You Can Have My Pink Barbie Car Back

As I’ve talked about before, I was raised at IHOPKC from ages 0-13, when I was 13 I moved to Brazil with my family (a pretty crazy journey that I’m gonna start writing about soon). But for now, let’s talk about growing up at IHOP.

It probably took me a few years to realize that Mike Bickle was famous when I was a kid. For the longest time, he was just “Bickle Mike” to me and my siblings. We loved to go say hi to him in the prayer room—more times than not he would hand us a dollar or some candy. Every time I lost a tooth I’d beg my mom to take me to the prayer room because he would give kids money if they brought him their tooth.

This was never weird to me. He was like a grandfather figure in my life. He was always smiling and dishing out cash.

My dad used to be the director of the Onething conference, that alone is a wild story for a later time. The prep and work required for the 25,000-person conference every December was insane. So every January we would take a vacation as a family.

For a few years in a row, we went to Florida for a couple of weeks. Mike and Diane also used to take January off and go to Florida every year.

Although I don’t have many memories of those trips, I do remember one thing.

We decided to meet up with Mike and Diane while we were all in Florida for dinner. I don’t remember the dinner, but boy do I remember what we did after dinner.

Mike wanted to take us all to Toys-R-Us (back in the day when that was still a thing) and buy us kids all toys. Elijah, my younger brother, was still pretty young so he got mostly baby clothes.

But Sydney (my older sister) and I were in heaven. I was in my peak Barbie era. And I got the pink VW Beatle Barbie car. I remember being in the store and then getting back to wherever we were staying and having the time of my life playing with that car.

I was a huge pink girl, well honestly I still am unashamedly. And Barbie was the toy to have. It was a huge win in my book.

This was not an isolated incident with Mike. More times than I can count he showed extreme generosity towards our family and us kids in particular.

When I got older the cash he would dish out randomly started to get bigger. And what teenager (or adult really) doesn’t love a crisp $100 bill?

In 2013 as my family and I were preparing to move to Brazil, Mike wanted to take my siblings and me out to eat. He took us to Apple Bees, only because Westin Sizzlin had closed down (if you know, you know).

He asked us lots of questions about what we were excited about for Brazil. He was always good at asking people great questions.

Toward the end of the meal, he handed us each a $100 bill. Then he asked us what was something else we wanted to do in our life. I said I wanted to go to Europe. By that point, I hadn’t been yet.

He then pulled out three €50 bills. He gave one to each of us. It felt really special.

I kept that €50 bill in my wallet for almost 10 years until I finally went to Europe in 2021. I bought an Italian-made leather purse that is pretty dope.

After our Apple Bees lunch, he taught Sydney how to parallel park and made some poor leader at IHOP be a human cone in the Dollar General parking lot so she could practice. We all got a turn behind the wheel. It was pretty great.

Recent events, however, have made me reevaluate a lot of these memories. Mike was extremely generous. But why? I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart.

I think his generosity was two-fold.

He wanted to keep people dependent on him. He promoted, whether or not he said this out loud or not, it was the fruit that was produced, a culture of poverty. Pretty much everyone was struggling financially because they were living the “fasted lifestyle”. But don’t worry, Mike shells out $100 bills or $5,000 checks (or pays your rent) like grandmothers hand out expired York Peppermint Patties.

This was not everyone’s experience. But it was enough people’s experience.

Secondly, and probably the more prominent reason for his generosity, he wanted people to think he was generous and godly, and therefore could do no harm.

Cause ya know “he’s the most godly man we’ve ever known”.

Give me a break 🙄

He was building up credibility so that no one would question his actions or character. Pretty smart actually. Luckily for the rest of us, God sees. God knows. And God has allowed Mike to continue in his wicked ways no more.

Mike used finances to win people’s affection. There’s not a better way to do so in a community starved of healthy finances. Money is a very powerful motivator.

When I was a kid he showed me his special box in his office full of money and candy he reserved for kids.

I would go to the back of the prayer room (behind that blasted grey door to the left of the stage) and bother his assistant for free office supplies. It’s safe to say I’ve always been a nerd and asked for Office Max gift cards since I was a kid.

While I was raiding IHOP’s supply closets, I was always hoping for a little cash infusion from Bickle Mike.

I was an interesting kid in that I knew I wanted to go into business, made my family play board room meetings, and hoarded sticky notes. So it wasn’t surprising that around 11 or 12 I was ready to start my first business venture.

I read a book called “Money Making Ideas for Kids” and found one that felt right.

I wanted to make pin-back buttons. You know the kind, they were popular 10-15 years ago. Everyone sported them on their backpacks.

But I needed some seed money. So my dad helped me research how much money I needed and how to pitch it and of course I went to Mike Bickle.

He heard my pitch, thought it was a good idea, and gave me a couple hundred bucks to order my machine and get going.

I ended up making several thousand buttons for lots of different departments at IHOP. Many were featured at Onething conferences in the booths, if you were one of the lucky ones who got one, you’re welcome.

I also ended up making quite a bit of money, had to fund that sticky note addiction.

This all goes to show how much of a fraud Mike was. He publicly demonstrated his generosity, especially towards children. Which looking back is a bit alarming.

He wanted people to see him being generous. He wanted people to be dependent on him. He wanted his character to appear beyond reproach. He got away with it for quite a while.

If I still had my pink VW Barbie car I’d give it back. Or burn it. I don’t know, I like options. I won’t however, get rid of my fine-Italian-leather purse. I like it too much.

When the allegations against Mike came out, it was hard to come to grips with it. He had been so kind, so generous, so caring. But it was all a facade. Good old “Bickle Mike” had fooled us all.

He outwardly displayed godliness, but on the inside, he was living a complete lie. He required so much of his people but failed himself to do the bare minimum of the gospel.

Like many of the evil kings in the Old Testament, God allowed them to sin and commit evil to a certain point and then no more. This is where the buck stops for Mike. I don’t know why the Lord allowed Mike to operate in his ways for as long as he did, I really don’t. But I do believe the Lord is cleaning His church and bringing healing to the thousands who have been hurt by corrupt leaders.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash