Not Without My Sister

by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

  Apart from Hosea's two daughters, I was the only other pre-teen girl. I found out that the boys had regular dates with the adult women there, but I was not prepared for when I walked in on Aaron, who was thirteen, having sex with Crystal, their teen shepherdess, on her bed. Embarrassed and disturbed, I quickly closed the door. The boys rivalled for my attention, and constantly teased and badgered me for sex. I was appalled by their behaviour. They made holes in the bathroom walls so they could spy on me. They called me prudish and stuck up. I didn't care. What little natural curiosity I had about sex had turned to disgust, and I made it clear that I was not interested.

  I'll never forget one morning when David came into the kitchen while I was preparing lunch and asked me, "Do girls get horny?"

  "How dare you ask me that," I snapped. "Of course they don't." I had no idea that girls could want sex or that it could be a pleasurable experience. I stormed off in a huff, while he just laughed.

  Everything we read still emphasized sex. A new book was published for teens and pre-teens, called The Basic Training Handbook. In it I read about my friend Armi and the teens in Grandpa's Home, who had gone through a training program led by Sarah Davidito and Maria. The strict discipline, corrections, date schedules and confessions I read about made me glad that I had not been invited.

  During the week, Dad worked with Jeremy Spencer on Life with Grandpa. But on Freeday, we would go out together for walks by the beach. He also taught me to ride a bicycle by holding on to the back of my bike and running alongside me. I fell and cut my leg and knee quite badly—I still have the scars--but he pushed me on even when I got discouraged and almost gave up. It took two days of determination on both our parts, but soon I could pedal off without wobbling. I was beginning to enjoy living with my father for the first time in two years. But after only three months he was unexpectedly summoned back to World Services. When he told me the news, I felt hollow.

  "Oh no! But Dad--why?"

  "I'm going on my own with Jeremy," he said, despondently. "You and Julie have to stay here--but it won't be for long, I promise sweetie."

  "Dad, you know you can't promise anything," I said despondently.

  We spent our last day together at a hotel in town. Macau was a strange mixture of brash excitement--like Hong Kong, which lay a few miles away across the gulf--and antiquity—its old brick buildings reflecting its history as a Portuguese colony dating back to the early seventeenth century. I was happy for the moment, but sad that we were to be parted so soon.

  Eating lunch at a small café table in a cobbled square, I told Dad what was on my mind. "I don't want to stay here without you. I hate Hosea," I burst out. "He scares me."

  "Oh sweetie—" he broke off and looked down, despondent. "I'll see what I can do."

  After lunch, we had a siesta in the hotel room. When I woke up, Dad was not in the room. I heard noises coming from the bathroom, and opened the door a crack. Dad's head was buried in his arms and he was sobbing. I had never seen him cry so hard. I did not want to embarrass him so I crept back to the room and lay back down on the bed. Somehow it made me feel better to see him cry. At least I knew that leaving us hurt him too.

  I don't know if it was Dad's doing, but a month later, Juliana and I were escorted back to the Philippines to what was now called Marianne's Home. A lot had happened during the time I had been away. Paul and Marianne had separated, and Paul had been given a new job as national area shepherd for the Philippines. Marianne's Home had a new mission to Flirty Fish and convert the officers in the Filipino military. No task seemed too big or too outrageous; after all, Jesus was on their side. Mo was adept at using women and sex to influence men in position of power and government.

  The best part of moving back to Marianne's Home was finding Armi there. I had missed her, and being with her again gave me a sense of familiarity. I was also eager to hear about what it was like at the King's House, but she had been sworn to secrecy and could not tell me much. I did notice, however, that she had a gold ring on her finger.

  "Where did you get that?" I asked, curious. She twisted the ring nervously as she shared her secret with me. "Grandpa gave it to me. It's a wedding ring."

  "He made you his wife?" I asked, completely shocked.

  She glanced up into my eyes briefly and I saw so much pain and unhappiness there I could weep with rage.

  She told me the ceremony took place in Grandpa's bed as Maria sat and watched. I shuddered. She was just thirteen when the mock wedding took place.

  "All the girls who went for teen training got a wedding ring."

  "Even Mene?" I whispered.

  "Yes," Armi replied.

  But she's his granddaughter. The thought disgusted me.

  I could tell that there was more she wished she could say, but it was treason to divulge anything about Mo and Maria. If she had been found out, she would have been punished severely. I knew this and didn't push her to tell me more—but it did explain why Krys, another teen girl who lived in our room, had a matching ring like Armi's.

  Sometimes Armi and I would pace the front garden for exercise, when we could exchange a few quick confidences out of the others' hearing. One afternoon I told her a dream I'd had. "It was really weird. I tried to get this large egg and run away with it. And you jumped over the wall to escape."

  She looked at me in surprise. "I have been thinking about running away and finding my parents." She stopped, and glanced over her shoulder as if we could be overheard. Confiding in each other our inner thoughts was dangerous--they'd say we were murmuring and doubting. We were trapped in that world and could do nothing. I could sense her pain and though we never discussed it again, we had a shared empathy and understanding.

  Krys and Armi were put on a regular dating schedule with two adult men, John and Silas. John had been the national area shepherd before Paul took over his job, and Silas was now the shepherd of Marianne's Home's sister commune close by, with his wife Endureth.

  One morning I woke up to the sound of someone throwing up in the bathroom. It was Krys. After a few days Armi and I realized she was showing signs of pregnancy. Our teen shepherd, Wind reported it to Marianne and one of the Home shoppers was sent off to buy a home pregnancy testing kit. The results were positive.

  'Who's the father?" I asked Armi.

  "I think it's John. That's what Krys told me."

  The leaders went into panic alert. Krys was just fourteen. There would be no question of taking her to hospital for pre-natal care. We were told not to discuss her situation with anyone or talk about who the father was. Krys was not allowed out of the house and had to wear baggy clothes to disguise her growing belly.

  I was disgusted. John did not own up to his responsibilities as a father-to-be and it was obvious that Krys was being thrown to the wolves as the scapegoat. In his Letters Mo often referred to the Muslim and Indian cultures of times past, where young girls were married, as an example of how sex with children was legitimate.

  He wrote:

  In India they often had child brides at seven years of age! They can get married at that age! Then they could do all the fucking they want without having to worry about any kids until they are 12 years old! Were getting young teenagers in the Family right now who are old enough to get married and have children. Why can't they have it, huh? Oh she might get pregnant! So what?

  I wanted to throw these letters in the rubbish bin, but instead, we had to sit for hours reading them without question. The reality was that in our world the young girls were used to satisfy the lusts of the men without any thought for the longterm consequences of their actions. Krys would become a single mother before she had a chance to live her own childhood. I was determined not to suffer a similar fate.

  It was now 1987, and Teen Training Camps were being held on every continent, following the blueprint given in The Basic Training Handbook. Some two hundred young members from all over South East Asia attended a camp in Manila for two weeks. Maria and Sarah Davidito orchestrated the camp
s for the teens and pre-teens, as it became apparent that the children were in need of indoctrination into the beliefs of the Family. Brazenly, we were told, "Yes, we're brainwashing you--washing your brain clean of the Devil's influences and replacing it with the Word."

  When I arrived at the camp, I was shown to a "girls" room" often other girls in my little group. We were called the "Lovelights." Each team had their own shepherd, whose job it was to monitor the teens twenty-four hours a day. I was excited to meet so many other young people, but we had little time to talk. In the morning we lined up single file and marched to the dining hall for breakfast. Our days were filled with classes, inspirations and, memorization. Loyalty to the Family and "David our King" was emphasized in skits and songs, and we all had to memorize and sign a pledge of dedication to our prophet and Maria. Every night before bed we wrote reactions and confessions in an Open Heart Report. Willingness, humility, and submission to leadership and God were the qualities we were supposed to strive for, in preparation for our calling to become future leaders of the world. It all seemed so surreal.

  We had it drummed into us that we were "It"--the best place on earth to be. I had never known what the alternative was, but the adults told us horror stories of tragedy, pain, and emptiness before joining the Family and I concluded that no matter how bad I had it, it must be ten times worse in the System.

  Before we left, we all filled in a lengthy questionnaire that asked intimate details about every aspect of our lives. "We want you to be completely honest because these questionnaires will be sent to Grandpa and Maria to read," our teen shepherd told us. This was our chance to say what we felt and to be heard. I dutifully and trustingly wrote down my inner thoughts, as well as the traumatic sexual experiences I had suffered, including names and when it had happened.

  Shortly after we returned from camp, Marianne read everyone a memorandum from Maria and Sarah Davidito. I had not been the only girl to report bad sexual experiences, and this, together with a number of teen pregnancies, alarmed the leaders. However, they were careful not to blame Mo, the prophet.

  We were told, "There is nothing wrong with the Law of Love, but sexual contact between adults and children is now discouraged"--not banned, but "discouraged." I sighed with relief. I did not care about the doctrine, I was just glad that we did not have to practise it anymore.

  But I was wrong. The new laws were meaningless, as I was shortly to find out.

  I had first been molested as a child of six by Peruvian Manuel in Greece, on the back double bed of Silas and Endureth's caravan. He and his wife Maria had gone with us to Sri Lanka during the big exodus. Now, they were living in our sister Home, run by Silas and Endureth. We would go over every week for Sunday fellowship, and I often went to visit Renee and Daniella and we went out busking together. Peruvian Manuel was always flirtatious and eyeing me up while I was there which made me very uncomfortable. He came over to our house one day and stayed the night. He was given the bottom bunk in my room because Armi had gone on a trip for a few days. I was extremely nervous. Childhood memories flooded back to haunt me as I clambered on to the top bunk and closed my eyes.

  A few minutes later, he came into the room and started stroking my back. I kept my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. He did not get the hint, and reached down to my vagina and pushed his finger inside.

  "You're so sexy, you know that?" he whispered in my ear.

  I lay there rigid and opened my eyes. "Leave me alone. You can't do this," I said, referring to the new memorandum.

  He placed his mouth on mine and forced his tongue in, while still pushing his finger up me more ardently. I was scared and hated confrontation, but I refused to be bullied into this. "No! No! No!" I hissed through gritted teeth. "You know it's against the rules." I pulled away from him and closed my mouth tight. After a moment or two he backed off.

  "Okay...," he said, but lingered. I stiffened my body. He let out a sigh and went down to the bottom bunk. I lay awake for the longest time, my heart beating hard as I heard him masturbating. When I was sure he was asleep, I closed my eyes but had a fitful night's sleep.

  In the morning, I got up, grabbed my clothes and went to the bathroom to get dressed. Later that day, I found Marianne sitting by the pool, and asked if I could speak with her. I naively believed that if I reported it, he would be dealt with. Marianne showed no sign of shock, or even disapproval. All she said was, "I'll speak to him about it." She never mentioned the incident to me again, and I was left to wonder why or what happened. I concluded that these new rules were meaningless because the leaders were not going to enforce them.

  Indeed, the one who would be corrected was me. Soon afterwards, Marianne called me to her room and sat me down on a chair in the corner of the room. She and another leader, Zadok, sat opposite me.

  "You have some deep, spiritual problems," Marianne started. "We are very concerned about you and you need to be honest. You have a problem with spacing out a lot and daydreaming. Idleness is the Devil's workshop."

  I never quite figured out what "spacing out" actually meant, but it was borrowed from hippie lingo when someone was on drugs and had a blanked-out look on their face. If I didn't hear what someone said, or if I was not busy doing something, or simply looking out the window, an adult would snap, "Celeste! Stop spacing out." ...

  "What are you thinking about when you daydream?" Marianne asked.

  I was at a loss as how to reply to her question. "Nothing. I don't think about anything really."

  She looked puzzled, then asked me again what thoughts I had been thinking. She warned me how serious a crime daydreaming was, and reminded me of "The Last State" Letter about Mene. We had read the Letter at the Teen Training Camp. She had been a "daydreamer" and this led to her thinking evil things about her Grandfather, the letter said. The violence in the letter scared the living daylights out me. It described how Mene had come into his room and Grandpa had greeted her with a kiss and then had suddenly grabbed her and shook her violently while speaking in tongues. He'd beaten her with a rod and rebuked the devils and demons out of her. I was even more shocked when he accused her of betrayal, saying he had taken her into his bed and yet she had the gall to criticize him and refuse him.

  She was his flesh and blood, and he had sex with her? Even though we were told that "all things were lawful unto us" incest was a step too far for me to accept.

  In "The Last State," Grandpa also accused Mene of being insane and gave Sarah Davidito and Peter Amsterdam, his third in command, permission to beat her whenever she had bad thoughts and to tie her to her bed at night. I could not understand how the perfect girl who had been our role model could have changed so drastically into a sinful monster, possessed by the Devil who warped her mind with murderous thoughts.

  After Mene, the leaders were convinced that there were other potential doubters and dissenters. Because Mene had been the good girl, all the good kids were under suspicion too. I worked hard and tried my best to keep the rules, but Marianne had it in for me in her room that day and would not give up until I had confessed to some crime.

  I could not think of anything to confess to. "I don't space out," I insisted. "I'm not imagining or seeing anything."

  Frustrated she paused, and then looked angrily at me. "Well, that's even worse! The Devil is speaking to you and you don't even know it."

  I could not believe such nonsense. I let out a laugh, and then stifled it quickly. But not quickly enough.

  "You think it's funny?" Zadok chided. "This is serious and the Devil is out to destroy you. If we don't break you, God will have to do it. And believe me, that is so much worse."

  Then came what I believe was the real reason for the correction. Marianne had been given the reports I had written at the camp and these showed, she claimed, that I had been harboring bitterness against God and "my brothers in the Lord." She told me I needed to forgive those I felt had wronged me. She also accused me of making an idol of Dad in my heart. She had heard reports from people
in the Home that I had been talking about missing my dad. This was proof I had made an idol of him. I had to forsake him and give him to God.

  "God is a jealous God," she scolded, "and he will have no other gods before Him."

  I treasured Dad's rare letters and read them over and over again when I missed him. The hope that I would see him again kept me going. Now she was telling me I had made him an idol that I needed to destroy. This attack was the final straw, the hurt nerve that could not be touched. I broke down into tears. How could I forget my own father? All my feelings of abandonment and loss of the person I loved most in the world burst out, and I could not control it. I desperately wanted to hold back the tears but couldn't.

  This display of emotion satisfied Marianne that she had finally broken my pride and rebellious spirit. She pronounced my "sentence"; I would have to spend the next month in isolation, reading and writing reactions to Mo Letters on rebellion, yieldedness, submission and demon possession. I would have an adult "buddy" who would read with me—I was not allowed to talk to anyone else.