Uncle Ben is the main teacher for our older children (OC) group of eight kids, and a singer-songwriter, the latter a talent he puts to good use. I’ve been memorizing Bible verses since I could talk, “to brainwash ourselves (the good kind) with God’s Word.” Depending on the teacher, or punishment, I might have to memorize anywhere from one to three Bible verses a day. I don’t have a photographic memory, so that means hours of repeating phrases over and over, trying to get them to stick. I’m determined, as I don’t want to miss movie night. The highlight of our week is the one System movie we are allowed to watch, chosen from the short list of movies “approved” for our age group. But we can only attend movie night once we have recited our verses for the week. There is always some kid outside the living room door memorizing madly, either to triumphantly skate into the room as the opening credits roll or to be sent tearfully to bed to finish his verses. That won’t be me.
But Uncle Ben changes the game by setting the Bible chapters to a catchy tune, which makes them a zip to memorize and review. He does the same with multiplication tables and holds memory tournaments, pitting us against each other. I love the rush of winning, and we all push for first place on the tally board. For the first time, school is not a chore to avoid.
And our larger population means more mouths to feed—we’ve long since exceeded my father’s small stipend. We rely ever more heavily on provisioning. Each week Uncle Michael and one of the boys, Josh or Caleb usually, will take the van into Macau for the provisioning pickup trip. They spend the day going around to different shops and supermarkets whose owners are receptive to our message and who save the nearly outdated food for us.
Every dollar is stretched until it’s threadbare. Thankfully, the Farm is making enough money to support itself with visitors paying for horse-riding lessons, using our three Australian quarter horses, Shadow, Marcus, and Taurug, and our pony, Sammy. My father has Chinese John and my brothers building a riding ring to use for the lessons, so we don’t have to walk riders around the open fields.
We continue to raise donations each weekend through busking and selling CDs of Family music created by Music with Meaning, the Family’s music writing and recording home in Greece. Some of the new people help support themselves through monthly donations they receive from family and contacts back in the US.
All the money we receive is used for overhead or sent to Grandpa. None of the adults in the Family give a passing thought to things like retirement, savings, or property ownership. Jesus will come back in the Rapture long before any of that is an issue. After all, according to Grandpa’s End-Time prophecy, the seven-year Great Tribulation of Revelation is supposed to have started about a year ago, sometime around 1986, with Jesus set to return in 1993. As we can’t yet identify the Antichrist, though there is lots of speculation, Grandpa suggests he is ruling in secret behind the scenes. Of course, God could change His mind and give us more time if He chooses, but because we cannot know, we must stay vigilant.
Even though it doesn’t seem like the start of the Tribulation, every month, new Mo Letters arrive to remind us of the impending rise of the Antichrist’s one-world government and point out the signs of the times from the news. The October stock market crashes around the world are evidence that Grandpa is right—the world is teetering on the brink of collapse and the Antichrist will step in to save it. We live every day in preparation. We have lots of canned food, and our flee bags are packed. A flee bag is not just for persecution, but also in case of a natural disaster, fire, or war. It has the few essentials that we would need to grab when it came time to escape: a change of clothes, flashlight. My father is responsible for throwing the family’s passports and a little money from the safe into his flee bag. Sometimes we have drills where everyone grabs their flee bags and runs to a designated meeting place in the nearby field.
The bigger the home gets, the more preparation we need. With everyone following God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply,” the kids now outnumber the adults, often two to one. The Family demographic is shifting as hundreds of the early children are becoming teenagers. To address the challenges of this age group, Family teens around the world are given long questionnaires about every aspect of their lives. One of the things that surfaces from their answers is that many teen and preteen girls feel traumatized by sexual encounters with adult males.
In response to these questionnaires and to all the police raids and court cases against Family Homes, Auntie Sara, Davidito’s former nanny, who has graduated to a top WS leader, sends out a new, adults-only “Burn After Reading” letter, Liberty or Stumbling Blocks, shifting the policy of sex between adults and children.
While not an absolute ban from Grandpa, Auntie Sara’s letter makes clear that sexual relations between adults and young teens seem to have a damaging effect, especially on girls fearful of getting pregnant. Without rejecting Grandpa’s earlier teaching, Auntie Sara says that due to this and considering the persecution the Family is facing worldwide because of child abuse claims, adults shouldn’t have sex with kids who are underage in the country they live in, which is around fifteen or sixteen in many places. While all things are lawful for us under the Law of Love, all things are not expedient (1 Corinthians 10:23). Kids and young teens can still have sex with each other if they want, but must be discreet to avoid attracting the notice of law enforcement.
The adults read this letter in a closed-door session, but I don’t hear about it until some months later, when my father holds a meeting with us teens to explain the new policies.
Whew! That’s a narrow miss! I am relieved, though I won’t admit it to anyone. Even though I am only ten, I have been very nervous about becoming a woman at twelve and having sex with adult men. None of the older girls have spoken to me about being initiated, so I sense it’s something bad. Just the thought of an adult male touching me in that way makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Fifteen is still years away. I take in a deep breath and let it out with a smile. Finally, I can be around the grown-ups again without having to worry.
My anxiety lifts, and not a minute too soon. Uncle T, as everyone calls him, shows up at the Farm with a suitcase and a guitar. Uncle T is a musician and minor celebrity in the Family, particularly in Latin America. He sings on the Music with Meaning music tapes we sell when we go out witnessing, and he stars in a Family-produced kid show called Uncle T Time that we have watched for years. He is a tall, dark, handsome man and a rocking inspirationalist.
It’s been a few years since he last passed through, and my eyes follow him in adoration as he leads inspiration at Devotions. I haven’t seen him take much notice of me, so when he stops me in the kitchen and calls me over, I search my brain for anything I could have done wrong. Was I fidgeting too much during Inspiration?