James acted angry toward me for telling others that I would become the new owner of Homeschooling Today Magazine (HST). February 27 he sent me a contract draft. I looked it over and called and told James that I could not sign it because it just was not what we had agreed to before I started to work for him.
The next day was payday. I was told that I would be paid less than $4,500 because this is all that had come in from the advertisers. It would be somewhere around $3,600 after paying taxes on it. James knew that I needed $5,000. I called “Brenda” and told her the problem and she said that I could keep most of the money if I was a private contractor and claimed many deductions. I emailed her that I didn't have a private contractor license so needed to be placed on the company payroll.
She talked it over with James and he told her that I didn't need a contractor's license to work in this capacity. He said that it was up to me which way I went. He knew very well that in order for me to pay my bills for March I needed close to $5,000. So, I thought to be paid this time as a private contractor would enable my family to get through the month so I decided to do it. By the end of the next month, James would surely have my employment contract ready. And besides, I soon would be the owner of HST. I simply could not understand what was taking him so long with the contract he had promised. After all he had told me already when I was in Yugoslavia that he would have it ready to be signed when I arrived.
James sent his son, James Jr. to my office with a contract that he wanted me to sign before he would pay me. It was a bad contract. I was upset with it but James assured me that it was only a "placeholder" contract until he could "work up an employee agreement" (I am certain now that James had no intention at that time to ever work up an employment agreement because he was still of the opinion that I was a scoundrel. He told his church elder during this time that he was going to get rid of me).
When his son visited me with the contract I told him that when I would officially become the new owner I would like to ask him to continue on with me as the graphic designer for the magazine. I believe that I had also told the bookkeeper that I would like to keep her as my bookkeeper. Now it must be understood that I still had no inclination that anything was going on behind my back. I believed I was working for a moral and honest Christian and more than that, he was a “Pastor.” My friends at The Taylor Machine were not only attorneys but they were confidants and Christians. I would never have suspected anything like what was going on behind my back between James and The Taylor Machine. If someone would have told me I would have been unbelieving.
It was only when I overheard the elder of James church on March 3 in his telephone conversation with Joe Paine that I began to suspect there was something gravely amiss. If I had not overheard a portion of this conversation but would have been told of it instead I would not have believed it. In Yugoslavia, my wife and I knew who we were dealing with when we dealt with government authorities so we were watchful. But here we were among friends, friends whom we had entrusted with our lives. Christians! Pastors! Attorneys! To make it more dramatic, these were Christian attorneys who were personal family friends! Why shouldn't we trust them?
