CHOIR (Part 2)

During my eight months at CHOIR, I met, Jeremy Williams, the man who I would marry a year later. He was there on Nygren credit, after being charged with a felony DUI. One of the rules there was that one was not allowed to talk to the opposite sex without a chaperone present, but this was only strictly enforced for those individuals who were not well liked by the Hinsons. One Sunday morning Jeremy happened to be drying his breakfast plate while I was washing mine, and we exchanged a “good morning”. Bambi Hinson noticed our interaction and called a fire meeting to address the fact that she did not find it appropriate that we were speaking to each other with several people across the room from us and not closely supervising our interaction. She and Eduardo Tabraue both threatened that if they observed us talking again unsupervised by an elder or designee, they would give the Fairbanks Court a false report (saying that Jeremy was breaking the conditions of his 3^rd party custody agreement) which would land Jeremy back in prison in Alaska. It was in ways like this that the Hinsons and the other CHOIR elders manipulated us into compliance with their directives.

I had been living at CHOIR for about four months when a young single mom arrived with her two small daughters. Her name was Dani, and she seemed very friendly, kind, and nurturing to her children. One afternoon, she was in our trailer, and Bambi Hinson told her to play a church song on the piano and sing it. She declined and was attending to her children. Bambi told her that she was being rebellious and threatened to spank her if she did not comply. Dani still refused to comply, and Bambi called John Hinson into the room. The Hinsons laid hand on her and started speaking in tongues, demanding that the demon spirits of rebellion and dissention come out of her. They commanded all of us who were in the vicinity to also lay hands on her and speak in tongues over her. The people who were close enough to touch Dani were becoming violent, shoving her head with their hands and pushing her around until she was almost falling over. After a few hours, Bambi said that the demons were strong in Dani, and we would have to keep trying to cast them out every day until God prevailed. That night, Dani fled in the middle of the night with her two daughters. I remember feeling relieved that she and her children were safe.

While living at CHOIR I also met and made friends with a woman in her 60s named Marilyn. She had a great sense of humor and was very kind. She had an adult son who experienced disabilities, who displayed some challenging behaviors related to his disabilities. She and her son, Daniel, came stay at CHOIR for several months, and I observed the way the Hinsons treated them. Bambi consistently humiliated Marilyn in front of other cult members, telling her that she was a terrible mother and was selfish and had the “beast nature” in her. Marilyn would leave the room crying and heartbroken. For a period of time, the Hinsons moved her out of the house that she and her son shared and moved her into the girls’ dorm where I stayed. She told me that they had talked to her son and convinced him that she was a bad mom and that he would no longer cooperate with anything she asked him to do and was treating her badly. She said that she had called the police because he had gotten violent with her, and that John Hinson knew the police chief and pulled strings to not have her son arrested. Instead, they moved her into the girls’ dorm in their home and told her that it was to keep her away from her son because she was a bad mother. Marilyn stayed in our dorm for a few weeks, but she was verbally and emotionally abused so badly by the Hinsons and the other leaders of CHOIR, that she moved back to the northeastern United States.

There were many strange stories told to me while at CHOIR. Two in particular stand out in my memory:

There was a woman named Petra who was married to a man named Victor, and they had 3 small children. Petra told me that because she had come to CHOIR from the Move group in Switzerland, she was only legally able to stay in the US for a limited amount of time. During her time at CHOIR, she met Victor, and they started “walking out their year” (the Move’s 12 month chaperoned courtship process). Her time in the US was up before they were done with their year of courtship, and the Hinsons’ solution was to allow them to get married at the courthouse in secret. They then were required to return to CHOIR where they continued to live separately and finish their year. They then had a typical Move wedding, and only then were they allowed to divulge to the other cult members that they had actually been legally married for several months.

The other story was told by a man named Kyle, who had enlisted in the military prior to coming to CHOIR. Once at CHOIR, he decided he did not want to/the Lord did not want him to honor his commitment to the military. He told John Hinson this, and John pulled some strings with someone in the military to get Kyle out of joining the military.

John Hinson would often brag about knowing many high-ranking city and government officials in the Immokalee, Florida area. He consistently attended the Full Gospel Businessmen’s breakfasts at IHOP in Naples, where many wealthy men also attended. Several of these businessmen were recruited to the Move by John Hinson, and they attended church services at CHOIR regularly. These men and their families were treated like royalty by the Hinsons, as were the other financially successful families at CHOIR. They could tithe large amounts of money, and it was clear to me that people with money and power were treated much better than the rest of us.

One clear example of this was my roommate who was the daughter of the cult elder who led the Atlanta, GA Move group. Their family was well known to be financially successful as well as influential leaders in the cult. My roommate was given many privileges and opportunities that I was not afforded. For example, she was doted on by Bambi Hinson and put forward constantly as a proper young lady who the rest of us should emulate. She was allowed to have her own car and have a job at a hotel in Naples. They took half of her money for room and board, and she was allowed to keep the rest. She did not have to do any of the grunge work jobs on the cult property like I did. In fact, she barely was asked to do anything at all. She was quite prideful and treated me like I was a second-rate citizen. Every time I called anyone and was talking to them in our room, she would blast Sam Fife music so that I could not hear what was being said on the other end of the phone. She told Bambi that I was keeping in touch with non-cult affiliated friends from Alaska, and Bambi then told me that I was not allowed to use the phone or my calling card to call anyone except my immediate family who were cult members. After a friend sent me a birthday card with $100 in it, she also told the elders that I stole the $100. The elders grilled me about where I got the money and believed her over me in the end.

CHOIR, like many other Move of God cult locations, harbored sexual predators. One such man, Phil, had been accused by several women and children in Alaskan Move cult groups to have sexually groomed and raped them.  He was at CHOIR because after his wife in Alaska caught him cheating, she gave him an ultimatum that he either had to go to CHOIR to get help or she would divorce him. Being from Alaska, I had heard the rumors and accusations against Phill, even from members of his own biological family. He made me feel very uneasy and on edge any time I was around him. When he had been there a week, Bambi Hinson informed me that I was being assigned the task of doing Phil’s laundry every week. I told her that talking to him or being around him made me feel very uncomfortable, and she told me that this was a command and that I was not being given a choice. Feeling the I had no other choice, I complied. I asked Phil to bring his laundry basket and detergent to me at the main trailer where we all ate meals and attended classes. Instead, he insisted on bringing them to me in the laundry room trailer, which was quite a distance from any other trailers or cult members. He knew that I was assigned that same afternoon to wash my laundry and would be there. Over and over, I told him to stop bringing me his laundry to the laundry room and just to leave it in the entryway of the main trailer. Over and over, he ignored my request. One afternoon, Phil brought me his laundry to the laundry room trailer, but instead of setting it down and leaving, he closed the trailer door behind him. He set the basket down and stalked towards me, staying between me and the only exit the whole time. I involuntarily started walking backwards until my back was eventually pressed up against the washing machine. I kept asking him, “What are you doing?” He did not answer the first few times, but then the third time I asked he answered with a lewd comment about my breasts. In that moment, I knew beyond a shadow of the doubt that he intended to sexually assault me. He then put his hand on one of my breasts. Feeling internally panicked, I put on the bravest face I could muster and said, “If you touch me, I will scream it from the roof tops and make sure that your wife, Theresa, knows about it.” He froze and then removed his hand and left the trailer. I was left shaking both from fear, relief and then rage at the nerve of this man. I told the Hinsons what happened, and Bambi Hinson looked at me scornfully and asked, “What did you do to lure him into temptation?” I felt such anger that I could do is turn and leave the room, slamming the door behind me.

A few weeks longer, when I had been there almost 8 months, I got my tax return and secretly called a friend in Alaska to help me book my one-way ticket back to Alaska. I did not tell anyone that I had my ticket or was planning to leave until 2 days before my flight was due to leave. Bambi told me that I was on a path to go straight to hell. I told her, “No, that place is reserved for you.” I left that day and never returned to that hell on earth known as CHOIR.

CHOIR (Part 1)

I do not often share about my 18^th and 19^th years of life, because they were dark and tragic years of great loss, confusion, and bad choices. Through a series of recent events, I am compelled to share this part of my story, in the hope that it will shed some light on the darkness that both the Move of God cult and Stiner family are and help others who have been through similar at the hands of a cult.

When I was 18, just days after I lost my child, my family coerced me to move from the Wasilla, AK Move of God cult group (Pioneer Christian Fellowship) to the cult group near Naples, FL (Church on Immokalee Road or CHOIR). Step one in this coercive process was to prey on my emotional and hormonal state and insist that I had to make the choice to either go to the CHOIR or another cult group in Canby, CA, and that I only had a day to decide. Step two was to require me to write a letter that was dictated to me, which was then faxed to the CHOIR leader, John Hinson. This letter stated that I was a thief and a liar and had a sex addiction and “issues” with relationships with men. The third step was for my brother to repossess the vehicle for which I had been paying him, leaving me with no means of transportation. Feeling completely isolated and confused, I complied reluctantly with their demands, seeing no way out of their plans for me and not yet fully believing that I was legally an autonomous adult who could make her own independent decisions.

My father flew down to Florida with me, and he did not leave me unattended for even a moment on the planes or layovers, likely in fear that I would run away. That felt like the longest trip of my life, as I dreaded being in a place where I had no friends so far from Alaska, which had been my home and all that was familiar for 14 years.

When we reached Fort Meyers, FL we were met by John Hinson and another elder from CHOIR, Eduardo Tabraue, who chauffeured us to the cult property and to the trailer where I would be living with John Hinson, his wife, and a few other women. I was immediately shown my room, which contained 4 twin sized bunk beds and a small, shared closet space and was just off the main room where meals and church were held. I was to share this room with two other young women, Traci and Lori, who were complete strangers to me.

The first few days were a blur of confusion. I was very depressed and could not physically make myself get out of bed. John Hinson’s wife, Bambi, would come into my room every morning at 7 am and scream at me to get out of bed and get ready for breakfast. When I did not comply, she would throw ice water on me to force me out of bed. After a few days of doing that, she decided to assign me to getting up at 6 am every morning to make breakfast for all the cult members (roughly 50 people) who ate in the main room of our trailer. She said that my “flesh nature” would be swallowed up in a “Christ nature” if I stopped being selfish and “served my brothers and sisters in Christ”.

It did not take long for me to hate living there and to see that Bambi clearly had it out for me and treated me very differently than she did any of the other women who lived there. My father kept calling elders’ meetings (which they called “fire meetings” because they said they were putting out fires) about how he did not like the way I was dressing or the people I was still trying to keep in touch with back in Alaska. In a sudden moment of bravery, I told my father and the elders that I wanted to leave and did not like it there. John Hinson told me that I could leave right then with no ride, live on the street, and was not allowed to take my suitcase of belongings. The prospect of being homeless in a strange city was terrifying, causing me to fake wanting to be there while I counted down the days until I could save enough money for a one-way ticket back to Alaska.

The message that I was not allowed to miss my child or grieve the loss of my child was made clear in those first few days, and I survived the next eight months in hell on earth by putting my loss and grief out of my head and mentally pretending that I never lost a child. The one time that I dared to speak about my past childhood traumas and abusive family to John Hinson in a private meeting, he called Bambi into the room. They both told me that if I mentioned anything from my past ever again, they would stand me in front of the whole cult group and tell them all about every bad choice my parents had ever told them that I had made. Some were truth, and some were not. This rather effectively silenced me on the subject.

I attended “class” every morning, which consisted of a Bible study group led by John Hinson, that focused on the doctrine of “once saved always saved” and utilized cassette tape teachings by Donald Barnhouse and Sam Fife (cult founder of the Move of God) on the subject. This class also focused some on the subjects of addiction, demonic powers and deliverance from demons. There were about 10-15 of us attending class, and each of us had been sent there for various reasons by the Move of God cult. There was a man who was there because he committed adultery, a few young men were there due to being convicted with DUIs, a few men and women were there because they experienced mental health complications (like Schizophrenia) that were considered by the cult to be demons, and there were a few individuals who were there as a result of a drug or alcohol addiction.  I remember questioning a lot of what John Hinson taught us in those morning classes. For instance, he often said that autism can be cured if the autistic child is spanked often enough and hard enough. It was not an environment that was conducive to critical thinking or questioning the doctrine or rules.

My afternoons were spent either cooking dinner for about 100 cult members and leaders, harvesting corn on the cob from the fields, pasteurizing milk and making cheese, or helping George Peterson with making copies of the recorded morning Bible classes (which were then mailed out to cult members all over the world). There was never a moment of rest for me until close to 9 pm during the week. If I was seen standing idle for even a moment, Bambi would find an unpleasant task for me. She said that if she kept me busy enough, I would not have time to “be rebellious”.

[I want to pause my story long enough to give my readers some important background information on both the Hinsons and on CHOIR. John Hinson was a “Father ministry” in the Move of God cult from the very beginning, after meeting founder Sam Fife in the 1960s. (Father ministry are the highest-ranking leaders in the Move hierarchy.) With Sam Fife’s blessing, John and Bambi Hinson started “a home for wayward girls” in the city where they housed several young women at a time who were sent by their families to “get help” (“be delivered”) for various reasons, including mental health concerns/diagnoses, promiscuous pasts, and behaviors not in accordance with Move doctrine. This eventually morphed into what the Hinsons called their “Care and Teaching” ministry, and they moved that operation to Sapa, Mississippi, where they practiced on a much larger scale. They referred to this as the “deliverance farm”. According to former cult members who knew the Hinsons during this time, many of their methods in “Care and Teaching” were abusive and brainwashed the individuals under their authority.

When the Clarion-Ledger interviewed John and Bambi Hinson about their “ministry” at the cult group in Sapa, Mississippi for their article entitled Church at Sapa: Haven for Those in Distress, they stated that they were providing a safe haven for “troubled souls”. However, it was anything but safe. This article states that the Hinsons “look upon their charges as children, and as all good parents, they want to see them attain emotional and spiritual maturity.”

In 1975 John Hinson was convicted of seizing, confining and kidnapping Charlene Hill, a woman who was living at the Sapa, Mississippi cult compound under the Hinson’s authority. He was sentenced to spend 10 years in prison, but he appealed to the Supreme Court and successfully had his conviction overturned in 1978. However, witnesses who were residing at the Sapa compound during the time that Charlene Hill was being held there, have stated that she was tied to her bed at night to prohibit her from leaving the property and was not allowed to use the phone to contact her family, although she repeatedly stated that she wanted to leave and contact her husband and 3 children. Charlene then went on a hunger strike, which ended with Bambi Hinson force feeding her. Eventually, Charlene was able to get word to her parents, and they rescued her from Sapa.

Many individuals who were sent to the Sapa, Mississippi cult location to “be delivered” during the exorcisms, that were regularly apart of the deliverance process, have disclosed horribly abusive acts that occurred both at the hands of and at the direction of the Hinsons. Acts like waterboarding, scrubbing women’s private parts with scrub brushes until they bled, beating women and children, and tying individuals to chairs during exorcisms. Many have stated that they did not feel that they were free to leave and felt like they were kept there against their will. There were even night watchmen who monitored the grounds closely during the night and completed bed checks at random to ensure that no one left the premises. The only phone on the nearly 90 acres of cult compound was kept under lock and key, and there was no access to the outside world. Those who did not comply with the rules and doctrine at the deliverance farm were taken by the Hinsons to the Mississippi State Hospital and labeled as mentally unstable. Eventually, the Hinsons moved to Immokalee, Florida and set up a cult group there to continue their “Care and Teaching ministry”. In this cult location, John Hinson began to refer to his Bible class as “treatment” and CHOIR as “a treatment center”, thus causing the State of Alaska to allow those convicted of DUIs and other similar crimes to go there in lieu of jail time (called Nygren credit).

These were the people my family sent me to live with and learn under. A kidnapper and his wife, who were capable of and practiced in the committing of heinous acts towards those who had hit a low point in life and were fearful and vulnerable.]

To be continued…

Honor Thy Mother and Father

Before I begin to tell you about the next in a long line of abusive phrases pounded into our heads by the Move of God cult, I want you, reader, to do something:

Think for a moment of someone you know personally who you consider to be an excellent parent.

Think about the qualities that cause them to be such a great parent.

I am betting you listed qualities such as:

Patient, wise, loving, kind, accountable, firm, present, consistent, humble, honest, and industrious.

Think about the kind of parent who would have been your dream parent when you were a child and the kind of parent you aim to be. Keep those qualities that you believe make a good parent in mind as you read this blog post.

Several years ago, while the petitioner in the heat of a highly contested adult guardianship case, I received an email that served as a veiled threat. It was from a Move of God cult member and said simply that since I was not honoring my mother and father, my days would be short. I can only assume that the individual was attempting to (very poorly) apply Ephesians 6:2-3 to what they thought they knew about my life and court case.

You see, I was fighting in court to have my brother who experiences disabilities live with me and no longer be subjected to the daily abuse he was experiencing in our parent’s home (which was located on a Move of God cult compound). I was fighting for his safety and well-being, as he was non-verbal and could not effectively speak for himself. In order to accomplish this, I had to tell the court the truth about the abuse that has been going on, not only in my parents’ home, but also in the cult worldwide for decades. Abuse that I had experienced, seen my siblings and other children experience, and heard preached as a “foundational truth” for years in the Move. This truth was not convenient to the Move leaders or members. Truth always makes perpetrators uncomfortable, and often their un-comfortability causes them to lash out with threats, misplaced blame, and lies. 

Over my ten years out of the Move of God cult, I have gotten used to cult members and apologists coming at me with accusations of being a terrible person because I don’t “honor my mother and father”. Their guilt trips have no effect on me, and really highlight their brainwashed and judgmental thought patterns. Because this is something that comes up so often, and appears to be one of the cornerstones of the cult’s belief system, I think it is worth a closer look.

Growing up, I remember talking to the elder in charge of supervising youth functions. I told him about the physical and verbal abuse that happened daily in the cabin in which I was raised. I still remember the way he looked at me judgmentally and said, “You need to honor your mother and father. They are doing their best.” In that moment I thought to myself, “Honor my parents really just means keep it to myself.” And that is exactly what it means. Keep it to yourself that your mother told you that she wishes you had never been born. Keep it to yourself that your dad beat you so badly with a 2×4 or belt that you had bruises for days from the back of your knees to the middle of your back. Keep it to yourself that your mom slammed you against the wall so hard that your head left an imprint in the drywall. Keep it to yourself that at night when you are trying to sleep you can’t get your brother’s screams of agony out of your head from his beatings that routinely happened several times a day. Keep it to yourself that you were raped and that the adults who knew about it did nothing except to tell you that “You should be ashamed”. Just keep it to yourself.

Honor your parents leaves no room for believing trauma survivors. It leaves no room for empathy for what they have experienced at the hands of their parents. It leaves no room for the parents to improve the ways in which they parent, and it definitely leaves no room for accountability for having made parenting mistakes.

Let’s go back to our exceptional parent list: Accountable. Honest. Wise. Humble. Loving. These qualities are absent in parent/child relationships where the parents demand that their children honor the dishonorable. They are instead replaced with dishonesty, gas lighting, pride, blame, and the tendency to guilt trip their children. This is not loving or kind and results in children who are very detached emotionally from their parents. Rather than being humble enough to hear the hard truths about the ways in which they are making mistakes that cause pain and distress and being willing to put in the hard work to fix it, the parents are lazy and deny reality.

There are many other phrases that the Move cult frequently uses that go hand in hand with their “honor your mother and father” teaching:

“Don’t dwell on the past.”

“Forgive and forget.”

“What happens here stays here.”

All of these phrases are intended to gas light and guilt the person who has been brave enough to shine light on the abuse. When I lived at John Hinson’s cult group in Immokalee, FL at 18 years old, I remember telling John and his wife about all of the ways in which my parents had abused me and were continuing to abuse my younger brother. They would not even hear me out. John interrupted and said that I needed to stop looking backwards and not dwell on the past. I was told that if they ever heard me speak of my childhood abuse or concern for my brother again, then they would make me get up in front of the entire congregation and tell them every “bad” thing that they were aware that I had ever done. Some of these “bad” things were true. Some were not. They were all things that my parents had told them about me. This threat made me very angry, but it worked to keep me quiet for the remainder of my time there. John Hinson is what the Move cult calls a Father Ministry, placing him among the top leaders in this cult. This is what they do. They are themselves predators and abusers, and they protect other predators and abusers.

Denial is not healing. Anything that has caused pain or damage needs to be exposed, owned and resolved. I know of no other way to heal than to speak the truth. Their attempts to scare, gas light, or guilt me will only result in the light being shone on them. If they wanted me to write nicer things about them, then they should have behaved better and taken accountability for their hurtful mistakes.

To my fellow survivors who are reading this, please know that you are not alone in dealing with pain caused by your family of origin. It is your parents’ bad behavior to own and resolve. It is not your job to try to make them feel better about the ways in which they abused and broke you. If you are being told to honor your abusers, please know that that is a cult teaching that only serves to protect your abuser and shut you up. Speak your truth! You are brave and strong, and I see you.

Death to Self – A Damaging Belief

Someone asked recently what cult teaching has had the most long lasting negative effects on me. I had to really think about that, and ironically it was not the teaching that children are born with the “beast nature” and need to have it beaten out of them to attain salvation or the teaching that if I didn’t live life the way that my parents and the cult leaders wanted me to then I was going to a terrifying place called hell. It wasn’t even the “perfection message” which taught me that I was expected to be perfect all of the time. The cult teaching that has had the longest lasting negative effects on me has been their teaching that I need to prefer my brother. Put myself last. Always, no matter what. To die to self and to what I want and what is best for me.

The Move cult begins indoctrinating children at a very young age with all of these damaging teachings. I remember being 4 years old and learning this song in the cult’s preschool:

“Jesus and others and you,

What a wonderful way to spell joy.

Jesus and others and you,

In the life of each girl and each boy.

J is for Jesus, for he has first place.

O is for others we meet face to face.

Y is for you and whatever you do.

Put yourself last and spell joy.”

This year marks 10 years since I left the Move of God cult, and it has been a long journey of learning how to put healthy boundaries in place in order to do what is best for my mental and physical health. 10 years of learning that I need to fill my cup first before I am able to help anyone else. Years of therapy where I was told that I am worth protecting and investing in and should stop putting myself last…but didn’t really believe it. Years of marriage where I put my now ex-spouse first, and spent years paying the price for that. But the biggest costs were the absence of self-esteem and self-confidence. Their death to self/prefer your brother teachings that were pounded into my head since birth caused me to believe for 3 decades that I wasn’t worth loving. Because, you see, while I was busy putting so many others ahead of myself and preferring my brother, no one was putting me first. My cup was oh so empty, and I kept trying to pour from my empty cup. It led to exhaustion and eventually to the slippery slope of depression and suicidal ideations.

Then I discovered healthy boundaries, which were never allowed or even discussed in the cult. I discovered that I am allowed to say no when something is not what is best for me and my health. I realized that being mentally healthy is every bit as important as being physically healthy. And, most importantly, I realized that I am worth investing in and loving. Self love – another foreign concept, as it was labeled as pride and selfishness by the cult. I began investing in myself by loving myself and learning how to self-care, and over time I have slowly gained my confidence and self-esteem. At first, I felt guilty for spending time on me and loving me. I would be trying to take a relaxing bath, but the whole time be thinking, “I should be spending time with my family.” or “I should be cleaning the house.” Now, I relax more often during self care, and feel guilt only rarely. It is a journey, not an instant fix. It is messy and far from perfect, but it is worth it. It is worth investing in myself, placing healthy boundaries, and putting my health first, because it not only benefits me, it helps me be able to help others.

Racial Discrimination In The Move of God Cult

In a world where many claim that “white people” are at the root of the racial discrimination in the United States, my world view is that often white people are the ones who are racially discriminated against. Allow me to share my experiences with you.

I was born into and raised in an extremely abusive religious cult, called The Move of God. From age 4 to 18 I lived at the Sapa Christian Center cult compound in Kenny Lake, Alaska, which was comprised mostly of cult members and elders who moved there from Colombia, South America. Most of these individuals were of Hispanic descent, and they both treated those who were not Hispanic badly and were treated better by the leaders than those of us who are not Hispanic. The Hispanics were the only cult members of color at Sapa, until I was about 12. There were a select few white cult members who were welcome into the Hispanic circle of favoritism because they had either been in Colombia as cult members in the group there or because they married Colombians.

The Move cult operates within a class system that includes the Father Ministry at the top, then the traveling ministry, the elders who govern each cult compound, and finally, the worker bee members. At Sapa, within the worker bee faction, there was another hierarchy which placed the Hispanic cult members at the top and Caucasian cult members at the bottom. Some of the ways that I could tell this even as a small child were that those of us who were not Hispanic were treated like we were less important, were given the more dirty and less appealing jobs on the compound, were not invited to the seemingly lavish parties that the Hispanics organized and attended, and were not allowed to break the cult rules and get away with it like many of the Hispanic cult members did.

As a child, I grew up with 3 girls and 1 guy who were all Hispanic. There were no other kids around my age, and in common kid fashion, the 2 ways that I noticed that I was treated differently were that I was not welcome at the parties my friends were allowed to attend and that I was not allowed to break the dress code rules and rules about socializing with the opposite sex and get away with it like they did.

Parties – we rarely had parties or really good food growing up, so when the Hispanic members would throw parties with games and fun and good food, it was a bigger deal not to be invited than it would have been in the normal, non-cult world. I remember seeing them making trays of cookies, cheese and crackers, brownies, and store bought goodies and wondering why they got special treatment. And I remember my “friends” coming to school or work schedule the next day and bragging about the fun they had at a party they knew I was not allowed to go to because I was white and non Spanish speaking. I even heard their parents brag about the parties to their white friends, showing that they wanted us white folk to know that they were treated better than we were by the leaders.

There were 2 Hispanic families in particular at Sapa who allowed their daughters to dress in a way that was contrary to the cult dress code. Because they were Hispanic the leaders looked the other way. They wore pants, shorts, very low cut shirts showing off their cleavage, wore shorter skirts than were allowed, and their clothing was often extremely tight and form fitting. But then there was me. If my skirt went even slightly above my knee when I sat down or if the slit in my skirt showed above my knee when sitting, an elder would command me to go change immediately.

The other way in which the Hispanics were treated better is that they got the easier and more sought after jobs on the compound. Examples include the Hispanic women rarely having to slave over a hot wood cook stove, but rather spending most of their days either landscaping, doing greenhouse work, or working on their personal sewing and knitting projects in the Projects Room. Meanwhile, non Hispanic women would be cooking on a hot wood cook stove for hours, working in the garden whether rain or shine, etc. For the Hispanic men, I noticed that they were not expected to work as hard, and often were assigned to work at the Sawmill or wood shop, while the other men worked hard at the barn or did harder jobs at the sawmill or in the hay fields.

As is the case with most kids, I wanted to be liked and popular like my Hispanic friends were. I figured out at a very young age that certain things would give me cool points and increase my chances of being treated better. I could not change my skin color or country of origin, but I could (and did) take 4 years of Spanish in high school. By my senior year of school, I was nearly fluent in Spanish and could then understand the negative statements that the Hispanic cult members made about the other cult members, such as my family. This made me finally realize that no matter what I did, I was still non-Hispanic and would always be treated as such by the Hispanic cult members.

I vividly remember sitting at the dining table one Sunday listening to one of the Hispanic cult members read a paper she had written about Rosa Parks. She was crying as she read it aloud in front of everyone at Sapa, and stated at the end that she understands how Rose Parks felt that day on the bus because she and her family are often treated badly because of their race as well. (insert eye roll here) I remember wanting to laugh because that statement was so absolutely ludicrous. And then I felt angry as I remembered the many times that she and her family had treated my family and I like dirt because of our race.

The purpose of this blog post is to shed light on the truth about the way many of us were treated in the Move cult, and the way in which one’s race and country of origin played into whether he/she was favored or discriminated against. For those readers who will no doubt try to make this blog post about my supposed hatred of Hispanics…I now have several friends who identify as Hispanic who are loving, industrious people of integrity. They have shown me and my family nothing but love and acceptance, and I am grateful that each of them are a part of our lives.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free…

“That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. ” ~P.C. Hodgell

Because I was raised in a religious cult, and taught a doctrine that was largely based on lies and half truths, the truth has become more important than almost anything to me. I am a truth seeker. I question everything and everyone, until I am satisfied that I have found the truth. The truth is one of the most powerful tools we have, and it makes cultic leaders very uncomfortable and even hostile, because they know that the truth will destroy their abusive and controlling doctrines and practices.

The question I have posed to many a cult leader and member is this: “If you honestly believe that you have all of the truth, that you always act within the law, and that your doctrine and practices do no harm to anyone, then why do you become so defensive when challenged with the truth?” I have never yet gotten an answer to my question…apparently they think it is a rhetorical one…so I will answer it myself. They become defensive because there is no way, even using scripture, to justify beating and whipping children starting at 3 days old. Or raping and molesting children. Or water boarding adults because of their sexual orientation. Or tying children and adults alike in chairs against their wills to exorcise imaginary demons. Or forcing children to work 10-12 hour days of hard labor. Or denying children their basic human rights–education, healthy food, medical care, sleep, love, happiness, a fear free childhood.

Sam Fife strongly believed that doing all of these things was necessary, and based the founding of the Move of God cult on teachings such as these: (quotes taken from Fife’s Divine Order For Child Raising)

“How many parents say to me, ‘I don’t want to whip my child and keep whipping him. He can’t do what I have told him to do. It is too hard for him. The rule and the law I have made for him is too hard for him and I just don’t want to keep beating him. I beat him and beat him and beat him, and still he keeps on doing it. He can’t keep that law. I better stop beating him and starting praying for him.’ No. You better keep whipping him, every time he breaks it to keep him ever conscious that there is a Righteousness that must be fulfilled and that he is going to suffer every time he doesn’t fulfill it, whether he can fulfill it or not, so that one day he can be conscious that he needs a Savior to help him fulfill it. That is the purpose of whipping him.”

“…you’ve heard the doctors say, don’t whip your child, you’ll put fear in him. And I don’t want my child to fear me, I want him to love me. You better first teach him to fear you or you’ll never have him love you; he’ll hate you all the days of your life. Let me say that again. You better teach him first to fear you or he’ll never love you, he’ll hate you all the days of his life.”

“God gave me this revelation many years ago, and that’s the way I brought up my own daughter. I laid down the laws for her, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. As a young Baptist preacher I didn’t have all the deep revelation I have now but I had this one. And I put the whip behind them and for twenty years I deceived her about her father’s nature for her own good. When she’d break my rules, I’d take my belt and I’d come at her. She had the same idea about her natural father that some of my spiritual children in the ministry have about their spiritual father. She thought I was hard. Sometimes I’d take my belt and I’d come at her, from her standpoint as a little girl, like I was going to eat her up. But then I’d always sit down and carefully explain to her what rule she had broken and why she was going to get it, and that if she broke the rule again, she was going to get it again, and again, and again. And then I’d take my belt and I’d lay it on. And I didn’t get upset, it didn’t shake me a bit like all the foolish parents today, that there were red welts on her little back end when I got through. And there were. They always go away. Better to have red welts on her back end than to have scars on her soul throughout all eternity.”

“Now there is one more great truth that fits in with this. My wife will tell you, though I whipped her every time she broke the law, I never did it when I was out of the Spirit myself. I never did it when I was angry with her. The one or two times that she got to me, and got me angry about what she had done, I would tell her to go to the bathroom and wait for me until I came in. And then if it took me 30 minutes, I’d get down on my knees until I got back in the Spirit of God and I could discipline her for her own good; not just take my frustration and anger out on her. And of course, that 30 minutes waiting in the bathroom did a greater work than anything else. There was a method in that madness, too. Then when I’d come in and explain things to her, and lay it on, I’d be so free of anger, so calm, that in all her gyrations that she’d go through as I would lay it on her, sometimes I couldn’t help but laugh. I had to overcome that because she thought I was laughing at her and that would make her mad.”

“And here is one more point. If you’ll really work at this, start consistently when your child is a baby, when he’s about 3 days old, he is just about old enough to start getting the five-fold ministry on the backside of the desert. You’re kidding yourself if you think he can’t get the message, if you do it right. And do so as long as he needs it. Then when he grows up to the age – and I don’t mean the natural age, I mean the spiritual age – and through giving him truth while you’re doing it, one day you’ll have him born again.” (five fold ministry = your hand. Back side of the dessert = baby’s bottom)

“The first thing you need to know as parents is that you are no longer called to just raise your children naturally and to prepare them for the natural life; it is in this area that most parents have failed their children. They have prepared them just to face natural life. Send them to school, send them to college, send them to get a career. They spend practically all their time, all their labor, preparing them to have a better life than they themselves had. “I want my kids to have it better than I had.” And so much so that they sold the child himself the idea that is all he needs to be prepared for and that idea is what the child grows up with. The fulfillment of the natural letter is always directly contrary to the Spirit. If you as parents in the move of God are going to raise your children right, from here on out you are going to have to go directly against that, contrary to it. Not only not spending your effort, time, money, preparing them to have better than you had in the natural, but try your best to teach them that they’re a fool and you’re a fool also if they spend any of their time preparing for a natural career, getting themselves a degree.”

Those are all the words of Sam Fife, the founder of the Move of God cult. Current members argue that these teachings are not taught today. I argue that they are, and here is why–Fife’s teachings were carefully taken from reel to reel and recorded onto CDs by my father and other devoted followers as recently as a few years ago. These, as well as the booklets (Fife’s sermons transcribed word for word) are widely circulated throughout the Move even today. Fife is quoted in the pulpit by Move leaders more than they quote the Bible. And, most importantly, these teachings are still practiced through out the Move. As recently as April 2013 I rescued my own brother from being abused in these ways in the cult. The way that the cult leaders and other members rallied around our parents financially and provided them with moral support while simultaneously attacking me for my stand against abuse and control, speaks for itself. You cannot openly support and align yourself with known abusers, without yourself being tainted by their illegal actions.

So what is the truth about the Move of God? That it is a highly abusive and controlling cult. What makes The Move a cult?

A cult is…
“Any group with an elitist cause and view of itself, which has a pyramid type of authoritarian leadership structure with all teaching and guidance coming from that person/persons at the top. The group will claim to be the only way to God, Nirvana, Paradise, Ultimate Reality, Full Potential etc., and will use thought reform or mind control techniques to gain control and keep their members.” (Henrietta Crampton in ‘Cults and their Consequences’.)

From this definition we see that a cult is a totalistic society, or a high demand group, that demands total allegiance. The group becomes all-consuming and adherents often undergo a personality transformation and neglect family, former friends, studies and interests. And that, in a nutshell, describes The Move.

If you are still not convinced that The Move of God is a cult, I would encourage you to study Steve Hassan’s BITE Model. It examines the behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotional control found in cults, and all of these forms of control can be found in The Move. Hassan’s BITE Model can be found at https://freedomofmind.com/Info/BITE/bitemodel.php

If the truth I have spoken here can open even one current Move member’s eyes, or confirm the suspicions of even one former Move member, then I have accomplished much. If the truth can in any way damage or destroy the cult, then it should be damaged or destroyed. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Truth can stand by itself.”

Making Sense of Abusive Parental Relationships

My dad will be turning 70 in a few weeks, and that has had me thinking hard about my relationship with my parents, who were highly abusive to my siblings and me as we were growing up and even into adulthood. They are still current members of the Move of God cult, which leads me to believe that they have not changed at all…that they still believe and stand by the abusive and controlling doctrines and practices of that cult. As long as this is the case, and as long as they continue to emotionally abuse someone who I am responsible to protect it is not healthy for them to be an active part of my life.

First, let me say that I am not sure that abusive parent relationships can be made sense of, but I sure have been trying to understand mine. After all, abusing your own flesh and blood–a part of you–makes no logical sense at all. Good parents protect their children from all harm, and definitely do not themselves propagate abuse or defend those who do.

As I work through my memories of my parents and my childhood, I am finding that my parents aren’t all bad. Some who know my story would consider that a very generous statement, but I believe that there are very few people who are ALL bad. I have several good memories of times spend with my dad, and a few of times spent with my mom. I remember the walks that my dad and I would sometimes take through the woods on our special trail that ran from the woodlot to the sawmill. We would often discuss religion and sometime politics during these times. This is very likely where I first realized my love for debate. As long as I used scripture to do it, I was allowed to argue most points with my dad. This motivated me to learn my Bible cover to cover, enabling me to use it to my advantage.

I don’t believe that anyone, including parents, automatically are entitled to respect from their children or anyone else. I firmly believe that respect is earned. It is earned by treating others with the same respect you want them to treat you with. Respect from your children is best earned through love and humility. I read a lot of Beverly Engel’s books, because they so resonate with me. She says it best when she says,
“Why isn’t there a commandment to “honor thy children” or at least one to “not abuse thy children”? The notion that we must honor our parents causes many people to bury their real feelings and set aside their own needs in order to have a relationship with people they would otherwise not associate with. Parents, like anyone else, need to earn respect and honor, and honoring parents who are negative and abusive is not only impossible but extremely self-abusive. Perhaps, as with anything else, honoring our parents starts with honoring ourselves. For many adult children, honoring themselves means not having anything to do with one or both of their parents.”

Samuel, my hero

(Dear Readers, I digress from telling about my growing up years to bring you this short essay)

My younger brother, Samuel, has influenced me more than any other single person in my life. With his consistent cheerfulness and expressed love for others, he is an excellent example of a young person living life to the fullest.

Samuel spent the first twenty-one years of his life living with our parents, being abused and neglected in almost every way possible. He lived in this horrific environment, while unable to communicate and advocate for his rights. You see, Samuel has Down Syndrome, which makes it difficult for him to have a voice about his quality of life. A visit to the cult property where Samuel and our parents lived, inspired me to stand up for him and advocate for his right to live a happy, fear-free life.

I have been touched by Samuel’s determination to be as independent as possible and to be cheerful in spite of the way he has been abused. Samuel’s consistent love and forgiveness towards his abusers is amazing. He prays for them by name each night before going to sleep and smiles at them when he sees them in court. At the same time though, Samuel is realistic in considering their overall character in relation to their involvement in his life now and in the future. He confesses that his parents and abusers are “bad” and that he does not wish to visit with them or live with them.

Samuel has been living in my home since April 2013, and everyday I learn something new from him. How to smile and enjoy life despite my circumstances. How to love the unlovable. When I grow up, I dont want to be a doctor or lawyer or pilot. I just want to be as caring and happy as my little brother, Samuel.

My Story (Part 5): One Summer Day

I remember that day well…I was 8 and was playing hide and go seek with the neighbor kids–a 13 year old boy and his younger sister and brother. I was hiding in the bushes, holding my breath, waiting excitedly to be found. Suddenly, the bushes next to me began to rustle and out came the 13 year old boy to hide with me in the bush.

He began trying to touch me inapproprately. When I told him no, he started talking to me about one of the girls who had just graduated high school, whom he knew I looked up to and respected. He also began talking to me about my older brother, Mark, who had drowned the summer before. He tried to convince me that they would not think it was wrong for him to touch me. I could hear his sister in the distance looking for the other kids who were hiding, and I tried to yell, but he covered my mouth. He sexually molested me, and for the first several minutes I fought hard, but then I resigned myself to what was happening. I still remember “zoning out”…like I was not even experiencing this, but someone else was. I remember during these few minutes that my mind flashed back to that day at Mrs Stout’s house when Timmy did the same thing to me.

When he was done, he told me that I better never tell anyone or he would “hurt” me. I was so scared! He went and hid somewhere else, and I ran home and cried on my bed for what seemed like forever. I knew from experience that there was no point in telling anyone, because my mom had not cared the last time. I felt so guilty and dirty, and I was sure that it was somehow all my fault.

A few months later, 16 year old twin girls moved in with our family for the summer. They had no family in Alaska, and wanted to go to school at Sapa. One of them became like a big sister to me, and one day I blurted out to her what had happened. She told me to tell my mom or she would. She was angry that nothing had been done about it yet. That night I told my mom, and she did not say much. Just tucked me into bed and went downstairs. To my knowledge, nothing was ever done about my being molested. The next day, a burst of sudden and fleeting bravery descended on me and I told my molester that I had told my mom on him.

Days later, I was on a bike ride with Jane and a few other girls my age. All of the sudden out of the blue came this same boy and hit into me at full speed on his bike. My bike and I went flying, and I freaked out. I couldnt breathe because I was crying so hard. Jane and the other girls rushed me home to my parents, and she told them what happened. My dad was upset, and helped me clean and bandage up my cut up knees. A few minutes later, Jane drug this boy by his ear to our house and made him apologize to me. But the look in his eye was far from “sorry”. It told me that this was the kind of treatment that I could expect if I ever told anyone what he did to me that day.

I found out years later that this boy’s dad had been molesting girls at Sapa for years, the elders were made aware, and all they did was tell him not to do that again. Children will usually do what they see their parents do, and I am so thankful that God and common sense showed me how wrong my parents were so that I would not become one of these children who becomes her abusive parents. But for the grace of God, so go I…..

My Story Part 4: 4th-6th grade

For most of my school classes in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade I was taught by either my older sister, Michele, or by a lady named Jane. Michele taught Bible class, history, science, grammar, and geography. I remember learning all of the US states and capitals and all of the planet names in her classes. I also can remember how much we would look forward to the electricity going out, which happened several times each school year due to chinooks. When this would happen, out would come the karosene lanterns, and we would play Where is Carmen Sandiego and Chinese Checkers.

Jane taught me reading and math in 5th grade, and just math in 6th grade. She encouraged us to explore other cultures, and had us read a short book about a little Mexican girl named Maria who is new to America. The book described Maria’s struggles to learn English, make friends, and fit in. AS for math class, Jane made the decimal system come alive by naming the decimals “Darryl and Dottie Decimal”. She taught me two years of prealgebra in 5th and 6th grade, and I am thankful for the foundation that she helped me build for more advanced math in later years.

During my 6th grade year of school, my sister, Michele, had open heart surgery, and could not finish out the school year teaching us. A church elder named Ingrid took over all of her classes, and became our new teacher. She was fairly new to Sapa, and had moved there from Bowen’s Mill. She always taught classes at a level far more advanced than our years. I remember that one time she had us take a national placement test for reading and spelling, and I ranked as a freshman in collage.

The one class that Ingrid taught me in 6th grade that I will unfortunately never forget was the Bible class in which she taught me and my classmate about the blood covenant that God had with Abraham. She kept talking about Abraham and God walking in figure eights around and between bloody dead animals, and I remember wondering what in the world that had to do with the price of tea in China.

I quickly began to see the evil, sadistic side of Ingrid and hated her for it, and I will tell you why: One day, I was helping the cooks by putting out casserole dishes out on each table in the Tabernacle, and I happened to look out the window. I saw Ingrid pulling down Samuel’s pants and beating him with a stick. This was happening in the presence of several adults who just walked on by and never tried to stop the abuse. I remember thinking at that moment that I would never respect or like Ingrid again. She came into the Tabernacle with Samuel a few minutes later and I walked right up to her and took Samuel’s hand and began to lead him away from her. When she asked me what I was doing, I told her that she was “mean” and I did not like her. I was so upset about what I had seen that I would not even eat lunch that day. My parents asked me what was wrong and I told them what I saw. To this day, they never took action about this or in any way tried to make the abuse stop. I later found out that Ingrid kept a teacher’s notebook full of notes about Samuel’s behavior and noted in it every time she “spanked” him. This notebook was given to my parents weekly to look through, be informed of, and then they would return it to her for the next week.

I think that this specific abuse that I witnessed happening to Samuel opened my eyes at a very young age to realize that my parents were not the only perpetrators in this cult. (At some point during my 7th grade year of school, Ingrid voluntarily removed herself from being Samuel’s teacher, and from that point on this was the sole job of my parents, and other family members.)