Good morning to you all,
There have been some issues weighing heavily on my heart for a long time, so I feel I must write to you.
It concerns, firstly, the continuing abuse of women, children and men in this fellowship, particularly spiritual, sexual emotional and mental abuse which has been brought to your notice many times, with minimal effect. It’s shocking how you’ve simply allowed multiple sex offenders to continue in the work and/or leave the work covered by lies and deceptions, watched them get married and have even given them the place of ‘elder’ uplifting and endorsing them as good, worthy, godly men instead of declaring them ungodly and dangerous to our community.
Secondly, it is despicable the way you have covered the guilty and blamed, shamed and continually intimidated the victims, to keep the truth hidden. Do you have any idea of the trauma and shame these victims and their families go through for their lifetimes afterwards? Not to mention the exorbitant medical expenses.
We opened our hearts and homes to you all, as celibate servants of God, sharing everything we had and giving you our full trust, only to discover decades later the shocking extent to which our families have been abused and blackmailed into keeping quiet. This is absolutely devastating! The betrayal of trust, the abuse of your authority, the lies and deceit that took place to cover up these sins committed under our very noses, whilst caretaking the Harare Conv grounds, is horrific and defies belief!
Please don’t accuse me of having a hard, bitter and unforgiving spirit, because this is not so! I am not looking for retribution for past offenses. I have a grave concern for the present and future safety of everyone in the fellowship, especially the young, innocent children, vulnerable adults and unsuspecting new workers. I feel I cannot stand by without voicing my concern, disillusionment and disgust! Even if you yourselves are not guilty of these atrocities/crimes, covering and/or condoning these shameful deeds of others makes you guilty!
I, therefore, can no longer listen to you preach God’s precious gospel whilst these matters are not dealt with, so I am withdrawing from the meetings until such time as this situation is rectified.
This does not mean I have abandoned God. I am standing for honesty and truth and will continue serving Him.
Greetings
Gwen Bartlett
WINGS Note: Written by a 92 year old lady who lived on convention grounds in Zimbabwe for 30 years.
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If I had a hat, I would take it of for this brave 92 year old, I admire her for taking a strong stand for what is right, despite the cost, we need more Gwen’s!
👍🏼
Mrs. Bartlett,
If there was more wisdom, more concern and more honest care, such as every word you expressed in your letter, there could be hope at least of some change.
But there is not.
I agree and stand with your every sentence. And your choices.
I thank you for speaking.
Sending love
Gwen, my heart aches for you and for so many others over there who have faced so much the last decades!! About 40 years ago, I spent several months in Zimbabwe and South Africa and I have been just horrified to hear of so many girls I knew then who have been abused by several brother workers!! I have prayed often for you dear souls the last months, and I hope you and your loved ones keep encouraged!! All my love and prayers.
Those who have risen up in righteous anger, that continue to serve, and are fighting, and refuse to walk away, that doesn’t make them “complicit“ as some claim. That’s like saying everyone at Boeing is complicit in the deaths of every plane crash. Every religion, business, charity, organization, etc. will have bad apples. But, that doesn’t make everyone a bad apple.
If the righteous in Judges hadn’t risen up and forced change, who would have??
The key is, rising in RIGHTEOUSNESS, and doing so together. In Judges there were over 400,000 that rose up as one. Took three runs at the enemy, but with God’s help, they prevailed.
So, pray honestly, fervently, and believing, because God is waiting to hear from His children that they want change.
The people need to stop being terrified that they will be “put out”. It’s not like everyone in the whole state will be put out! The Elders should all be banding together to stand against the overseers! Just like he Elders did in Virginia when they told William Lewis to take a hike. The scripture references the Elders when it’s speaking of “overseers”. So, stand up, we don’t put on the armor to play dead, armor is for war against all evil. Use it!!
I rose up in righteous anger. Many of my family and friends did as well. We thought there was something worth fighting for. The “overseers” have given us their answer by their actions and inactions. A few months ago, I decided I didn’t want to fight for a toxic system…so I left. I choose the Overcomer instead.
Bertha, I appreciate all you’ve done. I continue to fight for the sake of the victims. It’s very tough to have patience (I’m terrible at it) but, I have no doubt God is still working to try to get these dense overseers to see He’s not happy with them. So, I am spending time in prayer begging for the help to come. In the meantime, anyone who is being forced to go to meeting with a predator, call your local law enforcement and give the name of the worker who put them in that meeting, the Elder’s name, and the overseers name, because they can all be charged.
I don’t know how many 92 year old people you all know…. but… to be completely honest this does not sound like it was written by a 92 year old lady…at all.
Also to be completely honest I am certain God did not instruct the lady …or the writer of this post to stop listening to the vast …very vast majority of workers who have been true to their calling.
All in all… it was a sad and misguided post.
JIM, Agree! This is no way written by a 92 year old lady in Zimbabwe.
Much dishonesty in even each of our hearts..EVERYONE of us need to start reading chapters of our own lives that we closed the book on…shameful
This is a verified post.
Thank you very much to Mrs Bartlett for writing this thoughtful letter, and to Wings moderators for taking care in verifying the source of letters posted on this site.
Jim and Amustardseed, you can’t know many nonagenarians nor many Zimbabweans if you think this letter couldn’t have been written by the lady described. It’s entirely plausible.
This is infact written by a 92 year old lady, I know her family personally and they are honest people.But how honest you are Jim that I don’t know? You are fighting a loosing battle Jim,the ship you are on is sinking, and rapidly so.
Hi Jim, I can understand your misgivings, as this letter is indeed well written. I have met this dear lady and her family years ago. People who know her current status, have confirmed that she is quite capable of writing this letter. I have personally known two other ladies well in their 90s who would have been quite able to write with the same clarity.
You say “I am certain God did not instruct the lady”. This is quite a statement when you’ve never met this very godly woman.
Absolutely wrong! I know this very capable lady and her family.
“Sad and misguided” describes your comment, not the post. Calling people liars without an iota of fact or truth is pretty sad. Life must be challenging when you leap to false and nasty conclusions about others.
Well said Watchman!
Dear watchman…. your reply was kind of sad and funny at the same time.
Sad in that you didn’t address anything I actually wrote…. and funny…in a bit of dark humor that you seem to embrace any accusation against a worker that comes along without any verification whatsoever.
To be honest…. it appears that you…you..are the one who embraces and creates “nasty conclusions”. Just take a deep breath and read your post again.
If you want to hear something funny Jim, the vast majority of people who declare themselves “completely honest” are the least honest people around and you have done it multiple times in two short posts. It’s a big tell. It is actually not very funny.
You should apologize for accusing a 92 year old person that they are fake. You should also apologize for accusing me of “embracing any accusation” which is a blatant lie.
Stop calling yourself honest, just get honest. Your life and your relationships will improve a lot.
Feeling a bit threatened, Jim? Well, enjoy your perverted religion. I have joined the ranks of the brave and honest Gwen’s. Someone else can cook the stew for you at your next convention.
@Jim, after reading all your ridiculous, disparaging, inflammatory posts, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are Donald J. Trump.
Gwen, rejoice in your souls salvation. You are a bright light in a time of darkness.
When you reject the King’s messengers, you are rejecting the King.
I pray that this woman will come to a place of repentance and still finish true. She has thrown away the crown of life and all the treasure she laid up in heaven. It will be very humbling to have to start over at the beginning and profess again just to be counted in.
What kind of King sends out corrupt messengers with corrupt supporters? A corrupt King of course.
Ms.Bartlett is a wise person to separate herself from corruption and criminality. Her integrity will prevent her from going back without seeing tangible evidence of humility, repentance and honesty which for now, is largely absent.
To abiding
Troll Troll Troll
Stop trying to deceive people and go back under your bridge
Abiding- the writing is on the wall, your ministry has been weighed and found lacking in most serious way’s!!! Your ministry is corrupt, made up of hirlings that clearly don’t care a iota about the sheep or the lambs, their fruit has given them away.Dont even try to waste your time here to convince anyone that they are God’s servants, a large % of them arent and have never been.You hide behind a fake name, come out so we can see who you are! To coward to even reveal who you are!!
Abiding or should I call you KM, why don’t you try to actually love some of the people that are concerned and who post here, and by true Godly love for souls bring them to the realization that they may be on the wrong road, according to you. You know how to do that. Or is it that you watch gleefully as they swerve to what you believe to be a lost eternity. You clearly don’t like it when people identify the workers who act despicably/immorally/deceitfully. Do you condone their actions? If you could clearly state that you don’t condone the actions of sexually perverted workers and workers who lie and deceive then that would be encouraging. But so far I don’t believe you ever will. If you had love in your heart for souls as true workers declare to have, you know what I mean, you would find it in you to empathize. You would be working to heal and rebuild trust. Isn’t that the Christian way? That is why these groups and communities exist because we care for each other.
But I don’t detect that in you. What your comments have shown in the last months is that you would rather shoot down the hurt victims and criticize the discouraged. That is not Christian. You can call me if you don’t agree. Oh and get your full name out there so others can see who you really are.
Same goes for Jim and amustardseed.
There are the regular trolls that do the rounds. Jim, Abiding, amustardseed. Until they reveal their full names and where they live please just ignore them. These are the people described in Jude. Don’t entertain their drivel, it’s pearls before swine.
Jeremy Tomlinson- totally agree!
First of all who is Jim and who is Jim abiding with, and the Mustard Seed, who are they? Like i feel like this is like Colonel Mustard in the pantry with the hammer..Clue? No clue but most people hide behind symbols or other clueless names..
SaavySunshine- we need some humor to lighten things up😊