My story: Can't you see I'm dying (Part Four of life in a Dade City cult)

My story: Can't you see I'm dying (Part Three) click here

In 1996, a boy shot himself after having been yelled at by her.

I heard that there was a suicide note- but it was destroyed before the police could find it.


She told the church that it was "God's will" that this young man ended his life- obviously, God had "arranged' it to happen because he (the young man) would have defected from the church and "God saved him from this fate".

As I sit here and write this I can hardly keep from screaming. To blame this tragedy on a loving, caring Creator makes me hope she burns in hell for eternity.

There, I finally said it. My prayer is that God has mercy on her as He had on me; and in His mercy which is equally justice I hope that she finds out what the Scripture means about it being better to tie a millstone about one's self than to offend a little one.

I have heard from many other people, some of them still in their teens, that suicide was often the solution that seemed the easiest.

For about a year, it seemed the easiest solution to me, also.

There comes a place and time when you feel so 'dead' after all the yelling, lies, and rejection that it seems a good idea to just make it true.

If you are reading this and you feel that you would be at 'peace' if you could 'end' it all- PLEASE DON'T! THERE IS HOPE! Talk to a councilor, a real pastor, family member, somebody, anybody!
You are loved by God! You are a special creation- this world needs you in it- so, please, GET HELP! YOU ARE WORTH IT!

When my family of ex-church members get together and talk over all our experiences, we all agree on one thing: Thank God there wasn’t sexual abuse.

As I read back through all the accounts of sufferers, I mourn for those who were victimized that way. May God grant them justice and peace.

Today I opened the Bible I had used in the Dade City church days- in it were some ‘sermon’ notes I had scribbled during services.

As I sat by one of the ‘favored’ people, I had to pretend to scribble vigorously every fascinating, ‘God-inspired’ word out of her mouth, or be ratted on, then yelled at, etc.

One of the things I managed to scribble in between the words of "Worldly, Worldly thoughts and desires!" was this: "It will be a cold day in Hell before I testify again!"

I actually was able to laugh about it- thank God the absurdity of the situation overrode the pain!
I had been accused of being prideful because of quoting Lucado.

She had become so twisted that in the week before I left, she told the church that there was no need of reading the Bible, everyone just needed to listen to, and I quote, "The Word of God over the pulpit".

There was also the times when God would "reveal" things about different members divinely to her.

The actual trick to it all wasn’t all that mystical: she had her home and the church phone tapped.

I found out because I heard two of the young women (who lived at her house) talking together about how you should be careful about what you said on the church phone. Another friend found a tape in the church storage room in which the pastor ranted on and on about different members of the church.

I have also heard that different members of the church were sent to spy on each other to see if anyone had a TV hidden in their house. Only the pastor was allowed to have one- the flock didn’t have enough moral control to be responsible viewers!

And then there were the services where the "Dreams" were revealed!

She would have dreams about different members- in which ‘God’ revealed the member’s heart to her.

My heart was full of leprosy- because I was of the --- family.

I knew I was in for a bad time when she would glare at me from her seat behind the pulpit. She would stare at you in the most hateful way, all the while moving her lips. You knew she was ‘praying out’ the evil spirits that had taken residence in your soul.

And there were also the prayer meetings in which she asked God to bring an 'end' to those who had defected from the church.

I don't know what it sounds like to you, but to my understanding, she was asking God to kill them because they had the gall to disagree with her.

And then there was the evil sexuality of the flock!

As much as the woman thought about sex, she should have owned an adult store- maybe she could have put all that thought time to use.

I remember one time a family member and myself were being berated in her office for talking to a ‘rebellious’ member. In the middle of her tirade, she brought up the fact that one of her ‘favored’ members could no longer have sex with his wife because of medicine- induced
impotency.

I could never figure out what his impotency and talking to rebellious church members had to do with each other- like I even cared about someone else’s sex life. It was none of my business, and more importantly, none of hers.

She accused everybody of lust, heterosexual and homosexual.

If all her accusations were true, that church was the biggest group of lustful, wife-swapping, incestuous pedophiles under one roof.

During song service, she would walk up to different young people and say she saw ‘lust demons’ coming out of their eyes. Therefore, the poor humiliated people had to be ‘prayed’ through the clutch of their evil and there had better be some ‘coughing up’ of some demons into napkins if you ever wanted to get out of church that night.

As she was morally responsible for all these young lives, it was up to her to pick the young people’s mates for them. And you better take her choice and be grateful for it!

Thank God the young man she ‘picked’ for me fought her decision. There were never two more incompatible people on the face of this earth- we would have divorced in a year.

Young people were discouraged from pursuing college- Christ was coming back in the next year or the year after that and there just wasn’t time for a degree!

What there was time for was cleaning her five, six, seven, or even more buildings, all the while maintaining a regular forty hour job.

I remember at one time when she had seven offices that had to be cleaned bi-weekly. These buildings were up to forty miles apart and had to be cleaned in the same day.

To my knowledge, no one was ever paid a regular salary for doing this work.

Oh, and did I mention that she would ‘help-out’ only about ten times a year?

I would love to send her a bill for fifteen years of hard work.

Actually, I would love to see her have to do backbreaking work for someone else at no pay.

Let me not forget those poor souls who did ‘God’s work’ in the church-school. I really don’t know how it (the school) is still up and running. There are so many rules and laws being broken that surely some state or federal office is aware of it somewhere.

What makes me most infuriated, however, is the mental and emotional torture the older students are put through.

I’m not talking about church member older students, but rather NON-member students.

I have heard of two girls (thirteen and fifteen) who were pulled into the office and told to stop their lesbian activities.

Another boy was taken aside during a competition trip and asked point blank if he and another male student had had sex because the door was partially closed between their room and the supervisor’s room.

Two brothers were also made to change rooms because they supposedly were also engaging in bedroom activities.