My experience with Children of God/The Family, part XI

Part I : Part II : Part III : Part IV : Part V : Part VI : Part VII : Part VIII : Part IX : Part X : Part XI
 

In the morning, Mictam was sent off to board a plane to Australia. We said goodbye to him, promising to write.

Then the colony leader, Asaph, read out who the road teams would be for that week. To my distress, he named Aaron, the new brother, would be going with me.

I did not feel good about the way he acted and looked at me. Now, we were taught by Mo that any negative thoughts, feelings, or reactions toward a fellow Children of God member were evil, unloving, and Satan’s way of dividing God’s flock so he could conquer.

So I was praying quietly inside myself for God to forgive me and to help me have more love for this brother. I went aside, which was a bold move, and double-checked with the leader Asaph, whether it would be possible for someone else to accompany Aaron and myself on the road trip. But no, I was told I should not doubt what God had revealed to the leaders.

So we all prayed for a fruitful trip, with everyone winning lots of souls to Jesus and distributing and selling lots of literature.

As we trudged off down the road with my son Levi in his carriage, Aaron smiled at me and said that I should be thanking God that the Lord was allowing me to go with him, because many other sisters had wanted to spend time with him and had not been allowed.

He told me he met lots of girls when he was out on the road and they wanted to "be" with him, and yet I was possibly going to be the one to get that chance.

This really worried me. I knew now that Mo had been insisting that the sisters "share" with the brothers as we were all "one" in Christ. Mo told us that all of us together were the Bride of Christ -- we were all one body.

I, like all other sisters, was not on birth control, and I certainly did not want to have this brother's baby. Yet I was feeling so guilty for thinking this. It was considered unspiritual and unloving. If I had the love of Christ, it would not matter and I would just trust God about my pregnancies.

So we hitchhiked to the town where we were supposed to distribute literature. We also now had what were called love buttons. These were cartoon-like pictures of a little girl and boy in a heart kissing, and underneath the words, "God's only law is Love." This was the name of the Mo letter describing ultimate sexual sharing in the Family.

These buttons were fabricated in London at a factory that was given to the family when Mo's wife, Maria "Flirty-Fished" and won through sex a British businessman to join the group. He was referred to in the letters as Arthur. The "Arthur letters" tell all about how she seduced him to join the Children of God, now called The Family of Love.

With these buttons, we were able to double, sometimes triple, our donations. The London factory also produced hats, t-shirts, mugs, small necklaces with the famous Children of God yoke symbol, comic books for kids, etc. Mo's son Hosea was in charge of these items. They were called Wild Wind Productions. Wild Wind was the name given to Mo's wife Maria in a revelation he had about her, representing the Holy Spirit of God, the Wild Wind of God.

In a small Quebec town named Bromont, there was a car rally and sort of festival going on, where there would be lots of people. We were doing quite well with our sales. I kept dreading what was going to happen when we had to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

Aaron would not let me move out of his sight. Even when I went to the washroom he waited outside. He was aggressive in his speech and actions. He would grab my son out of his carriage and hold his hand around his neck saying, "You will be cooperative tonight, sister, won't you?" It was awful. I was not supposed to let on to any of the people around me that anything was amiss, because that would cause them to doubt that we were of God. If they doubted that, then they would not receive our witness. And then, if they did not get saved, it would be upon my soul. Before others, I had to pretend he was a wonderful loving man of God. After all, we were preaching to save these people's souls. We were handing out the word of God through Mo before the end of the world.

Finally we met a young man who was interested in our preaching and invited us home to stay overnight with himself and his young wife. To my fear, Aaron told him we were husband and wife. He was pleased to tell me that they had an extra bedroom.

So after spending several hours reading the Bible with them and telling them about salvation, Aaron said we would be going to bed now. I tried to drag on the conversation but it was not going to work.

There I was, trying to put my son to sleep in his carriage and praying he would not sleep. Aaron was standing smiling at the window, reading me quietly a Mo letter about sharing God's love, called Flirty Fishing or just "FFing." I wanted to run out and escape, but was paralysed. I started praying in my heart, "Oh Lord Jesus, help me get through this alright, help me not to hurt or offend him or be unloving, help me not to get pregnant. If there is any way to make him stop, please spare me this time. Forgive my lack of obedience to Mo."

My son fell asleep and Aaron pulled me over to the bed. I started pleading with him that I did not want to have actual intercourse because I did not want to get pregnant. He was getting rough and angry and telling me I had no faith and was rebellious and should keep quiet.

Finally he let me off with just masturbating him. I was ashamed and embarrassed and very confused because I felt guilty for not wanting to make love willingly with him. I felt like I was very far from Jesus’ love because I had disobeyed Mo and not yielded happily. I did not have enough love. That is also exactly what Aaron told me. He quoted me verses out of the Bible about cold and unloving people who said they loved God but could not love their brothers. He also reminded me what Mo had said. I slept very uneasily that night, cried a bit but he never knew, and asked Jesus to forgive me for my lack of love and to help me.

This is what the rest of the next week was like. Near the end of the week, I was so grateful that he was not forcing me to have intercourse with him, I was telling him he was a good man and God would bless his patience with me. You see, saying I love you was a regular occurrence with the COG. We said it all the time to each other in the Family.

At the end of the first week it came time for Aaron, the team leader, to call in and report to the leader Asaph. Aaron was standing in a phone booth talking to Asaph and holding my son Levi in his arms to make sure I did not wander away. I was actually fearful for my son. Aaron was so aggressive. At one point I tried in desperation talking loud into the phone booth to let me speak to Asaph.

Reluctantly Aaron let me talk to him, holding the phone booth door open. I said, "Asaph, something is not right here. Aaron is very aggressive and unloving with me, and I would like to come back to the colony."

Asaph got Aaron back on the phone, and Aaron told him I was simply acting like a big lazy baby and being rebellious, not wanting to do the Lord's work handing out literature. Then I watched Aaron nodding and giving me dirty looks. He was answering, "Amen, Amen."

When he hung up the phone I backed away. He looked like he was going to hit me. "You thought that would work, eh?" he laughed. "We are staying out another two weeks until we straighten out our problem!"

I thought I would die. I was so ashamed of my rebellion in disobeying the Mo letters by not sleeping with him willingly, that I could not tell Asaph on the phone.

That night Aaron found a fellow who let us stay in his motel room. The next day, Aaron picked up the box of literature that was delivered by Greyhound bus. Now, one of the things that I might have been able to do was use the money we collected to take off. But Aaron was no dummy. He collected money from me every half-hour or so. I never had more than a couple of dollars on me.

Levi was cranky and tired and needed rest, but Aaron would grab him off me and hand out "lit" even with him crying. I was distraught about this.

The ritual began all over again that night. I felt like dying. I knew it was only a matter of time before he would force me. Nobody around us seemed to notice, because in front of them we had to act like best of friends, happy and loving. They had no idea, I am sure.

By the third day, he was refusing to go out of the hotel room and had bought a six pack of beer. This scared me even more. He was more aggressive, punching the bureau and swearing. Finally, after being held prisoner here with him for about four days, the motel owner knocked on the door and said his hospitality was up.

By that time, I was so exhausted that I figured the only way to get him to stop being so mean was to act sweet and flattering and loving. Then maybe he would let his guard down. Acting sweet paid off because now he started telling me I was a good girl and he liked me like this and we could go back to Montreal.

Once there, he met up with a person he had been witnessing to before, who had an apartment. I did not have the phone number of the commune; only he had it. I tried a couple of times to sneak it away without success. In this apartment he was drinking even more.

I could take it no longer and one day in a burst of energy I grabbed my son and ran down the long flight of stairs to the street. He was running after me. I yelled and threatened that if he did not stop this I would tell the police, sitting not too far away in a car. He looked shocked and said, "You would go to the Romans with this and cause trouble to fall on God's people!" I was so upset with him, I said "Yes!"

So then and there we went to the centre of Montreal. To my great relief, I saw two brothers handing out literature in front of The Bay store on St. Catherine Street. I ran up to one of the brothers, who did not know me, and threw my arms around his neck shouting, "God Bless you brother, it is so good to see you." I quickly whispered in his ear, "This brother is mean and flipping out on me, please get me to the colony safely." So the brother instantly complied and brought my son and I, with Aaron in tow, back to the commune.

Now it is important to note here that while Aaron and I had been on the road, the colony had moved location and only Aaron had the phone number. I would not have known where to go.

Back at the commune, I spoke to Asaph alone in a room about the whole thing and in the next couple of days, both Aaron and myself separately repeated our stories to three different sets of leaders, on tape. The final conclusion was that Aaron was sent out of the Children of God. I was lectured and told I was not revolutionary and was rebellious against the Mo letters. I had to go through a period of praying and fasting and reading these sexual Mo letters and memorising them. I found out about several months later that in the US, Aaron re-joined the COG.

I have so many stories to tell that they would fill a book. Suffice it to say, living in the COG was a difficult thing to do. We were trying so hard to pray, preach, and get close to Jesus, and we seemed to be wrapped up tighter and tighter in the noose of Mo and his doctrines.

Right after this event, the leaders were pushing me and my ex-husband Leonard to go to South America to be close to each other so my son would have two parents to care for him. It was then that Leonard left the COG for good.

By the time my son was two years old, the COG had started having wild parties with wine and music, and inviting men and women over to Flirty-Fish. I tried everything to get out of having to "share" with anyone, either a fish or brother.

Eventually they got me quite drunk and ordered me to share with a brother. I was humiliated and seemed to become lost from myself after that time. I had truly become, as Mo put it in his letter, one of God's Whores.

Eventually the group, through lots of difficult situations, had me Flirty-Fish a young man into the group. He was 21 and about to inherit $100,000. I only found this out after he had joined and wanted to marry me. I did not want to marry him but had to play the game. So this is where I will begin the next episode, on the survival farm with my fish Joseph.

Go to My experience index.