"Well, I'm not going to India," I replied. "I don't know anyone there."
"Sweetie, you have to go. You're my daughter."
This sudden assertion of his authority as my parent after so many years of being apart aggravated and annoyed
me. "All my friends have gone to Brazil. I'm not going to India!"
Despite my protests, Dad was right; I had no choice but to relent, and we flew Air India to Bombay a few weeks later. But in the back of my mind I wondered how long it would last. I was sure that Dad would be snapped up again for another World Services project and we would be dumped yet again. It seemed too good to be true that after all these years he was being "let go" to just go back to being a normal Family member.
My suspicions proved right, when four months later, Dad broke the news. "Honey, I've been asked to go back to Japan. They need me to help script a new video series for children called Treasure Attic."
"What about Julie and me?" I asked. I knew we couldn't go back to Japan because of what had happened with the British Embassy there. It would be too risky as the authorities were aware of the Heavenly City School as a Family location.
"There's a training center in Bangkok. Joseph and Talitha are there—you remember them from Dan and Tina's Home in the Philippines? They'd be good foster parents for Julie, and Silas and Endureth are the CROs." The term CRO stood for Central Reporting Officers. Silas and Endureth oversaw the South East Asia area, reporting directly to Peter Amsterdam and Maria.
"And don't worry, it will only be for six months."
The assurance that it was not a permanent separation stopped me from kicking up too much of a fuss. I wanted to believe Dad's assurance that he would be back for us as soon
as the project was completed. But six months turned into five long years!
For the first year-and-a-half Julie and I renewed our tourist visa every three months by taking a train journey with our legal guardians over the border to Malaysia and then back again two days later. But when the police raided communes in Sydney, Australia in May 1992, and Mrs. Turle filed for custody of her grandchild in England, they considered it too risky for me to cross the border anymore.
Persecution paranoia was at an all-time high. When it was discovered that my mother and sister Kristina were involved in giving evidence for the British custody case, their names appeared on the Worldwide Prayer List to pray against. It deeply disturbed me because Jesus said to love your enemies and to pray for them, not against them, and I could never bring myself to do it.
For so long I had bottled up all my emotions and feelings or simply ignored them. But on the morning of my seventeenth birthday, everything came flooding out and I spent most of the day crying. All of a sudden it hit me; I only had one more year before I was officially of legal age—an adult—and I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with myself. I felt completely lost. All my life I had been sent from place to place, whenever and wherever the leaders decided. I had always wanted to grow up fast, to be an adult so no one could boss me about or treat me like dirt, but now that it was almost here, the thought that I would have to find my own way scared me. There was no one I could talk to. That thought brought on another burst of tears. I was in a terrible mood the whole day. I just wanted to curl up into a little ball and disappear.
One evening, Ami had announced, "We've received instructions that we need to purge our personal belongings of anything that could identify someone else other than your-self and your immediate family. If the police were to raid the home, we wouldn't want them to find information they could use to hurt the Lord's work."
That evening I sat with a pair of scissors in one hand and my photos in another, cutting ups my pictures. Personal letters were put in a large black bin in the middle of the room to be burned later. It was heart wrenching to have to destroy everything that connected me to my past. Everything that was dear to me, and every reminder of who I was, was being stripped away.
We were supposed to be in a state of readiness and alert twenty-four hours a day should the police knock on the door. Everyone took this very seriously. During one of our evening prayer meetings we heard the doorbell ring. Everyone went silent. Who could it be so late? The bell rang again. Christina told everyone to wait while she went to the gate. "Who is it?" Christina asked over the intercom.
A gruff voice spoke in Thai. "It's the police. Open the door." "Who?" She asked again.
"The police," came the reply.
Frantically, Christina ran back into the room and told us it was the police. Everyone sprung into action. The Mo Letter library was locked and hidden away. Everyone scanned the public areas for anything that would betray us as the Family. We all ran to our rooms, held our breaths and waited.
After an anxious ten minutes, Ami gathered us all back to the living room and told us, "It wasn't really the police at the door. It was John and I." John was a Thai national. "I wanted to see how prepared you all were and how you would react."
No one knew whether to laugh or cry. Ami had not expected her test run to provoke such panic and tried to calm us. One brother went pale and clutched his stomach. "What's the matter?" Ami asked him.
"I went to my room and saw that I had forgotten to burn my selah trash in the basket. I didn't know what to do, so I ate the paper," he explained. Selah trash was any kind of paper with writing that could possibly give away information to outsiders.
"How?" someone asked incredulously.
"I swallowed it down with water ..."
We all burst out in laughter. His dedication, I thought, went a step further than most of us would have gone.
I was not allowed out into the garden for the next six months during the day in case detectives 'were staking out the place. Then three months before my eighteenth birthday, Juliana and I were bundled into a van in the middle of the night and taken to an apartment in the city. While there, the shepherds took me aside and told me that my mother had sent a letter demanding my immediate return.
"Do you want to go back to your mother? It's your choice. But if you decide you want to stay then we'll protect you," Ami said.
I was confused. Hadn't I been in hiding all these years for my protection'? And why hadn't I been given this choice sooner? Why now?
For the last four years I was not allowed to have pictures taken of me apart from the rare photo for Dad, and I was told to burn all photographs of my friends and family. I had had to change my name to Claire and was not allowed to correspond with anyone. None of these security measures seemed necessary to me. Now, just before my eighteenth birthday, and after all I had suffered in an effort to avoid my mother finding me, I was being given a choice!
I felt like a piece of property that was being fought over. I was my own person and could make my own decisions. No, I would not be sent back to my mother now She was a stranger to me.
"It's not long before my birthday," I replied. "I'll stay."
My only image of the outside world was the one the Family gave me. I had read the Traumatic Testimonies series, with their horror stories of rape, wife beating, violence, and drug use in the System. If we left God's wonderful Family of Love we could expect much worse. The first young person who had tried to leave had been beaten and thrown into solitary confinement; he had to escape in the middle of the night with nothing but the shirt on his back. But now, due to the court cases, such harsh tactics were discontinued. The "choice" we young people were given went something like this:
"Sure, you can leave any time you want. We're not forcing you stay. You can walk out the door anytime. But... if you leave, you're a backslider, God will spit you out of his mouth."
I wanted to please the Lord and serve Him. I did not want to be the next one on the Prayer List with everyone praying for me to be killed because I was an enemy of the Family.
After my eighteenth birthday I received a visit from the CROs, Silas and Endureth. For them to come and see me personally meant it was something important.
Silas said, "Your
mother and sister, Kristina, have been appearing on television and in newspaper articles and there's a big media storm in England. We might need you to go there to meet your mother and defuse the situation."
I wasn't sure what "defuse" meant exactly. However, first I needed to go through media training. "Oh," I responded nonchalantly. But inwardly my heart began beating faster. Meeting my mother was one thing, but I wasn't so sure I was prepared to face the media. What will I say when I see them? Will I be convincing enough? But everything had been set in motion and I was caught up in it—a small pawn in a very large game.
Whether I met my mother or not depended on how well I did in the media training. Three other young people were chosen to go through this training with me. We had to spend hours in classes and read all the controversial Mo Letters—most of which by this time had been burned. The few copies left were under lock and key. We were told that these letters had to be purged, not because we did not believe in their message any more, but because we had to appear to conform in order to survive. Our wording was carefully scripted. We were not to denounce the message, just the Letters them-selves, a strategy devised by Maria.
We were also shown videos of how to speak with the media, and drilled in question and answer sessions. Despite my fear of being kidnapped, I wanted to see my mother, and hoped I would be allowed to go to England. I must have passed the loyalty test. After a month of training, Silas and Endureth prepared a send-off lunch for me and everyone gathered for prayer and prophecies. They received visions of me being a warrior in spirit, like Joan of Arc, fighting for the faith. These prophecies were given to me as a parting gift.
But in my heart the inner conviction that I was doing the right thing was lacking. I felt like an impostor, playing a role that wasn't really mine. I hoped that somehow, miraculously, when I got to
England the conviction would come and I would feel "the anointing of the Spirit" like the prophecies said I had.
I have no idea how much they had to pay as I had over-stayed my visa for over a year, but Silas and Endureth and my legal guardians dealt with it. I was driven to the airport and rushed on to the aeroplane at the last minute. I arrived in London accompanied by Galileo and Dawn, the CROs for Europe. The first thing that struck me about England was that there were no walls around the houses. In Thailand and the Philippines, most of the well-to-do houses were enclosed by high walls and gates.
We took a taxi to a three-storey mid-terrace house on Finchley Road, a well-to-do part of North London. A tall, well-built American named Matthew opened the door. He had a neatly trimmed beard and moustache and a strong presence; it was his job to coordinate the Family's defense in the custody case of Mrs. Duckworth's grandchild. Matthew told me a meeting with my mother had been arranged on "neutral" territory—the house of Professor Eileen Barker. She was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the London School of Economics, with a special interest in the study of religion and author of many books about cults, including one on the Moonies. She was acting as mediator between us and my mother due to her position as head of INFORM—a non-governmental organization set up in 1988, which supplies information about alternative religions—or cults. Her credentials were impressive and I was curious about her when, a few days before the all-important meeting with Mum, I went to her house accompanied by Matthew.
Professor Barker greeted me at the door and invited me in. Her house was full of bookshelves and books lying every-where. She seemed friendly, though I was extremely nervous. She invited us into the living room. I don't remember doing much talking, as Matthew mainly carried the conversation. Professor Barker played the video of myself dancing when I was six years old in Greece.
"How do you feel about this?" Professor Barker asked me.
I was really uncomfortable seeing my dance, though it was by far the tamest one I had been asked to perform. But I kept to the scripted line. "I don't really remember it. It wasn't such a big deal."
Professor Barker nodded, but didn't confront me on any issues. Perhaps she was afraid that she would scare me away or anger Matthew. Throughout, I was surprised that no one ever asked—not Professor Barker, nor any journalist I spoke with—whether I had performed more explicit dances. I had, of course, and these were much more damaging.
Matthew told me the meeting with my mother was scheduled for the following Sunday for two hours. The hype that surrounded this "reunion" was incredible. The night
before, Matthew drove me to a phone box. My father wanted to talk to me. He was still in Japan, at the Heavenly City School, and I had not spoken to him since the day he had left three years ago.
My joy at finally being able to talk to Dad quickly turned into agitation. The call lasted over an hour, as he went on and on about my mother, telling me every horrible thing he could about her. I had been given to read much of the same already in a dossier written to discredit her—a tactic learned from Scientology to damage the reputation of outspoken critics. The dossier dredged up every negative little snippet of sup-posed information from people who had lived with her in India. They pulled no punches. Apparently, she was dirty, slovenly, lazy, and actually enjoyed Flirty Fishing. She had even pulled out a knife one night in a violent argument with Joshua. (I found out later he had been the one to wield the knife.)
I could not accept my father's below-the-belt tactics, even if she was an "enemy." I was relieved when the call was over. The conflict of divided loyalties made me ill. I could not sleep well and a knot in my throat stopped me swallowing properly. I had always been thin, but now I weighed only 48 kilos.
The next day we drove back to Professor Barker's house. Matthew immediately freaked out when he saw it was not just my mother who had turned up, but Kristina, David, my grandparents, Auntie Caryn—and a pastor friend. "Your mother has brought a deprogramer with her!" Matthew fumed as he stormed out of the house. "The meeting cannot go ahead unless he leaves," he demanded. This made me even more apprehensive. After the pastor left graciously, Matthew made everyone wait in the garden while my mother was invited in for lunch.
When Mum entered the room the first thing I noticed were her clothes. She wore an ankle-length bright, flowery patterned skirt and a bright-green suit jacket with a button-up blouse underneath. I disliked anything hippieish, and the colorful skirt screamed "flower child" all over. She had gained weight from the description I had been given by Dad and that one photograph I had seen years ago. Having seven difficult pregnancies had taken its toll. The childhood image of my mother that I carried in my head starkly contrasted with the woman that stood in front of me.
I had no idea what to say to her, except for, "Hi, Mum." That word was so strange to say to someone I didn't know.
Mum looked nervous herself, but she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. "You've grown," she smiled. Professor Barker invited us into the living room. Mum asked me, "What shoe size are you?"
I stuttered, "I'm not sure, really." I had no idea.
Then she commented, "You look so thin." She looked me over, a little concerned.
I wasn't sure how to reply to that either. The small talk seemed forced, with awkward gaps of silence. Professor Barker invited us to sit down at the table in the kitchen that had a spread of tuna and cucumber sandwiches, coleslaw, and cold meats. I felt like I was in a daze the entire time and had no idea how to react to a mother overcome with emotion at finally seeing the young daughter she had been apart from for almost fifteen years.
"I want you to know that I never wanted to leave you," Mum said, and then burst into tears. I was unsure how to
respond. I should have gone to hug her, but instead I sat awkwardly.
Professor Barker asked, 'Are you okay, Rebecca? It seems to me you're struggling. Perhaps you might want to go for counseling."
I looked at Mum as she dried her eyes with a napkin from the table and tried to regain her composure. The focus seemed to be on Mum, that somehow she was in the wrong. I did think that was a bit harsh. Even though I remained poised on the
outside—as I had learned so well to do—it was me who needed the help; help to form a connection with my mother who was a stranger to me.
After lunch, Mum said, "Kristina and David are here, and your grandparents, outside in the garden. They would love to see you."
Professor Barker interjected, "You don't have to, Celeste. It's up to you."
"It's okay," I replied, "I'm fine to meet them." I was curious especially to see Kristina and David. Mum and I walked out together to the back garden. Everyone greeted me with hugs and kisses and questions.
"Celeste!" Kristina smiled and hugged me. I noticed she had a little boy on her hip. "This is my son, Jordan. You're an aunt." "He's so cute with his curls," I replied.
"Where were you? We missed you!" Auntie Caryn hugged me.
"Did you get the presents we sent you?" Granny asked as she clasped my hand.
Their attention was overwhelming and I wasn't so sure Granny had ever sent me presents, because she never had the
address of where I was. I was suspicious of their motives after all the brainwashing I had received over the years against them. Did they really love me, just for me, and without any hidden motives?
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