Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival

Those who did question were labelled doubters and put under watch for suspected mind poisoning of other members, which created an environment of fear and paranoia.

During sharing sessions women were often asked to reveal if their husband was having doubts or struggling with ‘demons’. They were told that revealing any doubts would help their partner to overcome them. This served to break down trust between couples and it’s no surprise that many marriages broke up because of this.

Soon Mom was pregnant again. My little brother Vincent arrived screaming into the world in winter 1986.

I will never forget the moment I first laid eyes on his wrinkled pink face. He was adorable. I felt such a rush of love as I solemnly promised him that his big sister would always be there to look after him.

Chapter 5

Terror in the Shed

‘Shut up, you wicked little beast.’

An uncle grabbed the back of Simon’s T-shirt, yanking him up off the ground. Simon kicked out furiously with his legs and arms. I knew what they were going to do. Another uncle took a roll of masking tape and tore off a long strip. Simon screamed as he clenched his fists and began pummelling at his aggressor, who brushed his blows aside. Simon took his chance, biting milk teeth into fleshy forearm.

‘You little shit. Hurry up, Matthew. The little bastard just bit me.’

‘Yeah? He’s a devil child all right,’ said the second uncle, laughing. He stuck the masking tape over Simon’s mouth, then added another two strips on top before patting it all down and standing back as if surveying his handiwork. Simon went completely quiet for a few seconds before making snuffled, panicked breaths through his nose. The uncle put him down and slapped him hard in the small of the back, causing his legs to buckle. ‘Now get to class. Spare the rod, spoil the child. You will thank me for this when you grow up to be a better man. Praise the Lord.’

I was trying not to cry and they knew it; both of them were looking straight at me with a questioning expression. I pulled what I thought was a cute face. It worked – the second uncle ruffled my hair and walked on ahead. I could hear Simon whimpering through the tape. I took his hand and squeezed it tight.

Simon was considered a naughty child. He had tantrums where he threw himself on the floor and made his body go limp so no one could pick him up. He cried constantly for no reason. The adults didn’t have any patience for it. Someone had the idea of taping his mouth up, and quickly that became the routine way of dealing with him. I heard my brother Matt say he wished Simon would just learn to stop crying so they wouldn’t have to hurt him.

At lunchtime Simon yelled out loud as they yanked the duct tape off. The skin on his upper lip was red and broken. He refused to eat his rice and eggs and started to make a whiny sound. After five minutes of the noise, Aunty Joy was instructed to hold him down while a different uncle taped him up again. I don’t know where his mother was or if she saw any of this happen.

The first time it happened I screamed with fear and got a big stinging slap around my face. I hated seeing pain inflicted on another child. For me, those hurting him were the naughty ones, not Simon. I tried to stay as close to him as I could because I knew it made him feel better.

A few days later I was just on my way to bed when I heard a loud commotion. Simon had fallen from a window and was lying on the ground. I wanted to check he was OK but a firm hand on my shoulder stopped me. All the children were ordered to our rooms and told to stay silent. Soon after I was told that his family had left.

There was only one main bathroom for children’s use in Phuket, so several of us had to queue for the same single sink. We never jostled or fought openly because we knew that would get us into trouble. To the eyes of the various aunties and uncles who stood guard over us, we each waited patiently, politely and in silence. But in the secret world of children it was a different story. You’d inevitably hear hurtful names under someone’s breath, or feel a sharp elbow in the ribs, a Chinese burn or a vicious nip by another kid who had perfected the art of hidden violence without an adult noticing. You had to take it without fuss because shouting out or complaining would surely end with a spanking.

Once a day children had to ‘report’ on each other when our teachers asked us to say out loud who had been naughty and why. The fear at reporting sessions was palpable because you never knew who would say what about you. Some kids blatantly made up lies about others, but stories were never challenged, just accepted as truth and the alleged perpetrator punished. Even if you knew the kid hadn’t done anything you couldn’t speak up and defend them because then you’d get a beating too. When another child was disciplined with the fly-swat, or as Simon was with the tape, we were forced to watch. All this was supposed to be for our spiritual benefit and to make us better Christians. But really all it did was turn us into nasty little snitches.

On this evening I had been at the back of the queue and was the last child to reach the sink. My roommates had all gone back into the dorm and were getting into bed. A few days earlier Aunty Joy had been replaced by a male teacher. His name was Uncle Clay. That wasn’t his real name but his cult baptised name. Clay proudly explained it came from one of Grandpa’s letters in which Grandpa explained that, to truly serve God, members had to be like clay on a potter’s wheel – mouldable, willing to change and adapt to the moves of the spirit world.

I wept when Joy told us she was leaving. I loved her so much and I saw more of her than I did my own mother. She didn’t hug us goodbye, she just told us one night at bedtime that Jesus was sending us a new teacher. In the morning she wasn’t there. I ran around all the rooms in the house calling her name and looking for her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I don’t think I really accepted she was never coming back.

Clay was from the Philippines, short and plump with greasy black hair, a potbelly and acne-cratered skin. His breath was rank and sometimes he spat when he talked. It made me feel ill just to look at him. Within the Family hierarchy looking after children or cooking was considered a lowly role. Witnessing, fundraising and public relations were the cushy ‘status’ jobs all the adults wanted. Clay was openly bitter and resentful at his lowly position.

I was brushing my teeth when he walked in. He had known I was alone. He shut the door and came and stood right behind me – too close – towering over me with his adult presence. He was naked bar a small towel around his waist. It barely covered his bulging stomach. I could smell his unwashed body.

‘Have you had a shower, Natacha?’ he asked in a creepy voice.

I spat out the toothpaste before I choked on it. ‘Yes, Uncle Clay,’ I answered politely as I tried to dart past him.

He grabbed me by the arm. ‘You need another one.’

He lifted my nightie over my head, folded it neatly and placed it on the towel rack. Then he led me to the shower, roughly pushed me in and turned it on. He removed his towel. As he turned to put it on the rack I shrank at the thick black hair that covered his shoulders. I dared not move. He got in with me. Then he took my hand and placed it on his penis. I froze. I had a sense this was wrong, very wrong. He put his hand over mine and slid it up and down over him. I screwed my eyes tightly shut as he began praising God over and over again. ‘Hallelujah, praise the Lord, hallelujah!’

When it was finished he washed himself thoroughly while I stood there numbly. Then he took the soap and lathered me with intrusive hands. I shifted and tried to wriggle away but he just laughed. His acne-pocked face broke into a toothy smile and I noticed his skin seemed to shine with grease. As he rubbed me with a flannel he told me I had been a very good girl. He didn’t need to ask me not to tell anyone.

He dried me methodically with the towel. He took a long time, almost deliberately as if to remind me how powerful and in control he was. Then he placed my nightie back over my head before patting me on the bottom and ordering me to get myself to bed. Without a word I did as he asked, climbing silently into my bunk. The other children were all asleep. I was too shocked to cry. Despite the wash I felt dirty and I could still smell him on my hands. I lay there staring at the dark wall for a long time.

It happened again about a week later. During nap time I felt a hand touch my stomach. I tensed, not sure what to expect. The hand slid into my pants. I felt like I needed to vomit but I held still, too scared to be spanked if I moved. His fingers moved, pawing at me. I kept my eyes firmly shut. I could smell his rotten breath as he moaned: ‘Thank you, Jesus, oh God, hallelujah,’ over and over. His fingers moved harder until the friction began to hurt. He continued to praise God but his breathing became heavier. A few minutes later I felt a shudder of movement as he gave one big groan. I heard him pick up the bottle of diluted Dettol that was on his bedside table. As he sprayed his hands with it the smell floated towards me. I desperately tried to hold back the waves of nausea that rose in my throat. I still didn’t open my eyes.

The following day I was able to snatch a few minutes alone with my mother. During break time she was sitting in the garden feeding one of the babies. She had been given a job, or ‘ministry’ as it was termed, in the nursery. I ran over to her and burst into tears. She hugged me and whispered: ‘Natacha, why do you cry? What’s wrong, ma chérie?’

I pressed my face against hers, comforted by the scent of her long blonde hair. I wanted so badly to communicate to her what had happened. But at four years old I couldn’t find the language or words to describe it. I so badly wanted her maternal instinct to understand, to look at me and somehow know.

Instead she wiped my tears and smiled: ‘Ah, chérie. Get the victory. Shall we pray together and ask Jesus to make it better for you?’

I hated that phrase. If we fell over and grazed a knee we were not comforted but urged to ‘get the victory’. If we struggled with memorising our Bibles we were told to ‘get the victory’. It never made anything better.

So on the day I woke up with a fever I didn’t expect much sympathy from the grown-ups. All night I had shivered and sweated, freezing cold one minute and boiling hot the next. I could barely touch my cereal at breakfast. Aunty Salome, who was supervising, put her hand to my forehead and frowned. ‘You are very hot, aren’t you?’

I looked at her expectantly, half hoping she’d tell me to go back to bed. But she didn’t and instead I was ordered to go straight to class. Sitting at my desk was agony. I was beginning to feel delirious, and when I was asked a question I could barely register the words I was hearing. I failed to answer correctly and was told to hold my hands out while they were rapped with a ruler for lack of concentration. My shirt was soaked with sweat, which made me feel cold and clammy.

No one considered taking me to a doctor because Grandpa said faith alone would heal illness. Going to a doctor showed a lack of trust in God and his power to heal. The only exceptions were when someone’s life was clearly at risk or for mothers-to-be, who were allowed to give birth in a hospital if they wished. I knew I had been born in a run-down local hospital because my dad had told me the story. He proudly told me he had insisted on it because he wanted to be sure his precious little girl was born safely, but he also said system people were so silly because they took pills when they had something as basic as a headache. They didn’t know the devil made the pills and used it to control their minds. He told me when he was younger and before he joined the group, he too had been controlled this way, so he knew from personal experience how evil medicine could be.

Personal computers, which were just beginning to enter the mainstream, were viewed with equal suspicion. In a Mo letter Grandpa had told us that using one would also result in the Antichrist putting a chip in your head to control you. In Word Time we read a storybook about a man this actually happened to. The devil made him do all sorts of bad things. In the end he had to have lots of sex with different women to get cured. One lady was able to take the chip out during a love-up session when he was distracted. Afterwards he was really grateful to her and fell in love with her.

Even the songs churned out by cult production teams added to the fear of outside control. There was one called ‘Cathy Don’t Go (to the Supermarket Today)’. The song was about a woman called Cathy who wanted to buy discounted bags of rice at the supermarket. The chorus, which had sinister vibrating guitar sounds, warned her not to go because a strange man would use the till’s scanning machine to put a chip into her hand so he could control and capture her.

By mid-afternoon I was seriously ill and unable to stand. Eventually I was carried to my room by an uncle and placed on the bed. I was left alone for several hours, crying for my mother and drifting in and out of sleep, when I became aware of Clay and two other adults standing over me. ‘She’s probably contagious. We need to be careful or they will all get it.’

Clay put his hand on my forehead and stroked my cheek. The next thing I was aware of was him lifting me up and carrying me out the back door of the house. Another uncle walked behind him carrying food supplies and bottles of water. Behind the house there was a wooden shed with a small double bed, which I knew was used by visiting Shepherds for sharing because my brothers had seen people having sex in there. The other uncle unlatched the door as Clay carried me inside and placed me on the bed. The room smelt like the bedrooms did during the grown-ups’ love-up times – a mixture of sweat and disinfectant. It was also so hot it was like being in a greenhouse. I could barely breathe.

The uncle turned to Clay. ‘She doesn’t look good. Should I go find Patience?’

I tried to move and nod my head yes. Clay saw me and told me to lie still. ‘No, she’ll be good,’ he replied. ‘The important thing is she doesn’t infect the other kids. I’ll stay with her until the fever breaks.’

‘You’re a good man, Clay,’ said the uncle, patting him on the back before leaving me to Clay’s mercy.

I was almost asleep when I became aware of Clay rubbing his hand up and down my leg. I tried to clamp my knees together. He forced them apart and continued.

I was kept in the shed with just Clay for company, drifting in and out of consciousness. I don’t know how long I was there, but it seemed endless. At times Clay did behave like a care giver, urging me to eat oatmeal as he held out a spoon. I tried to swallow but I was too weak to control my bodily functions and couldn’t even lift my head off the pillow or open my mouth. Occasionally he spoke soothing words of comfort, telling me I would feel better soon. But mostly he used me to pleasure himself, taking full advantage of a sick four-year-old child for his own twisted perversions.

I believe my mind is unable to deal with the horror and has blocked out some of the worst of what happened. I couldn’t say just how far the abuse went or whether Clay had full sex with me. It is a dark place I do not want to return to. But the sensory images are always with me, playing out in nightmarish flashbacks: his unwashed skin, hairy armpits and sweat dripping on my face as he leaned over me, the smell of dettol, his fingernails grabbing at my skin and his thick Filipino accent as he gave thanks to the Lord for delivering me to him. I have visions of him rubbing my body up and down over himself and arched against me, rocking.

Whenever I came round I cried and cried for my mother, but I am certain she had no idea how ill I was or where I had been taken, or she would have come for me. I suppose it is possible that she visited while I was asleep or delirious and thought I was being looked after. She would never have imagined what Clay was doing to me in the darkness of that shed; that a man she trusted to take care of her child had committed the very worst of sins.

She had no idea that her little girl would never be the same again.

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