Jenna Oakley
This whole case that has come to light is absolutely heartbreaking for me, but there’s also honestly a tiny part of me that is a little relieved, and hopeful that the people who were not involved and truly did/do have hearts to serve the Lord can continue moving on and changing the world apart from this one human man being in charge of everything.
I started attending the Institute for G.O.D. in August of 2023. My freshman year, I didn’t notice much of anything concerning. My bills were pretty reasonable, I was traveling home at least once a month to see my family, I was learning and growing and feeling out which jobs I wanted to pursue in my future, etc. Looking back, something I’ve reflected on is how much Mr. Garner really was on a pedestal. You couldn’t sit in “his seat” in a class, one of the professors (married with children, mind you) said she has a specific ringer for Mr. Garner and knew when she needed to respond immediately, and we would wait on him no matter how late he was for classes, chapels, church services, etc. (could be more than 30 minutes and running into other commitments we had and all the leaders had to do was say “Tell your professor/employer that Mr. Garner was late” and somehow, that was good enough to solve every problem).
I went on my first Internship with G.O.D. the summer before my sophomore year. At the time, it seemed super impactful and full of unique ways to surrender everything to the Lord; now, looking through other personal stories, I see how things were tied around Gregg Garner explicitly the entire time. We never knew what time it was, where we were going, what we were doing, how long it would take, when we would eat, when we would sleep, etc. We were instructed to leave our phones behind under the guise of “it’s unsafe to carry around expensive devices in a third world country,” which may have seemed legitimate except some students weren’t allowed to take their phones while others were; this prevented parents and family members from being able to track location or anything, and even the blogs and vlogs we were supposed to write/record to keep family and friends updated both while we were abroad and still domestic became less and less frequent. While there were elements of the trip that I really do truly believe the Lord used to open my eyes and change me for the better, there were also elements I remember specifically rubbing me the wrong way.
1) Throughout the entirety of the trip, we were expected to listen to Mr. Garner no matter how long he preached, one time taking over 6 hours.
2) There would be minimal instruction given to the students who were in more of a leadership role, but he would get so upset when things were not done “correctly.”
3) He would call us out and berate us for “not being present” and “taking advantage of our time with our cooperatives.” These could have been legitimate claims, but it was never a conversation, it was always him yelling. We were expected to take it and not say anything, and then he would go back later and totally change his story and talk about how “proud he was of us,” so it was emotionally confusing.
4) We had a debrief portion in London, and he didn’t take into account who had cellular devices and who didn’t. I was part of the group that did not, and we split up between going to the mall (the group I was in), going and getting nails done (girls; female leader went with them and most of them including the leader had their phones), or getting a haircut (the boys; male leaders went with them and the majority of them including the leaders had their phones). My group was expected to make it back to our meeting spot at a specific time. Because none of us had phones, we not only couldn’t venture far because we didn’t have GPS, but we ended up waiting over an hour at the meeting spot because none of us knew that all of the appointments for both nails and hair were taking longer than anticipated; we had no idea where anyone was and didn’t have a way to contact anyone, we could only sit and wait because we never knew when they were coming back. Yes, we were technically adults, but most of us had never been in another country alone before without any guidance.
By August of 2024, that’s when things noticeably started to go awry.
My fiancé (now husband) visited me right before Orientation Week began and attended a wedding for a couple G.O.D. members with me as a plus one. He states to this day that he can’t explain the weird, spiritual feeling he got when locking eyes with Mr. Garner. Gregg never came over to introduce himself, but my husband says he would look over and catch Garner staring multiple times. My husband said when he came home from that event, he talked to his mentor and expressed concerns about the school and Mr. Garner but didn’t feel like his claims had very much validity since he didn’t have any concrete evidence.
Then, during the school year, my bills increased by over $1000 without any explanation. I tried to reach out multiple times for a breakdown, but I could never understand why my payment was over $800 every 2 weeks while working a part-time job that only paid minimum wage. My husband (still fiancé at this point) had to help me pay my bills. I ended up trying to work several other jobs on weekends, but nothing could cover the cost. I eventually moved back home the second semester of my sophomore year for my wedding, and they had to even out my bills of what I missed in my first semester with what the online curriculum would cost, so I could continue taking classes, and it still ended up being over $550 every 2 weeks. On top of that, while I was taking online classes, no one communicated with me, no one checked in, and no one seemed to care about me, even though I’d just gotten married at the beginning of the year, found a new job, and was still enrolled as a full-time student. I find it weird that when you apply, they make special time and schedules to call you and pray with you, but once you leave, no one says a word to you. I even tried to call them about my concerns with their online program, and while on the call, the professor called my husband the wrong name (I didn’t even have the heart to correct him).
I’d also always felt like there was weird tension with my husband not being from the community. I was even told multiple times by multiple students that I should focus on dating someone who went through “the same Biblical education as me,” and they expressed multiple times that they didn’t trust or like my boyfriend (now husband). Then they finally got to know him, and I hope it was eye-opening that you don’t have to go to The Institute for G.O.D. to find a good husband/wife who follows the Lord sincerely with all their heart. Since then, I have been happy to hear that several people have “outsourced” and found significant others outside of G.O.D.
I recognize my experiences might now be jaded after reading about these current circumstances, but I wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else related! It’s already been encouraging to see some of these stories and feel validated myself, so I hope others can also feel validated by my story as well!