some point depending on the demands of the LC on his time. I guess children are not an issue since you haven't mentioned them. All any one can do in your situation is pray. Take care.