S21 E10: (2/4) [Jubilee] Signs & Wonders
52:48 Share

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Something Was Wrong early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Listening to Audible helps our imaginations soar. Whether we're listening to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre we love, we can be inspired to imagine new worlds, possibilities, and ways of thinking.

Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, all in one easy app. As an Audible member, I get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. This month, I selected Evil Thoughts, Wicked Deeds by Dr. Chris Mohandy. Take Audible with you through your week. Listen while doing household chores, going for a walk, commuting, you name it. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your everyday routine.

New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash SWW or text SWW to 500-500. That's audible.com slash SWW or text SWW to 500-500.

Hey, Something Was Wrong listeners. Have you heard you can listen to your favorite gripping investigations ad-free? Good news! With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash adfreetruecrime. That's

That's amazon.com slash adfreetruecrime to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences, as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, rape, and murder. Content warnings for each episode and confidential resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes.

Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

Pseudonyms are given to minors in these stories for their privacy and protection. Testimony shared by guests of the show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, or Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening.

I was enjoying my time with my friends. We went on a lot of different road trips, so it was a good time. I ended up dating somebody who was in my revival group. We were friends and it turned into something more. I'll call him Will. He was from Europe and we were really good friends, but we ended up falling into sin, as they would say at Bethel.

There was a lot of shame around that, a lot of guilt that we both had because of how much Bethel was preaching purity. We ended up going to our revival group pastor and telling her what we had done, which we hadn't even done anything crazy. It was just not Bethel approved. I just remember feeling so horrible about myself. People at Bethel would not love me if they knew what we had done. So when we went to go talk to our revival group pastor,

She told us, you guys really need to be apart from each other. I remember finishing that year feeling like I didn't deserve to be finishing or like something was extremely wrong with me.

It was this recurring theme of, I am just really damaged goods. I really don't know what I'm doing here. And I mean, I was only 18 years old. I was so young. This guy was actually 27. So age difference is not great. It's hard. I don't want to say anything really bad about her because I'm still friendly with our Revival Group pastor.

But to go to second year, I was told that I needed to get counseling from her husband, who was not a licensed therapist, and that I would need to do eight sessions with him to do some inner healing to figure out why I would do something like that. And that was the contingency of me getting into second year.

I had several friends who were not accepted into second year. At the time, first year had about 1,200 students and second year had about 500. I'm not sure what they have now, but it was a pretty big drop off for who would go to second year. You were meant to be the leaders, the best of the best if you're going to second year.

So I was like, whatever I need to do to get in, I will do it. So I ended up paying out of pocket for these counseling sessions that I needed to do to get approved. Will and me tried to distance ourselves. He went back to Europe for the summer. He also got accepted into second year. I don't know if he had to do counseling. It might have just been me. Maybe they thought that I was the problem.

And at the time, I was just madly in love with this guy. We talked a bit during the summer, tried to take some time to heal emotionally. And I ended up feeling very depressed that summer. I felt very low about myself. A lot of the students are gone during the summer because over half of the student population is international. So they all had to leave because of their visas. I'm in Reading and the majority of my friends are gone.

I ended up falling into a bad eating disorder at the time. In my 18-year-old brain, I just need to lose 30 pounds and this guy will, will love me and he will want to be with me. And I'm going to show him when he comes back in the fall. So at the time, I was working out a lot, eating very little and just in a bad place emotionally.

During that time, I ended up, what they would say, falling into sin. And I ended up sleeping with somebody, which was so not my character. Now I have different views on these things, but it was really a thing that I did to cope with the sadness that I was feeling. I was feeling like my life didn't have purpose at the time, and I didn't really care what happened to me. I genuinely put myself in a dangerous position.

I honestly just think it came from a place of me feeling very suicidal and sad, and I didn't care what happened to me at that point.

When it came time for second year, they made us do an interview to talk to our new revival group pastor because there was going to be a new pastor every single year. We were all regrouped into new groups. I sat down with my pastor. I'll call her Alyssa. And I remember feeling like I wanted to be honest with her because I was somewhat received well from my last pastor. She didn't condone the things that I had done, but at least she cared about me.

I did not know this woman. I just assumed that she would be as nice. I opened up to her and I told her what I had done over the summer. I was crying because I was in a really dark place. I just remember her looking at me and being so stone cold and

She honestly looked at me like she hated me. I just wasn't expecting that sort of reception from somebody who is a Christian leader at Bethel. I thought we were supposed to be loving. She said, you're crying and you want me to feel bad for you. You are trying to manipulate me and I don't feel bad for you at all. Wow. I'm so sorry. How shame inducing.

It was horrible. You know, I'm 30 years old now looking back. I just cannot imagine how a woman who is a mother and older can look at an 18 year old girl who is so broken, thinks so lowly of herself, and she claims to love Jesus and look at me with such judgment. The way I was coming at it from was, I'm telling you this because I respect you. I'm telling you this because I

I want to be a good Christian. Like I could keep my quote unquote sins locked up and be secretive, but I'm trying to be vulnerable and honest. And I've always been a very open and honest person. I don't really like to keep secrets. She just told me she didn't feel bad for me. And then she said, well, I'm going to have to talk to the head of second year and see if he's going to let you stay because he might just kick you out of school.

They did end up letting me stay. But one thing that they said is, if you are going to stay, you have to sign up for this purity course and you have to pay for the workbook and you have to pay for the class. And if you don't go to any of these, then you're kicked out of school. That was another thing that I had to pay to do to stay in school.

Will, I still feel kindly towards him to this day. I think that he's also a victim of this church and how horrible they both made us feel. We were very close friends. And one thing that Bethel really did do was try to cheapen our friendship or our relationship. They were like, you guys don't love each other. If you really loved each other, you would get married. You guys are just horny. It's like somebody telling you how you feel and they're telling you your connection is not real.

When in reality, the reason why we were not together was because he was from Europe and because he had a chronic illness and he knew that his specific country wouldn't let him bring me there because he could never prove to the government that he could provide for me. And that was a very sore subject for him. So we had very real reasons why we didn't pursue things further.

And to just be told from leadership, no, you guys are just sexual beings and you guys don't care about each other at all was pretty demeaning and shameful. It makes you question your sense of self and your judgment.

So that was really hard. And when he came back for second year, he actually was in my revival group again, which didn't happen very often. I only had maybe two or three people who were in my revival group a second time. We weren't together, but we did remain close. And second year is where things really took a turn. I could...

start to feel myself disconnecting from Bethel and seeing some of the more dangerous beliefs and also just the judgment and the hypocrisy and leadership. Second year looked a lot different than first year. First year was a bit more lighthearted, a bit more like, we're all friends. And we would go to San Francisco and Sacramento on the weekends and Mount Shasta.

Second year, they really harped on, well, you guys are supposed to be the leaders for first year. So there was just that pressure. I was constantly living with this woman, Alyssa, around me, the same judgy revival group pastor. She just did not like me for the rest of the year, making me feel really terrible about myself.

I did end up dating this guy just for a couple months. It wasn't even anything serious. I went on a few dates with him. I remember she cornered me one Sunday. She like grabbed me and had me sit down with her. And she said, so I heard that you're seeing someone. She's acting like we're friends. She was like, oh my gosh, that's so great. And then she said, so has he touched your boobs? Straight up. Has he touched your boobs?

I think the thing with Bethel is they really believed that they were owed this information. Nothing was private. Nothing was sacred. Everything in your life is available to the pastors, and they're allowed to know everything about you. They can ask any question they want, and you should answer them. And I just remembered being really taken aback, like, whoa, my friends don't even ask me that. What are you talking about? I felt very judged.

I have several friends who also had very bad relationships with her. She also ruined their year and they had a lot of trauma regarding her as well. I did make friends with a couple people who had similar experiences, but a lot of these people were holding their emotions very close at the time too. I only found out later that we all had such similar experiences because everybody felt isolated. Everybody felt like it was them that was messed up.

That was a very hard environment to deal with.

First year happened at that convention center that Bethel bought out from the city. And second year, since it wasn't as many students, actually met at the auditorium of Bethel. And second year, I was starting to see red flags with Bethel that maybe I didn't see immediately because I was still in the honeymoon phase of these signs and wonders. One day we were in class and it was right after worship, two or three guys went up there and

They asked one of the Bethel leaders, one of the other revival group pastors to come onto stage. One thing that everybody had known there was that her and her husband had been struggling with infertility. I think she was in her late 30s at the time. And it was something that Bethel, they had asked for prayer for before. They had said, please pray that God would bless them with a child. And it was something that everybody was very aware of.

So these three boys go on stage and they call her up in front of everybody. And they said, as a class, they're looping me into this and everybody in the auditorium. As a class of second years, we decided that we wanted to gift you a stroller for your baby that we know that you are going to have someday.

They literally wheeled a stroller onto the stage as if it was just the most, what they would call a prophetic act of faith. We are seeing that this is going to happen. So we are stepping out in faith. I just remember her being absolutely horrified. It was extremely uncomfortable. She looked like she wanted to cry. My heart goes out to her to this day. I feel so bad for her because it was just wildly inappropriate.

I think about half of the auditorium actually did realize that it was really messed up. People weren't really clapping. You know, the guys on stage, they're totally clueless. She just looked shattered. And I remember driving home that day and thinking, I don't know that this belief system is helping people. I could not stop picturing her putting that stroller in her garage and having to walk past it and see an empty stroller that she may never use again.

How detrimental that act was and for it to be in front of everybody. I think I started to really realize that this belief system can cause a lot of pain and a lot of insensitivity.

In second year, another thing that they did, which also happened in first year, they had this thing called impartation where they believed that the leaders could lay hands on the students and impart their wisdom or their gifts. We have all these gifts from God and we are going to touch you and you are going to be sent out into the world.

It was one thing that they did every year and it was supposed to be this very special time. It happened to be at the Civic Center that they had purchased. What this looked like was all of the students are lined up all throughout the Civic Center. And you have to imagine there's like 1,200 students shoulder to shoulder along the hallways and even along the auditorium, zigzagging throughout the place. We waited for probably like an hour because the line is so long.

They would come up to you and put their hands on your shoulders or they'd put their hands on your hands. I don't remember if they said anything to you when they would do it, but they would touch you and people would just fall to the floor.

they would call this getting slain in the spirit. I know that this is not just a Bethel thing. This can also be kind of a Pentecostal thing. But at Bethel, it was notorious that you would fall to the floor when you are being imparted with these incredible gifts from these leaders. This

This is just another way that Bethel was very performative. I distinctly remember having conversations with my friends and people were talking about it pretty openly, actually, in my circle, at least saying, what if I don't fall over? How embarrassing would that be if they touched me and I don't fall? I had so much anxiety around this. If I remember correctly, I don't think I did. I

I'm pretty sure I just stood there. I would say maybe 15% of students didn't fall to the ground and the other portion did. So there's like hundreds of students on the floor while the other students who refuse to fall or refuse to fake it, they're standing up and they feel like they're not as close to God or maybe they weren't just being receptive enough to these gifts that the leadership was giving out.

It was just extremely performative and a day that caused a lot of anxiety throughout a lot of students. One of those very strange ritual sort of things that they did

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes when we're struggling with our own happiness and feeling fulfilled, we struggle with comparing our life to others. And as we know, comparison is the thief of joy, and it's easy to envy other people's lives. Therapy is a great place to focus on yourself. It's helpful in learning positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, and empowers you to be your best version of yourself. It's a great place to focus on yourself.

If you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Fill out a brief questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash SWW today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash SWW.

Thank you so much.

Hill House Home invented the viral nap dress, which has the most flattering and comfortable fit with their signature smocking. Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Anne Hathaway, and Mindy Kaling have been spotted in Hill House Home. Their commitment to comfort and style is what I appreciate most. Make sure to check out their cute new arrivals for the fall and holiday season. Hill House Home also has baby and kids items if you want a matching moment or

or you need a baby gift. They have the cutest little tiny robe onesies and PJs that you can monogram for an extra special gift. Get 15% off your order of 100 or more at hillhousehome.com with code SWW15. Again, that's code SWW15 for 15% off your order at hillhousehome.com.

In first year, I had my activation on that one street where we were supposed to go treasure hunt and knock on people's doors and offer to mow their grass and stuff like that. In second year, I applied to be a part of the healing rooms and I got accepted. Essentially what the healing rooms is at Bethel is it's at their main campus, or at least it was at the time, and I was the receptionist for it.

People would fly from all over the world to come get prayer for various illnesses, whether that be mental illnesses or physical ailments. You would have a lot of people in wheelchairs or people with cancer. They're probably going to be really sad if they don't get healed from cancer or feel their tumors shrink. And those are things that Bethel was claiming were happening all the time.

Bethel definitely had this mindset. In heaven, we are already free of illness. So we just need to stand in alignment with the kingdom of heaven and we will be healed of all of our illnesses. It's this perspective that the healing has already taken place. I just have to receive it. So you would often see people with their hands out in front of them and they'd be like, I receive healing. They just believed that they needed to be open to it.

It's a very traumatic experience to be told that you're not listening well enough. It's very shamey. He is talking, you're just not being a good enough Christian, or he is wanting to heal you. You shouldn't have cancer because you should just believe that you were healed of cancer. They would take that verse that your faith needs to be just as small as a mustard seed and you can move mountains. You will be healed.

Obviously, people would come to the healing rooms and they would not be healed often. A lot of the times they would, quote unquote, be healed. But I have some feelings about whether or not that's true. And so did a lot of Bethel students. I know that a lot of us questioned it. One thing that Bethel would do, which I think is extremely predatory and manipulative, is in the healing rooms, you would ask them what they need prayer for.

they would tell you. And then you'd be like, okay, let's close our eyes. I'm going to touch you. At the beginning, they might say, my arm is in so much pain. And you'll say...

what level? They'd say a level eight and y'all would pray. And then you'd open your eyes and say, what level is it now? Is it better now after we prayed? And if they say no, they'd be like, great, let's pray again. And you could be there praying for the same thing for like an hour. A lot of the times I think that these people just felt so uncomfortable that they would lie and say, oh, well, it's a three. Praise God, the pain went down.

One thing that is also interesting about Bethel is you would have people who would think that they need to do really weird things to get healing done. They would say, God just told me that I need to spit in your eyes so that you won't be blind. I need to do that. They might take a belt and put it on the floor and be like, Bethel.

God told me that in a prophetic act of faith, we must step over the belt as if we are stepping over a chasm of whatever, and then we will be healed. People would come up with the most random activities that you had to do to get healed. But also they're like, sure, I'll do whatever. So there's just some really weird stuff happening in the healing rooms.

I just wanted no part of it. I felt very uncomfortable with it, to be honest. And that is why I offered to be a part of the receptionist crew because I had been a host at breakfast restaurants during high school. And I was like, this feels easy. I can tell people to fill out a clipboard of their ailments.

So my job was to be at the front of the room and I would give them a clipboard and they'd fill out a form that was saying like, how far did you come from? How long have you had this problem? Are you standing in agreement that God is going to heal for you? It made me feel like we were chasing miracles, not chasing God. I am a Christian, but I get very triggered by any sort of extravagance or anybody stumbling

selling anything. If it's not the straight gospel, like I don't care about any of these things. I'm really against signs and wonders because I've seen how damaging it is and how that prophetic word ruined my life. There's the healing rooms where I took their paperwork and then there is the worship room. It was in the auditorium and they empty it out and they have damsels

dancers and worship leaders on stage. And it's kind of like you're holding room until your number gets called to go get prayer for healing. Because there was hundreds of people every day on the weekends getting prayer. And there were so many kids in that room. They would have flags and they would be dancing. And it was like, here's this holy generation of children who is going to heal everybody and they're speaking in tongues. They would always brag about that.

I remember a lot of the pastors would be like, oh yeah, my five-year-old son, he was filled with the Spirit and now he speaks in tongues. That was just a very valued part of Bethel, for sure. I would say that these kids ranged from three to ten. They're raised in the church and they're there forever. I mean, the younger, the better as far as prophecy. The Bible

The Bible talks about how kids are really holy. So they thought that, well, it's even better if a child prays for healing. I know that they get a lot of validation from their parents whenever they say these sorts of things.

I am such a perfectionist. I really like to do well and do good. My personality has always been that. So I'm trying to think if I was raised in that atmosphere, what would I have said to get the attention of my parents or people in the church?

I'd probably be saying anything I could to get these people to think I'm very special and to get a pat on the head. And honestly, there's nothing wrong with it because these kids, they don't know any better. They're just looking for affirmation and affection from these parental figures. They're not going to be able to do that.

They have learned that that gets them a lot of positive reactions. They have no idea what's real and what's not real too, because one thing that Bethel would say was these pictures that you see in your mind when you're praying for people are just your imagination, but your imagination was created by God. So it's God and everything you say is the word of God.

That obviously gives a lot of power to people who, you know, are narcissists and they're constantly being told, you're so chosen. You're so great.

I, in hindsight, do believe that Bethel is a breeding ground for narcissists. A lot of the people there really think that they like walk on water or that they're incredible people chosen by God. I do remember meeting a few people at Bethel who gave off that air about them.

I don't remember what his name was, but I met him at a couple gatherings. He would go around telling people that everybody he had ever prayed for was healed. He has never prayed for someone and them not be healed. I was like, wow, let's call Oprah. Let's call Good Morning America. Let's get a line going if you're really the ultimate healer.

I think that a lot of people would have different opinions on Bethel. I do know people who have left Bethel and don't consider it to be a cult. I would say that some of the telltale things that make me feel it is a cult is the level of control that they have over you, the level of us versus them. There is a lot of that. Even when it comes to other Christians, there were plenty of times where we would be in church and

And Bill Johnson would be saying that Baptists will never know the fullness of God. Baptists will never know what God really wanted. And isn't that so sad? They're not getting the fullness of God. It's almost trashing any other denomination that isn't them. That is a big separator.

My thought is when I have looked into cults, because I'm super interested in cults, there's almost this level of euphoria, I feel, that comes with it. Bethel, you're completely riding a high. There are people laughing on the ground for hours and hours and hours, and it's considered holy to be dragged out of the church after being there for 15 hours.

It feels like you're just building your own culture. I think another part of it too is the fact that they have their own language. I've even caught myself still saying things that I'm like, I learned that from Bethel, that sort of phrasing. And some of it is just the outlandishness of it that is not backed by the Bible at all.

They would also do this thing called soaking, where you like lay on the ground and you put on worship music and you're soaking in God's Holy Spirit. So you might feel better after soaking, but is that not like kind of meditation? Unplugging a bit and relaxing and closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing.

It gets very addicting to try to get that same high over and over again. And I know that a lot of people, they were chasing that. They were fully there just for the effects that they could get from the Holy Spirit. And I would love to see that really studied to see what exactly is happening in these people's brains when they are manifesting or moving and twitching in the Holy Spirit.

Towards the end of the second year, it had already been a really rough year. I had reconnected with that boyfriend that I had had during first year. We had become friends again and we were hanging out all the time and we did end up getting physical and fooling around, which we felt immense guilt about. This was a week before summer break.

I remember we were sitting outside of his apartment on the gravel just talking because there are like rules. You don't want to be in their apartment at night. He's saying, maybe we should go tell this revival group pastor, the one who had been very bad to me all year. We should repent and confess our sins. And I was telling him it's a week away. We're almost done.

Can we just not? And I just felt so much shame because she had been making me feel that way all year. And it was really like the tone that she used with me too. So he wanted to go and talk to her and I had a breakdown.

I was sitting in the parking lot crying and crying, and I was begging him to please not tell her. I was saying, please, can we just wait till the end of the year? I ended up saying, please don't do this because I know I'm a whore. I really felt that way at the time. Looking back, it's so sad. I just want to hug 19-year-old me who thought such horrible things about myself. But I said, is it not enough that I just apologize to God?

and that we don't do this again. We hadn't even slept together. Do we really have to go to this lady who had hurt me so much this year? We kind of left it. And the very next day, I got a call from that boyfriend. He said, hey, we really need to talk. This morning, my neighbor came and knocked on my door. He had never met this neighbor before. This was not people that we were familiar with. This neighbor said,

Hi, I wanted to let you know that yesterday I was sitting in my apartment with my window open and I heard your entire conversation with that girl downstairs. I heard what you guys did and I just wanted to let you know that I am going to find your revival group pastor and tell her what you did if you don't do it yourself. My stomach dropped.

It's hard to explain how isolating it felt in that moment to feel like you can't go anywhere to be safe in Reading. There's people listening everywhere who are just ready to crucify you for your sins. I felt so violated.

These were some of my deepest, darkest thoughts that I felt so insecure about. And to know that someone was just sitting by their window and listening the whole time and gathering information so that he could go turn us in the next day was very traumatizing, honestly. So we were left with no choice. And we did go tell her. She definitely made us feel very small and like we were bad people.

I think that that is when I knew that I wasn't going to go back to Bethel for my third year. For third year, you had the option where you could be an intern for the school or an intern for a certain part of the church. So there would be interns for Bethel Music or for the healing room specifically, or you could just be a leader in one of the revival groups where you're almost pastoring the first and second years, which is very strange because

You have people who are pastoring when they're only 18 years old, 19 years old themselves. I knew that I didn't want to stay for my third year at Bethel because of how traumatizing I found Reading. I really felt like I wasn't safe anywhere in that city. So I decided to apply for one that was in Pennsylvania. It was with another pastor who was affiliated with Bethel.

He was a very interesting man. He had come from Bulgaria, had fled during the war. Apparently, he used to be a famous rock star back in the day, and then he got saved. And then now he would go around America and play his violin and worship music. And he was all about joy. His main thing was, be filled with the joy of Jesus.

To me, I thought this feels like it would be the most lighthearted internship. So I decided to go work for his school because he had his own school in Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. It wasn't technically Bethel. It's a different program. And because they're friends with Bethel, it was also called something Supernatural School of Ministry, but it wasn't Bethel.

I was really excited to move to Pennsylvania. I mean, it was completely on the other coast and I was thinking that it was going to be a really good fresh start. I thought at the time that it was a huge honor to be accepted into this internship program.

I had had housing when I first moved there. I was going to nanny for this woman and then it ended up not working out. So I got into the situation where I was living with two guys and a married couple who were going to another school that was down the street. There were two of these supernatural schools within five miles of each other.

Even just living with two guys, that was different. I'd only ever had girl roommates. And one of the guys, which this was so common, had told my other roommate that God told him that I was his wife.

That would not have flown at Bethel. Bethel would never have allowed that. They weren't like actively asking me where I was living or anything like that. So I didn't have any options. They just had this house and they said that I could rent a room and we just made these rules where everything would be on the up and up and like we couldn't date each other. We were staying in this house together and it was in a really, really bad part of Harrisburg. It

It was the worst street in all of Harrisburg. You would hear gunshots constantly going off. Even if it was the middle of the day, you could not walk alone. I found out that they really had a hard time getting any Bethel students to go out there to intern for this school. When I showed up, I found out that I was the only intern that year. I was the only person there from Bethel, and I was going to help Bethel.

be the leader, check-in person for the school, do a lot of administrative stuff behind the scenes and work with the students. And I think that they had about 50 students. They also had a first year and a second year. It was a relatively new school. It was not as established as Bethel. It was significantly smaller and it was being hosted in a local church.

It's not what I was expecting at all. I was expecting a Monday through Friday school like Bethel. I didn't find out until I got there that it was only Tuesdays and Wednesday nights. So it was maybe six hours a week. And I had uprooted my entire life and moved to Pennsylvania thinking, I'm going to be a part of this school. And here I am with so much free time. It was very disappointing.

The pastor who I was supposed to be working under, he was obsessed with Bethel. He thought that Bethel was God's gift to the planet and that everybody who comes from Bethel is so much more anointed than anybody in his school. I was in charge of just being the face of Bethel and getting people excited that a Bethel person was at this school. He thought that anybody who comes from there is naturally so prophetic.

I do remember the first week I show up and I'm nervous. I'm still hopeful. I didn't know how this internship was going to go. And he asked me if I could look at the name of the students who had signed up. So he hands me a piece of paper and there's about 50 people on this list and it's just their names, not their pictures, not anything. And he said, what I would really love is your first duty as an intern for the school is I want you to write a prophetic word for every single person on this list.

That was a wake up call. I did not feel confident at the time. I much would have preferred to do something administrative, go make copies, physical labor for this internship. But no, he just wanted my mind and my prophetic gift. And I did not feel up to it at all. I felt like I had no idea what to write. And it got to the point where I started to feel really guilty and question myself. I

I'm at Starbucks, I'm sitting at my computer and I'm looking at these names and I'm like, time to come up with something. They're just names on a piece of paper and some of them I felt more sure of. I felt like I was hearing from God. I kind of was like, yeah, I feel like I have something for Cindy Johnson. And other ones, I just heard nothing.

I did start writing prophetic words that I felt were baloney. It made me feel really bad about myself. I wasn't sure if I was really hearing anything. I kept them super general. You don't want to cause any harm or anything. I had a lot of those very corny, I see a building block. This year is going to really build you towards the person God wants you to be. I just remember falling asleep at night and feeling like a fraud.

I felt very embarrassed. I'm sitting here feeling like, what am I doing? I'm fake.

In first year, people in the beginning might express, I'm not sure if I'm hearing him. I think I'm hearing him. But I do think with time that kind of wore off and people didn't express that as much because you should be past that now. You're in third year. You're supposed to be really prophetic. You're supposed to really know how God is talking. It made me hate prophecy. I do remember that being a shift for me.

When I was at Bethel, I still kind of liked prophetic words. I thought that they were interesting.

But when I was forced to write these words, I felt like I was the party trick and I was being told to do it on command. That's not how it works. Not if you want me to be genuine, not if you want me to not make things up. That's really when I got a sour taste in my mouth. I'm pretty sure that might have been some of the last quote unquote prophetic words I ever gave.

Have you ever felt a sense of unease when you leave your house, wondering if everything will be safe while you're away? I know I have. When I learned that statistically having a security system decreases the rates of break-ins, I realized how urgently I needed a security system, and I knew my family deserved the best. And I'm so thankful that I found SimpliSafe. I've loved having SimpliSafe protect our home for years now, and the security and service have exceeded all expectations.

With Fast Protect monitoring and LiveGuard protection, SimpliSafe agents can act within five seconds of receiving your alarm and can even see and speak to intruders to stop them in their tracks.

SimpliSafe has been named Best Home Security Systems by U.S. News & World Report for five years running and offers the best customer service in home security, according to Newsweek. It's easy to install and activate your SimpliSafe system in less than an hour or choose professional installation and have a pro do it for you. Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system.

plus a free indoor security camera when you sign up for Fast Protect monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash SWW. That's simplisafe.com slash SWW. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now, you're driving, cleaning, and even exercising. But what if you could be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Multitask right now. Quote today at Progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

These internships, it was really meant to be a mentorship. The people who you are under are supposed to teach you things about God. You're supposed to really be learning and have a close connection with them.

One thing that's interesting about these internships, you're putting in all this work and you're not getting paid to do it. You're just working for these organizations and these people for free. 2014 to 2015, I ended up getting a job at a diner where I was working overnight. So I used to work from 10 p.m. to 6 in the morning. It was a very rough job because there was always fights going on at the diner.

I remember there was a 15-person brawl one time. My boss almost fired me because he said I should have broken up the fight. What was I, like 20 years old? And, you know, there's a bunch of drunk people at 2 in the morning breaking tables, and I hid in the kitchen and called the cops. That was a very interesting time of my life. I was living there, working, and I was like,

Honestly, my internship was a huge disappointment. They weren't using me for very much. There was so many times where I felt like, why am I here? Honestly, my biggest job was sitting at the little welcome desk on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and checking people in for attendance. That was like the biggest thing that I did.

I would help sometimes with conferences. So if there was gonna be a conference at the church where the school was, I would help set up banners and maybe make printouts if we were doing something special.

I did not have regular one-on-ones, which was what you were supposed to get during this internship. You were supposed to have a lot of FaceTime with them. They never really gave me the time of day. They were nice to me when they saw me, but they were not intentional about, quote unquote, pouring into me, which was a very popular phrase at Bethel.

The other big thing that I did was, I don't even know if it was every week. It might've been every other week. We had these groups that instead of being called revival groups like Bethel, they had something that called joy groups. We would have a Bible study, a little group there who would meet.

I found this the other day, a picture where during one of these joy groups, somebody had the idea to do prophetic Jenga, which it's as ridiculous as it sounds. We got Jenga pieces and you would write things that you have to do if you draw certain pieces. I pulled up the picture, my caption, which is incredible.

Says, played prophetic Jenga in Joy Group yesterday. Yay for creative and challenging activations. Some of these, you're going to love it. Okay. Play a prophetic song over a girl, which I don't know why you would need to do that. You're supposed to like either have a guitar or you should sing something off the top of your head. And for some reason it needed to be over a girl. Prophesy blindly. So I'm

I forgot what this one means exactly, but I'm pretty sure what we meant by that is like, close your eyes and we're going to put someone in front of you that you're going to prophesy over and you need to prophesy over them blindly without knowing who you're prophesying over. Draw a prophetic picture. That was interesting.

Ooh, this one's great. Prophesy your favorite verse over someone. Okay, you're going to love this one. Ask the angels what they're doing in the room and tell everybody. Your move is you close your eyes and you're like, angels, what are you doing in the room? And you might be like, the angels are releasing hope. They're releasing the fire of God. They're releasing healing. Oh, this one.

Ask God for a song for the person on your right. And they used to do stuff like this at Bethel too, where it would be like, God, give me a song to tell this person. In hindsight, I mean, I remember hating this, so I don't know why I posted like it was great. Is that encouraged to post on social and stuff? Not necessarily like the socials, but I will say I felt constant pressure of...

I'm supposed to be from Bethel, which is better than you guys. So I better be really, really good. Everybody really looked up to you because essentially the school was just trying to be Bethel in Pennsylvania. And they just felt so honored that they had a Bethel person there. So they had me on such a high pedestal. And I was like, I'm just a girl. I don't know what I'm doing.

In this Pennsylvania church satellite branch of Bethel, did they do anything unique or anything that stands out to you that was different than Bethel in terms of these spiritual gifts? Not really like different gifts. I would say that they had a different focus. Bethel was very much healing and so was this place too. But this place focused a lot on like joy. They would just lay on the floor and laugh for hours and hours.

That would happen all the time. And it was way more than it was at Bethel. Like laughing in the spirit. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Being filled with holy joy. You're laughing in the spirit on the floor to the point where you can't stand up and you're just there for hours. That would happen all the time. I don't know if there's a nice way to say it, but Bethel was very much transformed.

trendy. They really got people to go because there was a lot of young people. Everybody was just very cool. That was the vibe at Bethel. And I will say that when I went to this Pennsylvania school, it was very hard to have a conversation with them.

Imagine you have a weird uncle on Facebook who's sharing weird posts. The really cringy people who can't read a room, that's kind of like all of the students at this place.

I would say awkward, very quirky, very offbeat. You kind of just feel like something's off. There were some nice people, but it was a lot of older people too. You had a lot of people in their 50s and 60s who were there, and that was more so the vibe. There were only a few people who were around my age, and that's actually where I met my ex-husband, Ted.

When I first met him, I was with some guy I went to high school with. We went to this conference at the church and Ted stopped us and gave us a prophetic word. And that was my first introduction to him. And he seemed very nice. He was a student. He was in his second year, but he also worked part time as a custodian for the church. So he was connected.

I met him towards the very beginning of the year. And when I was introduced to him, everybody was just like, this is the best guy here. They told me that there was this award that they gave. Bethel had something similar to this, but it was basically like the Outstanding Student Award of the Year. Imagine it's valedictorian for this Hogwarts school. It was a voting system to win that thing the year before, and he had won it. It's just like being voted most likable that year.

He would help a lot with the sound and setting stuff up. And he was really into production type of stuff. So he worked for the church. He did that, but he was also a student. Ted was super outgoing, very talkative, a friend to everybody, very welcoming, wanted everybody to feel at home. It's almost like he was the spokesperson for the school.

a very lively personality. And he completely thrived in that sort of environment and they loved him for it. And they praised him for that.

As the year went on, I just thought that he was a nice guy at the church. He was 30 years old. I was only 20 at the time. I definitely wasn't super attracted to him. He was not on my radar for love interest, which is saying something because honestly, when it comes to girls at these ministry schools, everybody's just looking for their husband. That's the purpose. Everybody just really wants to get married, have a ring on their finger by the end of the year.

I will say every person I met at Bethel and at this other school, I was like, are you my husband? There is a verse in the Bible. I think it was Paul. He says it's better to marry than to burn with passion. So a lot of people would take that verse and say, if you're like really horny and you can't wait till marriage, Paul says to get married.

My living situation started to fall apart. So I think it was in December. We had had the worst luck with our landlord. And our landlord is actually a famous profit guy who is extremely problematic and is always in the news. We had such a hard time with him because our heater was broken. You're living in Pennsylvania. It's like 12 degrees outside. It's like, oh, my God.

It's snowing and you can see your breath in the house. And we would constantly complain to him and say, listen, we can't turn on the heat because when we turn it on, it leaks. So our bill ends up being hundreds and hundreds of dollars because it's broken. We can't put it on because we can't afford it because we're all broke students and he never fixed it.

I was living on an air mattress on the floor in this place. At the time, I was like, man, I'm really suffering for Jesus. I'm living on this really, really bad street where there's gunshots all the time. I'm working 10 p.m. to 6 in the morning at this really rough diner, and here I am sleeping on an air mattress. I almost want to go back to myself and give myself a hug because I just feel so bad. I

I can't imagine living in that situation now, and I can't believe that I did that when I was that age. I really thought, you suffer for Jesus, you suffer for ministry, and it really just feeds this idea that I'm in God's will right now because I'm really suffering. My only goal was to finish my third year.

I went home to San Antonio for Christmas. When I came back from break, it was freezing. My roommates told me that they were broke and that they were not going to turn on the heat since it wasn't working right. I remember I went to bed with three pairs of pants, five socks, three different blankets on top of me. And I had this little space here that would cover the top half of my body.

I lived like that for a couple weeks, and eventually my roommates told me that they were going to break the lease. Luckily, my name wasn't on the lease, but they were all moving out, and I needed to move out in the next five days. I was given very little notice, and I had no idea what to do. This was January of...

of 2015. I knew that I needed to find a place to live immediately. And this is my second housing that's already fallen through in one year. I hadn't had these problems at Bethel. I lived in the same apartment for two years when I was in Reading. So this was very new to me to have these sorts of problems.

I was at the church. It was a Tuesday night. I was on the phone and I was crying to my mom and I was telling her, I don't think I'm going to be able to finish my internship. I think I'm going to have to come home. I was really devastated by that idea just because everything that I had done so far to get here, I've already suffered so much and I really just wanted to finish this program. I wanted to finish my third year and I'm crying to her telling her,

there's no way that I'm going to get past this. At that moment, after I got off the phone, Ted came up to me and he told me, I'm really sorry for over-listening to your conversation. I'm sorry if that makes you upset, but I heard you say that you needed a place to live or else you were going to have to leave. And I took it upon myself to call my friends. They live in a house. They're a sweet family. They're in their 60s. They have two daughters. One of them's a missionary, so they have a bedroom available. And

I asked them if you could live with them for the rest of the year and they said yes and that you could live there for free. I was just so shocked that he went out of his way to do that for me, to advocate for me, to literally put a roof over my head. And he said, do you want to get in my car right now and do you want to go meet them? They said that you can come over and we can go have dinner with them and you can go see the room and you can go see if you want to live there for the rest of the year.

I was just crying. So grateful, so thankful for this man. And I was just thinking to myself, everything that people say about this guy is so true. He is such a good guy.

I got in his car and we went right there. And I remember I felt euphoric. I felt like I was in God's will. When you're in God's will, these sorts of things happen to you. Everything just kind of works out. And who gets to live somewhere for free without being asked to do anything in return? I went and I met these people and they were so kind. I really, really loved them. And I ended up moving in the very next day because they knew that my house was so cold.

That's really how I started to hang out with Ted because he was very good friends with their daughter. So he would be over at the house very often. She was in first year the year before with him. He was just always around. So our friendship grew very quickly. This only took a week and a half for us to get very close. It was very fast.

I remember one day we were in the kitchen at this family's home. He was sitting across from me and we're talking until three in the morning and he's telling me about his dreams and what he wants to do with his life. And he wanted to be a missionary. He wanted to be a preacher. He dreamed of speaking in front of lots of people and holding these revival events. He also wanted to be in film production.

He wanted to make movies for God and infiltrate Hollywood and go work on big blockbusters. I'm looking at this guy who totally rescued me. And I remember I started crying and he asked me why I was crying. And I said, I'm just so thankful to know you. I feel so blessed to know someone this wonderful. And I know that you're going to change the world.

I really felt that way at the time, and I felt like it was God talking to me, telling me that this man was someone to remember. People were going to know his name someday for all of the good things that he was going to do for God. God's given you a jubilee. What does that mean to you? Oh, your girlfriend's name is Jubilee? That's awesome. Well, God's given you this girl.

Does she have something to do with the Tomato Pie Cafe? Does she? She works there. Okay. And he's going to give you something this year that will be beyond what you could dream for, imagine. And he's going to give it to you this year, even in your relationship with Jubilee. A bunch of these conference people started calling Tomato Pie Cafe and they were saying, is Jubilee there? We want to come see her. Everybody was weirdly invested in this love story and this prophecy.

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at SomethingWasWrongPodcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.

If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Are you in trouble with the law? Need a lawyer who will fight like hell to keep you out of jail? We defend and we fight just like you'd want your own children defended. Whether you're facing a drug charge, caught up on a murder rap, accused of committing war crimes, look no further than Paul Bergeron. All the big guys go to Bergeron because he gets everybody off. You name it, Paul can do it. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness?

From Wondery, the makers of Dr. Death and Over My Dead Body, comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Isn't it funny how witnesses disappear or how evidence doesn't show up or somebody doesn't testify correctly? In order to win at all costs. If Paul asked you to do something, it wasn't a request. It was an order. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins.

Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.