It is at this point of realization that the story really begins. I need to tell this part of the story, because this is the REASON why I ever decided to give a warning in the first place.

When I graduated college in 1971 (seven years long in the doing) I had gone from becoming an Accountant with dreams of riches (I was very good at it), to becoming a teacher and working with others. That year there were layoffs in the industry all over the country. I decided to take a lesser position in a "reform school" as a counselor. Now I was in a real quandary. How could I teach of Jesus in a setting such as this. The short answer is, of course, that I could not. BUT, I was determined to carry through with it somehow. I decided to LIVE AND TEACH the truth in this environment. I was successful in ways I never imagined.

Eventually, I landed a job running a "half-way house" for juveniles. I did not seek it, it was presented to me just as MANY other things have been presented to me down the years. I was to use "Positive Peer Culture", "Reality Therapy", "Guided Group Interaction" and "Interpersonal Process Recall" in my counseling sessions with 17 juvenile boys. I manipulated the terminology so that I could teach all these things--and teach the plain truth of the Bible without their ever knowing that I was teaching spiritual things.

The result was amazing. Every single kid that came through my "program" was reconciled with family relationships, learned to get along with others, and eventually returned to their homes--never to be heard from again. This was unheard of. A Crime Commission study was done on us and they concluded that I had the best program in the country. This was very "unsettling" to the top brass in the institution. They were losing heads fast--and along with them, funding for the institution. In a nutshell, they shut down the program in spite of its success. They then took me and placed me back in the institution to work with hard-core criminal juveniles. The same thing happened with them, but I had no control over their incarceration. I decided to leave and return to Maine. That is where the story really begins to take off.