Quotes from the Teen James Letter

I was reading the pub, 'Contend for our Teens!—The Story of Teen James!'—by Isaac Numbers & Sara, & I was struck by the following quotes by Isaac. There’s more to the pub than just these, but to me these sum up the heart of the situation:

BATTLES WITH PARENTS’ SEPARATION
One of the things that James had gotten bitter about & seemed to trigger this recent slide downhill was that he read all the JLC (Japanese Leadership Conference) notes. James read the part which explained why Becky & I had our separation, & apparently that hit him pretty hard, as he hadn’t really felt that it was a permanent thing. It really got him worrying & questioning, because nobody fully explained the situation to him with enough Word, or conviction. So he just dwelt on the negative of what he had “lost”, rather than the positive side of things.

The positive side? This young boy just lost his dad. His family was split up ‘for God’s glory’ & all the kids had probably been told, ‘Daddy’s just going away for a while.’ Then the poor kid finds out at the same time as the rest of the world that daddy’s never coming back. But according to the One Wife/All Things teaching, James was the one who had the problem. He was becoming bitter. He wasn’t being positive. So how was he punished?

THE “JUVENILE DETENTION HOME” – by Isaac
Because I was assigned to next go visit Ho’s “Teen Farm”, I got to take James there with me, as he was to be part of the new separate “Juvenile Detention Home”. (This would be separate from the current Home.) This is where real serious problem teens are isolated from the others to do hard manual labour, working in silence, as well as major on the Word daily!

First the prison camp is described. What follows next is sticky sweet & very weird by comparison:

Another thing the Lord did that was really sweet & special & really helped him, was when we arrived at the Combo, there were a lot of the kids & different people outside, & they all came running up to us. The little kids came up & jumped upon me, giving me big hugs & kisses & said, “Uncle Isaac!” They were really happy to see me, & it was like I’d come “home” again, & we all had that real love & affection for each other. James could see that & I think it helped him to see a bit more about our overall “One Wife” Family & how that’s where his loyalty needs to be, & not to any small little unit that he was hanging on to with his personal family.

It gets weirder. His dad's dumping him in a prison camp on Valentine's day:

Sunday evening the teen girls put on a little Valentine show for the teen boys & overseers & Esther, Ho & me. They did a little dance number with pretty sarongs & red hearts. It was real cute & quite sexy too. And they baked a little cake in the shape of a heart for each of the teen boys ... It was a real sweet time.

Yes, a sweet time. Near naked teen girls doing provocative dances in sarongs, tantalizing James just as he’s about to be sent off into isolation & hard labor in the Family’s very worst prison camp, Macau. Now what does James' dad tell him?

I guess James saw a good sample of all the blessings that are available to him at the Combo if he just yields. I gave him the Folks’ message that he’s going to need to be in isolation again & now suffer for his crimes until he proves that he’s really going to be trustworthy.