Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey

00:00:00.160 Trust and safety is becoming a key driver of customer experience,

00:00:04.760 influencing how users engage, how safe they feel,

00:00:08.120 and ultimately, how likely they are to return.

00:00:11.140 Because I don't know about you,

00:00:12.580 but if I've had too many bad experiences on a platform,

00:00:15.960 I'm definitely not rushing back for more.

00:00:18.180 This is the intersection we're here to explore today.

00:00:21.380 Tap to keep listening to how trust and safety redefined CX

00:00:24.580 for brands like TikTok, Trustpilot, and more.

00:00:26.960 A conversation with InTouchCX.

00:00:30.620 Lindsay Tornambe was raised in an abusive cult.

00:00:34.180 It wasn't until she was 23 that her eyes were opened and she left that cult.

00:00:39.320 But then, 13 years after she left,

00:00:43.200 after 13 dark and very tumultuous years,

00:00:46.460 she finally heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and he saved her.

00:00:51.280 Her testimony is heart-wrenching,

00:00:53.840 but it is also such a beautiful and powerful reminder

00:00:57.600 that God turns beauty out of ashes.

00:01:00.820 You will be so encouraged by Lindsay's story.

00:01:03.460 Our episode today is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:01:05.960 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:01:07.380 Use code ALLY at checkout for a discount.

00:01:09.220 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:01:10.540 Code ALLY.

00:01:21.220 Lindsay, thanks so much for matching me on my podcast today.

00:01:25.120 We didn't plan it, but here we go.

00:01:27.640 Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

00:01:29.900 Yes, I am Lindsay.

00:01:32.020 I'm a single mom.

00:01:33.960 I work from home, which has been such a blessing being a single mom.

00:01:37.720 I have such a testimony of faith and survival that I'm now sharing with the world,

00:01:45.260 which I'm really thankful for.

00:01:46.840 Yeah.

00:01:47.300 Yeah.

00:01:48.140 You left a cult.

00:01:50.100 Yes.

00:01:50.640 And a lot of people have no idea what that really entails.

00:01:57.920 Before we get into that part of your testimony, though,

00:02:01.100 I want to know how you were brought up.

00:02:03.040 Were you brought up in a cult?

00:02:04.180 I was brought up, my parents were involved in something called The Way International,

00:02:10.320 which was started by a man, Dr. Victor Paul Werewolf, I believe in the 1950s in New Knoxville,

00:02:16.640 Ohio.

00:02:18.160 And there were some major differences that they believed.

00:02:22.040 They didn't believe in the Trinity.

00:02:23.400 So God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit were all three separate beings,

00:02:27.600 which is really important to remember as my story continues.

00:02:33.620 And so we believed also in speaking in tongues, interpretation, and prophecy.

00:02:39.580 We had church in our home.

00:02:40.980 So I grew up having a genuine love for the Lord, reading the King James Bible,

00:02:47.460 praying at such an early age.

00:02:49.340 My mom would tell me stories of even in preschool, kids were afraid to walk into school,

00:02:54.260 and I would grab their hand and ask to pray with them and lead them in.

00:02:59.920 And so, yeah, I would say grew up pretty normal from what I thought, you know,

00:03:05.100 still seeing family members and celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays.

00:03:11.720 But yeah, learning about Jesus and God at home, not going to a traditional church.

00:03:17.220 Interesting.

00:03:17.620 So did you believe that Jesus was God?

00:03:22.440 No.

00:03:23.060 You didn't?

00:03:23.780 Mm-mm.

00:03:24.100 Okay.

00:03:24.580 Because this is kind of reminding me a little bit of Jehovah's Witness.

00:03:27.820 But of course, Jehovah's Witness, they don't celebrate things like Christmas. 1.00

00:03:31.440 I'm not sure if Jehovah's Witness speak in tongues.

00:03:34.120 So it seems like a convergence of a lot of different Christian beliefs,

00:03:41.540 but also polytheistic beliefs, too.

00:03:44.800 Mm-hmm.

00:03:46.160 Yes.

00:03:46.820 Yeah.

00:03:47.160 I, yeah, just thought that he was a man, you know.

00:03:51.740 God was his father, but he himself was not God.

00:03:54.900 Okay.

00:03:55.400 But did you believe that he died on the cross for your sons?

00:03:58.380 Okay.

00:03:58.600 Interesting.

00:03:58.860 Yep.

00:03:58.880 I believe that he died on the cross and that, you know, Romans 10, 9, and 10,

00:04:02.840 once I can believe that he was my Lord and Savior,

00:04:05.380 I confess it with my mouth that I was saved and would be going to heaven.

00:04:09.360 Mm-hmm.

00:04:09.680 Mm-hmm.

00:04:09.980 And tell me about the rest of your upbringing.

00:04:13.460 It was pretty normal.

00:04:15.120 I'm the oldest of five siblings.

00:04:16.980 We had, or we started getting homeschooled when I was in the fourth grade.

00:04:21.520 Um, my parents met this man, Victor Bernard, when I was nine years old.

00:04:27.580 He was also a member of the Way International.

00:04:31.200 Uh, the founder had died in 1985 and things kind of broke up.

00:04:35.460 Um, but we still had, you know, church in our home.

00:04:38.440 And he came to visit.

00:04:39.400 It was November of 1996.

00:04:42.420 And he carried this, you know, when you meet someone and they, like, carry this authority

00:04:47.440 and you can just tell that they are someone who wants to be respected.

00:04:52.940 And, um, he definitely had that.

00:04:55.900 And I, I was nine, so I didn't really see any red flags or anything.

00:05:01.080 Um, my sisters and I put on a dance, you know, for everyone in the life.

00:05:05.460 And, um, but I do remember after he left, my parents made it very clear that we were

00:05:11.700 going back to scripture, that they had gotten involved in something called Amway.

00:05:16.420 And so, you know, our house was filled with pictures of cars they wanted and the dream homes.

00:05:22.120 You had gotten involved in Amway before, before Victor.

00:05:26.940 Right.

00:05:27.540 Did Victor have anything to do with Amway?

00:05:29.500 No.

00:05:30.000 No.

00:05:30.280 Nothing.

00:05:30.640 This was different.

00:05:31.500 Okay.

00:05:32.020 Who was Victor?

00:05:32.900 He told us that, um, God had audibly spoken to him and had told him to go shepherd his

00:05:41.420 flock and define people who had once belonged to the way international and bring them to

00:05:47.380 his ministry.

00:05:48.260 Okay.

00:05:48.820 He said that God had ordained him and that he was an apostle and called of God to now be

00:05:55.100 our shepherd.

00:05:55.780 Had he been a part of the way international previously?

00:05:59.260 Was he in leadership?

00:06:01.320 He was not in leadership.

00:06:03.000 He was a part of the way international.

00:06:05.340 He did at one point get assigned to Dr.

00:06:08.460 Werewolf's wife to kind of, you know, walk with her to meetings.

00:06:12.320 And it was after, I believe it was after Dr.

00:06:15.000 Werewolf had passed away, um, that he was assigned to her.

00:06:18.300 Okay.

00:06:18.620 So that's the guy who started it.

00:06:20.200 But this Victor guy was assigned to his wife after her husband died, who started it to

00:06:25.700 try to, I don't know, kind of be her guardian, be her helper and things like that.

00:06:29.780 Right.

00:06:29.900 So he felt tasked by God as an apostle to go shepherd the flock of the way international.

00:06:36.360 Um, and he came to your parents' house to say, you know, this is not over.

00:06:41.780 You might have felt like this was breaking up because, uh, doctor, the, the doctor had

00:06:46.920 died, but we're getting back at it and y'all are going to, you know, come back into the

00:06:52.020 fold and your parents, after his visitation, they had a renewed vigor that, okay, we have

00:06:58.340 to get serious about this again.

00:07:00.320 Right.

00:07:00.880 Yes.

00:07:01.520 Yeah.

00:07:02.160 Yeah.

00:07:02.400 Things started changing.

00:07:03.520 Um, my mom, my dream at that time when I was nine years old was to be an Olympian and

00:07:10.240 I was in gymnastics and my mom pulled me aside and told me that, um, when Jesus Christ comes

00:07:18.400 back, he's not going to care how many gold medals I won.

00:07:22.540 Um, and that none of that mattered in this life, which in a sense is true.

00:07:27.700 So, you know, like I, now I want my life to completely glorify the Lord.

00:07:32.800 Um, it was in light of what Victor just kind of shared with them, the urgency of Jesus Christ

00:07:38.740 coming back.

00:07:39.480 And, um, her point to me was that none of this stuff mattered.

00:07:44.680 And so we're just going to live our lives for Christ.

00:07:48.020 How else did your life change?

00:07:50.960 Um, we started really only hanging out with people who had been involved in the way ministry.

00:07:56.980 So my parents reconnected with some friends, former friends who had been involved in the

00:08:03.500 way, who, um, also knew Victor Bernard.

00:08:06.800 And so we started having fellowship in the home.

00:08:10.060 That's what we called it.

00:08:10.780 Church in the home together, um, started visiting their house a lot more.

00:08:16.180 Um, they started making plans for us to visit Minnesota, which is where Victor was from

00:08:22.440 and where his cult was at the time.

00:08:25.160 Um, and what was the significance of Minnesota?

00:08:29.420 I know you said that he lived there, but why were people visiting there?

00:08:32.760 To do what?

00:08:34.220 Um, basically to hear him preach.

00:08:37.400 Um, they had a compound there.

00:08:39.440 Uh, it was called the shepherd's camp where they had a bunch of staff housing, a big chapel,

00:08:45.100 the dining hall, places for visitors to stay.

00:08:47.880 And so my family, my parents really wanted to be around Victor to learn more about God's

00:08:54.700 word.

00:08:55.640 Um, I think they definitely saw him as a shepherd, as somebody who was ordained of God.

00:09:00.900 And so they really wanted, I think they were seeking someone to follow.

00:09:06.320 And do you remember the first time you went to Minnesota to visit him?

00:09:09.700 Mm-hmm.

00:09:10.100 How old were you?

00:09:10.840 I was 10.

00:09:12.680 My parents, we drove out there.

00:09:14.780 They brought me and my sister right after me and another friend from the fellowship.

00:09:20.580 And, um, it's this tiny little town.

00:09:24.600 I remember my dad joking that if you blinked, you would miss it.

00:09:28.180 Finlayson, Minnesota.

00:09:29.660 Um, the camp, it was down this long dirt road and you turned in pine trees everywhere.

00:09:36.840 Very, very secluded, but also beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

00:09:41.660 Um, there were so many families that lived there and lots of kids.

00:09:45.780 I had a blast pretty much the whole time I was there because I was just playing with kids

00:09:52.300 the whole time.

00:09:52.960 And there were so many animals.

00:09:54.820 Um, there were a few things that scared me though.

00:09:58.280 Um, we would have meals that would last for a really long time and people who disagreed with

00:10:03.780 Victor, I saw him spit in people's faces and throw chairs, um, at people.

00:10:09.880 He just definitely gave me the impression that I never wanted to make him mad.

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00:11:16.660 After you went back home, what was life like?

00:11:25.740 Kind of went back to normal.

00:11:28.360 We were still being homeschooled.

00:11:29.820 We did.

00:11:30.600 This was pre-cell phones and iPads.

00:11:33.820 So me and a couple of the kids would write letters to each other back and forth.

00:11:37.440 My parents did listen to a lot of the tapes that Victor had given them of teachings he

00:11:44.220 had previously recorded, and he had given them a bunch of books he had written to read.

00:11:50.160 So September of 1998, Victor flew to Pennsylvania, which is where my family lived, and pretty much

00:11:57.220 gave them an ultimatum that we either needed to move to the camp and join his ministry there,

00:12:02.960 or we were no longer allowed to visit.

00:12:06.260 So you had to move there full-time?

00:12:08.460 No, we hadn't at that point.

00:12:09.800 We had just visited a few times.

00:12:10.880 But you had to.

00:12:11.680 That's what he was trying to say.

00:12:12.900 Right.

00:12:13.480 Okay.

00:12:13.680 Yeah.

00:12:14.260 Gotcha.

00:12:15.100 Yes.

00:12:15.700 And I wasn't in the meeting, but I know from just seeing my parents afterwards, it was very

00:12:22.800 somber and very serious.

00:12:24.900 And it didn't take them long, though.

00:12:27.140 So they decided to sell the house and pretty much get rid of everything besides what some

00:12:34.940 people maybe in Minnesota needed.

00:12:37.960 And I don't even really remember my parents making it a big deal of us moving.

00:12:44.600 You know, like I don't remember it being a big deal with my grandparents or aunts and

00:12:48.840 uncles.

00:12:49.140 And looking back, I almost feel like it was on purpose because if I had known that I would

00:12:55.920 really never see them again, I don't know that I would have wanted to go because we were

00:13:01.080 very close with my mom and dad's side of the family.

00:13:06.580 And I found out later after I finally left in my 20s that my mother had actually written

00:13:14.140 a letter to her parents and siblings saying that if anyone tried to stop us, she would

00:13:19.580 cut all communication off.

00:13:21.120 So she definitely knew, I think, what she was getting herself into.

00:13:26.500 So y'all moved there.

00:13:27.980 You were like 11 or 12?

00:13:32.920 I was still 10.

00:13:34.500 Or no, I was 11.

00:13:35.420 Yes.

00:13:36.040 Okay.

00:13:36.920 So you moved there in 1998.

00:13:39.580 And what did it look like actually living there?

00:13:41.880 They moved our family into two separate units.

00:13:47.040 There was this place called the Four Plex.

00:13:49.400 It was four kind of mini apartments, you know, with like a mini fridge, a tuna burner stove,

00:13:56.280 had two bedrooms each.

00:13:57.620 So because we were a family of seven, they split us up.

00:14:01.400 And there were 80 people living at the camp.

00:14:03.840 So you had four siblings.

00:14:05.160 Four siblings.

00:14:05.860 Okay.

00:14:06.200 Yes.

00:14:07.220 There were 80 people living at the camp at that time.

00:14:09.620 So it was busy.

00:14:11.040 I mean, kids everywhere.

00:14:13.700 For a while, Victor had, he kind of made the rules and everyone had to follow.

00:14:19.620 So if he wanted to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner all together, that's what happened.

00:14:23.680 If he only wanted to have dinner all together, that's what happened.

00:14:27.120 But many long meals, lots of teachings and sharing.

00:14:31.740 For me as an 11-year-old, you know, animal care, being homeschooled, skating on the lake, sledding.

00:14:40.940 Did your dad have to work?

00:14:43.760 I don't even remember if my dad—I know at that time, I don't think he did work.

00:14:49.520 Later on, he did work at a cabinet shop that was run from one of the locations by the church.

00:14:56.240 So is the food and all of this stuff being paid for by, like, tithing or donations, or how does that work?

00:15:02.880 Yeah.

00:15:03.740 Great question.

00:15:05.420 I honestly don't know that answer.

00:15:08.200 I've always wondered where the money came from.

00:15:10.960 I know people did tithe.

00:15:13.420 10% was what they gave.

00:15:18.360 But other than that, I'm actually not really sure where all the money came from for everything.

00:15:24.640 So for the most part, this kind of felt like a normal childhood, at least at first.

00:15:28.720 But you said that you noticed that Victor was very angry, that he would shun people, he would throw things, yell at people.

00:15:34.820 You told a story about an elder shook your five-year-old sister so much that she ended up, like, wetting herself out of fear.

00:15:44.940 What was your reaction when you saw that?

00:15:48.660 Oh, I was scared.

00:15:49.800 I remember comforting her.

00:15:53.900 It's tough—you know, it's hard because your parents are there and they trust these people, you know?

00:15:58.420 And as a kid, I was seeing all these things and getting scared, but my parents, you know, I felt like I trusted them at that time to do what was best for us.

00:16:09.380 And they were okay with letting this stuff happen.

00:16:12.820 And, you know, my parents, they did use corporal punishment on us growing up, not to that extent, but it wasn't not normal to get, you know, hit with a rod or, you know, smacked around.

00:16:27.180 So, I think, yeah, it definitely made me scared, but I just thought this was life now.

00:16:35.400 Yeah.

00:16:36.100 And just to close the loop on this, you mentioned Amway earlier, that your family had been in Amway.

00:16:41.500 Is that a significant part of your story?

00:16:44.460 No, not significant.

00:16:45.800 I think it just—for me, I guess it kind of showed that we—my parents were really into the word when I was younger.

00:16:53.740 And then they kind of drifted away to more worldly things.

00:16:57.460 And then when Victor came, they kind of went back to the word.

00:17:02.060 Okay.

00:17:02.160 So, they quit Amway.

00:17:03.480 Right.

00:17:03.840 They did quit.

00:17:04.720 Okay.

00:17:05.000 And kind of pulled you all out of everything that was seemingly worldly, materialistic, earthly success.

00:17:11.680 Right.

00:17:12.120 Things like that.

00:17:13.040 And really went back to kind of like what they considered a fundamentalist peer view of the way.

00:17:19.860 Correct.

00:17:20.300 Y'all moved to this camp.

00:17:21.780 Did you see, as you were getting older into your preteen and teen years, things that started to disturb you?

00:17:27.960 So, yeah, when I was 12, at this point, my family or the church had acquired another property about five miles from the camp.

00:17:39.860 And so, my family was sent to live there.

00:17:41.980 And that's that summer of 1999.

00:17:46.460 That's when the summer of love happened.

00:17:49.300 Victor was really honing in on all the women at the camp, really portraying himself as our shepherd, using the Song of Solomon as a reference to kind of relate to him and the church.

00:18:02.800 So, you said we, like including little girls?

00:18:07.880 Yes.

00:18:08.580 Yes.

00:18:08.920 So, September of 1998, before my family moved to the shepherd's camp, Victor had taken off his wedding ring.

00:18:21.020 He was married and had four children.

00:18:23.320 He took off his wedding ring and said that just as Jesus Christ is married to the church and the bride of Christ, he was now married to the church.

00:18:33.680 Which I think is important to know because of especially how we viewed God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit being all separate.

00:18:42.240 Jesus Christ is a man.

00:18:43.220 It was almost like him saying he is Christ in the flesh, you know, being married to the church.

00:18:50.040 Right.

00:18:50.780 Okay.

00:18:51.100 So, tell me about the summer of love in 1999.

00:18:53.900 The summer of love happened in 1999.

00:18:56.960 Victor had an RV and he would travel.

00:19:01.800 There was about three other properties that the believers lived on at this point.

00:19:07.780 I think there was about 150 people involved in this cult.

00:19:10.960 And so, they were all spread across these three properties.

00:19:13.780 So, he would take his RV and travel to the three different properties where some young women are, including me, and I was only 12 at the time.

00:19:24.520 He would do things we called grazing the sheep, where we would go out.

00:19:29.900 He would take his shepherd's staff and blankets and lay down in the grass with us and even the married women and share stuff from the Bible or just things that he was thinking about in the church.

00:19:42.080 And he didn't do this with the men or young men.

00:19:44.580 He was very strategic on targeting the women and the young girls.

00:19:50.200 He demanded a lot of respect at that time.

00:19:53.940 You know, roses being placed where he would go to meetings.

00:19:57.880 And again, always, I mean, I remember-

00:20:00.540 Roses being placed.

00:20:01.380 Like, someone would have to go before him and put roses there before he-

00:20:05.820 Yeah, like at a meeting, put a rose there.

00:20:08.200 It was something that Dr. Werewolf did or had done for him in the Way Ministry.

00:20:12.440 And so, he was kind of adapting that for him.

00:20:15.940 Did you ever think, as a 12-year-old, this whole grazing the grass thing is weird?

00:20:20.980 I-

00:20:21.520 So, no, not at that point.

00:20:24.420 I did not think it was weird.

00:20:25.700 He, at one point, shared with me and my sister that before he came and found us in 1996, he was sitting in that exact same pasture, crying out to God and praying to find survivors of the Way International.

00:20:41.860 And he told my sister and I that we were the joy of his tears and how we were the fruit of what God had told him to do.

00:20:51.020 Yeah.

00:20:51.140 So, he, you know, as a young kid, and this is the person that God had put in our life, I feared him, but I also felt I am special, you know?

00:21:02.300 Right.

00:21:02.940 Right.

00:21:03.260 And your mom clearly trusted him.

00:21:05.460 Right.

00:21:05.680 Was she going on these ventures out into the pasture?

00:21:08.480 Yes.

00:21:09.220 Yes, absolutely.

00:21:10.200 And you never got any indication from your parents at this time that this is kind of creepy?

00:21:16.040 No, not at all.

00:21:17.680 Not at all.

00:21:17.800 So, you, as a child, you trust your parents.

00:21:19.640 Right.

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00:22:20.260 Tell us more about what happened that summer.

00:22:29.720 That was the first summer that my parents agreed to have us, me and my sisters, sleep

00:22:36.820 in a camper with Victor.

00:22:38.720 How many sisters do you have? 0.98

00:22:40.200 Three sisters.

00:22:41.160 Okay.

00:22:41.420 And their ages at this point?

00:22:44.760 Gosh, I was 11, so it would be 8, 6, and 4.

00:22:52.280 Okay.

00:22:53.400 So, I think you had said that you were 12.

00:22:56.980 So, 11 or 12 at this in 1999, that this is happening.

00:23:02.820 Okay.

00:23:03.400 And Victor approached your parents and said, hey, I need them to sleep in the RV with me.

00:23:09.420 It was actually one of the, like, older young ladies who was serving at where we lived at 1.00

00:23:16.440 Three Taverns.

00:23:17.880 I think she was maybe 19 at the time, and she had asked my parents if it was okay, and they

00:23:26.680 said yes, which, as a mother now, like, I just, I don't know.

00:23:32.000 There's so many red flags.

00:23:33.340 I still cannot understand why my parents said yes to that.

00:23:39.440 We didn't sleep in the bedroom with him.

00:23:40.960 We slept out in the kitchen area, but that was the first time he ever wrote us a note,

00:23:46.840 and it just said, I love you, and he slid it under the door.

00:23:51.240 But yeah, that just, I never really understood.

00:23:53.920 It seemed like he was wanting love from us, but I definitely did not have it back for him

00:24:01.200 at that point.

00:24:01.980 I respected him and feared him, but it wasn't that I was, like, actively seeking to be, right.

00:24:09.540 Right.

00:24:10.020 Right.

00:24:10.600 Yeah.

00:24:11.880 And nothing else happened that first time.

00:24:15.320 No.

00:24:16.000 In the RV.

00:24:16.760 No.

00:24:17.220 But that was just the first time.

00:24:19.000 There were other times.

00:24:19.900 Right.

00:24:20.200 Yeah.

00:24:21.220 Yeah.

00:24:21.460 Later that summer, he had a bunch of girls my age who had, you know, I'd known them since

00:24:27.400 I was 10 when we first visited, and they were all at the location where I lived.

00:24:34.520 He had set up a tent, and that same girl who asked my parents if me and my sisters could 0.80

00:24:40.780 sleep in the camper, she asked all of us who wanted to sleep next to him, and everyone raised

00:24:45.420 their hand, and I did not.

00:24:47.240 I was so scared.

00:24:51.320 I did not want to sleep next to him.

00:24:52.980 I couldn't believe why the rest were, and she picked me to sleep next to him, and she

00:24:58.320 told me it was because I didn't raise my hand.

00:25:00.640 And I remember just laying there as stiff as a board, not wanting to move, afraid to breathe,

00:25:07.280 because I was just so nervous.

00:25:09.880 And you know when you can feel that people are jealous of you, and that's what I was feeling

00:25:14.560 from the other girls, like they wanted to be me, and I just didn't understand it, you 0.75

00:25:19.300 know?

00:25:20.460 But nothing, again, he did not touch me that night.

00:25:25.760 Nothing happened until it was, I think, January of 2000, so I think had just turned 12 at this

00:25:33.140 point, and his camper, again, was at three taverns where our family lived, and somebody had asked

00:25:40.100 me, I think it was maybe to go bring him the mail or, you know, give him a message, and I

00:25:46.120 walked into his camper, and he was standing in the back in the bathroom completely naked.

00:25:52.400 And again, I'm 12, you know, not developed, looking like a little kid, and walked, he told

00:26:02.120 me to come towards him, and I just stood there, you know, very unsure of what to do, very nervous, 0.99

00:26:09.580 and he grabbed my hand and had me put it on his penis. 1.00

00:26:13.720 Um, and I, I don't even know if I was breathing at that point, you know? 0.98

00:26:20.720 I just felt very alone, and, um, he had me lay in the bed next to him, and I remember him

00:26:27.140 telling me that I could do more if I wanted, but I didn't, and I didn't say anything, and

00:26:31.540 I think he got the hint that I was not going to do anything else, yeah.

00:26:36.280 Oh my gosh, I can't imagine.

00:26:37.760 And he told me not to tell anyone, that nobody would understand, um, that this was just between

00:26:43.960 him and me and God, and, you know, that I was special, and, and I didn't.

00:26:49.220 I remember-

00:26:50.260 You didn't tell your parents or sisters?

00:26:51.140 I didn't tell my parents, no, and, you know, my mom never had these kinds of talks with

00:26:56.040 us.

00:26:56.280 She never talked about inappropriate touching or inappropriate behavior, um, and from my,

00:27:02.280 what I saw from my parents and from the rest of the adults, everyone loved him and adored

00:27:07.580 Victor, um, but I was just so closed off and nervous, and I just, like, shoved it in the

00:27:14.780 back of my brain.

00:27:16.380 Wow.

00:27:17.080 Was that the only time?

00:27:20.080 No.

00:27:20.680 Um, that summer of 2000, Victor gave a teaching, um, to the church about how in the Old Testament,

00:27:30.780 the firstborn children were to be sacrificed to God, and he read off a list of names.

00:27:37.580 Mine was on there, um, and basically said that we could give our lives to Christ and dedicate

00:27:43.880 a life of service to the church, um, and how much honor it would bring on our family.

00:27:49.840 Um, I, you know, I, I saw all my friends deciding to do this, all the girls that I had been growing

00:27:57.800 up with, and I did not at the time know that it was a lifetime commitment, and, you know,

00:28:04.260 I have it in my memoirs that I wrote while I was there in 2008 that it became a, almost

00:28:09.000 a running joke in the maintenance.

00:28:10.280 Oh, Lindsay didn't know what she was getting herself into, um, and I told my parents, so

00:28:15.680 I want to go.

00:28:16.400 I want to go serve in the summer, and in my mind, I thought I'll be back to being homeschooled

00:28:22.080 in the fall, you know, I'm only 13, and they were very serious, and they're like, are you

00:28:27.920 sure you want to go?

00:28:28.820 And my dad was crying, and I was like, yes, absolutely, it'll be fun, and.

00:28:34.260 Did you know what it entailed?

00:28:36.240 And so he just said, sacrifice your firstborn, here's your life of service.

00:28:41.780 Did he say what the life of service would be?

00:28:44.340 Basically, just serving at the camp and, um, you know, dedicating our life to just, um,

00:28:51.880 just helping out, you know, serving, whether it was getting ready for meetings.

00:28:56.240 He didn't really give a laid out plan of all that it looked like.

00:29:00.700 Boys and girls?

00:29:01.640 Nope, just girls. 1.00

00:29:02.940 Okay, so even if there was a firstborn boy, he was not.

00:29:07.640 Right.

00:29:08.360 Someone that was chosen for a lifetime of service.

00:29:11.100 Correct.

00:29:11.440 Did anyone say, well, hang on, I have a firstborn son, why is it just, why is just my daughter?

00:29:18.040 Yeah, not that I know of.

00:29:19.760 Yeah.

00:29:20.380 Yeah.

00:29:20.580 Maybe secretly, but they didn't protest publicly, because obviously Victor had already kind of

00:29:25.300 created that environment where you don't question him.

00:29:29.280 Exactly.

00:29:29.920 Or you're going to be shunned.

00:29:31.080 Okay, so you said a word, maidens. 1.00

00:29:34.640 What's that?

00:29:35.920 That became what the 10 of us were called, maidens.

00:29:39.440 Um, so my parents, yeah, July 23rd, 2000, dropped me off at the shepherd's camp.

00:29:46.000 And ironically, the 10 of us lived in that fourplex, which was what, you know, my family

00:29:51.880 lived in when we first moved to the camp.

00:29:54.020 Um, and things in the beginning were kind of okay.

00:29:57.920 Um, we were assigned two by two, you know, kitchen duty, gardening, cleaning.

00:30:05.100 Um, two people were assigned to help Victor, which was basically everything that a wife 0.99

00:30:11.580 would do, maybe even more stuff than a wife would do, waking him up in the morning, making 1.00

00:30:16.360 his breakfast, picking out his clothes, helping him out of the shower, organizing his day.

00:30:20.980 How old was he?

00:30:23.000 I think he was 39 at this point.

00:30:24.620 Okay, so he didn't actually need physical help getting out of the shower.

00:30:28.320 No.

00:30:28.780 Okay.

00:30:29.240 No.

00:30:30.160 But it would be like handing him his towel, putting lotion on his legs, things like that.

00:30:36.660 Very disturbing.

00:30:37.600 And what was your role?

00:30:38.880 I think I was, uh, gardening at that point.

00:30:42.480 Okay.

00:30:42.960 And.

00:30:43.640 So he didn't select you for the more intimate things.

00:30:46.280 No.

00:30:46.780 Interesting.

00:30:47.500 No.

00:30:48.040 Yeah.

00:30:48.780 Um.

00:30:49.180 Thank God.

00:30:49.580 So much of the content that we consume online today makes us feel dumber, but not relatable

00:31:00.360 and not the online courses that you'll take with Hillsdale.

00:31:03.160 If you go to hillsdale.edu slash relatable, you can access all of these free courses, either

00:31:08.800 on the rise and fall of the Roman empire or the book of Genesis or the works of C.S.

00:31:15.300 Lewis, colonial America.

00:31:16.640 You will become a better historian.

00:31:18.140 You'll become a better philosopher, theologian, apologist, all at Hillsdale, totally for free.

00:31:23.900 Go to hillsdale.edu slash relatable.

00:31:26.120 There was a feast that Victor would have us celebrate every, I think early September from

00:31:39.620 the Old Testament, the Feast of Tabernacles, um, which kind of referenced, you know, bringing

00:31:44.700 in the harvest and thanking God for all that he had done for us that year.

00:31:48.280 Um, and so I was under the impression that I would serve there and live at the camp until

00:31:54.100 that.

00:31:55.100 And then I would go home and be homeschooled.

00:31:57.600 I didn't bring any of my winter stuff with me.

00:31:59.960 Um, and I was talking to, we'll call her Jan.

00:32:06.420 If anyone listened to my story on the turning, um, she was referenced as Jan and we were gardening

00:32:13.360 in front of the chapel and she was asking how things are going.

00:32:16.560 And I was like, oh, great.

00:32:18.840 It's been fun.

00:32:19.800 And I'm really excited though, to get home, to see my family.

00:32:23.580 I really miss my siblings.

00:32:25.480 And she looked at me and she goes, Lindsay, you're not going home.

00:32:30.320 And I just kind of looked at her and I was like, what do you mean?

00:32:33.380 And she said, no, this is a lifetime commitment.

00:32:36.340 You're not going home.

00:32:37.480 This is your home now.

00:32:38.920 And I said, well, what about homeschool and my winter clothes?

00:32:42.680 And she's like, well, your mom will send it over and we'll take care of schooling here, 0.96

00:32:46.180 which they never really did.

00:32:47.600 But I really only had a sixth grade education.

00:32:50.880 Um, and it was shortly after that, that, um, I was raped by Victor for the first time.

00:32:59.500 Um, you were 13, 14, 13.

00:33:02.300 Yeah.

00:33:02.980 He, um, called me up to the lodge.

00:33:06.760 That's where he lived.

00:33:07.740 We called it the lodge one night and he was sitting, you know, just how we are.

00:33:13.500 There was a fire going in the fireplace and it was small talk. 0.97

00:33:17.600 And then he looked at me and said, have you ever masturbated before? 0.84

00:33:21.760 And I, honest to God, didn't even know what that word meant.

00:33:25.280 You know, again, my mother had never talked to me about these things.

00:33:29.480 Um, and I, you know, pretty sheltered being homeschooled.

00:33:32.900 And we didn't really have TV, uh, besides movies.

00:33:37.400 Um, and I don't know why he thought I was lying and he kept asking me again and again.

00:33:43.280 And I kept saying, no, I didn't know even what he meant.

00:33:46.240 And he slapped me across the face and yelled at me to get out of the lodge.

00:33:50.960 And I had been sweating so much that it felt like the couch was leather.

00:33:56.240 It felt like ripping band-aids off of my legs when I got off of the couch.

00:34:00.260 And I ran down the dark road back to the fourplex, just sobbing and cried, you know, went to my room and cried into my pillow.

00:34:11.640 And I kept thinking at that point, God, why is this happening?

00:34:15.480 Why did my parents leave me here?

00:34:18.420 Um, it was about 45 minutes later, one of the maidens came and said that Victor was on the phone for me and he asked me to come back to the lodge.

00:34:28.640 And when I got back in there, his whole demeanor had changed.

00:34:32.980 He was very nice, didn't bring up anything that had happened.

00:34:36.860 And he started off by telling me that, um, Jesus Christ had Mary Magdalene and the Apostle Paul had Phoebe and probably other women as he traveled throughout Asia.

00:34:49.920 And he is a man of God because of his calling, um, and my calling, dedicating my life to God, that it was spiritual and natural for him to have sex with me. 0.67

00:35:02.040 And that even though he would be having sex with me, I could remain a virgin spiritually. 0.86

00:35:08.360 And, um, again, I didn't say anything.

00:35:14.320 I feel like I was just a deer in headlights, unsure of what to do.

00:35:19.740 Um, he led me back to his bedroom and I remember he put a towel on the bed because he told me that sometimes the first time you have sex, the woman can bleed, which made me even more scared.

00:35:31.540 And, um, it was almost like a out of body experience in a way.

00:35:36.880 He had a, um, deck on the back of the bedroom with glass doors.

00:35:42.720 And it was like, I was looking and seeing what was happening to me.

00:35:46.560 And I was just laying there so scared.

00:35:50.280 And he got really mad at one point that I wasn't being passionate enough.

00:35:54.440 And I still just laid there.

00:35:57.020 I didn't child.

00:35:58.180 Yeah.

00:35:58.460 Um, didn't know what to do.

00:36:01.140 And then that was pretty much it.

00:36:02.880 I mean, he just sent me back to the fourplex after that.

00:36:05.900 And I remember just again, asking like, why God, why is this happening?

00:36:12.280 Why can't I go home?

00:36:13.720 I miss my siblings.

00:36:15.040 I miss my parents. 0.99

00:36:16.260 And, um, yeah, that was the first of many, many times of being raped by him. 0.99

00:36:23.000 Um, okay. 0.90

00:36:24.980 And how old were you when you left the cult?

00:36:28.160 23.

00:36:28.900 You were 23.

00:36:30.260 So 10 years of that, of being a maiden. 0.98

00:36:34.620 And so was there at any point, obviously you were so scared and so hurt the first time,

00:36:42.040 but was there at any point before you left that you were like, yes, I love him.

00:36:47.260 And, you know, I believe that this is right and good.

00:36:51.840 Um, what did that look like before you left?

00:36:55.400 I would say it wasn't until end of 2005, 2006.

00:37:00.020 It took me a long time to get there.

00:37:02.820 A lot of fear, a lot of manipulation.

00:37:06.200 Um, one thing that Victor would tell us is that the more we dedicated ourselves to him

00:37:12.820 in this life and to God, the better place in heaven we would have.

00:37:17.100 Um, and so I think the thought of not being in heaven with the maidens and with Victor

00:37:23.120 really scared me.

00:37:24.140 Yeah.

00:37:24.620 Um, and so, but it took five, six years for me to really get fully dedicated to him.

00:37:32.120 And finally, to the point where I was like, okay, I will die for him if necessary.

00:37:36.440 You know, I mean, he would tell us a story all the time of Silas, um, in jail.

00:37:42.200 And, you know, if that ever got to the point where he was in jail, would we stay in our faith

00:37:47.000 and, um, you know, stand up for him?

00:37:51.700 Um, and, um, yeah, it was, it took a while, but I did finally get to that point.

00:37:57.380 Did you ever get pregnant?

00:37:59.500 No, no.

00:38:00.540 I did try when I was 14.

00:38:03.020 Um, I tried, it was before he had a vasectomy.

00:38:08.240 Um, he had these, it almost looked like a tampon. 0.54

00:38:13.420 Um, and I don't even know what it is cause I've never researched it since, but it was like 0.82

00:38:18.640 a jelly that the woman would insert to herself to kill the sperm. 1.00

00:38:23.060 Yeah. 0.99

00:38:23.440 Um, so, okay.

00:38:25.100 That's interesting.

00:38:25.960 He wasn't necessarily trying to breed as many babies as possible.

00:38:29.420 He just, it was just about his pleasure manipulating y'all.

00:38:34.800 Um, okay.

00:38:35.500 Let's fast forward a little bit to, okay.

00:38:37.860 At some point you think that you're in love with him.

00:38:39.620 I guess when you're about 18, 19 years old, um, in these last few years that you're in the

00:38:47.120 cult before you leave at 23, like, what does that look like?

00:38:51.380 And then what did those final days and hours look like?

00:38:55.340 Um, we had sold the shepherd's camp at that point.

00:38:58.100 So the maidens were living at a different location.

00:39:01.020 We had started a pottery business together.

00:39:04.200 Um, we were just doing a lot of, a lot of things.

00:39:07.600 We really became a sisterhood at that point.

00:39:10.500 Um, um, let me see, hold on.

00:39:15.000 I'm trying to like, think of, um, it was kind of, it was a quiet time for the maidens.

00:39:22.460 You know, our life had been so public at the shepherd's camp.

00:39:25.000 And so moving to this other location kind of gave us time to grow.

00:39:30.420 Um, Victor would come over for dinners a lot.

00:39:33.900 Um, yeah.

00:39:35.680 So it was, it was almost like a slowing down, really getting to, I guess, know one another

00:39:42.580 even more, not much jealousy, more of a working together.

00:39:46.700 Um, in 2008, one of the maidens, she was originally from Brazil.

00:39:54.340 Um, the U S wouldn't renew her visa.

00:39:57.080 And so she was extradited back to Brazil.

00:39:59.640 Um, Victor would always have a stay in twos.

00:40:03.180 And so he would send one of us down to live with her every six months and we would switch

00:40:07.940 out.

00:40:08.980 Um, it also kind of during this time, it came out that he had been sleeping with some of

00:40:15.640 the married women.

00:40:17.500 Um, one of the married women he had slept with went to the police and shared with them what

00:40:22.980 was going on, wrote a bunch of stuff about the maidens and in Minnesota, it's illegal 1.00

00:40:28.180 as a pastor to be sleeping with the people you were pastoring.

00:40:32.840 And so he shared this all with us, but in a way that would make you feel bad for him,

00:40:38.620 you know, like David and Bathsheba and the temptation was too big.

00:40:41.580 And just as God forgave David, he would forgive Victor and we needed to find it in our hearts

00:40:46.980 to forgive Victor.

00:40:49.080 Um, but he kind of went on the run at that point.

00:40:52.980 Um, sometimes we didn't even know where he was.

00:40:57.420 Um, so, and at that point, again, I, I did wrestle with the fact that he had slept with

00:41:03.560 married women. 0.51

00:41:04.460 It's strange because I knew that was wrong.

00:41:07.500 I felt that that was wrong, but I didn't at that time even know that what he had done

00:41:12.580 to me was rape.

00:41:13.660 Like I, I didn't see it that way.

00:41:15.760 Um, and so Victor sent me down to Brazil, September of 2009 to March of 2010, which was my first

00:41:26.840 time traveling alone, really getting away from the camp.

00:41:30.640 And I remember I sat in one of those seats on the plane and they had the TV screens there,

00:41:35.960 which I hadn't ever seen that before.

00:41:38.540 And, um, I was like, Oh, do I watch a movie?

00:41:42.560 Do I not?

00:41:43.300 Like, surely they're going to find out.

00:41:44.780 I thought everything was tracked, you know, the pilot's going to tell Victor there's going

00:41:49.140 to be a bill somewhere.

00:41:50.020 You know, I just thought everything I did, they would know.

00:41:53.480 Um, but I did, I watched a movie, just one though.

00:41:58.100 And I was like, it was this British teenage rom-com called, um, Angus thongs and perfect

00:42:04.820 snogging. 0.78

00:42:06.860 I, yeah, like didn't even know what I was picking, but I remember watching and thinking, Oh my

00:42:12.820 gosh, I wish I had a life like this, you know?

00:42:14.880 And I'd remembered being 10, 11, having crushes on some of the boys there.

00:42:19.200 And it was just, I don't know.

00:42:21.800 I watched the movie and I was like, okay, that's enough.

00:42:23.820 No more.

00:42:24.620 Cause I'm already in enough trouble.

00:42:27.360 Yeah.

00:42:27.940 Um, but living in Brazil, it was my first time almost remembering that there was a world

00:42:33.600 out there.

00:42:34.420 You know, we had been so sheltered.

00:42:36.040 We didn't have TV.

00:42:36.820 We didn't have radios.

00:42:37.900 I didn't even see images of nine 11 until 2010.

00:42:41.460 Wow.

00:42:42.000 Yeah.

00:42:42.440 Just what Victor told us.

00:42:44.140 I didn't even think of that.

00:42:44.920 Yeah.

00:42:45.200 Wow.

00:42:45.500 Like so many things that happened.

00:42:48.160 Um, so yeah.

00:42:50.160 And I remember kind of feeling distant and more distant from Victor and he did overlap

00:42:58.260 my visit.

00:42:59.140 He came down March of 2010 with his wife and one of the other maidens.

00:43:03.420 So he was still married.

00:43:05.340 Oh yeah.

00:43:05.680 During all of this.

00:43:06.820 Still married.

00:43:07.900 In fact, she lived in the house next door to where the lodge was at the camp.

00:43:13.320 She lived in the house right next to it. 0.99

00:43:15.160 Wow.

00:43:16.100 Okay.

00:43:16.620 So he came down to Brazil.

00:43:17.800 Yeah.

00:43:18.340 In March of 2010 and overlapped my visit for 15 days and I purposely positioned myself to 0.58

00:43:25.300 where he would not be able to have sex with me.

00:43:27.320 I just felt very, um, distant from him and did not want that from him.

00:43:33.260 So then they sent me, um, at that point, most people had relocated to Washington state.

00:43:38.840 Um, and so I went back out to Washington state.

00:43:43.480 The maidens again were living in one house and they had started a cleaning company. 0.93

00:43:48.000 So we were going door to door, just giving our flyers and asking to clean people's homes.

00:43:53.320 And I remember going in and seeing tons of like family pictures on the walls.

00:43:57.900 And at one point the Titanic soundtrack was playing and I was like, oh my gosh, I remember

00:44:02.460 this.

00:44:02.900 Like, you know, like it was just.

00:44:04.700 Yeah.

00:44:05.140 That was like 1997 and you were like, oh, yeah, I had a life before this, which you

00:44:12.160 had probably almost kind of forgotten about.

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00:45:01.040 Okay.

00:45:01.700 So contact with the outside world is when things kind of started crumbling inside you.

00:45:06.540 Right.

00:45:07.040 Yeah.

00:45:08.100 So it was June of 2010 and I'm sitting on the couch with one of the

00:45:13.160 She was like the head of the maidens and I just looked at her and I said, I don't want

00:45:17.540 to be a maiden anymore and I don't agree with Victor sleeping with the married woman and 0.99

00:45:21.900 I want to leave.

00:45:23.100 I want to get married and have a family.

00:45:24.820 And she immediately called her mother, who was Jan, and she came over and they said all

00:45:33.800 this stuff, you must not love God anymore and you're going to forget your first love,

00:45:37.500 meaning Victor.

00:45:38.320 Yeah.

00:45:38.700 The blood of the lamb covers all sin.

00:45:40.380 You just need to forgive him and move on.

00:45:42.300 And then they got Victor on the line and still to this day, I'm like, how did I stay strong?

00:45:49.480 Cause there, I mean, there's been a few other times that I had tried to leave as a teenager

00:45:54.220 that I had told Victor I wanted to leave and it just did not go my way.

00:45:57.640 So.

00:45:58.440 He just manipulated you into staying.

00:46:00.360 Yeah.

00:46:00.800 Yeah.

00:46:01.140 Called me Judas Iscariot, you know, just like said all these terrible things.

00:46:05.100 Um, so, but I told them, I was like, nope, I am leaving.

00:46:09.860 I want to leave.

00:46:10.620 And they called my family who had, um, in 2009, I believe moved back to Pennsylvania because

00:46:18.460 of Victor sleeping with the married woman.

00:46:19.980 A lot of things had kind of broken up in Minnesota.

00:46:22.800 Um, and they said, yeah, I can move in with them.

00:46:25.420 So they, everything happened really fast.

00:46:28.120 They gave me $500 and bought me a train ticket and I took Amtrak all the way from Washington,

00:46:35.100 State to 30th street station in Philadelphia.

00:46:38.040 And it took me three days.

00:46:40.240 But they were still, were your parents still in the way?

00:46:42.780 Yeah.

00:46:43.200 Yes.

00:46:43.900 Yeah.

00:46:44.420 In Victor's ministry.

00:46:45.560 But I guess they weren't worried about going against Victor.

00:46:50.520 They let you come home.

00:46:52.080 They did let me come home.

00:46:53.580 They still were sending money to him and had pictures of him up in the house.

00:46:58.000 My mom was very much involved with everything out going on in Washington on the phone with

00:47:03.200 them all the time.

00:47:03.940 Um, I think my dad had kind of started slipping away from the ministry.

00:47:09.780 Um, yeah, so I moved and, oh my gosh, I like, didn't even know what the internet was.

00:47:16.020 I, I remember somebody telling me what a cell phone was and how you could text on it.

00:47:21.080 I'm like, how is that even possible?

00:47:22.720 Like, how is that faster than calling someone?

00:47:25.580 You know, things were just so foreign. 0.99

00:47:27.140 And, um, I remember one of the first things I looked up was the Backstreet Boys because

00:47:32.020 they were popular when I left.

00:47:33.880 You were like, what is Nick Carter doing now?

00:47:35.560 Yes.

00:47:35.680 I was like, oh my gosh, like, is he married now?

00:47:38.540 Yeah.

00:47:39.800 Yeah.

00:47:40.500 Wow.

00:47:41.140 Yeah.

00:47:41.360 You were like a time capsule.

00:47:43.220 Mm-hmm.

00:47:43.620 Okay, so when you moved back home to Pennsylvania, did you leave?

00:47:48.540 Or like, did, what it, like, what was your faith like at that point?

00:47:52.680 Yeah.

00:47:52.980 Um, I would say, I would say I still believed in God at that point, um, but I was not wanting

00:48:01.720 to remain faithful to Victor and the maidens.

00:48:04.860 Um, I had gotten a few letters, a couple phone calls, and I would write back here and there,

00:48:10.020 but eventually I just stopped responding.

00:48:12.760 Um, I really gave myself over to, or at that point I thought the only way to make a man happy

00:48:20.820 was to sleep with him, and so I slept around a lot.

00:48:25.320 I lived in a lot of sin.

00:48:27.520 I didn't, at that point I didn't know what Victor had done still to me.

00:48:32.080 I would just tell people, oh, I was really sheltered, because they would say, what have

00:48:35.680 you lived under a rock?

00:48:36.840 Like, how do you not know these things?

00:48:38.960 Yeah.

00:48:39.280 Um.

00:48:39.640 You were, you said 23.

00:48:41.680 23.

00:48:42.500 So, you were just going out into the world.

00:48:46.140 Yeah.

00:48:46.660 I got my first job.

00:48:48.680 Um, I joined three.

00:48:50.800 The Ultimate Frisbee Leagues at one time.

00:48:53.220 I was just, anytime somebody said, hey, do you want to do this?

00:48:56.840 I was all in.

00:48:58.060 I just wanted to live life, you know?

00:48:59.900 Understandable.

00:49:00.640 Um, and I, oh, I made a lot of terrible choices, though.

00:49:06.760 You know, I, I don't think I thought much about God.

00:49:11.280 I, I knew I believed in him, but I did not pray to him, really.

00:49:15.920 I didn't read my Bible.

00:49:18.200 Um, I just was really interested in exploring and living life and making friends and, and

00:49:26.740 getting away from my parents, you know, because they were still supporting Victor.

00:49:31.340 Right.

00:49:32.240 Yeah.

00:49:32.540 Tell me about hearing the gospel.

00:49:36.020 Oh, gosh.

00:49:36.880 That was 13 years later after that.

00:49:41.700 Um.

00:49:42.500 So, up until 13 years later, when you were 36, you were just basically living a secular life.

00:49:50.080 Yes.

00:49:50.940 Yep.

00:49:51.240 And you had a job, you had boyfriends, you had friends, but you were lost.

00:49:58.560 Yeah, very lost.

00:50:00.080 I had a daughter in 2014.

00:50:03.480 Um, oh, gosh.

00:50:05.540 Would she, it's like cliche to say, but I know God gave her to me just at the right time.

00:50:10.160 I was really at a low place thinking of ending my life.

00:50:15.100 You know, I just kept thinking over and over again, if God is a God of love that I read

00:50:19.760 and believed for so long, why would he let this happen to me? 0.88

00:50:22.560 You know, if heaven is so great, why don't I kill myself now and, and not live in this 0.97

00:50:27.140 internal pain that I feel, you know? 0.99

00:50:29.240 Because of everything that had happened.

00:50:30.900 Mm-hmm.

00:50:31.480 Yeah.

00:50:31.740 Um, and my daughter, Francesca, five or six years old, started asking questions.

00:50:40.500 Why don't we pray, Mom?

00:50:42.200 Um, I remember driving down the highway in New Jersey and she said, Mom, if a mommy has

00:50:47.760 a baby and that baby dies and goes to heaven and God sends that mommy a new baby, is that

00:50:54.100 like God giving her a new baby for her to care for? 0.93

00:50:57.960 And I, I didn't know what to say, you know?

00:51:00.800 I, I did know that I didn't want to put my trauma on her.

00:51:04.180 You know, I had enough sense to, to think, okay, if she wants to go to church, I will

00:51:08.960 support that.

00:51:09.760 I want to support this.

00:51:12.840 Um, but it wasn't until we moved to Texas, um, in 2022 that we met some friends in our

00:51:20.240 apartment complex and they just had this light about them.

00:51:24.480 You know, when you meet people and you're like, I want to be friends with them.

00:51:27.180 They just have exude this love and they were Christians.

00:51:31.820 They did not pressure me to go to church though, which I really respected because a lot of people

00:51:36.440 had done that.

00:51:37.100 They almost made me feel guilty for feeling the way I was feeling.

00:51:40.800 Yeah.

00:51:41.040 Um, and I shared my story with the wife one night after we had gotten close.

00:51:46.300 And, um, it was a couple months after that we were sitting after dinner and I looked at

00:51:50.540 her and I said, this is going to sound crazy, but thank you for never inviting me to Bible 0.61

00:51:55.620 study.

00:51:56.020 And she started crying and she said, Lindsay, when I heard your story, I went home and just

00:52:02.740 wept tears for you because the God I know is not the one who was preached to you.

00:52:08.440 And I think my heart, like God was just drawing me in.

00:52:12.700 It was the, the timing of it was amazing.

00:52:15.380 They asked if I wanted to stay for devotions that night.

00:52:18.560 And I said, yes.

00:52:19.520 And they picked a hymn that they didn't know I knew, but I had grown up singing it since

00:52:24.180 I could remember.

00:52:25.460 And, um, what was it?

00:52:28.020 I don't even remember now.

00:52:29.920 Maybe they will have to ask.

00:52:32.060 Um, but the husband used to be a pastor and I told them later that night, I said, I would

00:52:38.500 love for somebody to sit down with me and I can go through things that Victor had taught.

00:52:42.940 And then I want to open the Bible and I want to see what God actually says.

00:52:46.640 And immediately they said, we'd love to do that with you.

00:52:48.740 And I went home that night and opened the Bible.

00:52:52.640 It was the one that Victor had given me.

00:52:54.920 I sat on my couch and opened it and just cried.

00:52:58.260 And it was like coming home to an old friend.

00:53:00.060 Cause you know, like I did know him when I was little and I read through my journals now,

00:53:04.460 even from when I was in the cult.

00:53:06.680 And it's always, thank you God for keeping me safe.

00:53:09.440 Like, thank you for providing bread for us today.

00:53:12.220 I didn't know where we were going to get any, you know, thank you for giving a shampoo and

00:53:16.000 conditioner cause we were out.

00:53:17.340 And, um, it's just knowing and believing that he was there the whole time.

00:53:24.020 You know, even after I rejected him for 13 years that he was there carrying me, um, just 0.77

00:53:31.320 so overwhelming, you know, it's like that, um, he leaves the 99 to find one.

00:53:36.920 And he was just all those years drawing me and drawing me in and my heart was, was open

00:53:43.360 to him.

00:53:44.480 Um, and we started going to church and I remember the first few times I went, I, you know, we

00:53:49.880 were singing hymns that I had grown up singing and just crying through them because it was

00:53:55.480 just such an overwhelming sense of thank you, Lord.

00:53:58.600 Like, this is what I've been missing.

00:54:00.780 And I had tried before this, all of the self-help stuff, you know, the self-love, the crystals,

00:54:09.340 the, I bought a book on witchcraft, you know, like all the things that I always came up feeling

00:54:13.860 so empty, so unsatisfied.

00:54:18.940 Um, and it wasn't until going back to church and reading the Bible and knowing and believing

00:54:25.300 truly in, in Christ and in God that I just felt so full again.

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00:55:18.180 What was it like learning that Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are all one and

00:55:30.660 that Jesus is God who died for you on the cross?

00:55:33.880 Like I imagine some of those things you're like, what are you talking about?

00:55:37.940 It actually, when they explained it to me and we read it in the Bible, I was like, that makes

00:55:42.840 so much sense, you know, it was like things just aligned for me because I grew up believing

00:55:49.600 that they were three separate beings, but not really explained why, you know, but, and

00:55:56.760 it almost, it took the, believing before that Jesus Christ was just a man, it was so clear

00:56:05.660 it being explained that he is God, how Victor twisted it to make, almost make it into himself

00:56:12.700 that he was Christ.

00:56:15.040 Yeah.

00:56:15.880 Wow.

00:56:16.640 What happened to Victor?

00:56:19.320 Me and one of the, the youngest maidens, Jess and I, we went to the police.

00:56:25.300 What year did you go to the police?

00:56:26.780 2012.

00:56:27.980 We went to the police.

00:56:28.620 Okay, so this is 10 years before you became a Christian.

00:56:30.940 Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, we went to the police and it was two years of just telling our story

00:56:36.860 over and over again.

00:56:38.060 It felt like nobody was believing us.

00:56:40.960 January of 2014, we got an email from Tom Lydon at Fox News.

00:56:45.620 He asked if we'd like his help and we said yes because the statute of limitations was going

00:56:49.480 to run out.

00:56:50.320 So the media got involved and things kind of blew up.

00:56:53.060 Um, I was on Dr. Phil and John Walsh and from John Walsh's airing, Victor came on the

00:57:01.080 U.S. Marshal's top 10 most wanted list.

00:57:03.280 Wow.

00:57:03.640 And they ended up finding him in Brazil and extraditing him back and we had the hearing

00:57:08.300 in 2016 and he was sentenced to 30 years in jail.

00:57:12.600 Wow.

00:57:13.340 Yeah.

00:57:14.200 Yeah.

00:57:14.640 And your parents, what are, what are they doing now?

00:57:18.300 My, they're no longer married.

00:57:21.680 My mom actually passed away last July.

00:57:25.200 Um, I did talk to them.

00:57:28.080 My mother supported Victor throughout the whole trial.

00:57:30.660 Her and two of my sisters wrote letters to the judge on behalf of him saying terrible things

00:57:35.740 about me.

00:57:36.700 Um, yeah, I'm sure that was really hard.

00:57:39.360 Yeah.

00:57:40.220 Um, but, um, I did talk to both of them in 2022.

00:57:47.000 My mom and dad on a conference call and, oh man, I told, this was blatantly honest.

00:57:53.740 I said, I used to wish you guys were dead.

00:57:56.100 I used to wish that you were in jail. 0.95

00:57:58.640 I have scars on my wrists from cutting, you know, from trying to deal with the pain.

00:58:05.140 And I said, but as, as a mother now, I want you guys to know that I'm doing really well

00:58:11.020 and I wish you both well in your life and, um, we'll never have a relationship.

00:58:16.480 You will never know my daughter, but I, I wish you guys the best and I want you to be

00:58:20.640 doing well.

00:58:21.440 And I wasn't able to forgive them at that point.

00:58:24.240 Um, but I was a few months ago, I'm still in therapy, um, have a wonderful Christian counselor

00:58:31.400 and, um, we talked about forgiveness and in a way it's taking them off my hook and putting

00:58:39.340 them on God's hook.

00:58:40.280 And I, I felt this for a long time, this sense that I needed to be the one to get justice.

00:58:45.940 You know, I needed to hold people accountable, but really, truly believing that God has got

00:58:53.520 it all.

00:58:53.960 You know, we all have to face him in that day and I'm able to forgive my parents and

00:59:00.140 those who harmed me.

00:59:02.160 And it was honestly such a burden lifted, which I never thought it would be.

00:59:07.340 I was like, I don't need to forgive them, you know, like I'm doing fine, but being able

00:59:11.500 to truly forgive them and knowing, like just putting it in God's hand was so freeing.

00:59:19.040 Yeah.

00:59:19.380 Wow.

00:59:19.960 What about your siblings?

00:59:21.460 My siblings?

00:59:22.820 Um, I have contact here and there with one of them.

00:59:26.140 Um, but not really with the rest.

00:59:28.220 I mean, my youngest, the youngest, my brother, he was five when I left home.

00:59:34.100 So I don't even really know him.

00:59:36.400 Um, and the others, I think they're doing well.

00:59:39.920 You know, they all get together.

00:59:41.180 It's been tough for me because they supported my parents.

00:59:45.140 Um, and so it was hard for me to, you know, trust them, but I, I love them and, yeah, and

00:59:52.460 hope they're all doing well.

00:59:53.700 Yeah.

00:59:53.900 Well, I fully pray and believe that God is going to use you to bring them to Christ and

01:00:00.740 that y'all will have that reconciliation and relationship one day.

01:00:04.140 I'm hoping for that anyway.

01:00:05.520 Can you give a message to people who have been hurt by people in the church who claim

01:00:12.880 to be messengers of God?

01:00:14.480 It may not have been a cult.

01:00:16.240 They could have been a Baptist church, but someone who claimed that they were doing this

01:00:21.000 on behalf of God and they were abused or they were betrayed in some way.

01:00:23.920 And they're feeling like, I could never, I could never believe in God.

01:00:28.200 I can never be a Christian because of what happened to me.

01:00:30.960 What would you say to them?

01:00:31.940 I would say what I've had to do is not put my faith in man.

01:00:39.360 I've had to put my faith in the Lord because it wasn't God who hurt me.

01:00:43.980 It was a man who hurt me.

01:00:46.040 And we are all, we live in a cursed world.

01:00:48.880 None of us are perfect.

01:00:49.880 But that has really helped me be able to step back into a church and kind of have discernment

01:00:57.680 on where I'm placing my trust and my faith is that it is ultimately in God.

01:01:04.100 Not that we can't have people in our lives that we trust and we hopefully get sound advice

01:01:10.100 from.

01:01:10.740 But yeah, I would say putting your trust and faith in the Lord, knowing he is good, he

01:01:18.500 is perfect, not in man, because we ultimately will be let down.

01:01:22.900 We will be hurt.

01:01:23.620 You know, I'm sure I'm going to continue to get hurt throughout my life, but I have the

01:01:28.560 Lord.

01:01:29.280 So, yeah.

01:01:31.220 What is the journey like to forgiving Victor?

01:01:34.320 I would say that's still a work in progress.

01:01:42.740 I had a session with my therapist a couple months ago talking about I'd had a panic attack

01:01:50.860 in Kroger because I saw somebody that resembled Victor.

01:01:54.680 First time that has ever happened.

01:01:56.700 And I just really had to focus on grounding myself.

01:01:59.280 My daughter was with me and I didn't want to, you know, scare her.

01:02:02.300 And I talked to my therapist.

01:02:04.400 I said, what if Victor does repent and I see him in heaven?

01:02:08.020 You know, like, and it, yeah, it's something that I'm still working through.

01:02:13.280 I think one thing that's helped is knowing hell, anyone who goes to hell, like how awful

01:02:19.080 it must be to go there.

01:02:21.240 And that scares me, you know, like thinking of people there.

01:02:24.760 I used to wish my mom was there and gosh, I hope to God she repented, you know.

01:02:29.280 Um, I think truly believing we are all made in the image of God, you know, even Victor,

01:02:37.420 even somebody who hurt me so badly, he is made in the image of God.

01:02:41.920 So I do pray for his salvation, you know.

01:02:46.500 Um, but I think truly forgiving him in my heart, it's something I'm still working through.

01:02:52.460 Gosh, yeah.

01:02:54.520 Well, I love what you said about, it's really about putting someone off of your hook and

01:02:59.720 onto God's hook.

01:03:00.920 Like, because when I think about that, I don't want to think about forgiving someone like

01:03:06.120 that.

01:03:06.460 I just don't.

01:03:07.140 I'm going to be honest.

01:03:07.900 Like if that happened to me or if that happened to my kids, like I'm not really interested in

01:03:13.000 that, but I am interested in God's justice, you know?

01:03:17.360 And of course, yes, God's grace, if someone repents and if God chooses that, but I love

01:03:24.720 the idea of you trusting God's justice, that that is the release.

01:03:29.600 It's not feeling happy thoughts about them.

01:03:32.560 It's not being like, gosh, I just hope he's doing great.

01:03:36.060 Actually, like we're thankful that he is being punished.

01:03:39.080 That is earthly justice.

01:03:40.280 That's why governments were instituted to do exactly that.

01:03:43.500 But like releasing that, it seems like that's kind of how you've defined forgiveness.

01:03:49.620 And I think it's a good one.

01:03:50.760 And I'm just, I'm so sorry.

01:03:53.360 I'm so sorry that that happened.

01:03:55.860 And I'm so thankful that God has given you the courage to share your story because you

01:04:00.780 don't have to be crying on this couch and reliving this pain.

01:04:04.920 But it's amazing what God does, that he is the God of redemption and he brings beauty

01:04:11.880 out of ashes and Satan would have loved to silence you and to keep you ashamed and scared.

01:04:18.800 Just say, okay, you have your nice little story, but just keep it over there so people

01:04:23.900 don't criticize you.

01:04:25.140 But God has really given you boldness and I'm just very grateful for that.

01:04:29.000 Oh, thank you.

01:04:30.140 Me too.

01:04:30.760 I keep thinking, you know, I may not know until that day the fullness of why it all happened,

01:04:36.600 but if I didn't use it now to bring glory to God, to hopefully save, for him to save one

01:04:42.540 person, what am I doing with my life, you know?

01:04:45.520 So I am just praying that people hear this and they hear.

01:04:50.440 Yeah.

01:04:51.680 How can people support you and your story?

01:04:58.140 Gosh, definitely pray for me.

01:05:01.440 Um, I, oh, this is, I don't even, I don't know.

01:05:10.520 I mean, I would love to write a book someday.

01:05:13.800 Prayer is good.

01:05:14.760 Yeah.

01:05:15.300 Prayer is good.

01:05:15.620 Yeah.

01:05:16.020 And share this testimony, share this story so that more people hear what God can do.

01:05:22.840 Yeah.

01:05:23.320 And also it's just good warning signs too, because the story that you told, I'm like,

01:05:27.940 yeah, that red flag, I've talked to a lot of people who have left cults and I'm like,

01:05:32.020 it's the same story, like not the same story, but the same thing that the cult leader does

01:05:37.780 and says every single time.

01:05:40.800 Um, what I think is interesting is that clearly from a young age, God put something in you

01:05:46.300 that was like, it's not quite right.

01:05:48.000 Even though sometimes you convince yourself it was, it was like, he was working a long

01:05:52.040 time ago, sowing those seeds of doubt against the entire, you know, cultish mechanism there.

01:05:59.500 And, you know, you tried to resist that for a long time, but he had already kind of captured

01:06:05.080 you and was working on you from an early age.

01:06:08.020 He was.

01:06:08.660 Yeah.

01:06:09.140 Yeah.

01:06:09.620 Well, praise God.

01:06:10.320 Thank you so much for sharing your story, Lindsay, and we will be praying for you.

01:06:14.320 Thank you.

01:06:14.620 And just praying that God uses, continues to use your life and your story for his glory.

01:06:19.340 So thank you so much.

01:06:20.280 Oh, thank you for having me on.

01:06:22.040 Thank you.

Ep 1275 ｜ Cult Survivor： Child 'Maiden' Escapes & Set Free by Jesus ｜ Lindsay Tornambe

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