Beginnings. I was raised in a normal home until we joined the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) in 2000. Up until then we did normal family things and went to church. I had friends and held normal expectations of myself — as did my parents.

Our family attended the annual conference in Knoxville and quickly afterwards the Basic Seminar [Children’s Institute (CI) for me back then]. I quickly latched on to this as I saw the concepts of “success” and “Godly” thrown around with a list of rules and check-lists with Bible verses punched into each one. Finally, I thought, I had found a tangible way to be “all that I could be.”

My dad found an ALERT Cadet unit (he was ex-Army) and I became an ALERT Cadet — where I knocked out all the expectations of me in record time and climbed through the ranks. I also wrote some of the curriculum for the program (at age 14). On my thirteenth birthday, I had a “Rite of Passage” in which I quoted the Book of James from memory and had my dad sign my “Courtship Covenant,” binding myself to my father as the one to choose my wife for me.

I searched avidly for ways to serve others in my church and in the ATI program. At each conference or Basic Seminar I attended or worked at, I found different programs that promised to help me grow closer to Christ in service to Him.

And then a  friend of mine told me that he had just come from Life Focus and that he really grew from it. At age 14 I signed up for Life Focus 5 and was shipped off to the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC) where I discovered what was on the other side of the looking glass.

Life Focus. I was with a group of kids who all seemed ‘normal’ enough — and we were put on “voice-lockdown” in order to learn to “Be still and know that I am God.”  [Note: I recently left the United States Military Academy at West Point, and it is illegal for us to use this treatment on cadets there.]  At one point on day four or thereabouts, I raised my hand to ask a question and my leader said, “You have more time on voice-lockdown.” The effects of this treatment continue to this day. I still seldom talk, but prefer to sit and shut up. When I do speak, I cannot communicate with confidence — I stammer a lot.

I mentioned to my leader (ex-ALERT man) my desire to join ALERT and he spent his time picking me out and hazing the life out of me (pushups, flutter-kicks, sit-ups). At one point he put me in the bathtub and told me to hold two gallon jugs of water at arm’s length and keep them from spilling — all of this, as far as I can tell, was done just because he could.

In order to graduate from Life Focus, you had to earn a shirt that proclaimed you to be an improved individual. All of the other guys earned their shirts one week to the next. But I was constantly being bullied by the other guys (some were juvenile delinquents) either physically or emotionally. At one point in the dish-pit at ITC, a bunch of guys were taking turns spraying me with hot water (100 degrees plus). After repeatedly asking them to stop, I finally snapped, “I’m going to kill you.” I ripped off my hair-net and went to hit the guy. But my glasses flew off and I missed. They put me in solitary confinement.

The leader of the organization asked me what my problem was, why I had not earned my shirt. I sat across from him and had a blank look on my face, “I have no clue what my problem is. You tell me.”

The day the fathers showed up to collect their kids, I had never felt so happy to see my Dad. I was crying and just holding him for protection from the leadership. He had no clue what was going on with me, but I received my shirt the next day and all I had was gratitude for the leadership in showing that I passed the test–whatever the test was–apparently I passed it. We quoted the book of James and I was sent home.

But it was nowhere near the end for me. It was only the beginning.

Click here to read Part 2