Not Without My Sister

by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

  I want to do something with my life... which I am proud of... I have absolutely no clue what to do...I don't know of any situation to start in, or how to even start, and suddenly I feel helpless, and it's frustrating. It's like a fbg I'm sitting in right now, and I'll sit a little longer till it clears and I can see my path ahead. I only hope it can be soon, as it's almost worse to be sitting here when it's the last place I want to be anymore.

  Celeste was busy trying to start her new life and our contact became sporadic after this. Dad's initial doubt was replaced with doubled fervour for the Family's cause. He told me that it was inevitable that there would be a falling away of those who were not completely dedicated to the cause. "We just have to keep praying for Celeste," he said. "She'll come back once she sees how much worse it is out there!" I, on the other hand, knew my sister would not have left without good reason. I struggled in my mind, thinking one day to leave, but then the fear of not knowing anything out there, or how I would survive, kept me there. I pushed my doubts to the back of my mind and survived in auto-mode.

  One day, Kingdom broke into tears and wouldn't stop crying. His mother was worried, but he wouldn't talk to anyone except Dad. Eventually Dad was able to coax the whole ter-rible story out. King had been awake during the night of the robbery and witnessed the whole ordeal. It had scared him. He wondered why Jesus almost let his Daddy get hacked up with a machete. My little brother was intensely unhappy. He was confined to the house all day and his life revolved around school, cleaning and Word Time. He didn't feel he was good for anything, and more than anything else, he felt unloved, unappreciated and unchallenged. In his mind this translated to mean there was nothing to live for. He had seen a machete in the garden and had been overwhelmed with the idea of using it on himself. He was just ten years old.

  When Dad described the situation at Home Council, Sunshine was crying and everyone was shocked. It hit me in the gut. I understood those same emotions, but I was amazed that King was already experiencing them so young. I real-ized that my little brother silently bore his sorrows and never vocalized his thoughts. Both he and his sister Shirley were quiet, withdrawn and suppressed children. They had learned early on that raising their voices only attracted trouble. I never knew what was going through their minds, and this was the first time I caught a glimpse of the desperation they must be experiencing.

  It had never been the same since the robbery, and that house gave everyone the jitters, so we moved again. Raising the money to live was always a struggle. Our company, RadioActive Productions, produced music and radio shows for free. It was part of our "witness," spreading the Words of David, but where it should have been financially supportive, it failed to pay the bills. Dad was trying to re-establish him-self as a radio star, but we couldn't even sell the shows. In a poor African country, nobody would broadcast our programs unless they were free.

  Usually we made ends meet by going around to local businesses to ask for donations. I was not proud to be a beggar for Christ. The Family called it "provisioning," but in reality it was just another form of begging. We, the privileged white man, begging for help when we were meant to be the ones helping. It seemed terribly wrong to have to ask for food and clothes in Africa, where the average local lives on an income of less than $20 a month. With our TV, our nice furniture and our spacious two-storey house, we would be considered wealthy by the average mud-hut dweller. I was keenly aware of this when we had people over to our Home for Bible Stud-ies. Who wouldn't want to join the Family when they could live richly and all they had to do was accept a few odd beliefs?

  Every so often, a supermarket or business had a surplus of outdated or damaged goods, which they contributed to us for charity. We were supposed to be a distribution center, though usually we kept most of the donated items for our-selves, and whatever was not good enough for our own use was distributed to various orphanages and poor neighbour-hoods. This was called CTP—"Consider The Poor." During these CTP distributions, one person would follow the rest of us with a camera as we doled out the goods. We would pose with the African people receiving outdated goods from our benevolent hands. These pictures would be used to make up the monthly newsletter that we distributed to raise support for ourselves.

  I despised the whole concept of posing for a picture. It seemed so fake and demeaning to the poor locals and I won-dered what they thought of it. But beggars can't be choosers, and by the impoverished state they were in, they couldn't care less; they were just grateful to be receiving anything at all. This bothered me all the more. We were using their poverty to our own ends—to receive more goods from charitable companies that would go to us, and only the last bit of rubbish would trickle down to them.

  Audaciously, we called ourselves missionaries.

  But what else could we do? Most missionaries are sup-ported by their Home Base. In the Family, it was the opposite way around. We, the missionaries, were supporting our Home Base. So we survived the best way we could, raising funds through posing for pictures. We couldn't sell the Fam-ily magazines, books and videos because most people were too poor to afford them, and the small amount we did sell was a drop in the bucket.

  A mandatory 17 per cent of our income went to World Services. We ate a lot of beans, lentils, rice and cheap meat. Food was portioned out sparingly. We always struggled to pay our bills. Housing is not cheap in Uganda. We usually just made our budget, with nothing to spare. Then, Queen Maria released a letter called "Gifts," saying God was not happy with the Family contributing the absolute minimum to World Services, and that they could not expect His financial blessings if they did not graciously give above and beyond the set quota. Also, if any Home were not following all the "New Moves of the Spirit" or harbored sin in the camp, God would be obliged to toss them on to the scrap heap.

  After this letter, everybody obediently voted in our Home Council meeting that week to raise the percentage to 25 per cent. I was seething when it was brought to a vote and mine was the only hand raised against the motion. A fourth of our Home's income was going to World Services in the hopes that this would ingratiate us with the Almighty. Then we looked deep into our souls to make sure there was no hidden sin the All Seeing Eye was focusing on, and lastly we sucked our spiritual Husband's golden seeds with increased fervour.

  Maybe the combination or timing was not quite right, or maybe it was my failure to fuck our Savior, because that windfall we always hoped for never came.

  A few months later I went on a trip to the States with Tina. We ended up visiting the Family Care Foundation Home in California, the family's charity where tithes and donations are funnelled through for tax exemption purposes. I was shocked when I arrived at a mansion. They owned a huge property. They ate good food, lived richly and had enough money to take vacations in their holiday house in Mexico. In stark contrast to the struggling homes in Africa who ate lentils and beans and could barely make the rent.

  I returned from the trip slightly disillusioned. And while it was fun seeing other Family young people, some experi-ences from my travels did not sit well with me and gave me food for thought. The Family had changed drastically since my childhood. Instead of training the next generation through harsh discipline and boot camps, the modern Fam-ily of the new millennium was a cool place to be. The young people dressed cool, went to Family music concerts called "Wordstock" and big meetings, all in an effort to instil the Family doctrines in a cool way.

  I realized the second generation of today were all young kids and that very few from my age group and above were left. Of the entire Heavenly City School of over one hundred young people, there were only about five I knew of who remained in the Family. I calculated that there were only about 2000 second-generation young people remaining. Of that, at least half were under twenty years old, meaning they

  would be too young to remember anything from the past. So, 1000 members of my age and older remained. Over 36,000 members have passed through the group. If even a third of them were second generation, then by th
e laws of averages, less than one tenth remained in the Family.

  All the incriminating letters had been purged during the court cases, and no evidence of the Family's dark history remained except in the memories of those who lived through it. Most of the young people writing testimonials on the Family's websites were under twenty and had no rec-ollection of the hard times. I wondered how they could claim the Family was the best place in the world when they knew nothing else.

  Queen Maria started releasing letters saying anyone who left could be influenced by the Devil and tell exagger-ated stories. A smear campaign began against any ex-member young people speaking out about their harmful experiences, or asking for explanations and apologies. Any abuse, Maria said, that may have occurred in the past had been apologized for, and it was only a handful of bitter vocal apostates, who were bent on destroying the Family and stop-ping our good work, who were spreading lies. This angered me because I knew these things had happened on a larger scale than Maria was saying. I lived through four Family Training Schools around the world and witnessed the widescale abuse practised on all us children. It was not the fault of the younger generation that they believed Maria. They had no memories of that time. They were too young, or not yet born. I said as much one day, as we read one of these letters in devotions.

  "But it did happen!" I persisted stubbornly. I knew I would get in trouble for dissension, but I had reached a point where I didn't care anymore. They could do their worst, but I was tired of being silent. "I remember well. It happened to me. It happened to my sisters, my family, my friends! History has been rewritten!"

  After Celeste left Uganda, Tina's mother Keda joined the home. She had been a top leader for many years and was still on the payroll of World Services receiving a monthly stipend. She took it upon herself to shepherd the home and Dad buckled under her influence like a little lamb. Keda had the uncanny ability to sniff out potential rebels. She corrected me for my outburst and said I needed to have a prayer of deliverance against bitterness. I went through the motions, but could not deny my memories.

  I started a more regular correspondence with Celeste. Now, more than ever, I was interested to see not just the one-sided picture I was being fed in the group. The doubts I was voicing set off alarm bells with Dad. He approached me and asked whether was writing to Celeste.

  "Once in awhile, she'll write to me with her news," I answered.

  "I think you should limit all contact with her," Dad said. "What? Why?" I knew perfectly well why.

  Celeste had been featured in a magazine article about her time in the group. She was now possessed by a Vandari—a blood-sucking parasite demon. She had gone over to the dark side.

  Dad was having nothing more to do with her, and nei-ther should I. I was shocked at Dad's cold-hearted dismissal of his own child now that she no longer adhered to the Family's beliefs.

  "I'm not going to stop writing to my sister, Dad. Don't worry, I'll keep it positive, tell her our witnessing testi-monies."

  I knew that would reassure Dad enough to drop the sub-ject for the time being, though he continued to check up on me from time to time. I realized anything I said would be twisted and used against Celeste. This upset me. I had my own thinking mind. Why couldn't I take responsibility for my own doubts without Dad throwing the blame on my sister?

  Chater 27

  Juliana

  Something in me finally snapped. The folly of it all smacked me in the face like a gust of refreshing wind. After that, there was no going back.

  I began to feel the confines of my cage, stunted like a claustrophobic imprisoned in a tiny world. It was a prison with invisible bars. A prison of the mind. At times I was seized with a desperate panic, when I felt sure I would either go mad or explode.

  Despite the endless attempts to try and turn me into that perfect little Family girl, they had never been able to get into my head, the place I frequently retreated to, the hiding place I had stumbled upon as a child where no one could touch me. I secreted away the innocent child in me and kept her hidden indefinitely, safe from the beatings, the humiliation, and loneliness.

  After some time, I forgot her existence entirely. Time and years grew over the lock, until it was hard to tell there had even been a door. Eventually, she grew tired of the

  confines of her "safe," and began to knock on the door. I heard the pounding every so often like a frantic beat in my pulse. A familiar voice called out to me begging for release, but I could not remember where the voice was coming from.

  Finally one fateful day the child broke through the door. I recognized a little piece of my identity, but it was an emaciated creature who emerged from that inner chamber.

  "Why did you leave me?" her haunting eyes asked me in the mirror.

  "I wanted to protect you."

  "From what?"

  "From pain."

  "Then leave it." Her answer was so simple I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before.

  "I will." And I did.

  It started with a trip to Europe for a family reunion, with relatives and grandparents on my mum's side meeting up in Portugal. On the way, I decided to visit Celeste and my brothers and sisters in England whom I hardly knew. My father argued against my visit, saying my sisters would turn me to the dark side. The visit was a turning point, but to what "side" was a question of perspective.

  In July 2004 I found myself in Celeste's cosy flat in the Midlands. I gave her the news from Africa and Dad. Then we decided to go and see the sister I had never met before. Kristina greeted me with a massive hug as I entered her house. I found my bitter, vengeful, Vandari sister to be a beautiful person inside and out. I understood the saying "blood is thicker than water" then. No amount of dehumanizing and demonizing of my ex-Family family could lessen my affection for them, or keep me away. Deep down, I knew it could not be true, and it wasn't.

  Yet, the side of me that had been so brainwashed to think the way I was told to tried to surface one last time. Celeste, Kristina and I went out to a nightclub and began talking over the loud music. The conversation turned, inevitably, to the Family. Kristina began to speak of the evils done, expressly by Maria and Mo.

  Suddenly a voice out of nowhere screamed, Vandari, Vandari, Vandari! Don't listen! And a picture came into my mind of that creature dripping blood from every opening in its face. It scared me. Had I been so conditioned that I was imagining my own sister to be a blood-sucking demon of the Nether-world? In a flash of disgust I understood the true evil. Any group that could divide a family like that was the real monster, not the other way round.

  This was my point of no return. I went to the family reunion in Portugal, my mind made up. I would not return to Dad ... to the Family.

  In the south of Portugal, I saw my brother Victor and my sisters Mariana and Lily again. Victor had left the Family, and I wanted to talk with him about it. He had been through a serious car accident in Senegal and nearly died. When he awoke from his coma, he began to seriously think about his life and what he wanted to achieve, realizing how short life is. "During the time I was comatose," he told me, "there was nothing. No alternative reality, no spirit world, like we have been told. Just blackness. That was when I realized that there is no God."

  Every day I strolled down to the deserted end of the beach, and sat for hours, thinking. The foaming waves crashing on the shore and the wind whipping through my hair had a calming effect that contrasted with the turmoil inside my head. My mind grew weary trying to process the barrage of foreign ideas, which I had refused to entertain until now I had opened Pandora's Box, and could no longer shut it. So I let my mind run in dizzying circles until it was thoroughly exhausted; I thought I would go mad.

  It's difficult to wake up and, realize your entire life has been spent living someone else's lie; that you've been kept from living your own dreams in order to keep the manic delusions of one man alive. It's like believing you were born blind because you have spent your whole life blindfolded. Then when you suddenly do see, you ca
nnot understand what it is you're seeing.

  In Portugal I told my mum that I had decided to leave the Family. She begged me to try for just six more months and if things did not get better, then she'd accept my choice. After thinking about it further, I decided I would return to Uganda and promised Mum I would stay for six more months. If I were going to leave, I would not do it the cowardly way. I was also worried about leaving my little brothers and sister behind. I wanted to keep an eye on them and help maintain contact between their flesh family and the outside world.

  During the months that followed, I did everything by the book, but my heart was no longer in it. I went through every fundamental Family belief and researched every letter written by Mo on the biggest doctrinal controversies, and went through the entire Bible on the very same subjects. I discovered some shocking truths. Anybody can twist Scripture to their own ends. For every single verse the Family used to justify one of their doctrines, there were four that argued against them.

  I realized that I had grown up looking through the wrong side of the glass. Like Alice in Wonderland, I lived the distorted reality of a bizarre upside-down world that made no sense. I was a seeker of truth, embarking on my quest for enlightenment. I started with an open mind, and ended with a closed one. It was shut tight against those beliefs I had been told were God's truth, Mo's truth.