Linda – From 1971 to 1980

Linda at­tend­ed a Basic Seminar in 1971. What she learned dur­ing that week trans­formed her life and gave her a strong de­sire to grow in the Lord and serve Him. She worked on the Headquarters staff for 9 years. Her joy in the Lord was very ev­i­dent to every­one who worked with her. For the past eigh­teen years Linda has been a busy pastor’s wife. She is able to give wise coun­sel to trou­bled youth and their par­ents.

To Whom it May Concern,

I worked at the Oak Brook Headquarters of the Institute in Basic Life Principles from November of 1971 through May of 1980. During many of those years I worked in the Northwoods for one or two weeks a month. The oth­er times I worked at Oak Brook and al­so trav­eled to work on reg­is­tra­tion teams in var­i­ous cities where the Basic Seminars were held. I was busy and to­tal­ly ful­filled as a young woman, but my great­est joy was that I was serv­ing my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through this min­istry. I knew He had called me to this work.

Everything that Bill taught me was con­sis­tent with what I had learned through­out my life at my evan­gel­i­cal church. Many from my church at­tend­ed the Basic Seminars and they were thrilled to learn that I had been asked to join the staff.

During my tenure, I had many op­por­tu­ni­ties to work close­ly with Bill Gothard. During all these times I can hon­est­ly say that Bill nev­er ever touched me in an in­ap­pro­pri­ate way. We had a Godly and lov­ing broth­er­ly friend­ship. Bill proved him­self to me over and over again. Actually no prov­ing was nec­es­sary be­cause we had a qui­et un­der­stand­ing that we were both serv­ing the Lord.

Bill Gothard loved all the staff in the same way. None of my staff col­leagues ever in­di­cat­ed to me that Bill’s be­hav­ior with us as in­di­vid­u­als was in­ap­pro­pri­ate in any way. I am mak­ing this state­ment in re­sponse to al­le­ga­tions that I have read on the in­ter­net. Since I have first-​hand ex­pe­ri­ence, I want the truth to be known.

I al­so want the truth to be known about what took place in the Northwoods pri­or to 1980, since I was a part of the staff up there as well as at the Headquarters. I can say def­i­nite­ly that Bill Gothard was not aware of the mis­con­duct that was se­cret­ly go­ing on. All of us staff girls were very close to each oth­er be­cause we lived to­geth­er. Even we did not know what was hap­pen­ing to each oth­er. We were each sworn to se­cre­cy with the promise of mar­riage. If we who were with each oth­er all the time did not know, how could we ex­pect Bill to know. When he did fi­nal­ly un­der­stand what had been hap­pen­ing, he was bro­ken heart­ed and in deep grief.

Sincerely,

Linda