In Reply to: reposted letter from Mr. John LaMattery Sr. posted by John LaMattery Sr. on February 07, 2005 at 14:38:41:
For me, the "waking up" process came about when we gingerly started looking at the exmember sights.
My first impression was that "hey, these people don't sound so bitter to me... they actually are making sense"!
Then, when I actually read the "Justice Ward's" decision... wow, that was shocking! It really woke me up to see that the Family was not exonerated on all counts of child abuse, but that child abuse was acknowledged.
So, another jolt shook me... Berg, Maria, Peter, and WS were lieing to us. So that's why we weren't supposed to go to the exmember sights.
Then, I ventured to read Ed Priebe's Bible classes... especially the "tithing" class. The Law of Love, I knew was not "mainstream"... we were conditioned to that already... but tithing is pretty much a church excepted thing. Plus, the Family at the time of reading this was once again harping on paying your exact 10%... and not to try to get by with giving only a minimum.
Then, I was starting to interact with some sweet members of the New Day News and EXFamily sites... hey, these guys were nice!
But the total shocker was that the very message that Berg promoted and that we as sold-out disciples were supposed to promote and not be ashamed of was the same message that had hurt so many of our SGA's.
That convicted me as I had no idea as to the extent of the damage that was done. I didn't have kids in the Family. I was a childcare worker for leader's kids... for little kids.
As I've said before... in hindsight, promoting all the promiscuous behavior, law of love, sharing, ffing, and then the "loving jesus revelation", to children... in the childcare pubs and then "explaining" things to them so they understand these principals... yes, that is child abuse.
I was mentally asleep and I had no more sensitivies to these basic human rights... Berg explained away everything. If a person showed any doubt... you were a weak sister. My pride tried to always be a "new bottle".
I certainly regret promoting such an ungodly, unlawful and sexual environment for our children.