Not Without My Sister

by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

  "Th... thank you for correcting me!" I replied dutifully between sobs. "That's okay, sweetheart," he cooed, hugging me like a benign father. "We all make mistakes." I must have felt slippery as a slug, not to mention reeking of urine; the hugs never lasted long. I was happy to be let out of his grip though.

  My story began on June 2, 1981 in the village of Rafina, Greece, where my six-year-old sister, Celeste, was living in Loveville with her father, Simon Peter. My father.

  My parents had met less than a year before my birth, when my mother was asked to come and care for my dad when he was sick with hepatitis. It was love at first sight and though my parents never officially married, they started to live together as a couple.

  My German mother, Serena, was a talented violin player and came from a family of musicians and artists. She was a truth-seeking hippie wandering in India when she met the Children of God. She was completely lost one day, and turned to find members of the group behind her, their beaming smiles lighting her way to salvation and a place in God's Family. She took their appearance as a sign. The free love of her hippie generation meant she embraced the group's doctrine of Flirty Fishing wholeheartedly.

  The women believed their leader, Mo, when he told them God would protect them from "sperms and germs," so no contraception was used. Inevitably, they started having babies. Mo said children born through Flirty Fishing were special gifts from God and he called them Jesus Babies. My sister Mariana was conceived with one of Mum's "fish" during a stay in Turkey, so she was a Jesus Baby. Dad adopted Mariana as his own and, together with Celeste, we became a family unit.

  With all the sexual sharing that was going on, sexually transmitted diseases were not uncommon. Not only did the Family members catch sperms, they also caught germs. Herpes became a widespread problem within the group. At first, Mo said just to pray for healing, but as herpes began to spread rather than heal, afflicted members eventually sought out medical help. My parents both contracted a STD early into their relationship, and were warned by a doctor to abstain from sex until they had recovered fully. However, a month into their quarantine, they succumbed to temptation.

  As a teenager I wanted evidence from my father that I was even his child. There was no DNA test to prove I was; I could have been from any number of men. So Dad told me the story of how I was conceived. He looked at me and smiled fondly when he said, "We were so in love, we couldn't restrain ourselves."

  So I was born by accident through a venereal disease!" I took it to mean I had been the product of a filthy mistake and it heightened my feelings of worthlessness.

  "No, honey." My dad hastened to reassure me. "You weren't a mistake. It shows how you were meant to be born, despite any obstacle."

  Soon after my birth, Mum returned from a swim in the Aegean Sea, complaining of a sharp pain in her knees. Over the next few weeks the pain worsened and spread to other_ joints in her body. It was the first symptom of an incurable hereditary disease that makes all the joints swell with liquid so they balloon to nearly three times their normal size. All movement became extremely painful.

  Poor Mum. She hobbled about and with two babies and Celeste to care for she was in constant pain. I was still a baby during the "great exodus" when we all left Greece for the Far East. After my brother, Victor, was born in the Philippines, Mum's condition deteriorated. Dad had been chosen for God's work—hand picked by the prophet himself to work for him in World Services. A sick wife and four kids did not fit into the equation. We had become a hindrance to God and His Family. After Victor's birth, the leadership split my mother and father and sent Mum away with my sister Mariana and I to another, smaller commune in Manila, where Dan and his wife, Tina, were the Home shepherds. "Uncle" Dan was a man who took pleasure in beating us.

  I was three at the time. Dad and Celeste remained at the main Home and my baby brother Victor was fostered out to another couple. Dad would come to see us on Sundays and I always looked forward to his visits. Dad and Mum would lounge on the king-sized bed with yellow sheets that seemed to soak in the morning sun shining through the large windows. Mariana and I would play hide and seek in the closets while they took their time getting up, knowing later we'd all go to the zoo as a family, take boat rides on the lake and feed the ducks. It was on one of these visits that my sister, Lily, was conceived.

  Mo wrote various Letters around this time on the topic of seriously ill members in the Family, in which he claimed that sickness was the result of sin. If you were sick, then you were either out of God's Will or had a spiritual malaise that manifested itself in the physical disease. Because of this some Family members did not receive proper medical treatment and died. One casualty was Peter Puppet, who produced a Tv puppet show called The Luvvets, that aired in the Philippines. He developed a tumour on his neck, which he decided not to treat after Mo told him the tumour would clear up as soon as his spiritual sins were cleared up. The tumour did not take long to kill Peter, but his death was seen as a graduation and he joined the growing ranks of Spirit Helpers, a distinction awarded to members who passed on.

  When my mother's sickness began to affect her every movement, she too was accused of spiritual rebellion and murmuring, which, according to Mo, were some of the worst sins of all. Despite that, the shepherds decided that my baby brother Victor should be returned to us. He arrived with Celeste six months after I had last seen him. He did not remember his own mother and screamed for days for his familiar foster parents.

  When Victor developed TB, Mum was quarantined with him for months. Her baby's sickness was seen as just another symptom of her spiritual sins, for the "sins of the parents shall be visited on the children." While Mum was quarantined with Victor, I stayed with a German couple, Joseph and Talitha. Their daughter Vera and I were the same age and we schooled together during the day. Mariana, Vera, and I all came down with the measles and were sick in bed for weeks. I wanted Mum, but she was not allowed to see me.

  No sooner had we recovered from the measles, than we came down with mumps. We never went to the doctor for treatment, nor did I ever receive a single immunization shot. The adults trusted God for our health. Instead of medicine, they spooned a daily mixture of cod liver oil, garlic, molasses, and honey down our throats. The only medicine we were allowed was worm medicine, as I remember being frequently plagued with bouts of worms. Soon after Mum was released from quarantine with Victor, she was told to return to Germany for treatment and to give birth to her new baby, as she would get free medical care. She begged to be allowed to stay where she could at least be near her husband, but she was strongly advised to leave if she did not wish to be out of God's Will, and risk His wrath.

  There was a final condition. Mum was told she had to leave one of her children behind for my father. The last couple of weeks before they left were unbearable for my mother, who sat by my bedside through the long nights, staring at me and weeping. "I love you Julie," she would tell me as she stroked my hair and patted me to sleep. She suspected she would never see me again. I was their first child, her favourite, her baby.

  I was not to be told anything. I was too young, they assumed, to understand what was happening. But my young brain chewed it around for some years until eventually it churned out its own conclusion: I was not wanted. I grew up with this thought deep in my psyche.

  Celeste was put on distraction duty to play with me that I fateful day, so I would not notice them leaving. It worked, until the minute I heard the car start up in the driveway below the window. I was crazy about any and all automobiles and this particular car was a favourite with all of us kids. We nicknamed it the "avocado car" for its pale-green color. Hear- ing the engine start up, I ran to the window to watch it drive out. I did not expect to see my mother getting into the car with my brother and sister.

  "They're leaving without me!" I cried out. "They've forgotten me!"

  "No, Julie, they're going for a trip. You're staying with me," Celeste said, trying to hold me back.

  But I wriggled free and ran
down to the front door and threw it open—in time to see them reversing out of the driveway. My mother did not expect to see me standing there, but her final brave act was to smile and wave goodbye even as silent tears fell on to her cheeks. I always remembered her this way.

  Celeste followed me down and tried to pull me upstairs again to play. "Come on Julie! Let's go play with Lego. I'll build a castle with you!"

  "No, I don't want to! I want to go with Mum in the avocado car too!" I stomped upstairs, threw myself on the bed and sulked. No amount of cajoling could cheer me up and I was angry and out of sorts for the rest of the day. Oddly though, I never cried, or perhaps that was not so odd, since I did not realize the enormity of what had just happened. It was only after some time had passed and she did not return that I understood Mum was not coming back. The realization hit me as I woke up from a nap one day drenched in sweat. Instead of getting up, I lay comatose in the drowsy heat. The door to the room was open and I could see the rest of the kids watching a Family testimony video in the living room.

  They that love God shall never meetfor the last time, This life isn't the end, we will meet again.

  They that love God shall never meetfor the last time, This life isn't the end, we will meet again.

  It surprised me to realize my pillow was wet with tears, not sweat. I had only ever cried during spankings, and this was the first time I experienced a very different kind of pain. The thought that I might not see my mum and dad again in this life hurt like a knife stabbing me in the heart and I could not stop crying.

  Dad never came for me as my mother had been told he would. Instead, I was assigned the first of many foster parents. I became very insecure and started wetting my bed every night. Inevitably I was led by the hand to Uncle Dan's room for a beating.

  Uncle Dan would beat his sons the worst. There was a Demerit chart on the wall in our classroom, and every time we did something wrong, a demerit point would go under our name. If we earned three demerits in one day, the consequence was a beating from the board. One day his son David was very sick, and he had received a number of demerits that day. That night he was taken for his spanking—there was no mercy, fever or not.

  "I'll take David's spanking for him." His brother Timmy volunteered, even though he had demerits of his own. This meant a double beating for him.

  I thought this was the bravest thing I had ever seen anyone do. Even Uncle Dan was impressed. "Isn't that real brotherly love children? He's taking David's punishment, just like Jesus took our punishment for us when he died on the cross."

  I was sure that because of his noble sacrifice, Uncle Dan would go easy on Timmy and not really give him the full amount. I could not have been more wrong. Timmy's beating went on and on and on. I started crying as we heard him take his punishment in the next room. Timmy never cried out. By the time it was over, his bottom was bloody. I did not understand how Uncle Dan could be so cruel to his own sons.

  Other times though, Uncle Dan could be very nice. Once after my spanking he had a surprise for me. "Look what I've fixed for you! "He pulled an object out of the drawer next to him.

  It was my little yellow wind-up car that I had received the last Christmas Mum had been with me. It was my favourite toy.

  "Thank you Uncle Dan." I wiped away my tears, taking the car from his hand. It had been two long months since my mother left. I asked Auntie Talitha if I could write her a letter. This letter had no words, even though I usually loved writing; only a single picture, yet that picture shouted a thousand words that I could not adequately express. It was a drawing of a little girl crying, colored all in black. It was the first and last letter my mother ever received from me and she cried when she got it. None of hers ever reached me. When I was moved a few months later to yet more foster parents, she was not informed of my whereabouts. The only evidence that I ever had a mother lay in my passport. My father never gave me his name, as if not giving it would negate his responsibility for me as a parent. I had become a true child of the Family, as my father would boast in the years to come. The maternal bond had been broken.

  Celeste took me under her wing as a mother hen her chick. She was a constant presence throughout my early life, identifying with my misfortunes, though usually unable to protect me from them.

  Almost a year passed before Dad returned for Celeste and me. I was nearly five, and the months that followed were some of the happiest of my childhood. We traveled together, passing through Hong Kong and China, before arriving in the Portuguese colony of Macau. We might have been the remnant of a family, but we were a happy one.

  We arrived at Hosea's farm in Hac Sa, Macau. At the farm, my sister settled into the teen group, while I spent my days with the younger children. In the evenings, Dad, Celeste, and I all met for dinner, and the three of us shared a room at night.

  On a visit to China, Dad took us to a shopping mall and allowed me to choose between two dolls. One was a cute little Chinese doll in a traditional outfit, and long black braids; the other was part of a small set that came in a bag complete with clothes and a bottle, surrounding a sleeping doll. I chose the latter because the doll looked so peaceful. In Macau, a. family visited from another Home during an Area Fellow-. ship—their youngest daughter was around three years old. She became attached to my little dolly. I let her play with it, as we "shared all things, and had all things common," in keeping with the example set by the Apostles. But when it came time for them to leave, and she walked away with my dolly, I discovered that my sharing had its limits.

  "She's taking my dolly! I want my dolly back! Please, can I have my dolly?" I hollered frantically, grabbing the doll from the little girl, who bellowed back angrily. The racket drew the attention of the adults. Dad took me sternly by the hand and led me away, one of the rare times he was angry with me. He took me to our room for a lecture.

  "Now Julie, you don't even play with your dolly very much. The little girl needs it more than you do. Why don't you give it to her?"

  "But I want it. I'll play with it, I promise!"

  "Now honey, how do you think Jesus feels right now knowing you're not willing to share?"

  "But it's my dolly." I sobbed certain Jesus would understand that.

  "You're a big girl now You don't need dollies."

  Despite the fact that I was only five and in the prime of dolly-hood, that was not the issue, but I could not explain to my father that the only reason I loved the doll was because he had given it to me. That made it a treasure in my eyes. Nor could I understand why he would want me to give away his gift to me. But I gave it anyway, because Daddy and Jesus asked it of me, crying as I watched the visitors drive away, the little girl happily clutching my doll to her chest. I learned that it was not true sharing unless it hurt.

  I lost many precious possessions that way, some more valuable than others, but always in the name of sharing—the silver heart locket and chain, for instance, that my Dad left with me and which had once belonged to Mo's adopted daughter, Techi. Later, there was the ring Dad sent for my tenth birthday containing a red jewelled heart surrounded by ten glittering white stones. I wore it proudly, and took it off at night, stashing it safely under my mattress. When I awoke one morning, the ring was gone, and no amount of questioning the other children made it turn up. It was a lesson well learned; people or things, nothing lasts.

  A family, which I longed for most, lasted least of all.

  We spent only a few months together in Macau before Dad was recalled for the Lord's service, this time to live in Mo's own home—known as the King's Household. So Dad left us behind once more. It was not that he was entirely irresponsible, or did not care. He honestly believed he would be rewarded for sacrificing us, and all the rest of his kids for God, like Abraham in the Bible offering up his only son, Isaac, on the altar. Only, unlike Isaac, we never had a sacrificial ram to save the day. I was consistently told throughout my childhood that I would be blessed for giving up my parents for God's Work. Only I hadn't given them up at all. They
had been taken from me.

  Chapter 8

  I was five when an adult escorted Celeste and me from Macau back to Manila to live at Marianne's Home. I was put into a group of four other children my age, under the care of a tough German woman named Auntie Stacey, who believed a healthy hiding was the best medicine for children and she dished it out regularly. Our group of five children—three to five years old—were schooled, slept, ate, showered, and "made love" together.

  Everything was rigidly scheduled—from school hours to one hour of exercise time in the garden. We even had scheduled "date" times, where we each picked the partner we were to have sex with, held out our hands for a glob of pink baby lotion and proceeded to our various beds. The adults used KY jelly, but for some reason baby lotion was the lubricant of choice for us little ones. We knew what to do, as we had seen our teachers at it often enough, though we were a little lacking in the actual mechanics. Generally, the boy got on top of the girl, and a lot of sounds followed in the general rhythm of "Ooh—Aah, Ooh—Aah, Ooh—Aah."

  Often I was the odd one out. Marianne's son, Pierre, regularly refused to date me, even though I always asked him first. He preferred cuddling up with Auntie Stacey, which bothered me. I would sit and stare at them, wondering why he was lying with a grown-up who wasn't his mummy and why she never invited me for a cuddle. Sometimes, I would be coupled with the youngest boy, who was only three. This was an insult even harder to bear.