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In Reply to: Just a few Q's posted by Natalie on November 10, 2005 at 07:14:24:
If I personally have to legally fight the perpetrators I will not hesitate, I've done my fare share of fighting in my life already. I admire those who went public to expose the cult and I hope that those folks have got stronger than ever in their personal life.
If I were to go public now I would definitely seek my own gain for doing that, whether it is to restore ones dignity or to improve ones life by exposing the cult. The world at large has yet small interest and understanding of a cult, and probably lots of suspicions too.
If it weren't for the internet and the place like here where we can access and share information we would still be in darkness and many of our struggles would be in silence and very separate events. If the media expose does not make me happier, it sure makes me smarter and satisfactory in another form. Of cause this does not stop tragedy from happening completely, I feel it's a good start to the right direction.
In the course of unfortunate events in the cult, I probably was fortunate in escaping some of the horror. When I came back to some of their fellowships in the mid 80' after being pretty much on my own, someone told me that I had missed nothing and I was even lucky I wasn't there in the thick of all (reminder here that majority of us did not join the cult knowing all the evil facts, it seemed like a nice group of young missionaries till FFing letters started to came out, DB's talk about anti-Semitism and that sort of stuff was way beyond my understanding at the time when I was still in early 20's.)
Some folks were put under extremely hard situations around 80' I think, like large families with small children were thrown out in the middle of the night in their pajamas with no where-with-all, as a punishment for disobedience and lack of faith, and as an example to others, some sort of re-training programs for adult members like a long series of confession sessions and prayers and exorcism and fasting etc, (to break ones will?)
Just imagine you have forsaken all and landed in the foreign land, and then your leader takes all your money on your arrival (and imagine if you are single mother with children and your leadership has taken your husband and a father to your children away, or vise versa and you have no money nor can't run to your family for help,).
Anything can happen under that condition. Of course you will hear nothing about sexual abuses, as it cleverly mislead its members with fear tactics, like possible God's judgments on parents by God punishing their children etc, etc. And then again, imagine who would have an advantage and an upper hand on all this in this kind of situations?
I don't like to repeat myself, but so many tragedy happened in the cult (which the cult leaders takes no responsibility) is either purely their bad management or "they" really didn't care as long as "they" were receiving support and their share and "spoil" in that operation. All that incest, child bride, sex with minor, re-training methods were originated and probably kept at the top level and they kept it in secret, but I think they were really afraid of wild fire which may have been wide spread and they started to do some mending in their own peculiar ways.
For an example, "Music with Meaning", it was probably one of the very special privileges to be involved with then if you are musician or even teens or any adults (?), and it seemed lot was going on there under the "shepherding" of Paul and Marianne, known as Josiah and Margie, who seems to be going stronger in Africa last I heard. Just as usual procedure they had to protect their own perpetrators in exchange for the suffering of innocent children to protect themselves and they will continue I suppose. It's a messy world out there.
When I was young I slipped into this hole (cult), my family were having their own problems and were not able to give me sufficient help or assist me to right direction. I'm really sorry for all the SG's who suffered in the cult, some more than others being in the wrong place at the wrong time with wrong people, and then come out and make it with no sufficient help.
I don't think many of the present Family children will ever read this or understand it yet since they are so sealed in the bubble of their "safety" and, they are safe as long as they are in that co-dependent environment of the cult. But they will perhaps (hopefully) receive more sufficient help and understanding than any of us did if they ever decide to leave the cult because more of us are out now than in and the weight has shifted IMO. I think lots of credit goes to those who went before us all.
