Not Without My Sister (19 page)

New Year 1993 passed, and I was informed that I would be leaving with two of the girls to a home opened for JETTs, or Junior Endtime Teens. Within a week, we were packed off to a military-style JETT training camp. Our shepherd was a huge, ex-special forces African American named Uncle Steven. He carried a whistle around his neck and put us through military exercise drills. I came down with whooping cough and was quarantined. During this time, I received a phone call. To my surprise it was Celeste, who said she was calling to say goodbye. Now that she was eighteen, she had to go to England to confront her backslidden mother. She had asked the shepherds to be allowed to spend a day with me before she left. The request was denied because I had two days left to go before my quarantine period was over. She insisted on phoning instead.
I was too stunned to speak. It was all so sudden, so unexpected. There had been no warning of her departure, nothing to prepare me.
"Are ... are you coming back?" I finally managed to ask. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. I sat in shocked silence. "Hello? Are you there?"
"Yes." A lump was rising in my throat. I found it impossible to speak.
She tried to make small talk, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth and my brain turned to mush. I could think of nothing to say. But I did not want her to hang up, knowing once she did, she'd be gone, for all I knew, forever.
"Julie? Julie? Talk to me." I wanted to tell her not to go, that I did not want to be alone, but all that came out was hot tears running down my cheeks.
"Okay, if you have nothing else to say, I have to hang up, all right? Goodbye ... I love you ... Bye."
When the line went dead, I held the phone to my ear, listening to the high-pitched hum. Somewhere in the distance I heard someone telling me to put it back in its cradle.
I crawled into bed, and prayed for the very first time that I would not wake up.

Kristina

In December 1990, Mum was contacted by Social Services. A fourteen-year-old Swiss boy named Sammy Markos had been caught at Ramsgate, trying to stow away on a ferry to France to get back to his mother. He had no passport, but he was carrying The Emergency Survival Handbook, a Family publication. Immigration officers detained him and he was taken into protective custody. Sammy was terrified of getting the Family and his mother into trouble and refused to acknowledge anyone or answer any questions. He denied he was a member of the group.
Social Services thought Mum would have a better chance of getting him to open up. She took me with her, as I was the same age as Sammy. As soon as we introduced our-selves as former members of the Children of God, he ran into the living room and slammed the door.
Mum asked me to talk to him and I followed him into the games room, picked up the pool cue and said, "Come on! Let the adults talk. Let's have a game!" As we played, his body
language relaxed and a rapport developed between us. I told him the story of my aborted escape when I was ten and showed him the article I wrote for No Longer Children, a magazine for former cult members. I could see in his eyes that he understood me: I spoke the cult jargon and this was a surprise to him.
But once his mother turned up, she called us "devils." She was behaving hysterically and Sammy became frightened. He withdrew again, refused to speak to me and we left. Mum left behind many of our writings and the Deborah Davis book in case he got a chance to read them. By the time the police found the training school he had been living in, everyone had already fled.
Exhausted, Mum and I dozed in the taxi home late that night. We were jolted awake by a loud bang. Wide-eyed and in shock, I realized our car had hit a bollard and spun out of control into a ditch, shattering the windscreen. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and apologized profusely. I was just relieved that no one had been hurt. But the scare stories I was told as a child were still fresh in my mind. The immediate question that came to me was,
Is God punishing us for persecuting the Family? Or is it the devil attacking us for exposing them?
By asking these questions, I began to understand what freedom and true choice really mean.
It was all very well for me to put my past behind me, but I believed it was also important to break the cycle of abuse. Bullies only have power through fear, and by calling them up and speaking out, they would lose their hold. The cult I had been brought up in still existed, with the same teachings and environment that had harmed thousands of families and torn mine apart. It disturbed me to know that emotional andsexual abuse was still happening every day to my friends, my sister and my family left in the group. Evil can only prevail when good people do nothing.
I sincerely believed that it could not just be left to other members of our society, like the parents and ex-members. It had to come from me, and others like me, who had first-hand knowledge as part of the second generation.
Remembering the pain of being parted from Celeste led Mum to make contact with other parents whose children had disappeared. One contact, a Mrs. Willie, invited us to visit her in Switzerland. When we arrived she explained, "My daughter—she's only nineteen—has recently joined the Family."
Mum nodded understandingly. "Her personality has changed drastically?"
Mrs. Willie seemed relieved that we understood. "Yes it has—but even more alarming, she's grown secretive and distant. I'm so worried." She hesitated and looked fraught. "I think she's pregnant. I just don't know what to do."
The only way to find out
, I thought,
is to get inside.
I said tiffs, and Mrs. Willie looked doubtful. "How will you do that? Will it be dangerous?"
I shook my head. "They won't suspect."
Mrs. Willie had friends who lived a couple of streets away from the large commune just outside Berne and took me there. Peering through the hedge of the compound I saw telltale signs of a Family home. An inordinate amount of laundry hung from the lines and endless rows of children's tricycles were parked in the driveway. I made a plan, and walked back to where Mum and Mrs. Willie were waiting.
"I'll get into the home," I told them.
"What? How?"
"I'll make them invite me in," I replied, asking them to show me where the nearest parks to the Home were.
The first park I went to was beautiful, with a brook running through lush grass lined with avenues of trees. Some-thing told me they would be there. To get to the playground, I had to cross the bridge. I waited, looking at my reflection in the water. When I glanced up, I saw around ten young children marching two by two, an adult in front and behind.
They were right on cue.
As they marched past me, I turned around as casually as I could. "Excuse," I said to the woman in front.
"Quelle heure s'il vous plait?"
"Five o'clock," she said with a German accent. She appeared to be friendly.
"Oh, English! Good," I replied. "I am actually from Eng-land."
They would have continued on their way, but I tried to keep the conversation going and commented on the number of children they had.
"Well, we're a Christian school," they replied. "So what brings you here?"
"Just traveling on my year out." I smiled, looking my "sheepy" best—the Family called potential recruits "sheep."
They invited me to join them at the playground and once we had sat down and after some small talk, they asked, "Have you heard about Jesus and that he died to save you from your sins?"
"Yeah, I've heard about religion and stuff I don't know. It's all so confusing." I smiled feebly.
"We're Christian missionaries serving the Lord." I knew the patter, of course, by heart. "We'd give you some leaflets but we didn't bring any with us," one of the women said.
They asked me if I would like to be saved and receive Jesus into my heart. So I prayed the salvation prayer—again.
This is how we must have appeared to outsiders
, I thought.
When one of the women with dark hair called out, "Victor! Lily!" I realized that the woman was Serena, Juliana's mother, who I had seen on Family videos! I had finally met my half brother and sister whom I had only seen in baby photographs. It was a shock and I was very curious; but I had to keep my emotions in check. I had a job to do. I pre-tended to want to learn more about the Family's good works so they would invite me back to their home. Of course, they would not bring a stranger directly back to their "selah"— secret—commune.
After I watched them go, I sat by the lake and cried. I had been tense; but I was also very emotional having met Victor and Lily for the first time in these unusual circumstances, but not being able to say anything.
When I had recovered a little, I ran back to tell Mum I had seen Serena and she might know where Celeste was. Mum was shocked at first and then worried when I told her my new plan, but I convinced her I would be safe.
I wanted to see Victor and Lily again, and possibly find out where Celeste was, so the next day I strode up to their door and knocked. Five minutes later, a little window slid open and a pair of eyes peered out.
"Hello? Who are you?" I was asked.
"Oh, I met Serena and Ruth at the park yesterday and they said they had some pamphlets," I said, my voice full of breezy confidence.
"Oh," the voice said. The flap shut and I stood there waiting.
Eventually, I heard someone fumbling with an array of locks. Serena opened the door to welcome me. Her first question, edged with suspicion, was to ask how I had found the place.
"Oh, I asked someone," I said casually. "Everyone seemed to know where the school was."
She relaxed and smiled and stood back to let me enter. Once inside, it was like I was in a time warp. I could not believe it. I was in!
As the familiar procedure went, the children sang for me. They performed the usual routine, which of course I knew by heart. It took a considerable effort not to join in with the songs.
When the show was over, I gave a hearty clap and made a beeline for Lily and Victor. I chatted with them and ended up bouncing them on my knee. They invited me to stay for dinner and while I ate and listened, I looked casually around—and spotted a young woman who was like the photographs Mrs. Willie had shown me of her daughter. Her pregnancy was obvious. I also looked at the map on the wall because Serena had said her husband was away on "the mission field."
"Mission field?" I asked, hoping she would offer more information.
"Oh yes, Asia," she answered cagily and changed the subject.
Once the door of the commune closed behind me, I ran back to the house where Mum and Mrs. Willie were waiting expectantly. I told Mrs. Willie that I had seen her daughter who was indeed pregnant. Perhaps it wasn't the outcome she had hoped for—but at least, she knew where her daughter was.
Back in England, we got to know Ian Howarth and his wife, Marie Christine, better. Marie Christine had once been in the Children of God. She met David Berg while in the group and told me how his entire room was covered from wall to wall with photographs of naked women and children. She left in 1978 and became an open critic of the cult along with her husband. Though I was only fourteen, I, too, began speaking out against the Family and its practices. I was one of the first of their children to speak out and I gave a number of statements to the police.
Mum was scared that if she aggravated the Family they would never let her see Celeste again, so she made fewer public appearances. After fifteen years in the cult she was also trying to adjust to normal life, and with six young children to look after it was not easy. And it was not easy for me either. Mum realized that I needed some privacy as a teenage girl so I was given the box room—the first room I had ever had all to myself. I joined the school drama club and spent many hours at the local library—anything to take my mind of of the sometimes overwhelming pain I experienced. I was beginning to understand the full extent of my past and the consequences it was having on my present. We were told black was white and white was black and I had a lot of unlearning to do.
I started dating a guy called Bryan. He was three years older than me, confident and bubbly. I was immediately attracted to him. He had beautiful green eyes and I was delighted every time he asked me out. Mum thought I was too young to have a boyfriend, but I wouldn't listen. Bryan tried hard to prove his love. He was very attentive and would cycle seven miles after work to see me. When he took me out, we would have fun together. Being with him distracted me from all that I was dealing with. We fell in love.
Around this time, Dad—my real dad—wrote Mum a letter accusing her of"vilifying and degrading the good work of others, the Children of God, and causing a lot of people to get stirred up over nothing."
Mum was upset and indignant—and perhaps a little sad.
I was outraged at Dad's letter and felt compelled to speak out again and defend my mum, who was being slandered. Even though the letter hurt deeply, I now knew the techniques of mind control the cult used on its members. We had lived in the same environment that surrounded Dad and it was hard for us to blame him for his reaction.
A few weeks later we went to meet Gillian Duckworth, who lived in one of the most exclusive parts of London. Her daughter had recently joined the Family. She was pregnant, and Gillian was concerned over the unborn child's future in an abusive cult. She hoped we could show her daughter the truth and help her to change her mind about the Family. Gillian was very welcoming, but nervous. Over lunch with Gillian and her daughter, Mum started to tell her story, but the daughter would not listen. Mum thought I might be less threatening. I explained what my childhood had been like, that parents had no rights over their children, as the shepherds were in total control.
Gillian "s daughter listened, but said nothing.
We had brought some cult literature, including my copies of
Heaven's Girl
and
Heaven's Children
. I explained how both Berg's daughters and his granddaughter Mene had accused him of having sexual relations with them, and I showed her a drawing of Berg naked in bed with Maria and Techi. I outlined his perverted and incestuous behaviour, which included writing about his fantasy of having sex with his mother. After about two hours, Gillian "s daughter left agitated and angry. Her mother then told us she was going to file for custody of her unborn grandchild, and asked if we would help her by providing evidence. We agreed at once.
Gillian petitioned the court that children in the cult were beaten, denied food, humiliated, forced to stay silent and bullied by adults and peers. I became a key witness in this case, which became one of the longest custody trials in British legal history.
While the court case was in its early stages, the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, went up in flames after a bungled FBI raid, and eighty-six people died, including their leader and prophet, David Koresh. The publicity worried the Family, and they decided to file a defense with the court. But their leaders refused to give evidence in person and face cross-examination.
One morning, I threw up on the way to school. I knew at once I was pregnant, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. By now Bryan and I had split up and I used to hang around with one of my best friends, Jason. I asked him to phone Mum, as I could not face hearing the disappointment in her voice. He told her the news, and she promised she would not be angry and asked him to bring me home. The pregnancy tests were all positive. I went for my first check up and the doctor said I had about two weeks to decide if I wanted an abortion. I knew Christians considered this was murder. But what did I think? I was not used to making choices and this was one of the hardest decisions of my life.
One morning I would wake up and think,
Maybe I should have an abortion, to have a career
. An hour later, I would think, I
want this child
. One night, I dreamed of a little boy and, when I woke up, the indecision was over. I had connected with Ty baby and it was no longer just a fetus. I told Mum, "I'm going to have him."
I called Bryan and told him I had something important to say. We arranged to meet in the park.
"I'm pregnant," I announced.
Once the news sunk in, Bryan seemed pleased.
"I'll be the best father in the world," he promised, smiling from ear to ear. He begged me to take him back. I was impressed.