"I want us to separate," he started.
Mum nodded. "Yes, I know. Well, I don't see why, not-"
His next words took the wind right out of her sails. "I want Jonathan, Rosemarie, and Kiron. I'm taking them."
"What?" Mum gasped. I almost sat bolt upright but managed to keep still while I listened.
"They're mine. And by the way Nina is to go to The Jumbo in the Philippines. You have to sign a power of attorney to keep things legal."
Mum didn't seem to take it in. She repeated, "The Philippines?"
Joshua continued, telling her that all the Family children had to be trained for the Last Days. The directives said that they were to be sent permanently to different training camps, and parents would only be allowed to visit them for two hours on Sundays. As usual he was blind to the pain of this unnatural separation. In fact he was keen to ensure that close family ties could not jeopardize the higher loyalty demanded by the group and kept waving the letter that ordained my future under Mum's nose for her to sign.
Losing Celeste had hurt Mum deeply and she had prayed every day for God to bring her children back. Now that she finally had six of us under one roof for the first time in years, here was this brutal man telling her "no, half of them are mine and I want them—and your daughter Kristina belongs to the Family." She was expected to sign the rest of her children away.
"I'm tired. I'll sign the papers later," she said. She knew that the philosophy of the group was to take children away from backslider parents and hand them over to the Family. Some children had been separated for years—and some never saw their parents again and had no idea where they were because their names had been changed.
On our third day as Joshua was sleeping, Mum came into our room and whispered to us, "Let's go out and give Dad some peace and quiet." Then, she ushered us quietly out of the front door.
She had no clear plans and it was too cold and windy to go to the park, so she took us to the local library, where we all sat down in a huddle around one of the tables there. Her next words were electric. I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
She looked at each one of us as she whispered, glancing over her shoulder as if the books had ears and would explode out of their shelves to batter us, "I've changed my mind about Grandpa. I don't believe that he really is a true prophet of God."
I sat back and gasped. Something started to grow in me like a seedling about to flourish with hope. I hardly dared to take in her words.
Mum spoke hurriedly, trying to get all her words out before her courage failed, or we were snatched away by Joshua or a Family spy. "A couple of months ago I went into the local Christian bookshop. I opened a book on religious cults, spotted an inaccurate fact, and immediately shut it. I was so brainwashed I thought it was demonic. The shop also stocked a book by Mo's daughter, Deborah Davis. It was called The Children of God."
I nodded, remembering the Mo Letter about it.
Mum continued. "I was scared. I almost felt that demons might be hitchhiking in it. I hesitated, opened it, then put it down. I knew that Mo had said that the book was taboo, writ-ten by his eldest daughter who had turned against him."
"What did you do then?" I asked.
Mum said, "I was overcome with curiosity, and a few days later I went back. I was so scared I was trembling. I glanced around anxiously, wondering whether a lightning bolt would strike me dead. I stood there for ages, walked around again, but that book drew me like a magnet. I had to have it. Finally, I grabbed it and walked quickly to the counter before I changed my mind. It was forbidden fruit-but I had to taste it. I found myself at the counter still trembling so hard I could scarcely count out the money. I paid and hurried out of the door."
Mum started to read the book that very night, and she read long into the morning, mesmerized, shocked, disgusted, and then convinced. "I could hardly believe what I was reading, but I knew deep in my gut it was true. It was extremely painful to realize I had been deceived for so many years. The Bible says, The truth will set you free,' and for me that book
did just that." She looked around at us all as she quoted, "I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, "I had a dream..." these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds.–
I nodded. I knew the Bible backwards and knew that quote. "And that is Mo, a lying prophet, a false prophet," I said. The veil that had been slipping for years finally fell from my eyes.
Like Mum, I too realized we had been deceived, con-trolled, and manipulated. When she said she wanted to leave Joshua and the Family, a weight was taken off me and tears stung my eyes. There was no argument from me. Like her, I wanted a life in which we did not have to answer to harsh shepherds or deal with our irrational and domineering step-father. I was exhilarated and scared at the same time—for us and for Mum, who was shaking like a leaf.
I will always admire the heroic actions of my mother that day. I know how hard it was for her to listen to her voice that had been suppressed for so long and find the courage to break free on her own. But the impetus had been the threat of losing us. She told me she had to go somewhere and left me in charge of my brothers and sister.
It was strange, sitting among all the children's books and thinking over everything she had said. Nervously, I looked at the clock. Over an hour had passed since Mum left.
I thought, "I'm all alone with five children, I hope nothing bad happens."
I kept on looking at the door. People came in, chose books, checked them out, walked out of the Exit; but there was still no sign of Mum.
Time ticked by slowly. I was growing more anxious.
After what felt like hours, Mum finally rushed in. From her face, I could tell it was good news. She explained that she had contacted a women's refuge she had read about. A white van was waiting outside to take us to their center in London. We put our books away and rushed out like spies and jumped in the van. I still couldn't believe that this was happening.
When we arrived at the refuge, to our dismay, we found there were no facilities and they did not seem interested in helping us. We were told to wait in a bare room, which had two chairs and a couple of broken toys. They had no place for us to sleep that night. I felt my courage ebbing away. Please, please, don't make us go back to Joshua and the flat, I prayed silently.
Mum's only option was to call her parents and she returned from the phone, looking tense but relieved. "Yes, they want us," she said simply.
The women's refuge arranged for a van to take us halfway to the Midlands where our grandparents and Auntie Caryn were waiting. Granny cried at seeing us again. She hugged us all, and said, "Thank God, thank God." We had not eaten all day, so they bought us something to eat and drink. We were shattered and fell asleep as soon as we got to their house.
Once we were safely at our grandparents, Mum took the train back to London. She returned to the flat with two volunteers from the women's refuge. They climbed the stairs to the flat, quietly put the key in the lock and went in. She was relieved to find Joshua was not there and gathered as many of our belongings as she could carry. The next day she sent Joshua a letter explaining what she had done.
The only thing Mum was determined about was that somehow she would find and rescue her lost daughter—Celeste. It had been over ten years but not a day had passed when she hadn't thought about her.
Mum asked me not to talk too much about the cult at school or in front of our family. This wasn't hard to do as my whole life had been about living a double life. It was easier in some ways as my grandparents never asked about our past and we were so busy getting on with an uncertain future. Mum was worried that Joshua knew where we probably were, and at any time the Family could swoop down and snatch us children, so two weeks after we had arrived, Granny and Granddad arranged for us to go to Butlins Holiday Camp in Skegness. They rented a chalet for us and one for themselves. Joshua would never think of looking for us there. Once we had been paranoid of being around Systemites; now the tab
les had turned and we were paranoid of being found by Joshua. (Mo always made it clear that kidnapping the children of a blackslidden partner or spouse was necessary for the children's sake.) I would take the boys swimming in tie pool every day-but otherwise, there wasn't a lot to do. Time passed slowly.
Two weeks earlier we had been in the Indian summer. Now, the wind off the North Sea bit hard and stung my face; the chill seemed to reach right into the marrow of my bones as I walked along the empty beach fighting the wind, squinting out to a sea that seemed one with the murky gray above. I had no winter clothes, so Auntie Caryn gave me some of her old jumpers and skirts. In Family style, my hair was very long with a center parting. I asked if I could have it cut. I was desperate to look different so I would not be recognized and bundled into the back of a van by the cult. Besides which, the novelty of going to a hairdresser's for the first time was exciting. I loved my new style cut into a bob with a fringe.
After two weeks we left Skegness for a women's refuge in Matlock in the Peak District. Once there, Mum gave me Deborah Davis's book—the one she had bought with fear and trembling in the bookshop. I read it through in one go. For months it was our main topic of conversation. I was shocked to hear that David Berg--the man I no longer thought of as Grandpa Mo-tried to get into bed with Deborah, his eldest daughter, after crowning her queen. I remembered the Mo Letter in which Berg goosed his youngest daughter, Faithy, under the table.
"You read that?" Mum was shocked.
"Of course." I answered. "I read everything in the Mo Letter trunk many times over."
Worried, Mum asked me if anything sexual had ever happened to me I relayed to her how I had been sexually and physically abused and she cried, feeling terrible. Devastated, she picked up the phone to call Joshua, enraged at what he had done to me.
"How could you have done that to our daughter?" she raged.
"Well, she always had orgasms!" he answered lightly.
Mum gasped at his flippant tone and I could see she was sickened to her stomach. "That vile, hateful man! How could I have not seen—I am so sorry."
"It's okay, Mum," I said, not wanting her to flail herself over what was in the past. "We're free now."
"Yes, finally, free," she said. "I was so young, so blind. So many wasted years."
We were told it could take months, even years, to get a council house. Granny and Granddad—bless them!—decided to sell their house and bought two smaller ones; one for them and one for us. I was excited because, of course, we had never really had a home of our own.
I was enrolled in school but the challenges I faced there were different from anything the cult had prepared me for. I started in the second year, and my brothers were enrolled in the local infant and junior schools. There was so much to learn and as a child who was born into a cult I had no past references. Mum helped me with the many gaps in my knowledge and I did my best to adjust.
I spoke English with an American accent and my vocabulary was completely different to that of my school mates; I knew words they did not and could quote the Bible back-wards, but there were hundreds of things they said which made no sense to me. I felt stupid at times and they thought me odd. But I enjoyed learning. I spent many Saturdays reading reams of books in the local library.
One day as I was walking home with a classmate, I asked her why she was looking sad. She told me it was her birthday.
"Oh! Are you having a party?" I enquired.
"No," she said, sighing, "My parents are Jehovah's wit-nesses and we don't celebrate birthdays or Christmas."
That was a surprise to me. I had just come out of a cult and this was the first time I realized there were others like me. I told her I understood, because I had been brought up like that in a religious group too, and my mum had taken me out of it last year. She was never allowed to speak to me again.
Mum became something of an activist. She was put in touch with a man named Ian Howarth, who had started an organization called CIC (Cult Information Center), and in turn he put her in touch with former members as well as Graham Baldwin from Catalyst, a counseling service that deals with cult survivors. We also attended FAIR (Family Action Information and Resource) meetings and seminars. FAIR was set up in 1976 and provides up-to-date information and help for families and friends. We started researching and reading about the cult phenomenon. Though Mum had very little money, she ordered forty copies of Deborah Davis's book to send to her old friends in the group.
As soon as we left the Family we were shunned, of course. Mum was worried that if we spoke out, it would be even harder to make contact with Celeste. We wrote to Dad and Celeste many times. I told them how I had been abused and that the "Law of Love" had hurt me. Dad never replied and I had no idea if he even got my letters, as all letters from outsiders were screened and "doubts of the enemy" inked out.
Celeste was only fourteen and still at the heart of the cult and vulnerable. Mum sued for custody of her, but that did not mean much as neither the authorities nor we had any idea where she was. The judge made Celeste a ward of court. Sam Ajeiman, who had left the cult in 1978—ten years before we did—worked with Mum to produce a booklet, "Searching for Celeste," and we went on a few radio and TV programs and did a number of interviews. Our aim was to ask for help in tracking her down. Through the UK Home Office, the police and Interpol had her details and were on the look-out for her, but they failed to locate her.
I was upset Dad didn't reply to my letters; instead he issued open letters and statements to the press. He accused Mum of selling her soul to the Devil and how dare she persecute God's Family? He claimed that there was never any inappropriate sexual contact between adults and children, and that he lived in the most loving Family he knew.
How could he still believe that?
Angry and outraged, I replied in an open letter to the British press, asking how Dad, Joshua and the Family could deny our experiences, and tell such blatant lies.
In my letter I wrote:
I have read your open letter. I am sorry it has had to come out like this, especially in public . . . what you and my stepfather have said is not true. You have to remember that I was in the COG not too long ago and I know how it works. I want to tell you that I am really hurt that my own father doesn't believe I was sexually abused . . . When I was younger I used to wish that you'd come and rescue us. I was proud to tell my friends that you were my father. But your letter bought me to tears-it is hard to believe that my own father could say such things ... You also need to understand that the reason my mother has spoken out is to warn others because she doesn't want them to fall into the same trap. Please give Celeste my love. I hope you have not turned her away from me or Mum. Please ask her to write as we have not heard anything for years. I love you, Daddy, but not what you are doing.
It was all I could do. Now we had to wait for Celeste to some-how hear the messages we were beaming to her in every way we knew, and respond.
Part 4
Chapter 15
Juliana
"You're not singing with your whole hearts!" He slammed his hand down on the guitar so suddenly my heart gave a little jump. What would he do this time? I never knew with Uncle Willing. He was unpredictable in everything; his tem-per would be set off by the smallest things, and usually when least expected. It was impossible to gauge his moods, and I was in no way an amateur when it came to reading our teach-ers. I feared Uncle Willing more than the rest of them. It was his eyes. They were wild. He always had spittle coming out of his mouth when he spoke, his nose had been broken so many times, it resembled a hawk beak, but mostly it was his beady black eyes and the crazed look in them.
Uncle Willing loved pounding out all the old Family songs on the guitar as we belted out the lyrics to his less-than-rhythmic strumming. The racket was deafening. He had the oddest habit of powdering the guitar neck and his hands throughout our "inspirations," when we had to sing wholeheartedly at the highest decibel level possible. To sing too, quietly meant you were not "enterin
g into the spirit" and that could warrant punishment. Tonight he'd decided we were going to have an inspiration before bed. So we sat cross-legged on the floor in our pajamas, singing endlessly, and we were all tired.
"The next person who I don't hear singing loud and clear is getting the paddle!" he threatened. Before the night was over, he'd singled out three boys to get the board.
Uncle Willing liked administering the paddle. His face would distort into an angry grimace, his thin lips pulled tautly back revealing crooked teeth, his nostrils flared wide. It was the same face he made when he was having sex, so I wondered whether he enjoyed beating our naked bottoms. I thought it likely.
"You can be certain of getting two things here," he would say laughing and tapping the paddle against his palm. "Room and Board!"
Only a week after my dad dropped Celeste and me at the huge Bangkok Training Center I was given my first board by Uncle Willing for rebellion. My rebellion became apparent when I refused to call my new foster parents, Joseph and Talitha, "mummy" and "daddy." Although I was glad they placed me with a family I had known as a child, I was weary of having yet one more set of "parents" whom I only spent time with once a week when I was meant to show some kind of filial devotion. My daddy was coming back for me soon; he said so. Why should I get new parents?
Not Without My Sister Page 18