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MY LIFE IN THE GOSPEL ASSEMBLY
CHURCH By
Bruised 4 Not
Luke 4:18 - The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised,
I just wanted to say thanks to
all of you. I have put my story in writing telling what happened to me in my
life in GAC. Some of my family is
still in the church. If they want to tell their story, it will have to come
from them. Some may be upset with me for telling mine but I hope someday they
will understand why I did this. I love them very much and have no desire to
hurt anyone. But the truth must be told. I still feel fear as I write this,
it just all seems to start coming back all over again. Some of you will
recognize me although at this time for protection of the innocent, I desire
to remain anonymous. My mom and dad grew up in
William Sowders church. They also went to TM Jolly's church, as did all my
uncles. My uncle used to tell me that he used to watch TM Jolly drive down
this dirt road and think to himself; “Well, he is going to see sister
so-in-so.” (She was the only one that lived down that road). My dad and Lloyd
Goodwin grew up together under William Sowders and sat under TM jolly, many
times my dad would wake up and find himself on the floor at home with a
preacher in his bed. Bro. Goodwin and my dad lived on the same street as
children but back then my dad was into sports and brother Goodwin was into
books and he had asthma very badly. Then when Lloyd Goodwin went to Des
Moines, you guessed it. We all went
there too. As a child, growing up in
Des Moines, I did not know much was wrong because I thought that everyone
that went to church did the same thing we did. We never talked about it. We
were told not to and this is why T.M. Jolly and so many others got away with
what they did. People did not talk. We moved to Des Moines in 1963.
I was only four years old and was the only male child of that age in the
church. There was one other girl my age. All others were either several years
older or younger. The older boys liked to pick me up by the ears and hold me
of the ground until my ears would bleed from being almost ripped off my head
and the adults would do nothing. This was the beginning. When we moved to University
Avenue, we lived next door to Lloyd and June Goodwin. The church owned the
ground. It had three acres that I loved. My Mom and dad got me a dog. I loved
that dog. She was a Basset Hound and was so smart. She was my best friend. In
fact, she was my only friend. There were other boys that lived in the
neighborhood but in order for them to play with me, they had to go home and
put on long sleeves and long pants and only play the games that I was allowed
to play or LLG would come out and make them leave the property. Well, most of
the time especially in the hot summer, they would not dress that way so I just
had my dog to keep my company. She would play hide-and-seek; football,
tug-a-war, chase, fetch, and we had a lot of snakes to kill. I had a lot of
happy times out there. I can remember when LLG got his dog,
“Moreover.” He was a beautiful dog and smart. LLG would get up and tell
everyone that he had the smartest dog on the block. BOOM! My thoughts as a
child were; “I guess I had the dumbest dog on the block.” So then for a while, I didn’t play with my
dog much. I was mad at my dog because she was stupid. So I started playing
outside with my toys. Well now, you have to understand that about this time
my dad had a heart attack and he was in the middle of learning a new job
and taking a huge pay cut. So we
were very poor and back then there was no watching TV. So I would beg and beg to get a dime so
that I could get a kite or whatever the toy was for that month. One month it
was a toy golf club and I was told to take care of it because this is all we
can afford. I was told; “You break it and you won’t get any thing until next
month.” I said those famous words; "OK Mom, I won't, I promise" so
she would get the toy for me and I would get home and run outside with the
"stupid" dog at my heels and I would be playing away. I remember
flying the kite. LLG came out and was
going to show me how to fly the kite and as soon as he grabbed it, down it
came and crashed right into the ground and broke. He said he was going to buy
me a new one. When I went into the
house and told my Mom what happened and that he said he would buy me a new
one, she told me to go back up the hill and tell him that was OK and that I
really didn't like flying a kite that much. I was to tell him that he did not
need to buy me one and felt that he should just put the money in the offering
plate for me. It never dawned on me whom she was talking to when I walked
into the door coming back from their house. Later, I found out that LLG had
told my mother what I was supposed to say to him. He had phoned her and let
her know that all had went as planned. The golf club was the kicker one. He
swung and he broke the club. I sit back and laugh at it now but the club was
so small and he had to bend over so far his hands were at his knees and then
to pull the club back so far and try to swing a plastic club at a plastic
ball and hit it so far. He missed the
ball and broke the club. Again, he said he was sorry and he would buy me
another but at this time I just said;
"No, Brother Goodwin that’s OK, I'll just play with my dog."
He said; “Well, you really should be
in reading your Bible, son.” At this
time I was only eight years old. So I just went off to another part of the field
and cried to myself. I think some of these
experiences are where I learned to put others first and to put my own needs
last. In church and in school, I think in the back of my mind I would always
do things that would always let others get the first prize, make the winning
basket, etc. I was always second, never the smartest. Never the fastest and
always preferred my brother first, so to speak. (It also creates low
self-esteem.) I can remember when LLG used to come out with his BB gun and we used
to shoot cans and snakes and dogs . . . oh “did I say dogs?” Yes, he would shoot the other dogs in the
block to keep them out of his yard. He told me that he did not want puppies
with his dog and I understood this. One time we were having a workday at his
house, which was next to our house. I was telling a girl who was my age and
whom I had grown up with, about the dogs. Well, she told her Mom and it got
back to LLG. Boy, one would have thought that I had shot the dogs! He told me
if I couldn't keep my mouth shut, then we would never do anything together.
By this time, there were several young boys and girls my age so I at least
had some guys to come over and hang out with. But we had to be very careful
of what we did, living next door to LLG and his wife. We had to watch how we
acted outside of the house. I lived in constant fear that I would do
something that would get me into trouble. I know we all lived that way, but
you should have tried living next door to him! This was all when we went to
the "little white church." I can remember as a little child when my grandfather, who was a good
man, came home from a Sunday service and told grandma that they were going to
move to phoenix Arizona. He said that LLG told him that he was not going to
let my family talk to him or grandma ever again if they left. I can remember
begging my grandfather not to go. This was the same man that would have his
sons sleep on the floor so that the ministers that came through for meeting
could have a bed to sleep in. There
was a GAC in Arizona so they moved and took my uncle with them and it
was a long time before I was ever able to talk to them again. We did get to
take one vacation and go see them in all those years. When my grandpa died,
they buried him and we didn't get to go to the funeral. One thing I want you to think
about is how your kids feel about how they are dressed. It is important to them, you know. It is
important how their hair and cloths are. If you send your child to school
dressed with long sleeves, straight leg paints, short hair, etc. when all
this was not the style then you know the children will make fun of them in
school all day long, call them names and etc. You know the things kids
do when there's a freak in the crowd. Like when I wasn’t allowed to go to gym
class because I would have to go to a locker room with other boys and maybe have
to undress in front of them. I will never forget when my mother went to my
grade school when I was in the 5th grade and told the teacher that I could
not take gym. Then he said that he would have to fail me and to my
horror she said; "Fail him,
because he will not play will little boys that wear shorts and he will not
wear shorts either!" The teacher
asks why and my mother said; “because "it is against our religion"
and the teacher said; ”well I'll just have to hold him back a year.” My
mother said, "Do it" and I started to cry. For this reason and many more
just like it, when Lloyd Goodwin started up the Gospel assembly Christian
academy and knowing that I had no choice than going to the church for at
least another three years, I gladly went.
When we moved to 6th and Clinton and that's when a lot of you came to
know my family and me. Some of you did not like my dad from time to time
because he would get on your case but as you look back you will remember that
he was well loved by all and he was my daddy! Many times a child would have
done something out in the parking lot that was not right I guess and dad
would just come up and just start chewing me out for what had happened in the
parking lot and he would tell me to stay inside the church. Well knowing that
I never went outside and it wasn't me he was talking about, I thought he was
losing his mind but what he was really doing was chewing the person that I
was talking to out. That was my daddy! But you know not one of those guys
ever said "hey! SORRY I got you into trouble." They would just
laugh and walk on. At sixth and Clinton is where I really started to
get bitter. We lived on the church grounds next door to the Ellison’s, next
to them was the Ray's, then the church and later on even more came to buy
homes around the church. You've heard of Mormon Square in Nevada? Well we had
GAC Block! There was a kid on that block that had the same name as me and I used
to get rebuked for more of what that kid did! He wrote his name in some
concrete outside of the drugstore down from the church. Yes, I got into
trouble for that one too! I sit here and laugh about a lot that happened on
that corner. I had a lot of good times and a lot of bad times. I remember
when we prayed the pool hall out of business across the street from the
church. Boy, did that make the people in the neighborhood unhappy! I told everyone on the block that we had
prayed for that to happen. They didn't like us too much after that for some
reason. Well, we moved and they tore the house down two years later. Lloyd
Goodwin started the school in the church when I was a sophomore. I had the
best teacher in the world, Sis Alda Verwers. She was a real help to me.
School at Sixth and Clinton . .
. talk about having religion crammed down your throat! We had church five days a week in school,
at the beginning of each day and on Wednesday we had chapel. Then four or
five times a week at church! Every time LLG would come into the school we
would stand, which was good in one way, but it did teach us to worship a man
and not Christ. By the time I was in my senior year I was so sick of church.
Sometimes I wonder if we had put more of an effort into teaching children how
to enter the working world, if not more of the youth that graduated from GACA
would still be there?
I remember one time before church while walking up the stairs I took
them two at a time. A sister that
worked at the school told me to stop and to go back to the bottom and walk up
the stairs again. I told her she may be able to do that at school but this
was night and at church and she needed to leave me alone after school. Well,
that statement cost me thirty minutes of my time after school in detention. I can remember feeling lonely
for my brother and wanting him to come over and play chess with me at my
house. My sister-in-law was working at the school at the time and I told her
that I was upset for not spending more time with my brother. Well, another monitor heard that and
thought I was talking back and that one cost me an hour, even after I tried
to explain. One of the bad things is you could watch other children get by
with the same stuff and from the same monitors. So I just kept it all in and
just told myself that I only had three years and then I could leave. I was so
confused and the people that could have helped me the most didn't even speak
up. Everyone was so self-righteous and it seemed that all they wanted to do were
gain points by watching you fall and going and telling on you, thinking they
did a favor to you or to someone that they thought you did wrong. It seemed
like I was always getting kicked out of the band. Most of the stuff I got in
trouble for was not true but LLG never checked, he just acted. He always had
to chastise in public, never in private. If wanted to better myself in life
or music, he would always tell me that I was never going to amount to
anything and if you’re told that enough you begin to believe it and he saw to
it that I never was anything. In my final year of High School, they let me go to school half a day
and to Des Moines Area Community College in the afternoon. I could have
graduated when I was in the 11th grade but chose to take on some more courses
and get ready for higher education. I wanted out of DMGAC so badly that
I wrote my grandmother and asked her to send me some money so I would move to
her house and go to college there. She sent me the money and I hid it in my
sock drawer. Then about three months before I was to graduate, I went to my
Mom and Dad and told them what I was going to do. They made me tell LLG and
he said if I was going to do that then he was not going to let me graduate.
Well of course I changed my mind in a hurry and I made up with LLG and he let
me graduate. I was very thankful that I graduated. No, I did not receive any
awards or any thing else the other two that graduated with me did. How could
they give someone an award that almost left the church? It was OK to be
doing the “things” he was doing on the desk down in the office, just don't
try to leave the church. LLG did a good job with all his helpers, they
taught me how to be second best or to be last and then to be proud of it and
I’m good at it. I was taught this since I was a young child. To get anywhere
as an adult, I had to learn all over again. Sometimes you just have to step
on some people’s hands! Lord knows I LOVED, yes I LOVED running
around with the pastor’s nephews. Well, some of them anyway. Some of them,
you got in just as much trouble but with the others, you could get away with
just about anything. Lloyd Goodwin had the ones he liked and the ONE he
didn't. :) I can remember how I felt when Glen Goodwin told me that I was not
good enough for him to be hanging around with and that he wanted to “change
his image.” That hurt me. When
my Mom and Dad left the church in 1978-79, I was still living at home. LLG
told me to move into another couple’s house until I got married. He did this
to try to get my dad to come back to the church and I was told not to talk to
them or have anything to do with them and if I did this it would probably
save their soul. What mind control he had to make us give up our parents and
go against the 5th commandment, to honor your father and
mother! In 1979 I got married. We had a
son, who is now twenty. Around
1980-81, I messed up because I had got into some trouble. (Nothing really serious
but illegal) I left the church again. LLG told me that I should leave and go
to Arizona for six months until it blew over. He said that the Mafia might
come after me. That scared me. This was around the time when Lee Ray was
having the affair with the mother of his son. While I was gone to Arizona, I
don’t know what all transpired but when I came back, LLG told me that I
should let that “bond woman and her child” go and that God would give me a
good wife. He was talking about my wife and baby son. He told me that this man in the
church had something “on him” and he did not want me to fight to keep my
marriage together, he told me to just let her go and not try to get back
together with my wife, and to have nothing to do with my son, I did this, and
to this day it has been said that I did not care about my son, and he has
grown up thinking that I did not care about him, I will say that there was
not a day that has gone by that I did not think about him and the mistake
that I made of letting him go and doing what LLG told me to do. I hope and Pray that God will bring us
together and heal that hurt. My first born also has a brother and a sister
that would love to meet him. LLG had
me give up my firstborn child so he could hide the sins of another, Lee Ray. I have yet to get to see that child since
he was 18 months old. Yes, I made a lot of mistakes in that marriage but to
this day even though I did what I was told to do, I was made out to be
the bad guy. I was one of the scapegoats and there were many in that case.
Years later LLG had someone call me and tell me that if I wanted to talk to
my son, he would help me but I had to call and ask him and I had to do it on
his terms. I never did find out what those terms were and never have talked
to my son. I do know that a good father and mother have raised him and he has
turned out to be a fine young man from what I hear. (We all make changes.) LLG had problems with the pastor
in Tampa and didn't want to give up their daughter and son-in-law who were in
his church. I found this out when I went to Tampa to marry another one of the
pastor’s daughters. We had two children, a son who is now seventeen and a
daughter who is almost fifteen. When I was married for the second time and
the Lord blessed me with a boy, Jason. June Goodwin, who had came down for a
meeting to Tampa Florida, was holding my son and she looked at me and told me
that the Lord gave me back my son. Well, I won’t say that he gave me back my
son but he did give me another son. I still miss the first son very much. I
made a lot of mistakes in my life and a few I’m not proud of and one was
letting my son go. I have been contacted by several GAC'ERS and asked about
that situation and when I tell them, they say now it all adds up. But to me,
at this point all I want is for the Lord to let me talk to my son face to
face. No one needs to fear what will be said! There has not been a day that
has gone by that I have not thought of that boy and wondered what he was
doing and how he was doing at that moment. But thanks to some key players I
may never get that opportunity, and if not then, so be it, I will see him on
the other side. To make a long story short, my wife (in Tampa) found a new man and
she left me. I was really hurting so I got really mad at myself and at church
but never, never at God, so I decide to go straight to HELL, (the grave.) I
tried to kill myself. Somehow, I made it through that ordeal and am still
alive. Six days later I met my present
wife (my angel). I was never going to go back to church again nor was I ever
going to get married again. We were just going to live together. Hey, I know
the Bible well "OK" so no more man’s church. Thanks to her grandma,
two years later we got married cause grandma is now 93 yrs old you don't live
in sin and come around her! So I said; “sure why not, I'm more married to you
than all the rest.” So the rest is history.
One thing that gets to me now is
that there is a GAC in Tulsa, Oklahoma which is ninety minutes from Oklahoma
City and my family can go there and go to a meeting and stay a few days and
shop etc. but they can’t drive down ninety minutes away and see me. I can go
nine hours to see them but that's where this “the church comes first “ stuff
comes in. I had good times and bad times in GAC, I have met some of the best
people in my life there, friends, most closer than family and still are.
Which means that a 30-second phone call would mean that I would be there
tomorrow if they needed me! For years I have walked around doing nothing about
anything because I was afraid that if I did the next thing I would hear was
breaks squealing, the shattering of glass, the doctors saying; “We can't save
him!” The last thing I would think to myself was "touch not mine
anointed." So I have kept all this and much more inside me. To
this day, it is still hard for me to go to a church. I have tried many of
them. Yes, I do still believe in Christ and salvation. I am just through with man’s religion. I put this down in writing so that it may
help someone know that they are not alone and that this has happened to many
others. The God that I serve has taught me how to think for myself. No longer
do I need to ask if I can buy a car, a house, go on a trip, etc. I have
seen the Lord lead my steps for the last eighteen years. I have confidence
that I am His child and that I am free. For whom the Son set free is free
indeed! Praise God, I AM FREE! My health is not really good right now but I’m trusting in God. I
know that God can heal me. I’m praying that by getting this hurt and anger
out on paper that it will help someone else and maybe in the process help my
heath to improve also. Be blest by the BEST! “JESUS” Your friend and brother, “Bruised 4 nothing” Speaking
The Truth In Love: By Nsubuga Charles
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