exFamily.org was founded by a group of volunteer former members of The
Family (a.k.a. the Family of Love, Children of God and other pseudonyms),
and has a threefold purpose:
to be a dynamic resource of information about the Family of Love (a.k.a. Children of God and other pseudonyms)
to provide tools which enable convenient access to that information
to help current and ex members to process their past to move on and create their future
We wanted to create a site with honest and truthful information about The
COG/FOL/Family for the benefit of the public
and to create useful resources for members and ex-members. We own this information
and know it intimately because we are a part of its history.
Our team has included professionals from many fields such as: IT-management, communications,
software development, media, management, counseling, legal, medical, mental health,
academia, criminology, educational and information research.
We have pooled our skills together with the aim of providing truthful and accurate
information about The Family; to maintain a dynamically updated site with resources
helpful to recovering ex-members and researchers; and to make access to our resources
as convenient as possible.
Our volunteers have tirelessly put together as much information as they could
garner to arm the general public with the knowledge they would need in order to
recognize these alternative religious groups, especially in regards to The Family,
which we have first hand experience with. Each individual donated their services
free of charge and expects nothing in return except for the satisfaction of knowing
that they have performed a useful service for the innocent and unsuspecting populace.
Most of us have very busy lives, trying to live in the aftermath of TF, having
given away precious years of our lives and not doing anything for the long-term
good of ourselves and our loved ones. We appeared out of nowhere, with no
education or employable skills, and lots of mouths to feed, trying
to re-integrate into society, one that was supposed to end no later than 1993...
Like many exmembers, we managed somehow to make something of ourselves. Yet, we
live with the results of decisions we made years ago, to adhere to a belief system
that caused us to neglect ourselves.
The volunteer staff at exfamily.org are a helpful bunch, who are concerned with
furnishing the services on this site, and who do a lot to contribute. But rather
than create yet another (ex-member) "cause" to sacrifice ourselves to,
we all come and go as we please, and contribute whenever we can. It's hard to
have to re-immerse ourselves in cult-related issues when we're trying to leave
them behind - while we may need to process our past, coming back again and again
to cult and ex-cult issues can be hard on the post-cult psyche.
With that in mind, we ask for your patience and understanding, as we try to assist
with the continual updating of our site, and management of ex-member resources.