Well, Liberation Day is here. For us, that was May 19, 1999.
But I guess I should explain a bit.
I am Don Galloway. My wife and I live in Sherwood Park, a community just outside Edmonton. Alberta, Canada. We were included in the Alberta ‘purge’ that was done by Willis Propp and his crew in 1999.
However, this date, May 19, is of special significance to us (my wife, Myrna, and me) and thought I should just mention it. I think of it as our ‘Liberation Day’. It was on this date in 1999 that we got a visit from the workers, Jim Knipe and Scott McChesney, which ended with the Sunday morning meeting we had had for years being taken from our home, and us being excommunicated (advised that we would not be permitted to attend any meeting anywhere in the world).
This didn’t come as a much of a shock – Willis Propp had had his ‘guys and gals’ dealing with (i.e. excommunicating) a few other elders and removing meetings in the 2 or 3 weeks leading up to this and we knew we were guilty of the same ‘crime’ as the other excommunicated individuals. It came as a great relief to me because I had been thinking for some time that I couldn’t go on in it because of the very unethical and unscriptural things that had been going on – and at that time, what we knew about was just the tip of the iceberg.
There were 8 elders and their wives that were excommunicated at that time, and then several more (about 16 more elders) gave up their meetings over the next few weeks because they couldn’t support what was being done by the ministry. About half of these left the group – the rest, for various reasons, stayed in the system but have major concerns with it.
If you’re interested in the story and haven’t read about it before, you can read it here:
Alberta, Canada Purging Accounts and Incorporation Documents
And if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. I’ll do my best to answer them.
Don Galloway
May 19, 2023