The
above quote I found on a Facebook friend's page that was speaking
about Mormon missionaries. I quickly knew that it also related to
YWAM. People who go into YWAM are volunteers to PAY to WORK there.
After a DTS, students are told (Made to feel guilty.) that they do not need to go
home & go to university or learn a skill. YWAM knows that those
who leave will most likely never return.
Even
though those in YWAM are “volunteers”, they are ordered around as
if they are paid employees!
There
are a very few in YWAM that actually make good money whilst in YWAM
if they are good speakers or/and write books. These people often go
on the worldwide YWAM speaking circuit, have their airfare & accommodation provided as well as an honorarium. Since they are often
well liked in the public eye (regardless of who they are behind their
talks & books), they often get more people to donate to them on a
monthly basis as well. I do not fault them for this if they have a
gift.
Most
people in YWAM scrape by to pay their staff or schooling fees,
especially if they are not from the first world. If they are in YWAM
for years, rarely can they save for retirement or financial disasters.
If they have served YWAM for decades & retire, how can they
provide for their basic needs? Of course YWAM preaches that God will
provide. I believe he will & does provide, but God also gave us
a brain he expects us to use. I was in YWAM for 12 years & will
never be able to replace the financial, spiritual or emotional harm
that was done to me & so many others. Most who leave YWAM after
years of service have no marketable skills to make a decent living
when they leave.
1 comment:
Well, let me tell you that Ywam bases settled in poorer countries are in no way better and thoughtful of people financial struggles (although they claim to be). It works the opposite way than in first world countries bases. Instead of charging less fees to their staff from poorer countries, they charge higher fees than usual to the ones of the first world ones, which I (as a third world country person) found RIDICULOUS, considering the fact that most of the staff, wherther westerner or not, had given up everything to come to "make God known", and that left them also penniless and most of the time, isolated and rejected by their own families. So their sacrifice were double and also the fees they paid, how convenient!!!
Even when I was still a ywamer I felt especially sorry for the guys who came all the way across the world to serve, to be treated this unfairly. And even though we are all the same in the eyes of God, this taking of advantage enlarged the stupid gap of inferiority/superiority everyone tried to deny existed. The same power of God to provide was upon everyone, so why charging some people more because they were from richer areas? Disgusting!!! it would take me forever to number the things I saw in my time there, but by now I just want to complain about this. I talked to my leaders then about it, by the way, but as always they had very poor and unbiblical responses to this...
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