Testimony of Dr. Raj Kripalani (11/14/2004)

Gratitude for the Church and the Testimony of God's Leading

In Fr. David's absence, we're honored to have the world-wide special speaker here this morning, Raj Kupalani, Dr. Kupalani, and I guess that's enough.

Good morning. It's very good seeing you all. Never a dull moment at church, even in playing hymns. That's very good. It's nice to have such worship, and I thank you all for coming today. First of all, I want to also thank my dear brother in the Lord, David Mitchell, and his family.

I met David a few weeks ago, actually a couple of months ago, and came on a Wednesday night service here. Since on that Wednesday night, I was scheduled for something else, and the first time I popped in here was just a couple of months ago.

And lo and behold, Brother David speaks about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. And then I realized this is where I would like to be. This is where not too many churches teach on such an important topic.

And that was a blessing, and we just developed a wonderful relationship after that. So I want to thank him for this blessing and opportunity. And I also want to thank you for something. You all know that for the past couple of weeks, I brought my dad and then my mom.

And without me saying anything, my dad told me, these people here are very genuine. So that's the word. The next week, my mom came, and without me saying anything, she said, these people are a caring community.

So praise God for that, and I thank you for being a witness to them. We are working and praying for their salvation. My mom is coming along, though. She would surprise me sometimes. Without me telling her this, for example, if I would go home one evening and I would be a little down or discouraged about something, and she would see it on my face, and then she would tell me, don't worry, Raj, Jesus is coming soon.

Now how does she know that? I did not tell her that. So apparently she's been listening to some Christian TV or radio or something that she has that. So she's coming along, and then suddenly, or we would go shopping one time, and right in the middle, while I'm driving, she would just suddenly stop and say, Raj, I need you to tell me what do I need to do to prepare for Jesus' coming.

So just out of the blue, these things, and we know that those are not of human origin. So we know that the Lord will fulfill His work, and He's faithful in this regard. So I thank you for this, and appreciate your opportunity just to give a testimony.

Growing Up in India and Belize

As you all know, each and every one of us have a story. You have a story, and I have a story. And if you're here, you have a story. If you're here, Jesus Christ has brought you here, and that is a story already.

It's a miracle. It's the work of the Lord. And I just want to start off by giving a little background and leading up to a testimony. My name is Raj Kripalani, exactly as it is spelled, and Brother Otis, you did a wonderful job in pronouncing it.

So thank you. But I was born in India. Yes, in India, in that far mysterious land. And as good Indian parents and families, they tend to travel abroad. They always believe in the Indian dream, just as you all have an American dream.

The Indians have their dream, and what is their dream? Going abroad and establishing a business, making all the money they can, and then going back home and retiring in India. That's the Indian dream.

So as my parents, they did that. They left India in 1970. And so first of all, it was my dad, and he went and he traveled in the West Indies, the Caribbean, settled in Trinidad for a while. And then, finally, established in the country of Belize.

Some of you perhaps have heard of Belize. Wonderful place for snorkeling and scuba diving, and sometimes I have to ask the Lord, what am I doing here? I would rather be snorkeling. But no, he has his purposes.

But it's a great place to just take a vacation. Not a very good place to live and to grow up in. Not much hope or opportunity. But at that time, it was under the British. It was a British colony. And the reason I'm saying all these things is because they do relate to this testimony.

And so it was a British colony, very prosperous, doing wonderful. And in one year, my dad was able to establish two, three businesses and doing very well. And then in one year, he called my mom and my sister and I, just the two of us.

And so we came and I grew up. I was five years old when I arrived in Belize. So I grew up in the country of Belize. In Belize, they speak English, they speak a little bit of Spanish, and they speak a dialect called Creole.

Now there is a French Creole and there is a British Creole. There is a difference. The French Creole is in some areas of Louisiana, I believe. But the British Creole is almost like what you speak in Jamaica.

And in those places, it's a form of broken English. But we did that. And I grew up with that. So I went to school there and grew up in school there. And I was a terrible student. I did not have much interest in studies.

I did not care much about that. I barely passed elementary school. Barely. That was a miracle. I'm telling you, perhaps out of 20 students, I would be the 18th or the 19th down the line. And why? Just because, especially my dad, he was more business focused.

In his culture, in his time, there was not much of a focus or stress or emphasis on higher education. Just a little bit. So that's why he did not put much interest in that regard. I was the only male child.

And in the Indian community, if you're the only male child, you just inherit all the businesses and that's it. Whether you know how to add or subtract is irrelevant. You just inherit the businesses. And that's what happened.

And so we're just continuing there. And after elementary school, I was like, okay, I wanted to continue in high school. And so my dad was saying, well, you really don't need much more. But thankfully, some friends of his, some doctor friends of his in the country, convinced him that I should go to high school.

How about that? Convinced him for me to go to high school. So I barely made it into high school. And the first couple of years of high school were miserable. I just wanted to go back home. But I did not enjoy any minute of it until my sophomore year.

And then going into being a junior, you know, just barely passing, just making it with the minimum effort as possible. However, being a, please understand, during all this time, I am still a traditional Hindu.

That was the religion of my parents. That's the religion of India. Hinduism. Let me just quickly, quick background on Hinduism. Several gods, even though they claim to be one, they do believe in several gods.

There are different manifestations of God for your particular needs. If you want wealth, you go to the god of wealth. If you want health, you go to the god of health. And so there is a temple in almost every corner in India.

So you can go to that particular temple with that particular god and give some offerings. Offerings, what do I mean offerings? Fruits and vegetables. That would be the offering. If you give that and some little bit of money, you may get his blessing.

Or her blessing. Yes, there are female deities in Hinduism too. And so there is no sexism right there. They just, every imagination of man, they invent and they claim it to be a god. So I grew up with that environment.

We had all our idols, statues, and everything in our home. And I would pray to them when I was a teenager. I would pray to them for a bicycle. I would pray to them for anything I could think of. And of course I never got it.

So I did not continue praying to them. It was my form of revenge against them. Because they did not give me what I wanted. So that's what continued in my teenage years. And so I could care less about where my parents were going or what they were doing or not doing.

But the idols were at home. Because in Belize there was not a Hindu temple. So most Indian families, if you go to their homes, you will see a little temple in their homes. And that's what they do, they worship idols.

Depression, Mysticism, and the Search for Meaning

And so I grew up in this environment. And then going back as a sophomore, finished my sophomore year, then something interesting happened in high school. Being under the British educational system, a very good system, I must add, it was very competitive.

And so I started becoming very competitive. And so we would compete then to get the highest grades. We would compete to be the best in certain sports. We would compete to take out the prettiest girl on campus.

We would compete for everything. And why? Why did that stimulate us? Because they would publicly announce your names in front of the whole student body. It was just a proud, it was just an egoistic trip, quote unquote, that they would put us on.

And all of us would be striving towards that level. And if I got 98 and my classmate got 97, I was better than him. That was the attitude in that system of education. Very, very fierce competition. And then I started studying for a change.

I started studying and used to go to bed at 3, 4 a .m. in the morning just to be able to get a half point better than my classmates. And so then they would announce it on each subject. You got this grade and that grade.

And so, of course, that would cause the admiration of all and it would just puff the ego more and more and more. So that's what continued as a junior and as a senior. And so we graduated, most of us graduated with flying colors from high school.

My feet were just getting wet into education. I now wanted to continue with my classmates, continue not for studying, continue competing. That was my sole desire. So I told my parents I wanted to go to college.

Now where we were was in a small town. If you wanted to go to college, you had to go three hours away to the city of Belize. And that means you would have to have housing and everything taken care of over there.

Well, my parents said they could not afford it and they really could, but it was just too much. It was time for me to run the family business. So here all my friends leave town, every one of them. I have no friends in the town as a senior from high school, so excited to continue competing and studying with no friends to talk to, nobody.

They're simply at home. That was a miserable experience that really got me discouraged. So I would ask them to continue, but then my dad said, well, if you really want to continue studying, take some correspondence courses.

Well, correspondence courses, I'm not competing with anyone. So I just did it just to satisfy him. So I just continued doing so and continued the business education there. Well, this solitude and this frustration led to a major depression in my life.

I was 17, 18, and very discouraged, very frustrated, very angry, very angry against authority, very angry against my parents, very angry against quote-unquote God, whoever he was at that time, very angry against every form of order telling me what to do.

And that anger would just steam and that frustration, and then for one to two years, this was a long depression, frustration, anger, and it led me to do some very wrong and bad things. It was very troubling.

I started dabbling and getting into mysticism, yoga, hypnotism, black magic, black arts, and thankfully, though, praise God, it wasn't too much in depth. It was just searching for some meaning. How could an 18-year-old, 19-year-old, young teenager that should be full of hope not have that?

And that was very, very trying and frustrating for me at that time. And so I would start reading up into these arts. Just give me some power. Just give me some significance. Just give me some meaning.

And I would go to the library and start reading up on evolution because I was now starting to believe that there was no God. He could not allow something like this to happen to me. I was the only victim in the whole world, is what I thought, and this is not happening to anyone, and it's just me.

So this is the issue, and I started studying evolution. Why did I study evolution? I wanted to prove with all my heart and with all my mind that God did not exist. Because if I could prove that God did not exist, then no one can tell me that what I am doing is wrong.

And so that's why, because I did not want to be under any authority. And so I started reading that up because I said, well, you know, I was doing wrong things, my parents would correct me and tell me, but of course I would just go even more rebelling against everything they would tell me as a form of taking out my frustration on them.

The more I studied evolution, the more frustrated I became. The more I realized, ah, this is so full of holes. I can't hold on to anything here. I can't hold on to a logical, reasonable argument at all.

They would say, well, this came from this. Okay, well, where did that come from? From another source. Where did that come from? From another source. And you would have to find the first original source, and I would never find it.

And by the way, they cannot give you an original source. And this is the problem. So where did that original source come from? So as I would read that, I would find more frustration. So one of my outlets was the mystical arts.

And I would be doing yoga, and not just the physical exercises, but the mental and philosophical and spiritual aspects too. Keeping your mind blank and communicating with what we know today as demons.

So we would do so because they encourage you, by the way, to keep your mind blank and never do that. It's very dangerous. The scriptures tell us to fill your mind with the word of God. And if you keep it blank, guess who's going to fill it in?

The demons. So that's what encourages you. So yoga physically is fine. Spiritually, philosophically, no way. Don't get close to that. But I was doing so. I would spend three or four hours a day in that process.

And none of this, beloved, would give me any meaning or any purpose. I started to get more frustrated, and I contemplated suicide at 19 years old. So I said, you know, there's no purpose here. I'm not getting anywhere.

Nothing is helping me. There is no God out there, apparently. Or he is. He's not answering me. And I would try many times to go. We would live just right across from the beach. And so I would go swimming and diving and everything.

And so one day I decided we would have these large boats on the shore, for example, on the end of the wall, all the way twice the size of this building lengthwise. And so I said, well, let me dive underwater from one end of the boat to the other.

And, you know, I'm sure I can hold my breath that long. And so we did so. So I would try doing those crazy things. And one day when I did that, my bathing trunk got stuck underwater from the base of the boat.

So here I was, could not move left nor right nor forward nor backward. Just totally stuck underwater, losing every ounce of oxygen ever in the body. Now I was struggling. And the more I struggled, the more trapped I would become.

I don't know what happened. Well, now I know it was the Lord. But the next moment I was out on the shore. How did that happen? The work of God. So then the next time, I'll give you a couple other instances.

I would love to race in my racer bicycle that I had. And so in Belize you would have these large cane trucks. They would have sugar cane. And they would have no cover. It would just be the box. And so I would say, you know, I can catch up the speed of this truck if I race my bicycle pretty fast.

So I would race behind the truck going and just be like two feet behind the truck. And just keep up with the speed of the truck racing all along. Now in the town that we lived, there are no stoplights.

You just go. So I didn't have to worry about stoplights or stop. I would just continue racing along. Well, out of the blue, this truck decided to stop. Which I did not expect. Two feet away. This way.

Exactly at the level of the neck. To let your neck go bye-bye. So I was just right there going down. And suddenly it decided to stop. And there was no time for me to swerve left or right. But once again, by the hand of God, I was on the other side of the road.

And so I started to think, hmm, something is happening here. I guess I'm still living for a purpose. And then, you know, there would be other events too. Someone would come and we would have a business there and threaten us with a gunpoint.

Right there. And then suddenly the person would just decide to leave. And there were other situations like those where the Lord miraculously intervened. And so one evening as I was resting, about 9, 930, I was just resting and reading other stuff.

And I started shivering. Now, beloved, Belize is a very hot and tropical climate. It never gets cold. And here I was shivering at 9, 930 at night. And I could not stop. I was continuing for a couple of minutes, 3, 4, 5 minutes shivering.

I would put blanket after blanket and it would not stop. Now, I don't know what it was, whether it was a voice or whatever. I don't think so. But the message was clear in my mind. The message was, one day you will stand before me.

And then I went to bed. Went to sleep straight away. I never go to bed at 9, 930 p .m. I just went straight to sleep. And woke up the next morning. And the next morning I woke up. The first place I got up was, I went to look for a Bible.

From Hinduism to the Bible and the Discovery of Grace

Now, let me back up here. In high school, we had to study the class of religion. And in religion, we would study the life of Jesus Christ. And so I had a little information on Jesus Christ, just the Gospels, very superficial information.

So for me, oh, very interesting guy. Very great man, he does these things, wonderful, I thought. Beloved, that was the only reason we had a Bible in our home. Because I had to buy a Bible as a religion textbook for our high school class.

If not, there would be no Bible in our homes. It would just be the Gita, the book of the Hindus. And I had read up, when I was in this depression, I read the other religions. I looked into Islam, I looked into Hinduism.

And for some strange reason, I never looked into Christianity when I was studying. But all the others, Buddhism, and I looked into all those world religions to find, okay, what are they saying? None of that appealed to me.

But then, lo and behold, the Lord, I guess, led me. Just in that morning, early in the morning, got up, I went straight to my bookshelf and picked up the Bible. Then I lied to my parents. I told them I would go to the beach, go swimming.

But I took the Bible, hid it under my t-shirt, and spent all day by the beach reading it. I did this for nine months every day. I read from Genesis all the way to Revelation. Because if I would tell them I would be reading the Bible, you know, it would be a very, very difficult situation there.

So I would do that. And by the time I finished the Old Testament, I was convinced, beyond a shadow of doubt, that there was a God. By the time I finished the Old Testament. This is the beauty of Christianity, beloved.

God is very personal. I am the Lord, I am Jehovah Jireh, I am your great provider, and I am speaking to you. That's how God is. It's not the Lord says this, and he says that. No, it's very personal. As he was speaking to Israel, you know, You shall serve me alone, and I will bless you, and I will do this.

Very personal. By the way, that personal aspect is in no other religion. It's the beauty of Christianity only. It's that special blessing of wanting to have a personal relationship with each one of us.

And so I knew, wow, he is speaking to me. I knew then it was God. And then, after finishing up the Old Testament, just starting to get into the New, I said, well, after reading the Old Testament, I knew God would punish and discipline because of not keeping his law.

You see that constantly in the Old Testament, especially idolatry. And here I was with all these idols in our home. And so I decided I need to keep the laws of God. So I started keeping the Ten Commandments.

My way. The way I thought was best. For me, the Sabbath would be Saturday morning to Saturday sunset, so I could go to the movies Saturday night. That, for me, was keeping the Sabbath in that regard. Whatever was convenient.

I would keep those laws just on my own. And I felt, quote-unquote, good. Okay, God is here. Okay, I'm doing his will. I'm, quote-unquote, fine. Okay. Then I was starting to get into the New Testament.

I had no idea about grace. Salvation by grace through faith alone. Nothing like that. For me, it was law. God will bless you if you obey. God will punish you if you disobey. All of this comes from the Hinduism and other world religions' background.

That's what all religions tell you. It's never just by grace. Grace is offensive to other religions. By the way, if you get up here and speak about prophecy, you'll have a large crowd. If you get up here and speak about grace, they will dislike you.

That's the nature of man. You cannot tell him that he doesn't need to do anything, but simply trust. But I was getting into that. And in high school, I had an enemy. Ah, I did. This guy and I were constantly fighting in high school.

Well, we were always trying to do the worst to each other. Well, we graduated, you know, and he had gone to college. And two years later, as I was walking in the park, I meet him. I was just finishing up the Old Testament.

I meet him at the park. Well, you know, two years later, you forget your childhood differences. And so this was a Thursday. I said, how are you? How are studies going on? Very well. I told him, hey, let's go to the movies tomorrow.

Tomorrow would be Friday night. He said, no, I can't go. I said, why not? Because it's the Sabbath. Hmm. I said, no, I have read about the Sabbath. And I thought it was Saturday morning to Saturday sunset.

So he says, no, no, no. He says it's from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, as the Jews keep it. And so I said, oh, tell me more information. Beloved, my worst enemy in high school was reading the Bible when I was reading it at the same time in different locations.

And that was just something. And so he tells me, no, you need to keep the law. I said, oh, okay. I was attracted, beloved, to the law. Not growing up in a very disciplined household with rules and regulations and so forth, I needed the law.

And teens want the law regardless of how much they resist. Just give them the boundary. They want to know that boundary. They want to know the line. And I needed that. I always looked back and said, if you talked to me about grace when I was 18, 19, maybe I would have rejected it.

But, of course, I could not because God is in control. But at that time, God knew what I needed. And it was law. It was law to lead me to something else. So he said, you need to obey the Ten Commandments and the law.

And he gave me a copy. I said, well, come tomorrow to my place and we'll talk. He brought the copy of the Plain Truth magazine. How many of you have heard of the Plain Truth magazine? Some of you. It was in airports and hotels and everywhere.

It was from a cult group called the Worldwide Church of God. Herbert Armstrong was its leader. And in East Texas, very strong with his son, Garner, Ted Armstrong, and others that continued this. And they would have a beautiful magazine sizzling with prophecy, sizzling with Old Testament verses.

Rarely too many of the New Testament. So he would give me a copy of that and I would see all this fascinating prophecy. Beloved, prophecy has been used by the Lord as a tool. And it continues to be used as a tool to bring people to him.

Because our God predicts the future. No other God can. But this magazine was using verses from the Old Testament. And looking back, they were right on many things. The beast coming, the beast's power, the rule of the Antichrist, everything.

They would talk about those. From Daniel and other scriptures. And so this would fascinate me. And I would just eat that information. I loved it. Plus they would tell me, you know, these are the laws you need to keep.

Ten commandments plus seven Jewish holy days. Just as the Jews keep Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles. And leavened bread, yes. For one week we would go without, we would not eat leavened bread. And we would go and keep the Feast of Tabernacles in hotels.

Hotels for us today was modern booths as the Israelites would keep them. And they would have the feast site around the world. Worldwide Church of God was huge. Its base is in Pasadena, California. And East Texas, Big Sandy, Texas was its other base.

But they would have the feast everywhere. And so the Worldwide Church of God believed that you are saved by grace. Yes. But you had to, after being saved, work your way into heaven. You had to now start keeping the laws to be able to enter heaven.

Christ cleaned you. You are now clean. Make sure you have no spots now. Make sure you have no spots now. That's the key. We had to obey the laws. And that's why we had to obey the Jewish laws and the Old Testament laws.

Plus whatever was in the New Testament. But it was by your works. So, hey, I wanted something to do. The law was appealing. Started keeping all of them. I realized, oh, yeah, I have to obey the Ten Commandments.

And I changed then from Saturday morning to Saturday sunset, from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. And, beloved, life became then very, very interesting. Very difficult. Persecution started. Oh, my parents have two, three businesses.

And Saturday is the busiest day of business. And I am resting in the room because it was the Sabbath. And I would not follow any instruction they would give me because I had to obey the Sabbath. And I knew what the Lord did to Israel by disobeying.

And so there was no way I would do that. Just my friend and I, we would keep the Sabbath together. Because the Worldwide Church of God had no branch in Belize as yet. They had it in Mexico City. And we contacted pastors.

And the pastor from Mexico City would come down to Belize and visit with us and counsel two, three times a year. So that's how it happened. And I would go to Mexico to keep all the feasts of the Old Testament.

And we did so. And my parents, it was very frustrating. And then they found out I was reading the Bible. And it became very, it was very hard. It was very hard to just stay at home. The looks, the words, the criticism.

Because, beloved, here they were losing their only male child. If you take another religion in Hinduism, there you are considered lost. Lost to another group. Just lost from the family. And as a father, you can understand that.

Especially being the only male child. You're having all the hope there. And me not wanting to work on the Saturday. How will business prosper? So that was the whole mentality. And, you know, it was always trials from the devil.

Because for the first time I would see my dad cry, or my mom cry. And I had never seen that. And so it was a very emotionally draining experience. At that time, just in order to keep the laws. And, well, I decided I could not continue at home.

One year, two years, it was just getting worse. I decided I cannot continue living in this home. I have to leave home. So I left home when I was 19, 20, I believe. And told my pastor from Mexico that I'm going to come to the U .S.

I have relatives here in the U .S. in different places, different states. So he said, that is fine, but why don't you come to Mexico City? I said, why would I want to go to Mexico City? He said, well, we can give you a job in the church office.

You won't have any problem keeping the Sabbath and all the feasts. And if you like it, stay. If you don't like it, you're welcome to leave. I said, alright. You know, I liked him a lot. And I said, just to satisfy him, I'm going to go two, three weeks and then leave.

Two, three weeks turned into four years. I absolutely loved every moment of it there. I went to Mexico City and got a job teaching ESL, English as a Second Language. And things were wonderful. And started establishing my own business there, teaching.

And it was going well. And I would visit my parents every six months. And so they started accepting more or less where I was coming from. Realizing they would not be able to change me anymore. And so they gave up the pressure and they gave up the persecution.

Mexico City, College, and the Collapse of Legalism

So two years into that, it was going well. And I started first just working for a church office that did not continue. So I had to find a job working as an English teacher. And then the institution I was working for accused me of taking or stealing their cassette tapes for classes.

As if I was even interested in keeping their tapes. They were horrible anyway. But those tapes were not helpful in teaching at all. And so they said, you stole them. And they withheld my check for a whole month.

And they did not give it to me. And so, you know, just being there, I did not want to take any action as yet. So I told the students. The students I had, by the way, in Mexico teaching ESL. I'm not talking about teens or young people.

I'm talking about CEOs, bank managers, business managers who want to learn commercial English to be able to come to the U .S. and do business. And so I was teaching them. So I told them what happened.

And they said, well, we could care less about the institute you work for. Why don't you teach us personally? Then I found out how much they were paying to the institute. And I said, oh, I'd love to do this.

And it started off a business. And it was wonderful. I mean, it's a huge business over there, especially if you're good at it. You can really, because they have all the money. And they can make much more money when they come here.

So I remember a student, the wife of a manager. You know, I would be teaching. And he just, you know, soared. And he was constantly doing business. And he would ask me all these commercial terms and everything.

So he said, Raj, will you teach my wife? But I don't want her in any group, just one-on-one. I said, okay, we'll do that. I remember she came that morning with three packs of cigarettes. In the office that morning, she was a nervous wreck.

So she asked me, may I smoke? I said, okay, just open the window, though, and then go ahead. And I would just teach her one month, two months. After three months, she was just taking trips and soaring and telling me words I had to look up in the dictionary.

So she really soared. And so it was wonderful. The pastor came up to me one day and says, Raj, would you like to give a sermonette? And a sermonette in the Worldwide Church of God was a 15-minute message.

And so I said, wow, I've never done this before. And so he said, hey, try it, and came up with a topic. I did it, and when I did that, I knew from that moment that the Lord is calling me for pastoral work or at least teaching his word.

And I loved it, and I continued right there. And then after a year had passed, now I'm already three years into Mexico, he said, listen, we would like you to be a pastor of a church here in Mexico City, but we need you to go and be trained.

Go to the U .S. and be trained. We have a college in East Texas in Big Sandy called Ambassador University. We would send you there, and after four years, you would come back, and we would have a pastoral position for you.

I said, I mean, I'm fine here. I don't want to go and study. Hey, let me just continue. Life was wonderful here. He said, if you think life is good now, you wait until you go and study and come back. I said, all right.

So I tried and got accepted, and in 1991 came to Big Sandy, Texas. And the first six months were hard for me. First of all, I could not understand Texan English. It was very hard for me to understand the teachers, and the food, college food, did not even have salt in it.

And I had to add all, you know, coming from Mexico, plus with an Indian background, gave me something hot. But they were not, it was not there like that, but I got accustomed to it, and it worked out well.

College was just, you know, wonderful days. In fact, they would make us date every week. They would make us date every week. And that was the college life, living on campus and everything, and of course a date would simply be accompanying the girl to the dining hall, having a meal, and spending the Sabbath together.

But that was the Sabbath. The whole college was shut down Friday evening to Saturday evening. And if they would catch anyone outside or doing anything that would not be, they would expel them from the college.

It was a strong, firm, legalistic group. And, you know, even though I can speak sometimes badly about it, one thing I do respect of the Worldwide Church of God, there was a commitment to the Word of God.