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~My experiences... I do not know - I have been trying to get rid of them so desperately, trying to block even the most innocent thought that now when you ask me to share I can hardly come up with anything. I wasn't living together with my family at the time I met Moonies. Actually... to understand why I ended up in this sect it is needed to go deeper in my background and life back in my childhood.

~I am the only child in my family. Everybody says I am intelligent and even talented a bit. I have never had trouble learning. I was reading fluently at the age of 3,5 and since then I was to be found with a book in my hands somewhere together with my dog... There were no kids to play with, so all my early childhood I spent together with my grandparents... Then at the age of 6 I was sent to school although it was one year too early, normally kids went to school at the age of 7. I was the best in the class and learning was fun. But at the same time we moved from grandparent's house into our own. Father, mother and myself. Everything seemed fine for beginning.

~Nevertheless all my weekends and holidays I spent at my grandparent's house... My mom had many brothers and sisters and at that time my favorite uncle just got married and this new family lived together with my grandparents, I have always been too comunicable and thus I was always to be found together with someone... Home... I didn't like that new home. Somehow. My father started to drink more... I do not really know the problems he seemed to be facing but I think he just had too weak character. Couldn't resist temptation to drink. Mom was not the mom that would care much about me. I was never hugged or kissed and I was pretty independent. She was a strict mom and I always feared to disappoint her. Not that she would hit me... Nobody did that, but I was scared to death when the shouting started.

~Bit by bit and I was growing.. Father's constant drinking turned into agressive and cruel nightmare. He came home in the middle of night swearing and yelling, waking everybody up... when I was 12 or 13 he tried to rape me for couple of times. He never really succeeded to do that... but... you can imagine what came next. I felt enormous hate towards him and absolute dislike. He started to become more violent. Coming home in middle of night, marching himself in my room and beating me just for nothing. I had become too nervous and too scared and at the age of 15 I moved away from this house. Luckily. I just graduated from junior high-school and moved to a different village to live at mom's sister. Together with her family. I was accepted as a daughter there, a big sister to my little cousin, she is several years younger.

~Finally I had a normal family and peaceful life but longing to be loved and cared for never left me. I finished high-school and moved to Riga to enter the University. At the spring of my second year in Riga I met Moonies. That was kind of interviewing for going to USA, I never dreamt I would be chosen but... I have no idea why, but there I was. It seemed too nice - all those words and all those promises. I never imagined it would have anything to do with religion at all. None of us knew. We were put in groups and we found out the reality only on the first day of the workshop. I didn't see anything wrong.

~I was brought up with a conviction that God exists although you could got sent to Siberia in those times - Soviet Union didn't believe God existed... I had read Bible occasionally... what really got me in - was the talking about spirit world. Either I am too sensitive or it is some kind of gift but I could see and hear things, or even have visions... I have not even a single bad thing to mention about those workshops I went to as a participant, student. We had the most caring group leaders who spent all the time making us feel comfortable. I had many good friends there and that time was the best in my whole life. I was needed and cared for... even maybe loved.

~In the autumn I (together with my best friend and one boy) moved in the centre to live together with The leader, his wife and their little daughter. Also that time I can remember without any complaining. All started when the leader had to take care of new members in other cities alongside us. He was more travelling between the cities than being there for us. But we sure needed him. At least I needed. Then trouble came... young American guy, around 30... We had met in summer and in USA and every time I met him I thought to myself that never in my life I had met anyone as crazy as him. He was so full of energy and so demanding, so big boss... In a way I can understand the reason, he grew up in the family of 12 children... Since the leader was away a lot, this new young member from America had decided that he would be the boss for us, disregarding the leader's wife and started to do all as he liked... well, that was something awful.

~He had met a girl from Lithuania in our summer camps and obviously fallen in love with her. His voice completely changed into soft purr when he talked to her over phone while terrorizing all of us as the worst members he had ever met. He even punched me couple of times because I wasn't obedient enough to his mind. That was the breaking point for me. The former leader and his wife, considered moving to Moscow. As for the young American, his new girlfriend would join him... and we all moved out. He always accused us that we are too lazy and too spoilt - perfect fallen natures... All of a sudden he reminded me so much of my own father and all the nightmares I had gone through that I simply couldn't force myself to be there anymore. His words were 100% opposite to his deeds.

~None of his deeds was according to Principle... But I believed that the Principle could make the person better. I was confused and hurt. I was lonely and deceived. I was followed by him all the time and accused.. Once he even said that Moon will not let me go so easily... I can avoid all of them, earthly people, but not Moon who is Spirit of Spirits... in a way he was right... I had never felt completely free... there came all kinds of bad things happening to my family and to people dear to me... my most favorite uncle died in a car crash... I was so deep in the Principle and in living the right way of life that after leaving them I felt like the most helpless person in the world. I feared all the people around me, especially men. I had no friends (and I still do not have them). It was like being doomed... And the thought that I am the reason of all the bad things happening never left me... I failed and I am being punished... Now...

~Now I think I have finally got this feeling of constant fear and guilt out of my mind. I do keep in touch with my parents, I have never stopped doing that. But I never talk to my father. I really do not think I am being punished by Moon. He is just a man, but maybe there are some other forces which cross my life now...

~I do not know what you can use from this... since my experiences are not that much connected with Moon himself. The young leader treated all girls like the worst creatures in the world... but he was American. And it is just because of him we left. By saying we, I mean all my friends there.

None of us who were the first had stayed.

X-MEMBERS TESTIMONIALS - SECTION Danny Harth Gordon Neufeld Sveta Bill Taylor Brenda Henry John Guzman Bora Uzima Harlan Simantel Isshi Natalija Velikorodina Todd Harvey

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