Goodbye Indy!

All pictures are from the article in the Indy Star, HERE. 

Memories! It's amazing how one picture can bring in such a flood of them! Someone posted a link to the above article on facebook, all I noticed was the picture. It's Indy, informally. Or the Indianapolis Training Center. Brian and I met here in 1998. He lived there for over a year while going through a counselling program and working with juvenile delinquents, (I was just up from Chicago for a conference). We still love to tell the stories!

Red carpet. For some people, this would trigger a thought about the Oscars perhaps, or some other Hollywood event. Not me. The first thing that springs to mind is "Mr. Gothard". He has such a penchant for nice red carpet. It works for him. He even has it in his house (I used to take turns watching over his mother when she was in ill health. Seeing the red carpet in his childhood home made me laugh). It also reminds me of cleaning that red carpet. There were NO spots allowed. At one point that job was part of my secretarial duties, to be done just before 5pm. Hands, knees, a cleaning solution and a metal spoon was discovered to be the fastest way of getting those dark spots out!

The main hallway, just off the lobby

Everyone has something to say about IBLP or ATI or Mr Gothard. It seems to be quite polarizing, really. Most of it is negative, if you are doing an internet search. Even though not all our (Brian & I) collective experiences were perfect or perfectly handled, we have emerged better people, and therefore, have generally positive things to share. Most of the things that "people" pick on aren't what we would anyway. Once you are involved with an organization very closely, you see the flaws, because you see the people. But you can always see Jesus in it too, if you are willing to grow.

The main conference room. I didn't even live here or go to school here, and I've spent countless hours in this room. I can't imagine how many seminars Brian sat through in there!

Through the Basic Seminar, Advanced Training Institute and further work and education with this organization (along with good level headed parents/parenting) has had us come out on the other side "ahead". We were young children/teens, and learning things that many adults have never heard (as I'm an adult now, and coming to find out). So we entered our adult lives with deeper walks with the Lord, deeper understanding of how to search out Truth. Our emotional state, marriage, parenting/children...almost every aspect of life has been touched by something we learned, and so that makes it a positive experience, and one that I would do again (with minor changes:-).

On the 13th floor. Used to be a nice restaurant, when it was a hotel. I only ever used it as a hangout spot during the Christmas conference:-)

More 13th floor! - Beauty. Elvis stayed here, after he performed his very last live concert.

The pictures never do it justice. But this lobby definitely had a wow effect, the first time you saw it. Funny lobby story - circa 1998. I was in town for a Christmas conference, Brian lived there and was on security duty that night. Since I (and my friends) didn't live/belong there, the rules for us were somewhat lax (meaning, if we broke them, no one would notice). So we left the Training Center, and went out to eat at Steak & Shake, and played mafia...and we were out until 3am. We, not living there, never considered something...Indy was home to some serious juvenile delinquents (undergoing rehabilitation). They lock that place down like a jail. We couldn't even drive into the parking lot, it was all chained off. Then the horrible thought occured...what if Mr. Gothard was in his office? He was always up that late. Darn. We snuck up to the building, and tried the side door into the back of the lobby. Locked. So we went up to the front. Locked. But security (aka Brian) was at the front desk, and he let us in with a glare. Mr Gothard was not in his office, and we never suffered any consequence for our evening excursion and exceeding lights out by 5 hours or something...Whew!

The main lobby.

A year later, Brian came to work in Chicago. I remember being re-introduced in the dining area. Where he loudly announced, "I remember you two, aren't you the ones that went out at Indy and didn't come back until 3?" Infamy. Well, needless to say, there is no statute of limitation at places like that, and my friend Audra declared Brian to be bad news. What was he thinking even bringing that up (so loudly)? "He is going to be trouble", she said. How prophetic. He was!

Goodbye Indy. Thanks for the memories!