Preparing to Slip Away Quietly
The next day we flew home from Denver and discovered that Bart had left another threatening message on Joseph’s voice mail. In this one, he accused me of sharing details from our meeting with Jason’s wife—an accusation that Jenny herself said was false. Joseph called Jason to insist that Bart honor his agreement to leave us alone.
A few minutes later, Jason called back and said Bart had made the story up to scare us, but he wanted to tell me in no uncertain terms that he would not tolerate me violating my statement of silence. A few weeks later, Bart left another angry voice message, demanding that Joseph return his call “away from [our] house,” presumably so I couldn’t be a part of the conversation. Bart also said he had another list of demands, which included, among other things, that I sign a written statement that I had violated the biblical teaching of Psalm 1 by seeking counsel from a secular professional. At that point, Joseph called Les Heinze and demanded that the pastor call my father and convince him to back down. Heinze returned Joseph’s call later that day and told him that Bart had screamed at him on the phone for more than twenty minutes. Heinze pleaded with Joseph to keep in contact with Bart by mail, sending him updates on our family and pictures of our kids.
“Absolutely not,” Joseph responded. “Tell that man never to contact me or my family again! I’m done!”
By this time Joseph’s contract had ended, so he packed up his office and we decided to lie low for the rest of the summer. It felt like a flashback to my disgraced summer after high school, keeping our heads down and avoiding attention. In the midst of all that drama, almost every weekend, we drove to Chicago to firm up more details for our move. Joseph and I spent countless hours meticulously charting our exit strategy, writing down the steps, scribbling them out, and revising them. We came up with endless what ifs and hypothetical ways to field problems that might occur. What if my father heard about our plans and showed up on our doorstep in a violent rage? What if the moving company didn’t show up? What if the van broke down as we were trying to leave? What if the college administration discovered our plans and sabotaged them? Contemplating everything that could go wrong was a recipe for panic, but it was better to be prepared for the worst.
Confrontations
We didn’t discuss what was going on with our children for fear that they might make an innocent remark to a friend that would reach the wrong ears. So far, no one knew if we were leaving our home, the cult, or taking new jobs in the area. Most people speculated that we had our sights set on Chicago and the rumor began to circulate that my husband was joining the faculty at Moody Bible Institute. We couldn’t understand how the rumor started, since we had told no one about my husband submitting his application online or his subsequent contact with the organization through e-mail. Soon after that, Curt Lamansky called to ask if it was true that we were moving to Nashville to get involved in the Contemporary Christian Music industry. My husband had recently placed a secret phone call to a childhood friend who was the manager for a popular Christian performer. Years earlier, the friend had told Joseph to give him a call if he ever left the IFB and wanted to break into the industry. But again, Joseph had told no one about his e-mails or phone calls. How were the IFB leaders finding out what we were doing?
Christy Galkin showed up at my house one day to admonish me. “You’re causing IFB members to sin, because you’re not sharing your plans,” she scolded. “You’re fostering a climate of gossip. You should repent.” So much for girlhood friendship. Gone were the days of wearing “best friends” necklaces and the deep bond we had felt when she served as the maid of honor at my wedding. It was clear to me that Christy’s loyalty lay with the IFB, not with me. But her entreaties made no impact. I was sure our lives were in danger, and I was eager to put a safe distance between ourselves and the IFB as fast as I could. It struck me as absurdly ironic that after being accused of talking too much and forced to sign a statement of silence, I was now being criticized for not talking enough. It was obviously the cult’s way of trying to maintain control over our family.
Watching Our Every Move
Our neighbors were keeping an obvious watch on our comings and goings and I was growing more afraid than ever that our phones were being tapped. We soon became convinced the administration at Northland was reading our private e-mails, since my husband’s account was on the college network, which granted them full access. To test my hunch, I sent a stream of e-mails to his Northland account regarding real estate worth millions of dollars and said we could set up appointments to see the houses the following weekend. We both laughed about it. But then, sure enough, a friend came over within the week and said she had heard a rumor that we had inherited millions of dollars and were moving to Chicago. She wondered if it was true. It was proof positive that the cult was monitoring everything we did.
Actually, we had found a home, but it was a modest rental that we planned to live in until Joseph completed his accredited Ph.D. at Trinity. The university had taken pity on him and agreed to admit him to its doctoral program as long as he completed a long list of extra prerequisites, including taking remedial courses throughout the summer to make up for the deficiencies in his IFB program. After fourteen years in IFB colleges, he was now facing another five to seven years of school. And although his unaccredited degrees made it virtually impossible for him to get a job in his field outside the IFB, we were still going to have to somehow come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars for tuition and living expenses. At a time when many men with legitimate credentialing are hitting the height of success in their careers, my husband was starting over at the bottom. It would be a long, arduous academic road for a thirty-six-year-old father of eight, but it was the only road that led to freedom, the only hope he had of a real career at a real university.
Final Preparation
I spent the week before our departure driving to Walmart late at night to collect boxes and quietly filling them with our essentials during the days. It would be wrenching to leave so many cherished belongings behind, but I steeled myself and pushed on. You care too much about things of this world. My mother’s criticism from years ago floated back into my mind. Now I was proving her wrong. China and tablecloths and sweaters and even the house itself meant nothing compared to protecting my children’s lives. Maybe it would be better not to take too many reminders anyway, considering how desperate I was to leave the life I had known in the IFB behind me.
As I packed, I reviewed our escape plan again and again in my mind, searching for holes, weak points, and overlooked details that might trip us up. Sometimes I would run compulsively to the desk to make another note or change a step in the sequence Joseph and I had written down.
In late July, Jeff Miller, one of my husband’s former colleagues at Northland, stopped by to visit with him. Jeff said he was disturbed because he had brought up our names in a recent administrative meeting. “We won’t be discussing Joe and Jocelyn Zichterman. Things came out about them,” “Dr.” Marty Von had replied. Now we finally knew how Joseph’s employers had decided to spin our situation. “Things came out about the Zichtermans” could imply anything from sexual impropriety to embezzlement to something worse. The IFB faithful would assume some grave sin had caused Joseph to lose his job and leave the community. The strategy was flawless: It allowed the administrators to look magnanimous, as if they were refusing to discuss the details in order to protect our reputation.
A short time later we heard that another board member, “Dr.” Harold Patz, claimed I was losing my mind and making insane allegations against my father.
What were Joseph and I going to do now? Should we defend ourselves? Should we walk away? Most people in our position would have filed a lawsuit as well as complaints with the appropriate government agencies. However, IFB leaders taught that in almost every situation, the Bible forbade Christians from filing civil suits and involving the government in ministry matters, citing the following New Testament passage: “Do an
y of you who are in conflict with one another, dare to go to law before unbelievers?… Why do you not rather allow yourselves to be cheated?” In the end, Joseph and I decided to take what we considered the high road and trust God to protect our reputation. All we wanted to do was get away.
Off to Chicago: August 1, 2006
Perhaps it was a lapse of judgment, but we couldn’t bear to leave our closest friends without saying farewell. So on the Saturday night before our Monday morning departure, Joseph and I had dinner with them and confided that we were planning to move in a few days. We asked them not to share the news.
For eight years Joseph had been the pastor at a little IFB church, one of many in northern Wisconsin, in a town about an hour away. He cared deeply about his forty-member congregation, so on Sunday morning he told them this would be our last worship service. He explained that we were moving away within the week so that he could go back to school. We kept the details vague and recited the line we had rehearsed: “As soon as we can tell you more, we will.”
They were thoughtful enough to throw an impromptu going-away party that afternoon, though we knew that as soon as we drove home the phones around town would be jangling with the news. Would the leaders show up at our door and try to intimidate or browbeat us into staying? Would they take more extreme measures? We didn’t know very many people who had left, so we weren’t sure what was in store for us. Our biggest worry was getting away before my father could find out and book a flight from Colorado.
Joseph had gotten home early Sunday evening and gone to sleep in the basement bedroom so he could be alert for our escape the next morning. We turned off all the lights in the house. It was too early for the kids to go to bed and we wanted to avoid having to talk to any of our neighbors, so I piled the eight of them into the van. First, I took them to a McDonald’s an hour away from our house, where there was a huge playground with a jungle gym and where, I hoped, we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew. So far, so good. Then I treated them all to dessert at an ice cream parlor, biding my time until our departure. I kept them out until I knew all our IFB neighbors would be settled in for the night. By 9 P.M. I thought it would be safe to head home, but to my dismay, as I turned down our street, I passed my husband’s boss, Curt Lamansky. I could tell from his expression that he was intent on stopping in to see us. He must have gotten word from someone at church, I thought. And he was going to do his utmost to dissuade Joseph from leaving the cult. Abruptly, I turned the van around in our driveway, gave him a wave, and sped away. He swung his car around and started following me. Panicking, I took a sharp left around a curve and kept driving. A few minutes later, I ventured a glance in the rearview mirror. “Whew! I lost him,” I muttered under my breath.
I drove around for hours and finally got the kids into their beds a little after midnight. I felt dazed. Sleep was out of the question. The whole week had been surreal. My body was tight and tense from fear. I knew my husband’s boss hadn’t given up that easily. He was probably assembling the church leaders right now, hatching a plan to force a confrontation, an intervention at which forceful IFB leaders would do their utmost to break Joseph’s resolve and to shame, bully, or intimidate us into staying. Worse yet, I was terrified that my father would show up in a rage, wielding a gun, and at least one of us would end up dead. We had to get out before that happened.
Preparing Into the Night
4:00 A.M.
I went down to the basement and woke Joseph, who quickly moved some of our possessions into a small vehicle he had rented. A few minutes later, the moving company pulled its truck into the driveway, right on schedule. The neighbors’ lights flew on, and I saw them peering out their windows. Adrenaline surged through my body as I started loading the kids into the van.
“Hey, fellas, can I talk to you for a minute?” Joseph asked the movers, as I buckled the last child into his car seat. The men gathered around him in the dim light of the garage. I stopped too. “We need to leave before you load the moving van,” Joseph told them, keeping his voice low. “After we’ve gone, if anyone comes by and asks you where we’re going, please don’t give them any information. Our family is in danger.”
They agreed.
At 4:30 A.M. Joseph and I climbed into the driver’s seats of our vehicles, pulled out of the driveway for the last time, and headed toward the highway.
As I drove away, I could see our beautiful home receding in the rearview mirror. I had designed it myself, believing that we would be bringing many more babies into it, even envisioning our grandchildren running through its spacious rooms. Tears welled up in my eyes as the kids’ playhouse faded into the distance. We had it built three years earlier in the backyard as a miniature copy of our home. It had the same light yellow siding, green shutters, and Cape Cod–style dormers in the roof. My children loved their playhouse as much as Joseph and I loved the bigger one. And now it was all gone.
I was filled with a combination of deep sadness and overwhelming relief. I would miss my friends, but I was finally through with the charade. About a mile down the road I called Joseph on his cell phone.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice sounded low and melancholy. “I can’t believe we’re leaving like this, but we have to stay safe. That’s our number one priority right now.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Somehow his uncertainty made me feel stronger. We were on our way. The impossible was happening.
“You know what we should do? We’re not under the IFB rules anymore, so let’s try to calm ourselves by listening to our new music,” I told him. All my life, Christian contemporary worship songs with a rock beat had been strictly forbidden. Recently, though, I had bought a few CDs and hidden them in the glove compartment in preparation for our escape. At last I was free to listen to whatever music I wanted. The thought triggered a sudden surge of happiness in me.
I heard Joseph fumbling for a CD just like I was. I found a song by a group called Avalon. “I don’t want to go somewhere if I know that You’re not there. Cuz I know to be without You is a lie,” the female vocalist sang. “I don’t want to walk that road, be a million miles from home, cuz my heart needs to be where You are.”
The lyrics were talking about God, but I thought about Joseph and our kids. I didn’t want to go anywhere without them. I listened to that song a dozen times during the trip.
About ten minutes later, Joseph called again. “I can’t believe the fear I’m feeling,” he confessed. For almost twenty-five years, he had believed ardently that the IFB was the only true church on earth. But the harsh reality about my upbringing, the battle with my father, and ugly conflict with the church leaders it sparked had shaken his faith in the sect. Still, he was hesitating. I could hear it in his voice.
“Remember how hard we tried, honey?” I said. “No matter what we did, my father wouldn’t stop. He tried to ruin our lives.”
“But we’re abandoning what we believe,” he blurted out.
“Your bosses screamed at me when I told them about my abuse,” I reminded him. “They called me a liar. And you and I both know that I was telling them the truth!”
“I know, but I’m still so afraid,” he said. “I keep praying that a semi doesn’t hit me head-on.”
After we hung up, we were both rattled. My husband was afraid that God would punish us for forsaking the IFB. I was afraid my father would hunt us down like prey. I was running from something that terrified me, while my husband was running headlong into his worst fears.
13
BREAKING FREE
Northland Baptist Bible College does not have to continue to exist, but we do have to do what is right.
—“Dr.” Les Ollila, Chancellor’s Address, Northland Baptist Bible College/International University, 2006
Feeling Safer in Chicago
For weeks after our move, we waited for the ax to fall. I flinched every time the phone rang, and I half expected to hear the f
urious pounding of my father’s fists on the door at night. Sometimes if a car cruised by too slowly, I would glance at the driver in fear, suspecting that he must be an IFB spy watching our every move. But nothing terrible happened.
Word reached us eventually that the college switchboard operator was telling everyone who called for Joseph that the IFB leaders had no idea where we had gone. We even heard that some cult members were saying I had lost my mind and was dragging my family down to Hell with me.
I no longer cared what they said about us. I was fed up with God. After all I had endured in the name of religion, I wanted no part of it. Joseph, on the other hand, felt our children needed a church to attend, so we became members of Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois. He and the kids dragged me to Sunday services like a conscientious objector to the front. My only solace was that the church had more than twenty thousand in weekly attendance, so I could blend in with the crowd.
During the week, Joseph would come home from his classes at Trinity and find me lying in bed. For those first few months I was so grief-stricken I could hardly get out of my pajamas to participate in any normal activities. A torrent of sexual-abuse memories returned as well—spiraling me into turbulent sobs. Joseph would climb into bed with me and try to console me, but it had little effect.
All IFB Rules Go Out the Window
I had to acknowledge the fact that I couldn’t be a perfect mother and homemaker now; my grief was too all-consuming. I stopped resisting and accepted my shortcomings, but the house went to hell. All the rigidity of the past ten years dissolved. The kids reveled in their newfound freedom and embraced the opportunity to act like children for the first time, watching cartoons, eating pizza and hot dogs, and running around the house with snacks, sometimes leaving a trail of dry cereal in their wake.
I Fired God Page 24