Before I get into why I eventually left the church, there are still a few major traditions and memories I haven't talked about yet...

Starting with what came after the Eager Beavers club.

Once you outgrow Eager Beavers, the church had other scout-style troops you could join as you got older.

Such as Adventurers.

However, for whatever reason, I never got to experience that for myself.

Maybe I wasn't interested or perhaps it was too hard for me (probably the second part), but my sister and I just stopped being part of the church troop after a while for good.

It was most likely from anxiety I'm sure because my parents also tried putting us baseball when we were little but then they had to pull us out cuz it apparently gave me lots of anxiety.

Growing up at the church, there was other fun and interesting stuff I got to do there over the years.

Such as potlucks, Agape feasts, Christmas parties, baptisms, and seeing special guests preach the odd time.

The potlucks always had food, drinks and desserts, but the key difference with them compared to lots of other churches is that it was all vegetarian or vegan.

And Idk if I noticed it then but now that I'm older, it's pretty clear in my head that most Adventists, (older ones especially) are strictly vegetarians or vegan.

Apparently it's recommended by an old famous Adventist church co founder/writer Ellen G White that it's healthier and you live longer if you don't eat meat.

Another thing about the church I was raised at is that they had this thing in the service called "special music" where someone or a group of people would go onstage to sing or perform a song in front of the church.

This would always happen right before the preaching started and most of the songs sung were like ballads or just instrumentals on instruments such as violins.

Sometimes the choir would perform for Special Music as well.

The church has always been so old fashioned to the point where to this day, they still don't have an actual drumset there (which is a huge bummer for me as a drummer). The only time I ever recall them ever talking about or caring about drums/rhythm for a song was years later when I rejoined the church for a young adult or youth event (and through my sister) because an adult there who grew up teaching us and preaching sometimes at the churchs really thought having someone keep time/beat with the songs would help.

The only songs I ever got to sing there growing up and was introduced to early on were traditional hymns and so when I discovered other types of Christian music through other churches as I got a bit older, I would come to appreciate and prefer them overall.

It took awhile, but now they actually do have guitars at the church which they use sometimes for the church service.

Though I would still prefer a whole band of insturments.

The Agape feast at the church only ever happened on Good Friday when I was growing up, but these days it's changed a bit to sort of be a once a month thing on Saturdays as well.

For those who don't know, we as Christians celebrate Good Friday because that's the day Jesus died on the Cross for our sins before resurrecting on Easter Sunday.

Also before he died, he got together with his 12 Disciples to have what is now well known as "The Last Supper" with him.

During The Last Supper, Jesus would break bread, give it out to them and use it to symbolize his body, and he used wine (grape juice) to symbolize his blood.

After they ate, Jesus would go to wash each of his disciples' feet, to show kind service, leadership and spiritual cleansing.

We call it The Agape Feast because Agape means the most unselfish love and that's what Jesus was demonstrating to his Disciples before he died on Good Friday.

Also with the Agape Feast, we would always be split up by gender for the foot washing, though I think for the comfort of myself and my twin, we would usually for the most part end up going with our dad to the men's and then he would wash our feet.

The Agape Feast would always start with a prayer, then a potluck dinner, and then usually we would do the footwashing and some singing of hymns before we'd meet up again downstairs in the main area we were in at the start (or upstairs in the Sanctuary depending on the year) to listen to the Pastor read the scriptures of the bread breaking and the drinking of the wine and then pray, sing, and eat the bread and drink the grape juice together as well.

Though my sister and I never got to drink the wine/grape juice (maybe the bread too) until we reached a certain age so that we understood why we broke the bread and drank the juice, what it symbolized and were able to dedicate ourselves to God.

I don't really remember seeing a lot of people my own age at The Agape Feasts growing up.

Then again, I guess I could've easily blocked them out of my memory because of the rough times I had with the kids there growing up.

The earliest memories I've had with chaotic kids at the church growing up go back to being in the kindergarten class, but also when I was in church one day (possibly on a Saturday when I was in my Eager Beavers outfit) and I needed to get through the pew seats to sit down or something and this girl I knew rudely just didn't move, even though my mom and myself said excuse me to her.

My parents have described her as having a stick or horse shoe up her butt.

Maybe that's true, but I've heard she's way nicer now than she was back then.

Unfourtunately though, her younger brother who was like always in the same Sabbath school classes with my sister and me was no walk in the park either.

He and all these other kids who shared the same ethnicity were always just so rambunctious and disruptive in the Sabbath school classes we had with them.

Our teacher in the Primary class had to use a bell sometimes to get their attention to focus and behave.

Whether it be with the volume of all the loud guys together or just the younger brother of the rude sister who would just casually make paper air planes out of papers and the classroom or find other ways to keep himself entertained, it was never easy to be in the same room as him and the other guys around our age.

With the memory I have, the only time I recall them being rude to me was apparently this one time when I was in the Primary Sabbath school class and I was trying to speak but my stutter was very prominent, and a bunch of those guys just started busted out laughing, almost thinking the literal site of my speech impediment was humourous.

Either case, the teachers tried their best to not stand for the trouble I feel (especially our Primary School teachers) and whether it helped or not, they would numerously make it clear that we were the best and most well behaved students in the classroom.

I swear this same group of guys and all the ones that showed up every year at the church just for the VBS (Vacation Bible School) in the summer would always cause issues and annoyance to us and others whenever they were around.

Whether it be at VBS where they'd rush on ahead get all lots of the cookies and good snacks or sometimes budge in line ups, and other stuff I have a hard time recalling more clearly happening at the Christmas parties the church would come to host yearly for the kids and youth, the chaos with these kids would just never end.

Chaos aside, my sister and I always tried our very best, (and did so for the most part) to try and enjoy ourselves at the Vacation Bible school camp the church had for a week every summer, and the Children's Christmas party too where we would decorate sugar cookies, do indoor relay races, (we did these too outside at VBS) and took part in a game where we'd go around in a circle and try to get christmas gifts completely unwrapped but it was impossible.

We also enjoyed ourselves whenever we got certificates for graduating Sabbath school classes, singing at church for Special Music, (we did this at least twice together) or the times where we got to help out acting out bible stories (I got to do this twice!)

My dad actually got baptized while I was still going to the church and that was one of the rare times our mom showed up there again (she also came to me and my twin's baptism).

I do believe when he got baptized that he had to agree to not do certain things anymore, such as drinking alcohol but unfortunately, he still ended up doing that for awhile at home.

The adults at the church were sort of, (for the most part) the only people there who seemed to respect my sister and I for being the way we were/are.

I mean they were always so kind and friendly and would ask us questions whenever they saw us.

We even had a teacher there at Sabbath school and VBS (same person) who really seemed to like and appreciate my sister and I regardless of our disabilities.

They also sort of had a disability as they were/are blind in one of their eyes.

Her kids were also some of the only kind and respectable ones/guys there out of all the kids we grew up with.

We also had some friends our parents made early on at the church who we would go out with a few times (particularily to a buffet).

They were really nice and are still friendly to us when we go there.

They would even give my sister and I christmas and birthday gifts!

There was another group of people at the church who always seemed to respect and like my sister and me a lot.

That group of people was a family that included our main Primary school teacher, her daughters, sons, her Pastor husband and their grandkids.

I even remember going to one of their houses growing up I think after church for some occasion and I assume I enjoyed it?

As well, my parents made some other church friends at the church early on who I recall being some of the rare people from the church who drank alcohol.

I do think I heard from my dad that they didn't believe everything there either so that could be part of the reason they clicked well with our parents.

As nice as they were however, I recall feeling quite uncomfortable with one of them despite them gifting my sister and I these cute flower plushies with smiles on their faces and moveable stems.

Lucky for me, those people seemed to move to a different farther Adventist church early on and then we hardly ever saw them again.

Especially not the husband of the lady cuz he died from I think the alcohol (God rest his soul).

I realize I've written a lot so far so at this point I'm going to make the blog of leaving the church its own thing and put the rest of information before that in here...

So one time when I was younger, I recall my dad's small purple chrysler pt cruiser he had at the time, (he called it his Purple Paddy) somehow getting stuck in the church parking lot between a couple of cars.

It was because of that which we were stranded at the church for a bit (despite planning to leave already).

There were also sometimes where the church would have health programs or other things that my parents would attend there together and I recall a few times getting to hang out there as well as it was happening in the Primary school class with my sister watching movies on a tv with her to pass the time, (such as the first live action Flinstones movie, An American Girl: Isabelle Dances Into the Spotlight, and some others I'm sure).

The church had a bread ministry too (still does) where they would get some bread and pastries from a local bakery and then divide it up into plastic bags to share with the church community and homeless people nearby.

Finally, another big thing at Adventist churches in general is Camp Meeting, which mainly happened every summer for like a couple weeks somewhere near the church but a bit farther away still and people would camp there mainly in tents (but sometimes in cabins or hotels) and spend the time learning about God more and doing some other cool things too.

I never got to experience Camp Meeting growing up, (maybe my parents thought it would be too much for us) for whatever reason but then I finally got to go this summer with my boyfriend (now ex) closer to where he lives in the world.

And I do think the experience was good, but it was also a lot (I'll explain more later).

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