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In Reply to: Re: Just wanted to let you know posted by Sara on November 07, 2002 at 20:48:18:
Oh, sorry I came off sounding defensive like I heard you all wrong. You did say very well "most" and "what we -the SGA's saw". I didn't miss that nuance. I guess I too am frustrated that as an FGA not more was done for SGA's, and at our inability to have done more before we bailed out. I wanted to take the chance to answer the oft repeated question, "why did you stay so long in a cult that you knew harmed SGA's?" This rhetoric has been used to further accuse FGA's of being accessories to child abuse, by not doing something or leaving.
In our case, we stayed to make a difference, so as not to abandon people we cared about. The F. used our love, our humanity. The decision to leave was made when we realized what we could do was very little, and the F. insanity machine would grind on and on, and we HAD to take care of OUR OWN. It was a matter of time. We left with a bunch of kids who were ready to begin school, and we had their welfare in mind. To answer the question "why did you stay so long in a cult that you knew harmed SGA's?" I would say we stayed until we really couldn't anymore.
No I don't expect children or teens to understand what was really going on, what we were doing to help. I just got re-united with 3 SGA's, and they had no clue! They'd left when they were younger, and don't remember much, just had a whole lot of unanswered questions. We shared stories, and they put it together that I was doing a whole bunch of unapproved activities, real no-no's, such as secretly buying them soya and vitamins to subsidize their diet. (All the kids in our home had black rings around their eyes from malnutrition.) I'd often take money I'd stashed away secretly (when my folks sent me a check I had managed to hide it a few times) to take them out to air-conditioned restaurants for a break from their tapenessing activities in the hot sun. Of course if any of them had talked, I would have been accused of not forsaking all and handing over the money to the shepherds, and dishonesty and so on, and the exorcisms would begin. The nerve! Well, these SGA's (my face lights up with a smile when I think of them, they are so wonderful!) remembered the extra food and special treats, but they certainly didn't know they were "extra" or "special" or activities unapproved or worthy of excommunication. They will never know all the times we steered them away from being in situations where there were "uncles" who were a tad too fond of them. For that I am thankful. They don't really need to know all that crap anyway, and I'm glad they were spared from carrying all that around with them.
Well, I'll end this with the smile still on my face, and I will always be proud of these wonderful SGA's who really are like my own children. They even thought of me as their father once.
