Towards the end of my year long commitment to participate in the WOW Ambassador program I made two decisions that in retrospect were idiotic decisions. Despite the utter mess that my year as a WOW had been, I (1) Decided to apply to entry into the Way Corps and (2) Sign up for a year to live in a Way Home, an in-state program overseen by The Way's Limb (aka state) Coordinator. The Way Corps was the supposed leadership training program. The trend had been for virtually every level of Way leadership to be trained in The Way Corps, rather than rising up organically in the community. At the time, Way Corps training was a four year process. The first year, called the Apprentice Year, took place wherever you happened to live. You were encouraged to take on leadership roles: running twig fellowships, coordinating classes, and being active in local Way events. You were also expected to get your tuition together, either by saving it yourself, or, as was quite common, getting "sponsorships" (later called "spiritual partners") to help defray the costs. (more on that later) The Way Home program was similar to the WOW program with a few exceptions: you could work full time if desired, you were not prohibited from leaving your assigned area, and your witnessing time was up to you. Other than that, you were at the beck and call of the Way leadership and were expected to put the needs of The Way before your own.
The Way Home where I lived for the first half of the Way year (August-February) was in a older neighborhood. It was a three bedroom home with a finished basement. The basement had another bedroom, a family room and a laundry room. My roommates were Carol, 28 years old and a graduate of the Way Corps; Tim and Joan, both early twenties, and both had been a WOW the previous year and were Apprentice Corps as I was; and Lisa, a senior in high school. I was assigned to be the Assistant Twig Coordinator to Carol for the fellowship that met in our home. My last job in Kearney had been at a Country Kitchen restaurant; my manager in Kearney got me a job at the Lincoln Country Kitchen, so I had a job right away.
Let's return to the topic of Way Corps tuition. In retrospect it seems ridiculously low. If I remember correctly, it was $4,000 per each year "in residence", the second and fourth years when you were at a Way property actively be "trained". $1,000 was due around 6 months before you started "in residence", the rest due at intervals during the year. But I looked up an inflation calculator online and saw that the purchasing power of a 1982 (the year I would have started training) dollar is around 3 times what it is now, so in current dollars the tuition would have been around $12,000 per year. I have no idea if the tuition increased in subsequent years. To put the do-ability of coming up with this in perspective, the first full-time job I had in 1982 paid around $13,000 a year. I was tithing to The Way, so subtract $1,300 and you've got $11,700. The tuition of $4,000 would have been 34% of a typical annual wage for a non-skilled, non-professional job in those days, and most of us Way Corps candidates were in our early twenties, not college graduates and a lot of us were working part-time jobs. I have no idea if this was a reasonable amount for room and board, as well as the purported training, but it certainly was outside the realm of possibility for the typical Way kid. So the solution was sponsorships/spiritual partners.
Sponsors would committed to contributing a set amount every month to help a Way Corps person defray the tuition costs. Some candidates had well-off friends or relatives who supported their commitment to The Way and contributed all or most of the tuition up front. Most of us had to spend time begging for money. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you take the long view) my relatives were definitely not supporting my involvement in The Way and most of my Way friends were in the same financial boat that I was. The end result was that when the first installment was due, I was a long way from $1,000 and was removed from Apprentice Corps status.
I felt like a failure.
I was told that I was a failure.
But there's a lot more to tell about the year from August 1981 to August 1982, which I will talk about in Part XXIX.
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