My Life Growing Up in the Family (Queued for deletion per request)

My name is John Paul and I am 20 years old and have decided to write aboutmy experiences in The Family, my views and perspectives on growing up inthis group and about my life generally before and after leaving the group.

I guess I don't really know where to start, but I guess I should give you alittle bit of background information about myself. I was born in England in1980 to English T. and Icelandic S. I have one brother, C. who is 4 yearsolder than me and is currently still in The Family although I do not know ofhis whereabouts. My parents were involved in the video ministry around thetime I was born, and we moved to Hong Kong and Macau when I was veryyoung and then to Thailand when I was 2 years old. My earliest memories ofdaily life were when I was 3-4 years old when we lived in "The Combo" inBangkok. I guess I should start from the beginning or what I can remember.

I remember the Combo vividly, and my memories of it were happy ones, Iwas a happy and content child. I do think that this was before The Familyreally went astray as far as children were involved and their upbringing.Anyway, I remember that the Combo shutdown sometime aroundSeptember/October 1985, and that we moved into this home with Isaiah fromNew Zealand and his children and then to another home with a Canadiancouple with a lot of children, and then shortly after to Hat Yai. I think that thiswas when the problems started.It must have been late 1986 by this time, and we were living in this homewith French John & Meekness and my parents. From this point forward, mywhole life just somehow continued to get worse and worse, I do not knowwhy but I was always getting in trouble, always doing something wrong, andhad turned into some problem child. I have asked my mother what happenedand why everything just went downhill at this time, and she says that I juststopped listening to anyone and just did my own thing and turned from beinga lovely child into a problem child.

Now I am sure that anyone who remembers me from The Family, at anytime will have a totally different story to tell than me, but this is just life frommy perspective. I remember that we started getting visits from people aroundthis time, and everything just seemed to be getting stricter and stricter, forexample we had always been allowed to play outside and be quite free andjust were allowed to have fun, but everything somehow started to change.After we had been in Hat Yai for about a year I think, we moved to Bangkokto a home called the "RC" (Reception Centre).

I was now 7 years old I think and things had not gotten better, and also Ihad very poor health at this time which also made things very difficult. I remember that it was at this time that we were no longer allowed to sleep in our parents room, and remember how I used to demand this and how unfair I thought it was, but this was just an example of how The Family was tightening up.

I am not sure of exactly how long we were at the "RC" but it must not have been long before we moved to a new home called the "SC" (Service Centre) and it was there that things changed completely with the "School vision". I don't have much to say about this home before the School vision took effect completely but I will continue from that point.

The School Vision

I remember that we were all called together for a big meeting where there was to be a big announcment. We were told that we were all the children from all over the country were to be grouped together in different homes and that there were to be 4 different groups. JeTTS (11-13/14), Junior JeTTS (10-11), Belwethers (8 - 10) and Super Dupers (6 - 8). I was 8 years old at the time and was put in the Belwether group. I was very happy to hear that we would be remaining in the same home, but this home was not going to be selah anymore, and also that my mother was to be one of the Belwether teachers which made me very happy as well. After a few weeks all of the other children had come to the home and the older and younger ones had left.

At first everything seemed fine and I was having fun being with so many children my own age but this is when I received my first blow. I was put on silence restriction for being "foolish". Still to this day I do not fully understand this term, as being silly and frivolous is something that is perfectly normal and to be expected of children but anyway, after I was put on temporary silence restriction and spanked heavily on multiple occasions, I was called in for a meeting with the "Home shepherds" and my parents. I already knew that I was in big trouble, although I do not know what for but I was called into the meeting and it was explained to me that my mouth was like a sewer and that it was not possible to let me influence all of the other children constantly, so I was being put on permanent silence restriction and that I would have to wear a sign saying "I am on Silence Restriction, and something to the effects of I'm dangerous, don't talk to me". I cannot remember the exact wording, and that I was to wear a mask as a sign o everybody of my spiritual illness. I can still remember the feeling of utter despair when I was told of this as I was also told that I would not be allowed to speak to anyone but "David" who was one of the Belwether shepherds, but we'll go into more detail regarding him later.

After a couple of days, David had handsown a white mask for me which I was to wash daily and wear at all times. This totally shattered my self respect as I was a sort of natural leader and it was easy to get other children to follow what I thought was cool and funny and all of a sudden I was the laughing stockof the group. I remember that one time I hid the mask because I could not bear wearing it and David improvised quickly and tied a large diaper around my mouth which was really even worse and told me that I would be spanked hard if I did not find it (which I of course did very quickly). I remember at this time that I acted even worse and tried to do things to draw attention to myself and just act like a idiot because I was already portrayed as one and at least maybe I could get the other children to laugh with me when I defied the teachers and did things that they would not dare do but of course this only made matters worse for me.

About two months had passed, and the leadership had decided that the Belwether group were to move to Chonburi. This meant that I would be moving away from my parents for the first time, and we were to get to see our parents once a month which was of course very difficult but since everybody else was doing the same thing I guess that made it easier. Well, with all the moving going on and all the changes my Silence Restriction somehow got forgotten. I stopped wearing my mask and nobody seemed to say anything about it, and I think I even stopped wearing my sign and thought that everybody had forgotten about it and that the mask had gotten lost somehow, but oh was I wrong. When we moved to Chonburi, a few days later David called me in and explained to me that I was like a cut that had healed but still was full of dirt and impurities and that it would need to be re-opened in order for it to heal completely. I then knew exactly what he was talking about and my heart sunk. He produced the mask and the sign which I thought had been lost and told me that I was back on Silence Restriction and everything would continue as it was before the move.

This was absoutely horrifying for me. I was in a new home with new people which I did not know and was walking around with this horrible mask and sign on. I started contemplating suicide and one time I opened a bottle of AJAX and tried to eat loads of it but nothing happened.

I watched as others were put on silence restriction, and taken off very quickly, and had decided at this point that I really needed to work on my problems (my NWO's) (need work ons) and started trying to write really detailed OHR's (Open Heart Reports) about how I was learning all these lessons and was really getting the victory, but nothing seemed to happen, I was still on silence restriction and still wearing my mask. I then gave up hope completely and started to do really idiotic things just to draw attention to myself, I used to walk up the stairs like a spastic and just do stupid things. One time during "Word Class" I had requested to use the bathroom which was denied but I really needed to. I waited and waited but I knew if I would run off then I would be spanked so I decided to shock them and pee all over the floor,.. I know this is disgusting but I was happy with myself for having shocked them because I could see that it had some effect on them.

After a month or so of my antics, David had a "chat" with me and explained that my name (John Paul) was too proud of a name for me and that I was to be called "John" from then on. This was so strange for me because my name is John Paul and not John. This was to me similar to calling "Simon" "Si" because "Simon" is "too proud". I remember that I found this very difficult and when I told my parents about it, they found it absolutely ridiculous, but somehow we weren't supposed to tell our parents about what was going on at Belwether camp, everything that happened was all a part of our training.

Anyway, one time when we went back to visit our parents, I refused to go back and just was not going to, no matter what anyone said, but I was spanked and thrown in the car to be sent back to Belwether school. I eventually got taken off Silence Restriction on the 14'th of December 1989, and I remember this date so well because I engraved it into a tree on the property, it was such a meaningful day in my life. After a little while we were all informed that we were being sent back home because of "persecution" which was the raid at the Training Centre in Bangkok. I was so happy to be able to go back to the SC without the "Belwether group" and life was actually quite nice for a while.

My Move to Junior JeTT School

We were all back home and things were quite nice actually, we were with our parents again and the children that had gone on to Junior JeTT school before me (I didn't get to go when I turned 9 because I was still on silence restriction and a problem) were there as well which was nice.

We lived there at the SC for a couple of months when we were called in again and told that we would be returning to school. I was also informed that I would not be going back to Belwether school, but would be going to Junior JeTT school which I was very excited about. I must say at this point that the Junior JeTT school was run very professionally and well. Our teachers would go out of their way to do things for us and looking back, although it was strict with silence restrictions and corporal punishment, it was nevertheless fair and we were treated well. The teachers there, Paul of Filipino Rachel, Stephen of Filipino Faith and Charity of James were all very nice. I hope that I'm not forgetting anyone. I really don't know what to say about the time that I spent at the Junior JeTT school other than it was a time that I remember when I was not treated as the problem child, and when I had a lot of fun and enjoyed myself.

For example, we moved from Sukumvit Soi 14 to this new house that they had basically built from nothing. (later to be known as JeTT II) They rented an old mini supermarket which had no rooms inside and built everything which was inside the house and we really felt a part of the whole operation with helping out and getting everything set up. Well, as everything good must come to an end, we were told that we were to be sent home again, and I remember that all of us children really found this to be terrible news, but it was explained to us that we had finished our training as Junior JeTTs and were being sent home as good examples of our training which made us feel quite important and that we had to show people what we'd learned and how much we'd matured and changed.

A few weeks later we were back at the SC, but this time I can't really say anything good about my time there, I can't recall whether the SC had become JeTT I by this time or not but that is very probable. When we arrived back to our dismay, David (from Belwether school) was to be our supervisor / teacher. David at this time was to say the least - horrible. I remember that one time we wanted to surprise him so we told him to expect a surprise when he woke up. We woke up early and hid under his bed and were going to spring out and say "We love you or something of the sort, but when we sprung out from under his bed he got very angry and spanked us very extensively for this. This made me and the other boy (David of HappyHeart / Tina) feel very betrayed and bad and I remember that I contemplated killing David (the tearcher) on many occasions. I remember how I used to think about pulling out a kitchen knife when we were doing the dishes and plunge it into his back. I remember thinking what would happen to me afterwards and whether I would get away with it because I was still underage legally or whether they would just cover the whole thing up, but thankully things never got beyond the point of thinking. I was although still the problem child and would be until I left The Family, but things were only to get worse.

Thinking back I think that a big problem with me was that I found "Word Time" to be horribly boring and would never listen and would just sit through it all the time and pretend to be interested. It was also a requirement to get at least 2 hours of solid group word time because of the School Vision and all and we were made to write detailed OHR's explaining our feelings and what we had learned from the word read and this was always a problem for me because I never learned anything. I used to rack my brain trying to come up with some stuff which would make the shepherds think that I was learning a lot and all and I think I actually got quite good at it towards the end.

Anyway, time passed and I was 11 years old which meant that it was time for me to join the JeTT school. This was very frightening for me as the JeTT shepherds at the time were ones that everybody was scared of, especially one called "Steven Vessel" who was known throughout the JeTT realm to be extremely strict and to be feared, and fear him we did. I was told that I would be joining the JeTT group and did so. I remember that there was one boy there who had been on silence restriction for as long as I could remember and I was afraid of getting the same punishment as him, because I had never ceased to be a problem child and was extremely scared of being sent to a Victor programme. When I had been in the JeTT group for about 2 weeks, I was called in for a talk with some of the JeTT shepherds and this is when my worst nightmare became reality.We had all heard terrible stories about the Victor Programmes and how JeTT school was like heaven compared to them so we had good reason to be scared of these programmes. I was then informed that I was to be sent, along with another girl to the Victor Programme at the Thai Training Centre in a weeks time.

I was very frightened at this time, and looking back, the fear of being sent to a Victor Programme was similar to the fear of ever being sent to prison today. Also all of the publications at this time revolved somehow around Victor Programmes and the DTR (Discipleship Training Revolution) which I'm sure that you all remember vividly and really painted the picture black. Also, some of my friends which I grew up with at the SC and before had been or were in the Victor Programme and I was so happy that I had "escaped" this horrible thing for so long, but sure enough I arrived at the Training Centre in Bangkok shortly afterwards and was put into the "New Models" Victor Programme.

This programme basically was like this. We were not allowed to communicate with anyone who was not in the programme as well, even though we were not on silence restriction, which was imposed on us frequently. We watched the videos from the Japan victor programmes constantly and they tried to model this programme after the Japan one in every way possible. We did the breakfast and dinner dishes and cleaning up every day for around 350 people and were not allowed any priviledges such as weekly movies or anything of the sort. Basically, anything that normal JeTTs might have gotten away with, which wasn't much, we were not allowed to do. We were the "rotten apples" of the whole centre, and we really knew it. Corporal punishment was administered very frequently for the tiniest things, such as "communicating with your eyes or hands" or anything which they deemed not to be in line.

I was very musical as a child but we were not allowed to play guitar as that was also a priviledge which we did not have. I do think that they had to find things to make our lives miserable and to make us really feel that we were in a Victor Programme, otherwise there would have been no difference between us and the JeTTS which wouldn't have been fair on them. They had to see us as something to be afraid of and that they had better toe the line otherwise they would be sent there as well. We also had to memorise I think 8 Bible verses a day otherwise we would not be allowed to eat, which was quite difficult for us, well at least for me because I had no interest in learning these verses and found it so horribly boring.

When I had been there for about 6 months I guess, I don't recall why this was, but we were to be sent home for a little while because of something. The year was 1992 so I don't know whether it was persecution or what it was but we were all sent home again, although the JeTT I group was quite different at this time.

We all thought that they wouldn't bother with creating a special little Victor Programme for us at JeTT I as there were only 4 of us I think, but sure enough, as soon as we got there, we were informed that we were to be Victors there as well, and that Steven Vessel was to be our Victor shepherd. Thank God that we were not there for long as Steven was not used to being a Victor shepherd and really took things to the extreme. He used to use all sorts of tactics on us to keep us scared of him. For example, we had to write these extra detailed OHR's which were quite difficult and it started to be tricky to not repeat the same things on them day after day. Steven Vessel was also extremely pro Silence Restriction which he meted out relentlessly for the smallest of things.

Anyway, in regards to the OHR's, he had 3 different types of OHR's, .. if you were good then you only had to fill in the "normal" one, if you were on silence restriction then you had to fill out the "special" one, which was about 2 pages I think, but then if he was not satisfied with your OHR, then you got the long one:The long one was about 4 pages of small print and was impossible to fill out without lying extensively. I remember how I used to sit over it for hours trying to figure out something to write which he would like that I hadn't written before. Also, one problem that Steven had was that he was very partial. He didn't treat everyone the same which made you feel even worse. I was then the worst one in the victor programme which made me feel absolutely terrible, but I was actually quite used to it by this time.

I think that we were only there at JeTT I for about a month or two when we were told that were were to be moving back to the Training Centre to continue our training. This was actually a relief believe it or not because the "New Models" programme was heaven compared to being in this specialised 4 man victor programme with a victor shepherd who tried to make everything as victorised as possible.

We moved back to the TC and continued in the Victor Programme. I remember that they performed an exorcism on me a few times to try to rid me of demons. I remember how I always found this to be so stupid, they used to anoint me with oil and cast the demons out and I would pretend that I really felt a difference afterwards. Everything revolved around trying to make the shepherds think that you were really getting the victory, even though you really never had any idea of what you were "getting the victory" over.

Although my memories of the victor programme are not good ones, I must say that we did feel that we had some goal to work towards, and that was getting out of the Victor Programme and into the normal JeTT group or graduating as they called it. Everything that we did was aimed towards getting out of the programme and that sort of gave us something to look forward to, or an incentive to be good and to try to get the victory and concentrate on our N.W.O's I must not forget to say that one of the Victor shephers there, Gabe (he has a Filipino wife, I honestly cannot remember her name, I think they live in Japan now, working with the video ministry, or did last I knew), did actually try to sincerely help us and I did always feel that he was more of my friend than an enemy. My memories of him will always be good ones, even though he had to be strict on us and punish us, I think that his motives were good ones and he retains my respect for that.

A few months later, we were then told that we would all be graduating from the victor programme, but that our training was not over. A big Training school was to be created with all of the JeTTs from the other homes (there were 3 JeTT homes at this time) coming and they were to merge the Junior Teen and JeTT groups together and have one big one.

Graduating from the Victor Programme

When the big Junior JeTT / Teen group was assembled for the first time, I was looking forward to finally experience being a normal person. We were all told that the slate was wiped clean, all past forgotten and that we were to be givena fresh start.

At first I really was determined to really try and adhere to the rules and be a good disciple, but almost immediately, it was as if I was still in the Victor Programme, except that we were not on silence restriction. We had this demerit system called "Minors / Majors" and if you got a Major then you received corporal punishment at the end of the day, but also if you received more than 5 minors I think it was.

We all were given buddies, which we had to stick to at all times, but the bad thing was that the Junior Teens were allowed to give minors to their JeTT buddies. My particular buddy was not nice to me at all, it was almost as if he enjoyed me being punished. I remember one time when we were mopping all the rooms in one section of the centre, he was unhappy that I was "not putting my whole heart into the mopping" so he told me to do so. I kept mopping as normal when he said that for every second that I kept doing this he would give me one minor. He then proceeded to count up to 5 and then stopped and gave me 5 minors which meant that I would get a beating that night. One time I scribbled something on a tile in the bathroom, something like "God gives the very best to those who leave the choices up to him" and a very big deal was made of this. I of course would not admit to it and since they had no idea of who had written it, they kept going on and on about confessing and there were many a meeting about this until one time they said that they were going to ask God to curse whoever did this, and then that would be a much worse punishment than any punishment that they could administer, which made me really scared and made me finally admit it.

Now one thing that was not different about this group was partiality. Some people got special treatment when other more unpopular ones (such as me) always got in trouble. We all had special assignments or chores that we did daily, and according to how popular you were, the easier the chore you got, I was always put on toilet cleaning and things of the sort along with the other unpopular ones.

Now I must not forget to mention that not everything about this time was bad, there were shepherds there who sincerely did care about us, and well, I must talk about the head shepherd called Tiago. I do not understand Tiago or his intentions to this day. He was like the high and mighty one who you got scared of as soon as you met him. I do think that he did try to shepherd us well, but he still was very quick to resort to strict punishments and victor programme like tactics on us. Actually his word classes were interesting, I must admit, he always talked about funny things and he was one of the only ones who could make me interested in word classes, I'll give him credit.

The MAP (Military Academy) programme Just when you would have thought that the victor programmes were a thing of the past, a whole new victor programme emerged called the MAP programme. This was introduced as a one month intense super duper victor programme only for the worst rotten apples. Actually only 12 people actually ever attended this victor programme, and I was one of them and attended it both times it was held. The first MAP programme only had 5 people in it with 2 shepherds which meant that they could scrutinize your every move. These were supposed to be last resort people who just couldn't get the victory, but I wasn't called to be in this one initially. I remember how everyone was immediately scared stiff of having to go to this programme as it comprised of hard labour, hard labour and everything horrible and boring that you could imagine of a victor programme x2.

I remember thinking how lucky I was to have managed to escape, when I was told that I was to be put into the programme for a week along with the rest of them.

This was a horrible time. Here was the schedule.

4:30 Wake up
5:00 Be at the kitchen and clean all the walls, scrub all the floors, kitchen in top condition while the shepherds and maybe one or two of the others prepared breakfast for the home (350 people).

7:00 Breakfast
7:30 Word Time
10:00 Back to the kitchen to clean all the walls, scrub all the floors , scrub food baskets,

basically the whole routine again but more intense while lunch was prepared.
12:30Lunch time (if you had learned your first set of bible verses)
13:00Lunch dishes
14:30Quiet Time
15:30Back to the kitchen for the same routine, plus any other menial chores they could find for us to do while dinner was being prepared.
18:30Dinner (if you had learned your second set of bible verses)
19:00 Dinner dishes
20:30Bed
I was put into the first MAP group for a week and they just threw me inside a fridge room they kept the veggies in and made me scrub it with a toothbrush all day, even though it was clean, it got dirty again immediately, or everytime that they walked into the room in their dirty shoes, so I had to scrub it again. I remember how they used to point at one tile and say "Clean this tile, get that dirt off", but the tile was stained and could obviously not be cleaned, imagine the frustration. I think I was beaten 4-5 times during this week because the rules were very strict. No communicating in any way shape or form, a bad attitude was reason enough for a beating, basically you could not go through the day without them finding something that you'd done wrong, and you were beaten.

Anyway, this was only for a week, and I was very glad, but as soon as the first MAP group had finished their intense training, it was time for MAP II, and I was to be part of it (they even asked for our approval before sending us to it, but told us that we were rotten apples and that this would be the only way of redeeming us)

Now shortly after the MAP programme had finished, an academic called David Millikan was to visit the training centre and so we all had to go home for a couple of months while they prepared everything and while he was living there.

This was also at the time of the Filipino infiltration and Argentina if I'm not mistaken so there were a lot of things going on. I went to this home which was called the NAS home (with Steven Vessel), and as soon as I arrived, I was put in the JeTT group along with some other children who had become JeTTs after the JeTT/Teen programme started at the TC. Now I did not know that they had not been briefed in any way about the "persecution", the Filipino infiltration or anything, so during the first "Word Time", they were discussing the persecution, and I just started talking about whatever we had been told at the TC, not knowing that the other JeTTS knew nothing about it.

The funny thing was though, the teen who was our supervisor did not try to stop metalking about it or tell me to be quiet or anything, she just let me continue and then when I had finished she just left the room. I did not suspect that anything was wrong until Steven Vessel (who was the home shepherd at the time)called me in for a "chat". I was then placed on silence restriction and given a sign to wear. (this was my first day at the home). This devestated me, and basically I was back on silence restriction which meant no priviledges, and no nothing which was any fun whatsoever. I had to stomp laundry all day and write pages and pages of OHR's and write out selected MOP sections again and again.

This continued for about a week or two when he finally said that I'd repented and took me off, but on one condition that I would NEVER mention anything about the TC, not even a word about anything, for as long as I was there, which I of course slipped up on accidentally pretty quickly, I think I made a remark that "Tiago wouldn't have done that" or something, so I was back on silence restriction again.

Anyway, time passed and I was back at the Training Centre, but I don't think that we'd been there for long, before we were all to be sent home, although I was not allowed to be sent to where my parents were living as they were at the new selah SC, and I was too much of a security risk. I was informed that I was to be sent to JeTT II (the old Junior JeTT home) with Steven Vessel, and my heart sank. I found myself at JeTT II pretty quickly where the whole story repeated itself. Silence Restrictions, hard labour, unfairness, and cruelty. I remember that when I'd been there for only a short time, I was being made to run laps around the garden (which was quite big), again d again, and I was so tired that I couldn't run anymore. Steven then said that if I didn't keep running then I would be put on Silence Restriction but I refused to do so, I simply could not run anymore. I was then just like that put on Silence Restriction for 2 weeks, and having to do the dinner dishes / sweeping / mopping / drying for the whole home all on my own for a whole week.

It was at this time that I started getting interested in computers, as they had one there which we were allowed to use, but I managed to break it so I wasn't allowed to use them after that at all, which was difficult, as it was like I had found my calling, I just was so sucked in that I had to be looking at one or thinking about them constantly so this was difficult, but fair enough, I broke it so it was difficult for them to trust me.

I was at JeTT II until I turned 14, and although it was a difficult time, there were nevertheless people there who did care about me and who I trusted, so I'm not going to paint the picture blacker than it was.

(in the next part I'll talk about my move to the SC)