It was time, or so i convinced myself, to increase my commitment to God. I signed up to be a World Over the World Ambassador for the 1980-81 Way year.
I had sold my car to my sister to raise funds for my move, and traveled to New Knoxville, Ohio, Way Headquarters, where I would receive my assignment.
World Over the World Ambassadors (aka WOW Ambassadors or simply WOWs) had been sent out every year from the annual "Rock of Ages" (ROA) and returned a year later to the following year's ROA. The first Rock of Ages was a small affair. Wierwille had taken to hosting students for "summer school" every year. In 1971 it was capped off with a night of music and Bible teaching called "The Return of The Rock of Ages". At the end of the night Wierwille had challenged the attendees to commit to a year going out to assigned cities to "move the Word" (sign people up for Power For Abundant Living [PFAL] classes) and establish Way Twig Fellowships. He asked anyone who was interested to come back in October for their commissioning. The group that went out in October 1971 were welcomed back at the second annual Rock of Ages a year late, in August 1972, a pattern that continued through 1995.
The number of days varied from year to year, starting out as a weekend gathering, expanding to seven days by 1980. For most people it was an opportunity to meet up with Way people from other parts of the country and hear Wierwille teach in person. The first few ROA's were held at local fairgrounds, but starting in 1978, the event was held on the grounds of Way Headquarters, the former Wierwille farm near New Knoxville, Ohio. The Way in 1971 was relatively small. The Power For Abundant Living (PFAL) class had only been filmed a few years previously. Wierwille had co-opted a group of Christian "hippies" from San Francisco and had started his leadership training program, The Way Corps, but WOWs would be for many years the most effective method of bringing in new members. .
In 1980 the 10th "wave" of WOWs was being sent out, or commissioned. A record number had signed up, well over 3,000. A large number were being sent to what were called Outreach Cities. These Outreach Cities would receive whole "branches", i.e. 10 or more "teams" of two WOW "families" each. A WOW family usually included four WOWs. Teams were usually overseen by a Way Corps person who was on their "interim" year. (At the time Way Corps training included an "Apprentice" year in their home town, the second year and fourth "in-residence" at a Way location, with the year between the in-residence years on some kind of "field" assignment. These field assignments could be overseeing twigs or branches, an assignment at Way Headquarters, or as the coordinator of a WOW team. There were also WOW families sent to isolated cities or towns. I was sent to one of those: Sidney, Nebraska, a city of at the time around 5,000.
Before my WOW family and I were sent to Nebraska, most Way Twig fellowships were clustered in Lincoln and Omaha, plus a few small groups founded by the previous year's WOWs in Fremont, North Platte and Beatrice. My group of WOWs included families being sent to Sidney, Scotts Bluff, Nebraska City, McCook and two families to Grand Island.
We spent a few hours each day in training and on the sixth night, we were "commissioned", i.e. received our assignments in a sealed envelope to be opened at a big ceremony in the big top tent where evening teachings were conducted. All of us Queens NY WOWs sat together for the ceremony. Most of my friends were sent to Outreach Cities, including my girlfriend Lori, who was sent to Chicago. In addition to my Nebraska assignment, only one other person from our circle was sent somewhere other than an Outreach City. We were to spend the seventh and last day of the ROA meeting our new WOW family and making travel arrangements. Our family consisted of Steve, an interim 10th Corps man from Texas, who would be our coordinator/leader; Gail, a veteran of a previous WOW year from Philadelphia; and Rosemarie, a relatively new PFAL grad from California. Because there were only two cars, one of them a two-seater, between the two western Nebraska families, we split up on our way to Nebraska. Rosemarie and I rode on a bus with some Way people from Grand Island. Gail, who owned one of the cars, took Steve and two Scotts Bluff WOWs in her car, while the other two Scotts Bluffs WOWs would carry all our luggage in their pickup.
The bus broke down in the middle of Iowa. Boy, those signs just keep on coming, don't they?
Even though, in retrospect, this was another one of those recurring red flags, I saw it as a bit of an adventure. While the bus was being repaired several of us went to work for the repair shop and lived in tents behind the gas station. Eventually, after the bus was repaired we made it to Sidney, Nebraska a week late and set about the task of finding jobs and housing.
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