Weather predictors do their job with computer models and the circumstances as they unfold, attempting to predict the course and strength of this massive storm which did not followed the earlier predictions. Early predictions had the storm following a similar course as Hurricane Matthew from last year, along the east side of Florida. This did not happen. We hear statements now saying parts of the predictions came true while others did not. Weather prognostications are just that- best guesses.

In January 2015, if a legal prognosticator had attempted to predict the course and time frame that the Matthew Fenner case would take to complete, how accurate would they have been? There have been twists, turns and flips in the course of the prosecution of five defendants from Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) which I doubt anyone could have foreseen.

The Rccatalyst.com recently published a updated timeline of the events surrounding this case. This case involves events from January 27, 2013 in the sanctuary of WOFF where in Matthew Fenner alleges he was beaten and held against his will because he was gay. Indictments for first degree assault and second degree kidnapping were handed down in January 2015 against Brooke Covington, Justin Covington, Sarah Anderson, Robert Lewis Walker, Jr. and Adam Bartley. An additional charge of inflicting injury by strangulation was filed against Sarah Anderson.

The pre-trial motions were numerous. The original counsel for the five defendants, Farmer and Morris, led by Joshua Farmer and Mark Morris was disqualified in August 2015. The appeal of that disqualification was eventually withdrawn in 2016 after Sarah Anderson left WOFF and secured her own counsel. Brooke Covington stood trial earlier this year and the outcome of a mistrial were predictably unpredictable, right?

This is September 2017. Today there is a status conference to , hear a motion allowing Robert Denton to withdraw as counsel to Adam Bartley. The change of venue motion will also be heard and who knows what else? The outcome for this hearing is like others before it. Unpredictable. Will Judge Pope allow Robert Denton to drop this case and Adam Bartley to obtain a public defender? My sources are not certain.The new defender would predictably ask for months to prepare his/her case. The change of venue motion entered by Judge Pope is almost a sure thing, right? Really?

Having believed earlier predictions about Irma which turned out to be inaccurate, I will not be in the Rutherford County courtroom today. Once the outcome is known, I will share it here.

In other matters, the Charlotte Observer earlier reported comments by U. S. Attorney Jill Rose indicating progress in the investigation into the treatment of Brazilians inside the WOFF subculture. This investigation comes after the Associated Press released and article detailing Brazilian ex-members involved in potential visa violations by working for little to no pay during their time with WOFF.

While we know the investigation into WOFF and their doings continues, when anything will be made public or indictments for Jane Whaley or any of her leadership is predictably unpredictable. This is a waiting game.

Follow this blog on Twitter- @religiouscults
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/johnhuddleauthor

Thank you, for taking time to visit and read this blog. Please, consume the information on this site responsibly. The author is not a licensed mental health professional and encourages those that need professional help to seek it. The intent of the material is to inform and be a resource. Be sure to tell every member that you know at WOFF about this blog. There are readers at WOFF. Jane told me and Josh confirmed it.

Comments are invited from all readers, including present or former members. Polls are not scientific and no private information is gathered.

Look on the right side of any post for the option to subscribe by email for notifications or RSS feeds notifying of new postings. It is a great feature. Also, find more posts by selecting “Categories”.

Guest posts reflect the opinions of the writers. Their opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of John Huddle or any other persons affiliated with this blog.

Please, take time to read the Terms of Use for this personal blog. As mentioned, for posts written by John Huddle, any information about WOFF is from his memories and recollections as perfect as that may be or not be.

Scripture references are Amplified Version unless otherwise noted.

(Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation ) This is post number 615.

Now the individuals damaged from the years of chicanery are speaking out. The latest installment of the Associated Press’ ongoing in-depth investigation has been released. The long needed reporting of the secretive church practices is clearing the smoke of confusion and angst which hangs thick over Old Flynn Road. There, the church compound serves as the hub of the WOFF-kingdom in the sad ongoing saga of abuses revealed by the AP. The aim is not only for the souls of the members, but this report reveals the aim is to capture “slaves,” laborers- mostly unpaid to work at the church or school or for businesses owned by church leaders, as well as in their homes.

The AP report: This link has the full text, pictures and video. (click icons bottom right of image)

“When Andre Oliveira answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders – for safekeeping, he said he was told.

Trapped in a foreign land, he said he was forced to work 15 hours a day, usually for no pay, first cleaning warehouses for the evangelical church and later working at businesses owned by the sect’s senior ministers. Any violation of the rules risked the wrath of church leaders, he said, ranging from beatings to shaming from the pulpit.”

From my years at WOFF, I ask who could actually count the endless number of young Brazilians who were brought over to North Carolina? The number would vary from year to year according to how much room could be made in member’s homes or at the warehouses on Shiloh Road. Who can deny the ever flowing “pipeline” of young souls, male and female? The numbers would increase for every seminar.

While a member of WOFF- I was not directly involved in regulating the daily activities of this segment of the membership. However, who can honestly deny the multiple hours for work projects and free labor harvested from these folks? Who remembers the trips that young men, American and Brazilian, would make to update or redo the foreclosed home(s) in South Carolina? These projects orchestrated by church leadership were “fundraisers” to help “meet the budget.” I understand from members who left after I did that this practice of “volunteering” for “work projects” did not stop.

AP: “They trafficked us up here. They knew what they were doing. They needed labor and we were cheap labor — hell, free labor,” Oliveira said. … “They kept us as slaves,” Oliveira said, pausing at times to wipe away tears. “We were expendable. We meant nothing to them. Nothing. How can you do that to people — claim you love them and then beat them in the name of God?”

AP: “On at least one occasion, former members alerted authorities. In 2014, three ex-congregants told an assistant U.S. attorney that the Brazilians were being forced to work for no pay, according to a recording obtained by the AP.

“And do they beat up the Brazilians?” Jill Rose, now the U.S. attorney in Charlotte, asked.

“Most definitely,” one of the former congregants responded. Ministers “mostly bring them up here for free work,” another said.

Though Rose could be heard promising to look into it, the former members said she never responded when they repeatedly tried to contact her in the months after the meeting.”

Yes, Jill Rose, the US District Attorney was informed of these practices in January 2014. I was in the meeting referred to in this article. I heard her say- she will “take a fresh look at it.” (meaning the abuses told to her during the almost two hour meeting) After the meeting, I sent her a certified letter outlining my concerns. I heard nothing back in the months that followed. There was not a second meeting as promised.

The AP article reports: “Rose declined to comment to AP, citing an ongoing investigation.”

Let’s hope Jill Rose doesn’t add her name to the list of government officials such as Brad Greenway, Chris Francis, John Carroll, Jeff Hunt and others who all decided to do nothing about the reports of abuses from survivors of WOFF.

Let’s hope the “ongoing investigation” is thorough and not hindered by the “smoke and mirrors” – religious dog and pony show which inevitably everyone gets when WOFF has time to prepare for visitors.

AP: “Perhaps to circumvent the rules against employment, church leaders sometimes referred to the forced labor projects as “volunteer work,” according to Brazilians interviewed in both countries.

Many females worked as babysitters and in the church’s K-12 school, and many males worked in construction, the former members said. The work included ripping out walls and installing drywall in apartments owned and rented out by a senior church minister, they said.

Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank focusing on labor issues, said rental properties are “for-profit businesses for which the immigrants cannot volunteer” under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Some of those interviewed said they’d been lured to the U.S. in part by promises of obtaining a college education but were unable to study or attend classes because of their punishing work schedules.”

“It was slave labor,” said Rebeca Melo, 29, who grew up in the church in Brazil and visited the U.S. about 10 times.

Whaley’s brand of “love” also played a key role in enticing Brazilian males to Spindale – and keeping them there once their visas expired, according to former members of the church.

Ten of those interviewed spoke of male Brazilians obtaining green cards for permanent residency and being able to legally work by being married off to female American congregants.”

Let us remember where we see the numbers “ten” and “16” in this report, those numbers represent real people, the ones willing to talk. Many survivors refuse to speak still living in fear of Jane.

These were individuals who were brought here to America and according to this investigation were shamefully mistreated, all under the guise of some religious sham, cloaking the real reason for their journey. I was there for years. Jane Whaley and her enabling minions were and still are very skilled at spinning and “calling things that are not as though they were…” Does that sound familiar?

AP: “Former congregant Jay Plummer supervised remodeling projects for a church leader’s business and confirmed that his fellow American workers were paid while the Brazilians who labored alongside them were not.

“Room and board is what they worked for, and they did not have a choice,” Plummer told the AP. “And when they would not want to work and vocalize that, they would just get in trouble.”

AP: “Former member Thiago Silva said he was excited when he boarded a plane in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte to fly to a Word of Faith youth seminar in North Carolina in 2001. He was 18 and expecting to use his tourist visa to meet new people and visit the U.S.

He soon learned, he said, that there would be “no happiness.”

“Brazilians came here for labor. I’m telling you, that’s it,” Silva said. He called the treatment “a violation of human rights.”
Silva, now 34, recounted being among a group of Brazilians working alongside Americans — the locals were paid, the Brazilians were not, he said.

Silva and others also said Whaley took complete control of congregants’ lives on both continents, mandating such daily staples of life as where they lived and when they could eat — and even forcing some into arranged marriages to Americans so they could stay in the country. (emphasis added)

The lack of freedom was pervasive, they said: Silva, for example, said he could phone his parents from the U.S only if someone who spoke Portuguese monitored the call.

“There’s no free will,” he said. “There’s Jane’s will.”

Okay, the members of WOFF have witnessed it for years. Is this the first time a news organization has reported on the practice of “arranged marriages?” Jane’s insistence to marry Brazilians to Americans concentrates her power over both congregations. This is not saying that some couples don’t or will not survive the contrived genesis of their relationship. However, the odds are not good for long term marriages with such a beginning. If the purpose is to avoid immigration laws- it is illegal.

This article is very extensive and full of sad facts about life inside WOFF for Brazilians and Americans. The practice of arranged marriages affects both Brazilians and Americans. Hopefully, you will read the all of the source article and read Kim Rooper’s story. She is talking about her relationship to Steven Aquirre. She tells of her inability to continue the sham. I was with Steven when he was told she had left WOFF. He was heartbroken and very emotional. There was a lot of blasting prayer for him that day. It is what we were told to do. Looking back, the whole scene was strange. I should have seen through the smoke and haze, but I did not. Eventually, Steven was married to another American WOFF member.

This article is so extensive it may warrant another post. In closing for now, we must ask – will the investigation referred to by Jill Rose be able to finally cut through the murkiness and haze created by the ongoing deceit and hocus pocus used by WOFF?

In the time since 2014 when Jill Rose was made aware of the dangerous WOFF practices, how many more lives have been harmed and families torn apart? How many other adults and children have to suffer at the hands of Jane and her leadership before these practices come to a halt? We shall see. For now, things are full steam ahead for the next seminar and wave of Brazilian devotees. Do you think this article will stop or even slow down the flow of Brazilians into Spindale? Do you know Jane Whaley?

Follow this blog on Twitter- @religiouscults
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/johnhuddleauthor

Thank you, for taking time to visit and read this blog. Please, consume the information on this site responsibly. The author is not a licensed mental health professional and encourages those that need professional help to seek it. The intent of the material is to inform and be a resource. Be sure to tell every member that you know at WOFF about this blog. There are readers at WOFF. Jane told me and Josh confirmed it.

Comments are invited from all readers, including present or former members. Polls are not scientific and no private information is gathered.

Look on the right side of any post for the option to subscribe by email for notifications or RSS feeds notifying of new postings. It is a great feature. Also, find more posts by selecting “Categories”.

Guest posts reflect the opinions of the writers. Their opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of John Huddle or any other persons affiliated with this blog.

Please, take time to read the Terms of Use for this personal blog. As mentioned, for posts written by John Huddle, any information about WOFF is from his memories and recollections as perfect as that may be or not be.

Scripture references are Amplified Version unless otherwise noted.

(Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation ) This is post number 611.

This journey begun with possibly good intentions includes people from several countries and many members hailing from various parts of the United States. On this day when we are to celebrate the freedom afforded us by our Constitution and upheld by our strength as a nation; we are experiencing and witnessing a court case unfold which includes allegations of intimidation and fear, along with testimonies and evidence which any sane person would agree do not signify a healthy religious environment.

A survey of the history of Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) includes episodes of religious abuse, political and community scandal, physical and emotional abuse, financial doubts and many court cases full of legal wrangling. A journey of over thirty years has touched so many lives in on several continents in such negative ways. I do not believe what we see as the practices included in the WOFF subculture were ones our forefathers intended to protect when they declared “freedom of religion.”

For reasons which could be debated for months or years, the leader of WOFF has gone down a dark and foreboding path. She has traveled her own direction subjected to her own weaknesses and personal flaws while disdaining outside help or input. In addition, she has a core crew of enablers. This combination has caused the maturation of this group to include verbal abuse, intimidation, fear, physical altercations and a steady diet of propaganda in order to reach its goals and support the her demands.

And now, what do we know?

Matthew Fenner alleges on January 27, 2013, he was held against his will while being assaulted during a deliverance session in the sanctuary of WOFF. In January 2015, five individuals were indicted over these charges. Those individuals include Brooke Covington, Justin Covington, Sarah Covington, Robert Louis Walker, Jr. and Adam Bartley. After many months of pre-trial motions, appeals and delay, the first trial of the State versus Brooke Covington ended in a mistrial based on a jury foreman introducing unauthorized documents into the jury room. After declaring a mistrial, Judge Gary Gavenus placed a gag order on anyone tied to the case including the jury, court officials, attorneys representing any of the five defendants and those on the “State and Defendant Witness List.” (53 names at last count)

Recap of recent events:

June 21, 2017- The Associated Press and Charlotte Observer filed a motion to lift the gag order in this case. They are seeking among other things access to the jurors.

June 26, 2017- The Associated Press releases detailed review of Matthew Fenner’s struggle to have his voice heard and justice be done. Contained in the article were a series of secretly made recordings which included Rutherford County Sheriff Chris Francis and Jill Rose of the U.S. Attorney’s office. Former District Attorney Brad Greenway is quoted in the article.

July 1, 2017- Rccatalyst.com reports Brooke Covington’s defense attorney David Teddy filed motion on June 30th for Matthew Fenner to produce the recordings and the devices which made the recordings. Hearing set for July 17th.

July 2, 2017- Rccatalyst.com again reports Assistant District Attorney Garland Byers filed a motion for a lift of the gag order over the jurors. This motion is to allow investigators to interview jurors about the unauthorized documents introduced by jury foreman, Perry Shade.

July 3, 2107- Attorney David Teddy files Amended Motion dated June 30th which outlines his contention that his client and the State deserve to know what recordings Matthew Fenner may have now or any made pertaining to the events which led to Brooke’s indictment. The Motion specifically lists the AP article as a reason for granting the Motion.

Amended Motion by Teddy

The date for the next hearing on the lift of the gag order and the Motion for Matthew to produce any recordings is July 17th starting at 9:30AM. The Honorable Judge Marvin Jesse Caldwell is scheduled to hear the motions.

In order to bring this present court drama into perspective, let’s revisit the testimony of State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Special Agent Tim Shook during the first trial. The testimony which was eventually barred from the jury included information from an incident about WOFF practices during 1988. This incident involved a lady being restrained to a bed for about 13 days in order for her go through deliverance. The SBI investigation of 1995 contained this information. Eventually then District Attorney Jeff Hunt decided to not go forward with the investigation.

My point? Questionable WOFF practices have been a subject of investigation by authorities for longer than I estimate 24 people on the State and Defendant Witness list have been alive. Many inside WOFF have no idea how long others have battled to break free from the damages from the injurious practices which are being inflicted on them – daily.

Where does it end? What if any positive outcome will be from the road traveled by Jane Whaley and her leadership? Yes, I have seen many of the videos on the WOFF website. Am I impressed? Does a four minute video erase the years of damage and the long list of injured members- former and present? How can decades of abuse to hundreds of people in this country and overseas be erased or made right? The WOFF conundrum continues.

Follow this blog on Twitter- @religiouscults
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/johnhuddleauthor

Thank you, for taking time to visit and read this blog. Please, consume the information on this site responsibly. The author is not a licensed mental health professional and encourages those that need professional help to seek it. The intent of the material is to inform and be a resource. Be sure to tell every member that you know at WOFF about this blog. There are readers at WOFF. Jane told me and Josh confirmed it.

Comments are invited from all readers, including present or former members. Polls are not scientific and no private information is gathered.

Look on the right side of any post for the option to subscribe by email for notifications or RSS feeds notifying of new postings. It is a great feature. Also, find more posts by selecting “Categories”.

Guest posts reflect the opinions of the writers. Their opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of John Huddle or any other persons affiliated with this blog.

Please, take time to read the Terms of Use for this personal blog. As mentioned, for posts written by John Huddle, any information about WOFF is from his memories and recollections as perfect as that may be or not be.

Scripture references are Amplified Version unless otherwise noted.

(Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation ) This is post number 608.