Not Without My Sister

by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

  Then there was John, the man who had impregnated Krys when she was only fourteen. His consistent pedophile behaviour over the years was well known and yet he was in a top position of leadership. He made decisions on who should be excommunicated for breaking the Love Charter rules—including sexual offences. What a complete farce!

  Another man in the Home was three months into his partial excommunication for having sex with an underage girl. Partial excommunication meant no movies, no sex and no alcohol for six months, and spending long hours reading Mo Letters—missives from the pedophile prophet himself. The irony of it smacked me in the face. Partial excommunication was a meaningless slap on the hand.

  More upsetting still, if a parent wanted to report sexual abuse of their child to the police or take the offender to court, the Love Charter stated they would have to "give up" their Family membership. I had seen more than once how "devoted disciples" chose to call their own child a liar, rather than give up their life in the Family.

  Eman Artist, though "officially excommunicated," received a "salary" from World Services as he continued to do artwork for children's storybooks published by Aurora Productions, the Family's publishing front.

  I told Terry and Vicky I wanted to leave World Services but they kept telling me to "stick it out." The rare times I heard from Queen Maria were when she would send me a prophecy that said I was making progress in the spirit, and great things were in store for me if I just "held on to my crown" and continued to fight the Devil.

  We hardly ever saw Queen Maria in person. She communicated with her staff via an intercom system. She stayed in her room and had her meals made according to her specific requirements—no fat, just organic and whole grain foods, as well as an assortment of vitamins and supplements like Royal Jelly and calcium. Except for the occasional meeting, only a few saw her daily, like Misty and Rebecca and her personal assistant, Becky. Rebecca told me how she washed Mama's hair for her and clipped her toenails. Those she handpicked to serve her seemed eager to please and were willing to pay the price for their position of leadership.

  We had very little time off and the only recreation we had was the occasional dance night. One particular dance night the living room was set up like a nightclub, with a booth in the middle of the room with peeping holes. The women did strip dances, and people made out in the booth. I quickly excused myself to my room where my three-month-old daughter was sleeping. "I don't want to leave her alone," I said, but the truth was there were too many flashback memories to deal with. I had to constantly struggle and fight against the pressure to conform and I was tired of it.

  I was the oddball—the one that didn't fit in—as was Davidito and his girlfriend, Elixcia. Davidito was still called Pete in his mother's Home, and straight away I noticed the sadness in his eyes. He was depressed and restless, living under his mother's shadow. After his short time at the Heavenly City School when he was thirteen, we all discovered a few months later what had happened to him when he "disappeared." In a letter we read Mo's stern "correction" for hanging around the "bad crowd" and getting into worldliness. Mo threatened him with physical violence and he was punished severely. I felt terrible for Davidito, because he was a normal teenager who just wanted to have fun. The next time we heard of him was when he was twenty years old and, accompanied by an adult minder from World Services, he was allowed to visit normal communes once again in Eastern Europe, where he met Elixcia.

  He finally had been let out of his cage, but even away from the watchful eye of his mother, he was constantly monitored and the shepherds were instructed to write her reports on his actions. Inevitably, he began talking about his life in Mo's household, and of his resentment of a childhood shut away like a prisoner. His mother had to do some major dam-age control. He was publicly corrected and made to write a Letter of Confession and Apology for "spreading doubts" and murmuring.

  Reluctantly, he returned to his mother's Home at her request, bringing with him Elixcia. One evening Terry and Vicky announced that for an activity, we would have dinner in pairs to "get to know each other better." The girls picked a name out of a hat, and I got Davidito. He set up a small table in his room and lit a candle, and we brought up our plates. We spent the next hour and a half chatting. I had remembered him from Japan as a thin and slightly built teenager with acne, but he was now well toned and had obviously worked hard on building up his physique. He was still timid and quiet, and like me he hated confrontation.

  We got on to the subject of leadership, and Davidito told me he had made a deliberate decision not to be a "leader." He despised the way Grandpa and his mother operated, control-

  ling their flock and demanding money, loyalty, and unquestioning obedience.

  "If I wanted that, I could have it," he said, "but there is no way I could live with myself."

  I agreed that I, too, had been given many opportunities to rise within the ranks, but was not willing to pay the price of my conscience.

  "And the whole 'Loving Jesus' thing, it's wrong. I don't agree with all these weird new 'revelations.' The Bible should be enough," he said.

  I never accepted "Loving Jesus" either, and found a kindred spirit in him.

  It was not long after that Davidito and Elixcia were finally given Queen Maria's permission to leave Portugal, the same month I did in January 2000. Terry and Vicky realized I was not going to change my mind about leaving. As the Home was leaving to a new location, I would no longer be a "security risk" to them.

  A few days before my departure, I was invited to have dinner with Queen Maria herself, in her new Motor Home she traveled in with Peter Amsterdam that was parked on our property. Six months earlier we had moved from Porto to the sunny Algarve, in the south of Portugal. Besides the main villa, our extensive property had three other bungalows, a swimming pool, sauna house, basketball court, and further down a two-story house next to a football field where the Motor Home was. In the two and a half years I had worked for her, I had never been invited to her personal quarters. The only time she had come to see me was a few days after my baby was born—for ten minutes. Now that I was leaving, I was to receive the special honor of her attention.

  I was escorted by Becky, her personal assistant, who knocked on the door to the Motor Home.

  "Come in." I heard a voice say.

  Maria greeted me and invited me to sit at the table. I nervously sat down on the sofa couch.

  "I thought I could share my dinner with you," Maria said. The specially prepared organic food had already been brought in by Becky and Maria heated it up in the microwave in the small kitchen area.

  The portions were small. "I hope you don't mind," Maria said, "I can't eat very much at a time, so I just have little meals every few hours."

  "No, that's fine," I replied. I wasn't that hungry anyway.

  As we sat at the table, I could tell she was making an effort to be personable. But to me it felt awkward and contrived.

  "My son Pete and Elixcia are leaving too," she told me. "We got some prophecies for them. I'll ask my secretary to give you some of them, as they were really important messages from the Lord and Grandpa to prepare you for all the new things you'll be faced with after you leave."

  I didn't really know what to say. I had so much on my heart, overflowing with questions, but I was riveted by fear and uncertainty. What do you say to the woman who has affected your life so profoundly? I wish I could have asked her why. Why were we experimented with as children? Why did she allow Mo to abuse his own granddaughter, Mene? And why did she cover up for him? Why the Detention Camps, and why was our father taken from us when we were just children? Did she care? Did she even remember? Some part of me already knew what she would say if I did confront her on these painful issues and it would only hurt to hear it again: "All things work together for good to them that love God"—that was the verse used to excuse everything. Don't question your leaders, just put up with abuse, violence and intimidation because, well, God has a plan and it's for your good in the en
d.

  "You have a pioneer spirit like your Dad," Maria told me, interrupting my thoughts. "He wasn't good at being behind the scenes. Just be yielded and willing to the Lord's will and everything will fall into place."

  That really irked me and I couldn't let it slip by. I summoned up the courage to ask her something that had played on my mind for a long time.

  "But how do you know what God's will is? I've always been told to be yielded to the Lord's will, but what does that mean? I've never heard God's voice booming out of the sky telling me, 'This is my will!"

  I figured if anyone should know it would be the prophetess of the Endtime. Maria looked a little baffled at this question, though.

  "Well, sweetie." She smiled and paused for a moment. "The Lord usually leads us through his shepherds. Just be yielded to the Lord's will and you'll be fine." She smiled even more.

  She didn't answer my question at all, but like a light bulb it became clear as day for me—it was not yieldedness to God she wanted, nor was I "following God" as I had been told all my life; I was following the whims of a leader who played with her devoted followers like pawns on a chessboard. I saw how she had completely detached herself from reality and lived in a protective bubble that shielded her from the consequences of her decisions.

  I didn't feel any real concern for myself and my daughter. I felt the leaders were trying to appease me, to keep me on their good side. But it was superficial. As I was driven away in the car to the airport, there was a part of me that grieved as I waved goodbye to Cherie's father Vince, and the few friends I had made, knowing I might never see them again. The other part of me was happy—happy that I was finally being released at last. It was the first step of many to my final free-dom.

  The Central Reporting Office for Europe was located in the little village of Fluelen in Switzerland. Galileo was there to greet me—he held the same position of leadership as when he had met me at the age of eighteen and accompanied me to the Media Home in Finchley Road with Dawn. The next day he was off on assignment to England. The Office Home was small, just fifteen people, and the jealousy and rivalry in that house with double the ratio of women to men was com-pounded by the fact that you could hear every noise in that three-storey creaky wooden house. I had many sleepless nights, tossing and turning.

  I felt alone—completely alone. The beauty of the rugged mountain peaks that surrounded us, and the tranquil lake of Lucerne, was lost to me. I was cut off from the friends I had just left behind in World Services, and I could not be in contact with my family and friends in normal Family Homes.

  I might as well have been stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean, completely cut off from the outside world. This was not how I was going to raise my child. Cherie had such a bright, inquisitive mind and raising her in the Family would crush the unique, independent personality I so loved in her. I had only agreed to go to Switzerland temporarily—though it wasn't really a choice—but after six months I finally caught on that Queen Maria seemed keen to keep me locked away and within her reach.

  I was through with being polite and "yielded," and finally, I snapped. Galileo had returned from a trip and I approached him. "I need to leave now," I told him. "I'm not staying here another week."

  "Where do you want to go?" he asked me, concerned at the sound of urgency in my voice. I felt comfortable talking with Galileo even though he was a CR0. He was different from many of the men I knew, a gentle spirit and respectful. If he hadn't have been caught up in the cult, or in a position of leadership to enforce cult doctrine, he would have been a decent man.

  "I'm not sure what I want to do," I said, "but I'd like to visit my dad, and from there I'll decide. All I know is that I can't stay here another minute without going crazy."

  Galileo agreed to let me travel to England and then on to Uganda to visit Dad and my sister Juliana, who I hadn't seen for nearly two years. I was given enough money to buy a three-month round-trip ticket from London to Kampala and headed off to the continent of Africa.

  Chapter 23

  Juliana

  Deep sadness like a shadowy blanket of spiders crept over me. I needed my fix; craved it with the obsession of a hungry addict. Locking the door so my roommate couldn't surprise me, I stripped in a hurry, longing for a glimpse...the mirror was so close; my body tingled with anticipation. I reached for the handle to the bathroom door, swung it open and slowly raised my eyes to the reflection in the glass.

  My bones jutted out in every direction, my stomach was so concave, the hip bones so prominent. I stroked them lovingly, allowing my hands to travel slowly upwards to stroke my tiny shrunken breasts and frowned slightly. If only they had not disappeared with my weight. But it hardly mattered; the rest of me was beautiful—a nearly perfect skeleton.

  The desire for food had faded long ago, and all that remained was the obsession. I could stand it no longer. I stepped gingerly on to the scales, feeling the bumpy texture under my bare feet. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the thinnest of them all?

  The scales did not disappoint; down another little red line, another little unit of weight, down to 43 kilos. The shadow receded; I could breathe again. I even allowed myself a little smile of pleasure, while my body shivered in its bony frame.

  I turned back to the bedroom and tugged on my baggy clothes. The clothes did not matter, only what was underneath. The clothes had never mattered.

  I had never mattered.

  Nothing mattered anymore.

  I was sixteen years old when Dad sent me away again. Only this time he dismissed me to protect himself. That alone hurt more than anything else. Our visas in Japan had to be renewed, and Dad feared if immigration officials investigated they would discover he had changed his name to re-enter the country, after which we would be blacklisted and deported. It could re-open a can of worms. So I was the sacrificial lamb. Dad's quick disposal of me had wounded much deeper than I liked to admit. I felt like a worthless, ugly person; the obvious reason no one had ever wanted me, or loved me.

  Dad wanted to send me back to my mum who was now in India. I begged him to send me anywhere in the world but India! I did not ever want to end up there again and my relationship with Mum was not close. I applied to a commune in Ireland, and was accepted.

  I arrived at the large house in the suburbs of Limerick. It had a sprawling lawn, tennis and basketball court, and was surrounded on three sides by Irish bog. There were five other young people there, plus three families. The Home shepherds had nine kids. We were under no illusions who the boss was—Uncle Elkannah, who ran the place like a "mom and pop sweat shop."

  It quickly became obvious how he could afford the rent for such a large property. We young people raised it through ballooning and face painting in malls across the country. I got to see a lot of Ireland; well, a lot of Irish malls anyway. We traveled to wherever we had bookings and spent twelve-hour days twisting balloons into shapes, animals, cartoon characters—you name it, we made it.

  And we raked in the money!—all for a psychopathic Home shepherd. One minute he'd be hugging and kissing me, the next shouting and cussing. He had long stringy hair and a large bulbous nose with purple veins running through it. His face turned two shades redder whenever he erupted into one of his unpredictable furies. His constant fits were turning me into a nervous wreck and my weight started dropping drastically.

  Over twenty people lived in that house and the noise was constant. One nay, I awoke early on my day off, after a long weekend of ballooning. The racket made sleep impossible, so I got up and made my way to the kitchen for a coffee. Elkannah was in one of his chirpy moods and greeted me with a cheery hug.

  "Hello, Julie! And how has your night been?" He gushed in a singsong voice that betrayed far too much enthusiasm. I should have guessed then.

  "All right. I'm a bit tired though," I answered. "Couldn't sleep, there was too much noise." What followed was completely unanticipated.

  His face changed color as quickly as a chameleon. "You ungratef
ul little bitch!" He suddenly shouted.

  "What?" I was completely bewildered. Was he kidding with me? This had to be another joke. You could never tell with him.

  "I feed you, house you, take care of you, and you dare complain that you can't get a little sleep! You murmuring, rotten little terror!" He grabbed me suddenly and started shaking me. I was sure he was going to hit me, so I pulled away.

  "Please, you're hurting me." I mumbled.

  "I'm hurting you? You don't know what pain is!" I could feel his spittle hitting my face. I had enough. I had done nothing to warrant such treatment.

  "According to the charter," I said to him, "you can't touch me!" I spun on my heels and ran from the kitchen to my room and locked the door. Elkannah followed close behind and pounded at the door. "Open the door this minute!" he yelled. "Open up, or I'll kick it down."

  My roommate looked at me wide-eyed. "What's happening?" she asked.