Erin’s Story, Part 4

I did this new program called the G.I.I.E.T. (You’ve heard of I.E.T.? Intensive elective training? That was another thing started my year. This was the G.I. version.) MORE intense. Requires MORE dedication. It was totally promoted that if you could make it through the G.I.I.E.T. you could make it through anything. The G.I.I.E.T.’s designed the World Awareness L.T.E. It was part of their curriculum.

I went in to talk to the director of the G.I.’s He told me that the program was split into three different sections. We would spend the first 3 months being personally mentored by himself, the next three months being personally mentored by the director of the undergrads and then the next three months being mentored by Mr. Hasz himself. It was designed to make us amazing leaders. There were going to be different requirements like doing 150 push-ups every day eventually working up to 300… stuff like that. He told me a lot of people had dropped out the previous semester because it was too intense for them.

It sounded totally freaking awesome!!!

And it was all a straight up lie.

This was something REALLY common at T.M. (and it sounds like it has been common for a while). It’s major manipulation. Make something sound REALLY good and get the person to say yes. Then once they do, you get from them what you actually want, it doesn’t matter after that. I was pretty good at it, I’m assuming most people were, maybe they weren’t, I don’t know. Calling youth pastors for ATF. You make ATF sound brilliant so you get them to come. Missionaries for GE? Make the trip sound like it will be the coolest thing ever, think of every spiritual high impact thing you can, say everything amazing that has ever happened on any trip, roll it all into one and make it sound like it will all happen on their trip. I already mentioned the mob. You straight up lie to get interns to go. It’s what you do. Mr. Hasz did it all the time when he rolled out a new class or a new initiative we had to do, my C.A. did it for core, Ron Luce did it at ATF. It was all hype. It’s how the system works. I’m just glad I experienced the down side to such a dramatic point that it made me hate the system.

#1- We never met with the director of the undergrads once, and it was never intended that we were going to do so. This was also promised to the class before us and it never happened, I didn’t know that until right before I left. We met with Mr. Hasz for a few weeks (not 3 months) for I.E.T. – which was mixed with interns and never just us and him… which was what was implied. And we met with the director of the G.I.’s like I said, for about a month, then he stopped showing up for class… He was the most involved with us though. If we had questions we went to him.

#2- We never had any requirements put on us like they said they were going to, no training, no classes. All of us in the program were totally confused from day one because we didn’t want to believe they lied to us, so we never said anything, we were always kinda waiting for them to do what they said they were going to.

#3- The people from the last semester didn’t drop out because it was too hard, they dropped out because they were sick of T.M. And I am 100% convinced the Director thought that because they left they were weak – that is exactly what he implied to me when I talked to him as an intern.

#4- World Awareness. This event scarred me for the longest time I couldn’t even talk about it. It confused me as an intern and then as a G.I. it tormented me out so badly I literally could not say the words “World Awareness” for months after I left. This was not the effect it had on anyone else – only me, and maybe a few others from the G.I.I.E.T. program.

So this was a big part of the program. We were going to develop and plan out World Awareness. How cool is that? So about 3 weeks after our G.I. year started, someone from the events department came and talked to the G.I.I.E.T.’s about it. All she told us was that it was important that we get the order forms for what we needed in early enough before the event that we could have what we need…we were excited.

Well the director stopped meeting with us the next week. We figured someone would talk to us about it sometime. We would bring it up when we saw the guy and he would sorta brush it off. I tried to get some things going with it but the guys in the group weren’t really excited about listening to a girl so I just didn’t bother trying to push something that was going to get taken care of anyways. After around 2 months some people from events set up a meeting with us. We were stoked to finally get started with this thing!

She was so mad at us because we hadn’t gotten anything done.

I remember the meeting really well- all of us in the program just looked at each other awkwardly. No one had talked to us about World Awareness since the very first person that met with us… we didn’t know we were supposed to just figure out how to run an entire L.T.E. with absolutely no guidance! We were so lost and thought it was our fault! I really sat there thinking, “Dang it! We should have known!!!” not the normal healthy response of, “Oh man bummer. This is not what they told us we were going to do. How could I have known? Well lets fix it now.”

There was the added issue that the guys in my program were being total imbeciles. 🙂 They wouldn’t do anything!!! So I would do stuff. And when I needed them I would ask them for help. And they wouldn’t help me!!! They flat out told me that women were not supposed to lead and they would be making all the decisions from there on out. haha. It was stupid. That was just a side note. I was actually more upset at T.M. even at that point then at the guys. They were just being dumb.

Anyways, about two weeks later, events came to us and told us they were going to take over World Awareness. It was totally embarrassing. Everyone in the internship knew that the G.I.I.E.T.’s were supposed to run the L.T.E. and now events was planning it, and events was mad at us!!! And the director was mad at us, even Mr. Hasz was mad at us! All the higher up leadership blamed us because World Awareness was running behind. There was no way that was our fault, we weren’t even having ANY classes. We were getting emails from the higher up leadership that we needed to get our act together. We got an email from one of the directors saying we were not what they expected! Like, flat out blaming us for what was going on and saying we weren’t good enough and were kinda of a waste. I couldn’t believe it and it was enough to stress the heck out of me. I was trying to be good enough! I was trying to be everything they wanted me to be. I couldn’t live up to it. I was so upset. I don’t get upset easily but the pressure and embarrassment, and stupidity of all of it was killing me inside.

Then the event actually happened and it was terrible. It was unplanned. It didn’t make any sense. All the interns were “rebelling” against the “government” trying to take us over. They gave the interns paintball guns. It was chaos. The interns were cussing the G.I’s out. They were laughing in our face, being totally disrespectful. It was so painful. That was the most painful thing I’d gone through my entire time at T.M. – the total lack of respect and the lack of humility in general towards one another as Christians. It was crushing. Where was the love of Christ? If anything ever made me question Christianity it was seeing a Christian laugh in another Christians face out of pure rebellion. It was seeing so many moments like that over the weekend that drove me to want to leave. Not just all the junk I had been through but then seeing all that flesh raging and very little human self-control. I questioned a lot of things that weekend… Leadership, honor, integrity… It finally was hitting me that no matter how many good things I tried to do I couldn’t do anything without God. Unless He was my strength I was going to be just like everyone else, bitter, hurt, tired and weary.

I was supposed to be leading the “concentration camp” but events put someone else over it (A guy who was on staff. it worked out better for me. I was way too stressed out and totally could not handle it.) So I just left half way through the first night and went back to the quads. I had a breakdown. It was kinda one of those scary breakdowns you know? lol. Where you’re so mad you can’t think and you just want to hit something. lol. I totally skipped out on the rest of the L.T.E. called my friend in Austin (who was an intern with me), asked if she’d pick me up. She said she could. I didn’t know how I’d get home. I called my mom. She bought me a plane ticket that day. My friend picked me up two days later. It was terrible. I felt so good to be finally leaving!!! But I was too ashamed to tell anyone. I didn’t go to work, I actually hadn’t been to work for about a week. I FINALLY went in the day I left to tell my manager I was leaving, everyone overheard (I was in ATF) I didn’t look at anyone when I left the Epi. I got a phone call from the director of the undergrads trying to convince me to stay… he would call me when I’m leaving. He had been my manager in ATF for a season. He never talked to me in ATF and never once asked me how I was doing at all… until I was ready to leave. Also the director of the G.I.’s was on a missions trip so I didn’t even tell him. I told my G.I. – R.D. because we had become pretty good friends and she made me tell the R.D. group (kinda like G.I. core), who were totally ticked off at me. My R.D. wasn’t mad at all because she had been there with me through it all. but the other G.I.’s were so upset I was breaking my commitment. I said goodbye to a few key people and people I randomly saw. But probably only actually told a total of 10 people I was leaving other than my house and R.D. group.

And then I left. I actually felt a weight lifted when I left campus. It was difficult fighting the lie about “breaking my commitment” I mean, the last thing in the world I wanted was God to mad at me! But there was such a burden that was no longer on my back. People still don’t talk to me though. lol. 🙂

So anyways. There it is. Super dramatic huh? I’m so glad it was so dramatic though. I believed EVERYTHING Teen Mania told me. If I hadn’t had such a terrible experience I would probably still be there trying to be better so I could please them. I’m so glad I’m not. God knows all things and He is so good!