As soon as I see Patrick’s fat short legs stretching to reach the ground, I run forward. “Patchy!” I shout. His family arrived in Macau from England a few months before we moved to the village, and we had become fast friends. Back in the city, we spent much of our time together building LEGO houses, racing Matchbox cars, or playing hide-and-seek with the rest of my siblings; now he’s here with me, and I couldn’t be happier.
With money only to buy food and necessities, we have very few toys, so a playmate is essential. Grandpa says playing cards and board games are the “Devil’s time wasters,” so we make our own fun. My brothers make slingshots out of sticks and rubber bands. I collect things around the village: interesting rocks, feathers, broken toy pieces. I have one small baby doll that’s supposed to pee when you feed her water, but one of the boys glued her mouth shut and she doesn’t work now. I don’t care. My brothers won’t play dolls with me, saying, “Dolls are boring,” and I agree, though secretly I dream of having a life-size realistic baby doll. I know better than to ask my parents for any expensive toy, though. “We don’t have money for that” is the standard reply.
But Patrick will play anything I ask.
Patrick and his family will be moving into the smaller house just outside our front door. We’ve nicknamed it the Cottage and started calling our house the Main House. The Cottage has three rooms laid out railroad style, and like our place, it, too, needs a lot of fixing up.
Mommy warmly hugs the slight brunette woman we call Auntie Grace. “Praise the Lord, welcome to Hac Sa!” she chirps.
“Thank you! We are so grateful to be here,” Grace and her husband, Daniel, chorus in their Irish brogue. Uncle Daniel has the black hair of the Northern Irish, a skinny, meek man. Auntie Grace has freckles on her pale skin and light brown, untrimmed hair past her shoulders, like all the aunties.
In the Family, all adults are called “auntie” and “uncle” to emphasize that we are all a family and everything is shared. Since we are all “family,” any adult can spank any kid. The aunts and uncles can slap you, knuckle your head, swat you, or put you in the corner. Parents are not supposed to show favoritism to their own children. Grandpa says, “OUR CHILDREN BELONG TO THE FAMILY and all of us, and we are all their parents and they are all our children.”
The adults encourage all the children in the Family to call our prophet “Grandpa.” Sometimes, if I’m feeling petty, I want to tell the kids from other families, “He’s not your real grandpa! He’s mine.” But that would get me a smack and a lecture on how he is all our grandpa in spirit.
Here, in our little village at the end of the world, we live communally, like nuns and monks, each person fulfilling their small role of work and chores.
From the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep, we are immersed in prayer, songs about Jesus, and hours of religious reading. Prayer comes before everything: eating, driving, getting out of bed, going to sleep, exercising, witnessing, having sex, and doing chores. There is no activity too small to pray over, often just a few sentences asking for protection, for blessing, and for God’s will to be done. Grandpa says to apply the Bible verse “Pray without ceasing” literally, praying before and during an activity. I admit, I forget a lot.
Our life is scheduled from early morning to bedtime. Every morning after breakfast, we have Devotions—two hours of prayer, singing praise songs, and reading the Word of God, which is the Bible and the Mo Letters.
As directed in Acts 2:44–45: “All that believed lived together and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them up to each person as they had a need”—each new member donates their belongings to the Family. We own no property, not even our own bodies, according to the Bible, so it’s only right that we give up our own will and desires to submit to the will of God by obeying our leaders.
After Devotions are morning chores, called Joyful Job Time, or JJT, sometimes classes, followed by lunch, an hour nap, afternoon work, one hour of exercise, and a shower. We eat all meals together and have an hour of family time or united evening activity before we retire to our rooms to pray and read God’s Word, then it’s lights out. That schedule is the underlying rhythm of our lives no matter which Family Home we travel to in any country, with slight changes depending on a person’s main role: cooking, cleaning, fundraising, teaching. We must humbly do any task that is asked of us, without complaint or shirking, as unto God.
Conversations about sports, cars, movies, clothes, makeup, or other worldly things are frowned on. Our daily outdoor playtime, Get Out, is for exercise, not goofing around. When we kids start laughing too loud, we are stopped short with a slap or a sharp word: “Stop being foolish! If you have time to do that, you have time to memorize scripture. Idleness is the Devil’s workshop!” We memorize Bible verses and Mo Quotes daily to flood our mind with the Word of God, so that there is no room for the Devil’s doubts.
Our main job is witnessing. We always carry Gospel tracts in our pockets to give to people we pass on walks in the park. We call it “Litnessing,” because it’s witnessing by passing out Gospel literature. If a person looks Sheepy, interested, we ask them if they want to receive Jesus as their Savior and give a donation.
We befriend Systemites to show them God’s love. We invite them over for food and go to their houses when invited, but we always know the purpose is to witness. We must vigilantly guard against being sucked into Systemite thinking or worldliness from spending too much time with them or talking about things other than the Bible. “Love not the world, neither the things [that are] in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” says 1 John 2:15.
We are separated from the outside world—in it, but not of it: “Come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17). Our friendships are one-sided because we are not equals, for as the Bible says, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14). Our true friends and family can only be those in our tribe.
We do not have reminders of the outside world in our homes—nothing to taint us. Outside influence is strictly controlled—no secular music or novels, and just one approved movie per week. The Family produces its own books, music, and education to make sure they align with our beliefs, and we add to it outside religious music and books that Grandpa has approved. The images on our walls are posters of Jesus and Heaven.