ABOUT THE BOOK

How are people like you and me brainwashed into cults?

In her gap year after high school, Liz is approached at a shopping centre by a woman who asks her survey questions about her Christian faith. Liz is slowly brought into her small, friendly church community – but little does she know that her new ‘friends’ are members of the South Korean cult Providence, which currently operates in more than 70 countries.

This is the story of how Liz endured mind-control techniques and a visit to the cult’s convicted serial rapist leader in prison and came out the other side alive. She takes us behind the scenes to show us how cults operate in plain sight – and how we can unpick the systems that enable them to prey on vulnerable people.

This powerful, candid memoir tells one woman’s extraordinary story of how she was broken down by a secretive, predatory cult – and how she broke free and remade her life.

For Mum, my hero. I still exist – and was able to write this book – because of your unwavering love, courage and strength.

And for Dad, who passed away during the writing of this book. I love you. I miss you terribly.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Dear reader, a trigger warning: this memoir contains mentions of eating disorders, grooming and sexual assault, which may be distressing for some. Please exercise discretion and care when reading.

Support services:

Lifeline – 13 11 14

1800 RESPECT – 1800 737 732

Blue Knot Foundation – 1300 657 380

Butterfly Foundation – 1800 33 4673

CIFS – 0423 332 766

MensLine Australia – 1300 78 99 78

Full Stop Australia – 1800 385 578

Women’s Legal Services Australia – wlsa.org.au

PROLOGUE

JANUARY 2011

My friend Nik and I are meeting up at a bookstore in the Canberra Centre. It’s the start of my gap year after high school graduation, and the entire year is stretching out in front of me, months of blank space punctuated with a part-time service job and church on the weekends. I’m eager to fill my calendar.

I spot Nik near Myer.

‘Heyyyy!’ she squeals enthusiastically and gives me a squeeze.

‘I’m so happy to see you!’ I squeeze her back, my eyes crinkling into a smile.

Nik is short and cute, with curly chestnut locks. I am tall, so pale I’m almost translucent, thin, with big blue eyes and a bob of dark brown hair with a micro fringe. Nik and I are both typically decked out in hi-top Converse, floral dresses and thrifted cardigans.

We zig-zag our way over to Borders, the huge bookstore. It’s one of our favourite pastimes, just browsing through the different sections: new fiction, historical fiction, old classics with whimsical cover designs. This time we poke around for about half an hour, neither of us able to justify spending what little money we have on a brand-new copy of Emma or The Catcher in the Rye.

Right as we’re passing through the detectors at the front of the store, a smiling woman pops out in front of us, as if she’d been hiding behind one. She’s petite – maybe up to my shoulders – and greets me with enthusiasm. Just me. As if Nik isn’t even there.

Speaking in broken English, she introduces herself as Yujun and opens by telling me she’s a university student studying Australian culture. Would I mind filling out a survey? She’s got this enormous smile and warm eyes.

Some people seem able to smell my people-pleasing tendencies on me. As a good Christian girl raised in the ways of the church, I’ve learned to be compliant and agreeable. So of course I’m doing it. I hear myself saying brightly, ‘Yes, no worries!’ and forcing a smile. We follow her over to a high bench outside the food court and she gratefully hands me a pen and her clipboard. I fill out the survey.

The questions are pretty elemental: things like, What do you like about living in Australia? and What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? But then, further down the page are more personal, probing questions: Are you religious at all? If so, which religion? Practically born ready for that question, I write, I’m a follower of Jesus: I see it as a relationship more than a religion. As if this survey is an aspirational job application to heaven.

I’ve always been taught that being closer to God requires commitment and love. The Pentecostal-style churches I’ve attended since I was in nappies reject the notion of ‘religion’ as meaning ‘stale and impersonal’. God doesn’t want stuffy formality: He wants us to love Him. My relationship with God has always been framed as the deepest, most important relationship of my life. And as I grew up in life and in faith, I identified with this notion: I see God as my confidant, my Father, and Jesus as a close friend.

I hand the completed survey back to Yujun, and her eyes skim the paper until she lands on the religion question.

‘Oh! You’re a Christian?’

‘Yes?’

‘So, one of the things I’m focusing on in my studies is religion in Australia. Could I please send you a survey on your faith? I could email it to you?’ Yujun asks imploringly.

‘Yeeeeah, um … no worries,’ I say for the second time in this interaction, with the same forced brightness. Yujun’s eyes are solely fixed on me, like I’m an important source of truth for her assignment. I wonder again why she doesn’t ask Nik to fill out the survey too. She’s already here, at a loose end – it’s easy data. I write my email address down on the bottom of the page for Yujun: by this point, I just want to get away.

Finally, we part, with Yujun expressing enormous gratitude for my simple favour. ‘Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! So lovely to meet you! I’ll email you soon!’

I turn to Nik. ‘Sorry about that,’ I say. I think I’m apologising for the fact that she was completely ignored, or the hold-up, or both. I don’t know; I apologise for literally everything. ‘I hope you haven’t missed your bus?’

‘No, no! All good. I’ll be fine!’ she reassures me, seemingly relieved to have been kept out of it. We weave our way through the mall and down the escalators out into the day.

A week later, I receive an email.

INTRODUCTION

Cults are endlessly fixed in the global zeitgeist. They always have been, but now that we have access to so much information online, we’ve seen this fascination reach a fever pitch. We still talk about the Jonestown massacre, the Waco siege, the Manson Family murders, the Heaven’s Gate mass suicides and countless others, as well as many more recent cults such as NXIVM, OneTaste and Good News International Ministries.

As many experts in the coercive control space will tell you, ‘Nobody joins a cult.’ But how can relatively normal, rational, bright people suddenly decide they believe in something that, to the outside world, seems objectively insane? And if so many people are getting brainwashed, why don’t we see cults everywhere?

The answer to the second question: we do. Cults hide in plain sight. I think a lot of people like to believe that, in today’s sceptical world, cults must be thin on the ground. I wish that was the case; unfortunately, they’re quite common. For reasons I’ll explain, the very act of defining a cult is fraught, but current estimates in Australia vary between hundreds and around 3000.

As long as human societies exist, there will be narcissistic people, splinter groups and gross abuses of power – and cults comprise a triple whammy of all three. They’re malignant, cancerous growths in the culture that, left largely undetected, we don’t hear about until they metastasise beyond their own secretive confines and out into the mainstream.

The answer to the first question – how are people like you and me brainwashed into cults? – is more complex.

I’m asked this question a lot. ‘But how? I could never be that gullible.’ And I understand. It’s not a comfortable reality to acknowledge: that anyone, given the right circumstances both internally and externally, could be susceptible to brainwashing. A case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’.

This outsider perspective lacks a comprehensive understanding of how the mind-control process actually works. Often, people have heard the most absurd, outlandish, shocking parts of the story – and then a chasm of logic and reason opens up between these sensationalised details and the real human victim on the other side. It’s easier to write off the victim, to dismiss that gap as unbridgeable: ‘I could never do that.’ Again, I understand.

More than a decade ago I was swallowed by and disappeared into the belly of a cult, and, like a pathogen, was thrown back up. I first met a member of a cult called Providence, otherwise known as Jesus Morning Star or JMS, in January 2011, and escaped in March 2013 after ending up in hospital at grave risk of my heart stopping. It was a relatively short entanglement compared to the lifetimes that some unfortunate victims spend trapped in cults: I was lucky.

In this book, instead of speaking in abstract statistics, or in a tabloid way that further stigmatises and marginalises survivors, I’m going to tell my own story in full, right from the beginning. And I’m going to tell it to you as I experienced it, in the moment, so that hopefully you can understand first-hand how and why cults can be so successful at recruiting and retaining vulnerable people – how the tactics of coercive control are weaponised against them, against us.

But also, crucially, I’ll show you that it’s possible to leave, and how that control – that insidious programming – can be undone. I read books on cult psychology voraciously in the early years after I was rescued. I’ve volunteered with one of the world’s leading deprogrammers. I’ve been in therapy on and off to work through complex post-traumatic symptoms. And now, though I’m still continually healing, I believe I have some hard-won knowledge and perspective to be able to look back on the intentions and actions of my former self – to be able to listen to that young woman with much-needed empathy, but also to view her with enough critical distance to see each stage of my indoctrination more clearly. And I now see indoctrination for the systematic, psychologically complex process that it is.

This is why I’ve made the decision to tell my story, as you’ll see, in a kind of continuous present tense – with the perspective I had at the time, rather than how I see it now. I want to bridge that seemingly unbridgeable gap between the girl I was when I was recruited, who I was in the cult, and the woman I’ve since become.

And in doing so, I want to bridge the gap between the person you might be picking up this book, and the person you’ll be by the time you finish reading. Perhaps you believe cult practices are so far removed from the everyday that you could never find yourself involved in anything as extreme as that. Alternatively, perhaps you are someone who has been through the profoundly confusing at best, deeply violating and abusive at worst, experience of a cult. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and I wrote with you in my heart.

Whoever you are, I hope this book will leave you with greater psychological insight into how, exactly, cults are so uniquely cunning – and persuasive.

My goal for this book is to demystify the psychology of cultic operations in an easily digestible format, weaving together my story with research, data and history. I want to educate readers and assist in the battle for legislation and policy in Australia and overseas to protect people from being abused, trafficked and enslaved through cult operations. Spot-treating cults is an uphill battle, and it’s increasingly recognised that high-level safeguards need to be instilled to restrict cult activity and coercive control. Enhancing public understanding of the spectrum of coercive control is a step in the right direction.

I want to note that there are numerous respected theories and ways of explaining the psychological dynamics of brainwashing and cults, devised by incredible minds. As much as I’d love to undertake a meta-analysis and pack as much information in here as possible, I won’t touch on all of it in this memoir. I’ve chosen information I feel works best with my story, but I will include a comprehensive list of resources that are far more academic and thorough at the end for those who want to understand more, or who are looking for resources to help themselves or a loved one heal.

Cultic indoctrination is like the old frog-in-a-slowly-boiling-pot analogy: if recruiters do their jobs right, by the point you even consider that you might not be safe, it will be too late. It’s a psychological and social pressure cooker. They’ve planted thought-stopping psychological traps and phobias in your brain, so that by the time you’re deeply uncomfortable, your capacity for critical thought has already been disabled.

Or, to mix metaphors, think of the design of an arrow. The backwards points prevent an arrow being pulled out of flesh: it’s much easier to keep driving it inwards.

Let’s dive into some terminology first so we’re on the same page:

CULTS

As I’ve said, it’s difficult to say how many cults there are currently in the world, or even in Australia, due to the often secretive and fluid nature of such groups. Cults can vary widely in size, influence and visibility.

What’s more, the definition of a cult can vary, and some groups may be labelled as cults based on subjective criteria – the term isn’t typically used in the legal or academic world for that reason, and because it has pejorative connotations. Certain scholars, sometimes described as ‘cult apologists’, use the term ‘New Religious Movement’ (NRM). However, psychologist Luigi Corvaglia’s work points out the contradictions of academics who profess to defend individual civil rights and freedoms yet, in reality, support groups that deny those very rights and freedoms to their members.

We, of course, need to explore and study a variety of faith-based groups with an open mind and thus preserve religious freedom. Slapping a negative term on a new or under-investigated group simply because it possesses ‘odd’ or ‘extreme’ characteristics hinders objectivity from the outset – and, ironically, is a thought-stopping technique (more on those later). But we’d do well to observe the Paradox of Tolerance here: some groups are inherently intolerant, and a society that tolerates intolerant ideas will succumb to the forces of the intolerant, which are inherently dangerous.

I would hazard a guess that cult apologists exist not purely because of their consuming passion for religious freedom, but also because of the significant power (and deep pockets) some religious organisations have behind the scenes to influence public policy through various channels, including academia and the media. Cults – especially the larger, more established ones – tend to have significant resources at their disposal.

It’s clear from various news reports and books by anti-cult activists that cults are often not politically neutral. Do you know who owns The Washington Times? The Unification Church – the Moonies. Or which religious organisation spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on attack campaigns against the Australian Greens in the 2000s, and then denied it publicly, insisting that as a church, they had only ever remained ‘politically neutral’? The Plymouth Christian Brethren Church, or the Exclusive Brethren.

Do emergent religion-based groups known to be dangerous and destructive also get to use the neutral term New Religious Movement? What about older religious groups that have similarly toxic characteristics? What about groups that aren’t religious, but still exert an extreme level of coercive control? Most importantly, how can we safeguard innocent people from these organisations without measurable criteria by which to properly evaluate them, not just in academia, but in our policy and legislation?

To put it in relatively simple terms, the criteria that determine a fully-fledged cult are based on the level of control a particular organisation or group, religious or not, exerts in various areas. And I have to reiterate: cults are not always religious (NXIVM, for example), and religious groups aren’t always cults. The two are separate, but as Australian journalist and host of the award-winning podcast Let’s Talk About Sects, Sarah Steel writes in her 2022 book Do As I Say, religion tends to lend itself quite nicely to cults, thanks to the ability to use the concept of the divine as the ultimate authority.

In explaining the term ‘cult’, sociologist Dr Janja Lalich writes:

A cult can be either a sharply bounded social group or a diffusely bounded social movement held together through shared commitment to a charismatic leader. It upholds a transcendent belief system (often but not always religious in nature) that includes a call for a personal transformation. It also requires a high level of personal commitment from its members in words and deeds.

Steel writes that another acceptable term in academia is ‘high-demand group’, explaining it’s ‘based on the incredible amounts of investment (labour, time, money, belief, obedience) expected from members’. Academics and experts also use the term ‘high-control group’ to focus more on the psychological, emotional and social dimensions of control. I use the two terms interchangeably here, but I personally tend to gravitate towards the latter.

Because the book you’re reading now isn’t an academic text, and ‘cult’ is a broadly understood term in popular culture, I’ll also be using the c-word. It’s how I referred to the group I was in after I got out, and it’s the term that is still primarily used in advocacy organisations and by survivors.

Some experts go further and use the term ‘destructive cult’. While not incorrect, I would argue that cults, by nature, are categorically destructive, each in various ways and to varying degrees. It’s redundant, like calling a rapist a ‘dangerous rapist’.

As prominent deprogrammer and cult expert Rick Alan Ross explains in his 2014 book, Cults Inside Out, it’s been asserted that labelling certain groups ‘cults’ might be rooted in political motivation. ‘But the real issue is,’ Rick proposes, ‘does the group hurt people?’ This, too, is arguably fraught, because a group that is not a cult can certainly still cause harm. What I believe he’s getting at, though, is that at the crux of all cults is systemic harm. This is why it’s crucial to listen to survivors.

BRAINWASHING

The term ‘brainwashing’ was first defined in the western world by journalist Edward Hunter to describe the methods of coercive persuasion and indoctrination used by the Chinese government on American prisoners of war during the Korean War in the early 1950s. His 1956 book, Brainwashing: The Story of Men Who Defied It, states that the method is intended to ‘change a mind radically so that its owner becomes a living puppet – a human robot – without the atrocity being visible from the outside’. Hunter’s work popularised the concept in western discourse back then, particularly in relation to fears of communist indoctrination.

The term ‘brainwashing’ is also considered ambiguous; but again, it’s broadly recognised in popular culture. Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, one of the original academics who studied and wrote on the concept of brainwashing, preferred to use the term ‘thought reform’. He wrote his seminal work, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, in 1961.

Psychologist Dr Steven Hassan states in his 1984 book, Combating Cult Mind Control, that he prefers the term ‘mind control’ over ‘brainwashing’. Mind control, he says, is a ‘more subtle process’ in which victims regard the perpetrators as trusted friends, which disarms them. It doesn’t rely on direct threats, physical abuse or torture: though these things certainly do happen in cults, they don’t typically play a part in the initial indoctrination process. Instead, mind control relies on deception and manipulation to the point where the victim responds positively to their own abuse. A powerful and deadly weapon.

Lalich coined the term ‘bounded choice’; she prefers to describe ‘the way a “true believer” is constrained (or “bounded”) in terms of choices available, making choices which may seem extreme or crazy to outsiders but are understandable within that environment’.

I’m sticking with ‘brainwashing’ here, because, again, it’s a word most people recognise. Ross says it better than I can: ‘Brainwashing is an imprecise and ambiguous description; nevertheless, it still has currency in contemporary popular culture.’ To me, it also highlights the invisible violence associated with forced thought reform. It’s not a gentle process – it’s deeply violating.

On studies of brainwashing, Ross writes, ‘what these researchers have hypothesised, and in many instances confirmed, is that the human mind is far more fragile, persuadable, and malleable than we would like to think.’ He goes on to say this is especially so when someone is in a vulnerable stage in life.

When it comes to relating my own experiences, throughout this book you’ll notice I use relevant psychosocial terminology in some of the chapter titles – Love-Bombing, Groupthink, Loaded Language, etc – to draw links between the frameworks of coercive control and related forms of emotional and psychological abuse.

COERCIVE CONTROL

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour used by one person to dominate and manipulate another, commonly understood in the context of an intimate relationship. It involves a range of tactics aimed at stripping away the victim’s autonomy and self-esteem. Unlike physical violence, coercive control is often subtle and insidious, with the abuser gradually taking control over the victim’s daily life, decisions and sense of identity. The goal is to make the victim increasingly dependent on the abuser, undermining their ability to resist or leave the relationship or group.

Jess Hill, award-winning journalist and author of the 2019 book and SBS series See What You Made Me Do, has contributed to groundbreaking work in the coercive control space here in Australia. I had the privilege of speaking to her during my writing process, and she highlighted to me the dire lack of understanding of coercive control in our legal system. In advocating for women trying to escape coercively controlling partners in the courts system, she mentioned that often simply explaining what happened to the victim is not enough: we need to explain how and why their critical thought and independent choice were disabled. ‘I tie it back to when thought reform, or “brainwashing”, was first observed and documented in US soldiers back in the fifties,’ she tells me. ‘It adds legitimacy, and it gets officials to recognise this is a real phenomenon that can happen to anyone.’

While this history is important, I hate that victims need their abuse validated in the eyes of our legal system by essentially saying ‘It can happen to men, too,’ or ‘It can happen to soldiers, too.’ Of course it can – they’re humans with the same average faculties as any other victim. But again, the term ‘brainwashing’ is powerful, and we can use this history in our advocacy.

UNFREEZING, CHANGE AND REFREEZING

There’s a three-step model commonly used by cult experts, sociologists and psychologists to understand the process of brainwashing: Unfreezing, Change and Refreezing. This is borrowed from social psychologist Kurt Lewin’s theory of change management, based on the idea that ice can’t be reshaped without first being melted into water. In the words of Dr Steven Hassan, ‘To ready a person for radical change, their reality must first be shaken up. Their indoctrinators must confuse and disorient them. Their frames of reference for understanding themselves and their surroundings must be challenged and broken down.’

These three steps align with the structure of this book, so that you can track my journey along this model to see how systematic the process is. It’s important to note that ‘brainwashing’ is not just being ‘conditioned’. To be alive as a human who lives with other humans is to be conditioned on multiple levels and in multiple ways. Living in a culture conditions us so that over time we learn to mould our behaviours within that culture and all its social and conceptual norms. Different cultures exist in different realms of our life – school, work, social groups, family, gyms, et cetera. Many of these programs of social influence are positive and constructive.

Psychologist and cult expert Dr Margaret Singer’s Continuum of Influence and Persuasion illustrates how all levels of influence sit on a spectrum. Her work highlights the difference between arguably more benign forms of conditioning such as advertising and education versus thought-reform tactics such as indoctrination propaganda. A key distinction, she says, is that thought reform conditions its subjects in such a way as to totally squeeze out any room for meaningful discourse or critical thought.

Sociologist Dr Richard Ofshe distinguished between productive programs of social influence versus coercive control and undue influence by outlining the following factors:

the reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilise an individual’s sense of self to promote compliance

the use of an organised peer group

applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity

the manipulation of the totality of the person’s social environment to stabilise behaviour once modified

While the above model describes the process of psychological manipulation, there are also the components of mind control – the tools employed to execute the process. In Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton lists the eight criteria for totalitarian thought reform as follows:

milieu control (i.e. control of information available to the person)

mystical manipulation (i.e. behavioural and emotional manipulation)

demand for purity (i.e. complete conformity to the group ideology)

cult of confession (i.e. demand for personal confessions and self-exposure)

sacred science (i.e. the doctrine is perfect)

loaded language (i.e. substitution of jargon in place of critical thought)

doctrine over person (i.e. everything must be viewed through the lens of the doctrine)

dispensing of existence (i.e. lives are only valid if they submit to the doctrine and group)

We’ll flesh these components out over the course of the book. Above are the kinds of criteria you’d want to keep in mind if you’re assessing any group for signs of brainwashing and coercive control – the more criteria a group demonstrates, the higher the likelihood that it’s a cult. Displaying any single element does not necessarily mean the group is a cult; nor do you need to have them all in play within a group for it to be understood as a cult.

So, are cult leaders studying models of manipulation to indoctrinate their followers? In some cases, more or less. Most people know about cult leader Jim Jones of Jonestown, and the tragic massacre, or at the very least, they know the phrase ‘drank the Kool-Aid’ (a victim-blaming term that is now understood as derogatory). It’s a lesser-known fact included in Ross’s research that Jones studied the mind-control tactics described in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. Chilling.

More often, however, it appears that cult leaders simply find their way through trial and error – they intuitively learn how to manipulate, deceive, brainwash and control their followers. Just as a psychologically abusive partner or parent probably hasn’t intentionally studied how to wield invisible power over those close to them, cult leaders are driven by their own internal sense of entitlement and need for control.

We also know there are certain factors that render an individual more susceptible to tactics of psychological manipulation, deception and control at certain points in their life. These factors can include loneliness, illness, lack of direction, insecurity, abrupt change or loss, grief, trauma, mental ill-health, previous experience of coercive control, abuse, addiction and any number of other things which render a person psychologically vulnerable. And high-control groups are trained to sniff out these weaknesses like sniffer dogs are trained to find narcotics.

You’ll encounter many different versions of me as you read through my story. At the beginning of the Unfreezing section, you’ll meet the young and vulnerable woman who was approached at a Canberra mall by a friendly-seeming Christian. I found friendship and community, approval and structure in a group of women who led church services at their home, and who welcomed me wholeheartedly. This early period can be characterised as the ‘honeymoon’ or ‘love-bombing’ period. By the end of this stage, I was questioning the authenticity of the faith of the Christians I grew up with, my own body’s needs, my worldview and my sense of self.

In the Change stage, you’ll meet another, more sinister version of me: the self-monitoring cult member with the plastered-on Cheshire-cat grin. By the end of the Change stage, I have moved in with the cult, I’m completely integrated into their routine, and I’ve been to South Korea to meet a serial rapist in prison upon his request – someone I believed was the Messiah of the Second Coming, and also my ‘spiritual husband’.

In the Refreezing stage, you’ll see my cult identity solidify and my health deteriorate simultaneously as we all desperately strive to make ‘the Rapture’. You will follow me as I slowly grow more unwell and end up in hospital – my life at risk, but still deeply brainwashed.

Finally, you’ll get an inside account of a professional deprogramming and my subsequent escape from the cult. I’ll talk about how leaving a cult is never really the end of the story.

It’s been confronting for me to revisit all these previous versions of myself. It’s funny how trauma works – for years I’ve been able to re-tell my story from a cognitive perspective, like crafting and then reading a script, in my media appearances in news articles, documentaries, podcast interviews, TikToks and Instagram Reels, and in conversation with others. Writing this book has been different – dredging up memories and feelings and putting myself back in that young woman’s shoes. Some memories have been vivid and others far more blurry. I’ve done my best to accurately re-tell what happened and when, drawing from the journals a fellow cult survivor saved for me, old emails and conversations with ex-members. Given all this happened over a decade ago, some details have been changed and fleshed out to help with storytelling, and I’ve also used pseudonyms to protect the privacy of certain people, including followers of Providence in Australia. But the essence of my story is as true to my memory as possible.

Increasingly, people are becoming more aware why the oversimplified question ‘Why didn’t they leave?’ can never fully encompass the problem or the solution to spousal abuse. So it is with cultic abuse. Why did I find it so hard to leave? To answer that question, we need to return to how I was recruited in the first place.

As briefly covered in the introduction, Lewin’s theoretical model for change management is widely regarded as a classic approach applied by people and organisations with positive and transparent intentions. But how can this practical model also be effective in exposing unethical manipulation and brainwashing?

In his 1961 book, Coercive Persuasion: A Socio-psychological Analysis of the ‘Brainwashing’ of American Civilian Prisoners by the Chinese Communists, army research psychologist Edgar Schein adapted Lewin’s model to conceptualise how authoritarian leadership could ‘program new identities’ in people. This model understands the victim as being systematically and intentionally disoriented to the extent that they question their current identity and worldview. The steps are adapted as follows:

Unfreezing: Breaking a person down

Changing: Indoctrination

Refreezing: Reinforcing the new identity

‘Unfreezing’ is also known as the ‘stripping phase’, a term coined by sociologist Benjamin Zablocki. The goal of this phase, as Rick Alan Ross states, is to ‘destroy prior convictions and relationships of belonging … and create the need for [in-group] attachments’. Both cognitive and emotional aspects are in play.

This approach is a powerful tool for disarming the victim and rendering them more psychologically vulnerable and suggestible. As Dr Steven Hassan has written, this initial phase incorporates a number of key techniques including sleep deprivation and sensory overload. Many cults run ‘retreats’, inviting unsuspecting new recruits to remote locations under the guise of a normal religious camp or wellness retreat. Once there, the subject is removed from their regular life and immersed in the social norms and attitudes of the cult members, often without yet being fully aware of what the cult actually represents.

While immersed in the group environment – whether for an acute period, over multiple instances, or both – a victim’s frames of reference can be subtly challenged without interruption. Activities are constant, and recruits are surrounded by overly lovely, often charismatic members who strangely don’t allow them a private moment to reflect. Sleep is minimal, with early wake-ups and late nights. Long inspirational talks filled with emotionally laden material, group work, singing, communal meals, meditation or prayer, chanting – anything that contributes to sensory overload and fatigue – effectively short-circuit a person’s critical thinking.

Of course, the techniques and situations used vary according to the cult. An interesting example is the ‘double bind’, a technique you may have encountered in a religious setting or a multi-level-marketing scheme meeting you thought was a genuine business opportunity.

Hassan provides an example of this technique being used by a group leader: ‘“If you admit there are things in your life that aren’t working, then by not taking the seminar, you are giving those things power to control your life.” In other words, just being here proves you are incompetent to judge whether to leave.’ This kind of persuasion is strengthened by being surrounded by committed members who unanimously and enthusiastically agree that what you’re hearing is profound. Social influence is powerful.

It’s important to note that any single strategy is typically not enough on its own to successfully ‘unfreeze’ someone. It’s the combination of simultaneous factors in a particular environment over time that produces the desired effect. This phase could take place over days, weeks or months, and each individual is carefully monitored and studied by the cult so the leaders can determine how best to move them on to the next phase.

1

SHE KNOWS MY NAME?

FEBRUARY TO MARCH 2011

Hi Elizabeth!

This is Yujun. I hope you remember me.

Thank you so much for helping me when I was doing research last week.

It was really helpful!

Thank you for you kindness:))

Could you do me a favour one more time? I have another survey about Christian life. But this survey is only for Christian young people.

If you don’t mind I will send the survey by email. But if you are not comfortable, it’s OK.

Hope you have a lovely day!!

Yujun

I’d forgotten all about the encounter at the mall last week, but now another task has landed in my lap. I’m distracted with catch-ups, work shifts and church events, so I read it and forget to write back right away.

As I toy with whether or not to reply to Yujun, I reflect on my relationship with my church. Over the past couple of years, attending a large public school for Years 11 and 12, I’ve made friends with the other students in my drama elective and had my sheltered little world open up. I scored a leading role in the school play, and got to kiss a boy for the first time, on stage and in character. I started going to parties; I started drinking. I tasted what life outside of my church bubble had to offer. But since high school finished, torn between my excitement about becoming a whole new person and the nagging Christian guilt for engaging in typical teenage behaviours, I’ve recently started to re-embrace church life. I’ve been doing my best to make it work, so I decide to take up the opportunity to be altruistic.

I respond to Yujun’s email a couple of weeks later with the following:

Hello Yujun,

So sorry about the late reply!

You are very welcome, I was happy to help! I’m fine if you still want to send me the survey, if you still want me to.

Hope all is going well with your assignment.

Elizabeth

The survey she sends through includes the questions, When do you normally pray and what for?, What does Jesus mean to you?, How much of the Bible do you believe is the truth? and What aspects of the Bible do you struggle with? Fourteen questions in total. I answer earnestly.

When I send back my survey responses, Yujun replies right away. She thanks me. Says my answers are beautiful and ‘pure’. Then she presents an odd request: can she draw my face for an art show, because she’s been getting into drawing and painting as a hobby.

I’m kicking myself a little for responding, because now it seems I’ve opened the door to another obligation I feel cruel saying no to. And I’m torn between admiring and feeling irritated by her assertiveness. I stick to the same tactic of keeping some distance by replying a few days later, telling her I’m open to the idea.

A little part of me is flattered by her compliment – her implication that perhaps she recognises something special in me. To my shame, I realise I want that to be true. But she barely knows me! I wrestle with my reluctance to engage with this virtual stranger, but God works in mysterious ways, and perhaps He’s divinely engineering new Christian connections right when I’ve been seeking them. I shouldn’t write her off completely.

Any hesitance on my part doesn’t deter Yujun, anyway. She’s persistent. She tells me some more about online theology studies with a Bible college in Korea and her desire to know more about Christian life in Australia. In her email reply, she asks to line up a time in the coming week.

I flip-flop on my previous openness to engage. As lovely as Yujun seems, it feels like all too much, too soon. Perhaps if I just don’t respond, the interaction will end. If it’s God’s will for me to get to know these people, then something might work out down the track ...

That should have been the end of that. But a week later, I got unlucky.

I’m in the mall on my lunch break from my shift at a cafe. I usually buy myself a vanilla milkshake (skim, half the syrup, extra frothy) from the Coffee Club. I look forward to it all morning. Then I travel down the escalator leading into the lower food court, pull out my Vegemite sandwich and ziplock bag of carrot sticks, and eat lunch slowly and methodically while I read Harry Potter. (Illicitly – I know anything to do with magic is evil.)

This particular day, milkshake in hand, I get the urge to browse a gift store before heading downstairs. I’ve only been in the store for a minute when I hear a breathy, ‘Excuse me,’ and turn around to see a smiling, petite Asian woman, in her forties perhaps. She introduces herself as Mary and tells me she’s studying Australian culture at university – would I mind filling out a survey? I feel a jolt of recognition as I glance down at her clipboard.

‘Oh, I think I’ve already filled this out!’ I reply cheerily, relieved that this might give me a reason to escape to my book and my sandwich.

‘Oh really? May I ask your name?’

‘Elizabeth.’

‘Oh my goodness! You’re Elizabeth!’ Mary’s voice is climbing octaves. ‘I know you: my friend Yujun told me about you. She said you were beautiful and tall and all your answers on the survey were so pure!’

She’s flapping her hands, practically jumping up and down, far more excited than is reasonable. Was I that impressive? A little part of me hopes so, while my more realistic side is just confused.

‘Since you’re a Christian, did Yujun tell you about our art show?’ Mary continues. ‘We are all Christians, part of a small house church here, and we are doing an art show soon. We want to use Christian women as models to represent women of the Bible. Would you be interested in being part of it?’

Her eyes are just as wide as Yujun’s had been, her smile a question mark.

‘Um,’ I pause, still taken aback at this strange encounter, ‘yeah, she did, that sounds like something I might be interested in … what’s it about?’

Is this ‘God’s timing’, somehow? A God-orchestrated meeting disguised as a coincidence?

I listen to Mary explain the intention of the show: to share the gospel and make the female figures in the Bible relatable. I’m inspired. I love art in my spare time, but it’s rarely a part of my church life. And I can’t shake the feeling that somehow God is answering my prayers to find friends who share my faith and are outwardly passionate about it. Strange that Mary knows my name and was excited to meet me based on a chance meeting weeks ago, though. Perhaps this is my confirmation that these are Christians I should get to know?

A few days later, Mary emails me with examples of the work their artists have done: creatively rendered impressions of young women’s faces. They’re stunning. Their eyes look so bright and alive, their faces are beautifully animated, and the colours are dreamy and vibrant. Not at all tacky like I expected. I’m excited about you being involved in our next exhibition! Mary writes.

What do these women see in me that neither I nor anyone else in my world does?

In that last year of high school, when I finally broke out of my insular church circle, I struggled to understand what appeal I held in the eyes of my new peers. And yet I burned with how much I wanted to belong in their world, waiting on late-night texts to hang out and share a bottle of vodka in someone’s parents’ garage, watch a movie or go to Mooseheads (the notoriously seedy local club). I couldn’t believe I was wanted, and I was terrified to lose it all.

My anxiety heightened, and with that came an all-consuming need to restrict my food. I remember my first intoxicating taste of control after dinner one evening, when normally I’d turn to sweets or chips, or both, to curb my hunger after a long day, but instead opted for an apple. It wasn’t a dramatic change, but the feeling of self-control coupled with a slight growling in my stomach before bed gave me a sense of empowerment. I liked it.

Before 2010, I wasn’t slim – as my mum, ever the realist, put it, I was ‘solid’. I loved my food. Suddenly in Year 12, plunged into a new social circle and trying desperately to be less myself, I shed twenty kilograms in under six months.

When I developed my eating disorder, it felt liberating. I mistook weight loss for personal agency. Each kilogram shed created greater distance from the old me. My mental health formed a symbiotic yet destructive relationship with the number of almonds I ate for afternoon tea. Most of the time I was miserable and exhausted, and later, desperately frightened, but the more weight I shed, the more powerful I felt.

When I came back from the mid-year break, standing in the cafeteria line in an oversized woollen jumper and jeans that once fit snugly and now hung off my frame, wrinkled at the knees, I heard a gasp behind me and turned around to see one of the girls in my history class. I admired her and her endless edgy outfit combinations and confidence.

‘Liz! You’ve gotten so skinny!’

‘Oh … yeah, I guess so?’ I played it down as if it hadn’t occurred to me.

‘Girl, you’ve gotta eat! I mean, you’re looking amazing, but like … are you OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m great! Totally fine.’

And in that moment, I was. I could sense concern, but for reasons unknown to me, it goaded me on. I was getting more attention from my new circle and other peers outside of my insular little group than I was used to. Being skinny meant being visible.

I got to the end of the cafeteria line and ordered black tea, spreading my fingers out across the hot styrofoam to try to warm my always-freezing hands as I made my way back to my new friends. I was running on adrenaline and fumes and compliments, and I wouldn’t have known how to stop the freight train of weight loss, even if I’d wanted to.

I email Yujun after having left her hanging for a week or so. I met a friend of yours in Belconnen mall yesterday, I write. She was lovely! We set up a time to meet in the mall outside Borders where she’d originally approached me.

When the day arrives, I turn up on time and stand outside Borders once again. I don’t have to wait long: Mary and another woman I don’t recognise approach me, smiling. That strikes me as strange; it was Yujun and I who were discussing when to catch up, and she isn’t here at all.

‘Hi, lovely Liz!’ Mary sings out, then laughs jovially. ‘This is Niamh, she’s come to say hi as well.’

‘Hey, hon. It’s so nice to meet you!’ she says, stepping forwards and giving me a warm hug. Niamh is Caucasian, taller than Mary, with an Aussie accent and curly brown hair pulled back into a messy bun. A rogue lock of hair is loose at her forehead. She speaks softly but confidently, compared to Mary’s excited staccato.

I’m still confused that these two have shown up instead of Yujun, but I don’t want to be rude and ask where she is, as if I’m disappointed with their company. Anyway, they quickly put me at ease. We engage in small talk for a bit, and then when it comes time to find a coffee place, Niamh suggests, ‘How about we go back to our apartment? It’s a short walk from the mall. We’ve got fresh fruit, tea and Japanese sweets. Maybe we can read the Bible together? Cheaper than going to a cafe.’

‘Oh,’ I say, surprised for the second time, ‘sure, OK – whereabouts is it?’

‘It’s super close. On Northbourne Avenue, just across the street,’ Niamh responds. Mary is beaming at me.

It isn’t so much that I feel fine going back to a relative stranger’s apartment right off the bat; I feel weird about it. But I also struggle very much with saying ‘no’ in social situations. After all, I reason, how dangerous can it be? I have nothing to be wary of. They’re Christian women. We’re going back to read the Bible, for goodness’ sake.

‘OK, no worries,’ I say, playing it cool. We head through the mall and out onto the street.

On our walk over, Niamh asks me questions about myself, seeming genuinely interested in who I am and where I’m at in life. I don’t have to do any heavy lifting here, the conversation flows so easily. She has a sweet little breathy giggle when she talks, and a pleasant cadence to her voice, like listening to the flowing and bubbling of water down a stream.

Mary walks along silently while we chat, like a third wheel. I wonder why she isn’t engaging, when she and Yujun were the ones I’d met previously. Niamh, on the other hand, is acting like we’ve known each other for ages, though we’ve only just met.

Both women are at least fifteen years older than me. They’re Christians, members of a small house church mostly made up of Korean missionaries: Canberra Love Church, or Sarang Church in Korean. I’m familiar with house churches, small groups of believers who decide to do church their own way in their own homes for one reason or another. Some always meet in the same church, others take turns hosting. I have no reason not to trust them, I think to myself.

Niamh chats to me eagerly on the walk to their apartment about faith, their church and her background. ‘I went to law school a while back,’ she says in her soothing lilt that strikes me as unusual for a native English speaker, ‘and then when I graduated, I was hired as an intern at a local firm. In the first month there, I hated it.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘And everyone could tell. It felt too sterile, too harsh. It was soul-sucking. My boss told me she didn’t think law was really for me. And I agreed. I quit, and now I’m studying art.’

‘Wow,’ I respond. ‘All that work, all that study – only to find out you hated it?’

‘My parents were disappointed, especially my mum. She’s an academic, pretty stern and unemotional, and pushed me to do law. But I’ve always been creative, and it just never would have worked out. I love what I’m doing now. I’m so happy. I feel like I’m my authentic self, the self God created me to be.’

‘That’s so cool you found something you love,’ I reply. I find it inspiring that she was willing to follow her heart. And she’s clearly very intelligent.

‘Yeah,’ she says, blankly. She’s far away for a second. Then she comes back. ‘We’re nearly here – there it is!’

Niamh points to a big apartment building across the road. It’s newly built, modern and trendy. Their apartment is on ground level, with a walled-in courtyard on the street side.

As I enter, Mary singing, ‘Welcome, welcome,’ I take in the large space, filled with light, immaculately clean, but sparsely furnished.

A futon sits against the living-room wall, a large wooden dining table and chairs look out into the courtyard, and a few abstract drawings of trees and birds with Korean characters underneath are displayed near the entrance.

My gaze gravitates to a huge, golden-framed photograph of what appears to be Jesus up against the far wall. It’s shadowy-looking, duochrome in black and mustard. He is serious and sad looking, his eyes boring into you wherever you are in the room. Underneath the picture sits a polished wooden chair with a large pink-and-gold cushion on it. Aside from that, the walls look weirdly empty, with blank shelf spaces and wall hooks, as if some things have recently been removed.

South Korean culture is a little familiar to me. Having gone to a small Christian school growing up, I got to know many South Korean students, as their parents had immigrated to Australia to live at a Youth with a Mission Australia (YWAM) base. Essentially, they came over as Christian missionaries. I remember going to South Korean friends’ birthday parties at the base, with their smiling parents giving us huge scoops of ice cream. The parents were warm, always smiling and nodding emphatically, rarely outspoken but forever generous and agreeable.

Koreans in our school community never went to the same churches I did, but I always felt their faith must have been strong to have compelled them all that way to spread the gospel in Australia. I knew that Christianity was one of South Korea’s central religions.

Subconsciously, I realise, I’ve always liked and trusted Koreans – and now I’m getting to experience how impressive their faith really is first-hand.

‘This place is lovely,’ I gush – and it is nice, but ‘lovely’ is probably an exaggeration.

‘You can sit down over at the dining table, and I’ll get the snacks ready. Do you want green tea, herbal …?’ Niamh begins rummaging around in the kitchen.

‘Sure, yes please – I’ll have whatever tea you’re having!’ I reply, as I sit down with Mary. She beams at me.

‘Such a pretty girl!’ she coos, and makes stilted small talk. Mary asks me a few questions about myself, about my background. I assume the conversation is halting due to the language barrier.

Niamh returns with a pot of fragrant green tea, a plate full of freshly chopped strawberries and sweet rice shaped into triangles covered in sesame seeds. As we eat, we continue to discuss faith, with Niamh directing the conversation.

I’ve been a little guarded, as I thought that we were just going to be meeting in a cafe and suddenly here I am at their apartment. But my guard slowly lowers as we continue to chat. They are kind, gentle and interested in me. Niamh, in particular, is perceptive, and asks me a lot of questions about myself, listening intently with warm eyes and a wistful smile.

Whenever I tell her something about my beliefs, or about faith in general, she responds insightfully, expanding on what I’ve said, talking passionately about God and Jesus and the Bible in a way I’m not used to. It’s sincere and quietly wise, like she has a close and personal relationship with God.

None of my friends talk about their faith the way she does. They were raised in it like I was, but it felt like more of a background belief, or an obligation to be part of church culture.

Belle and Kara, my childhood and high school best friends respectively, both attend my church. We joined together, breaking away from the churches we attended with our parents growing up. It felt like a necessary part of maturing in life and in faith. Then we formed a little clique in Year 11 when we all moved to the same school, and thanks to seeing them on Sundays, our relationship mostly survived my sidestep into performances and a secular friend group.

I got the sense they resented me for it at the time, though. These days, my church doesn’t feel like a healthy place for me. Although Belle, Kara and I all joined together, in the two years since, Belle – with her beautiful voice and worship-leader parents – was quickly promoted to the worship team, giving her veritable celebrity status, while Kara and I were assigned to children’s church duties and morning tea. The pastor and his wife have a much-adored daughter around our age and instantly took a liking to Belle, while Kara and I were treated with relative indifference.

When we all turned eighteen, I remember Belle being placed up the front of the church, while eighteen congregation members came up one by one to hand her a red rose each, and the pastor showered her with praise over the microphone. She once received a car from one of the congregation members. On my eighteenth birthday, the pastor’s wife gave me a plastic keyring that said princess in Comic Sans.

Kara and I knew we were being alienated – hell, our mums and the church elders said as much – but it was our community, and it was all we had at the time.

And I always loved God so much. He was a precious solace, a divine Father whose attention, care and love always stayed the same. I remember one Sunday morning at church, I kneeled at the front and prayed after the altar call a bit longer than usual. In my mind’s eye, I saw a sparkling waterfall showering my head with droplets, prismatic light flashing this way and that. When I got home, I sketched the image in my notebook.

The following week after church, a woman I didn’t know very well approached me gingerly.

‘I hope you don’t mind me telling you – God showed me a picture of you while you were praying,’ she said. ‘I saw a waterfall coming down over your head.’ I was stunned. She’d seen what I’d seen? Was this some kind of sign? I held on to these moments because it was one of the rare times I felt real: solid. I existed outside my own head, and so did God. Naturally, I want to talk about God and faith openly – but I can tell with Belle and Kara that my vulnerability makes them uncomfortable, and that makes me feel embarrassed.

Niamh, on the other hand, is interested in diving right in. More than that, she seems interested in my experience and perspective. Part-way through our conversation, she disappears into her room and returns with her dog-eared Bible so we can read together as she suggested.

We read a passage that she picks out. It’s exciting to me, interacting with people who are eager to read and interpret scripture. Niamh speaks of how much a particular passage communicates God’s love and care so well to her. As she talks, I think, Wow. I’d never realised how every little verse could be a love letter from God.

I’m also a little intimidated. Maybe the way I was reading the Bible before was too sterile. How did she pull that meaning out of it? And how did I not see that before? It makes the way my church community interprets scripture seem almost … childlike. Both Mary and Niamh tell me about how they pray and read scripture daily, and get a lot out of having it as a discipline. I could talk like this for hours.

Finally, the time comes for me to leave. Niamh asks if I want to pray together. I agree enthusiastically. Again, I’m struck by the heartfelt emotion in her prayers. I find she’s listened to me and understands my heart – she prays with so much insight into my situation, even though I haven’t given her a lot of detail. She prays like she’s talking to someone she is close to; like Jesus himself is in the room.

I leave on an emotional high. Who are these women, and how are they so passionate about their faith? I’m inspired to read my Bible and pray more. ‘Let’s catch up again soon!’ Niamh says warmly as I leave, Mary waving goodbye.

Niamh contacts me again a few days later. Hey hon, was so lovely to meet you the other day! Would you like to catch up in the city sometime soon? I agree without hesitation. We meet at one of my favourite sandwich places. She greets me with a big hug.

We sit outside at a table in the sun. I order a toastie. Niamh sticks with green tea. She’s brought a few papers with her.

‘I thought you might appreciate this,’ she tells me. ‘The pastor of our church writes amazing messages, and this one seemed relevant to what we talked about the other day.’

They’re written in proverb style, simple and to the point. Each one is based on a verse in the Bible, and then extrapolated on with simple principles and metaphors: easy to grasp. They align with what I understand about the Bible, nothing controversial, and they strike a chord with me.

Niamh so eloquently explains her feelings about the proverbs, how she draws inspiration from them. I want more Biblical insight, like she has.

As she speaks, the shimmers in her eyeshadow and her hazel eyes catch the sunlight. Everything about her sparkles, I think.

After Niamh finishes reading out the proverbs and chatting about them for a bit, she pours us some more water and says, ‘You know, the church I go to has some amazing Bible studies. I’m about to do them again. Would you like to do some with me?’

I agree without hesitation.

2

LOVE-BOMBING

APRIL 2011

I begin taking a course of Bible studies with the women of Sarang Church. In the beginning, it’s just with Niamh, and Mary sits in. Then one day when I turn up, another Aussie woman called Ruth ushers me in, telling me she’s heard all about me and is excited to meet me. Again, I’m slightly blindsided by the weird bait-and-switch, but I roll with it. We build a rapport quickly.

The more I get to know these women, particularly Niamh and Ruth, the more I realise that meeting them was meant to be. They listen so well to me, and cherish and encourage me like true mentors.

Sometimes, the women invite me for a meal before or after the study, and their meals are always abundant and delicious – Korean meals like bulgogi and tteokbokki and japchae, bowls piled high with flavourful food, second (and sometimes third) servings. It feels happy, euphoric – utopian, even. My eating disordered voice quietens. Everyone is in such high spirits, everyone loves and cares for each other, and everyone wants to talk about God and the Bible as normal, natural parts of life, and not something to discuss only on Sundays or when hard times hit.

I knock on the door of their apartment one Saturday afternoon. The door swings open and I’m greeted with a huge smile and exclamation of ‘Welcome, pretty girl!’ by Mary, with Ruth standing behind her beaming softly, warm like the sun and with golden-copper curls to match. Suddenly Niamh appears from her room, wrapping her arms around them both from behind in a childish ambush, laughing, inviting me into the group hug.

Niamh has an intriguing range of moods: sometimes almost business-like, sometimes far away and a bit sad, sometimes oozing sage kindness, and sometimes reminding me of a cheeky little kid. The cheeky side always takes me by surprise, but I like it. Together, these women have so much love and affection for each other, and I’m becoming a part of it. Apart from whispered conversations I glimpse occasionally between the others, I’m in the middle of it all – safe, swaddled in love.

As I attend more Bible-study sessions, I begin to notice a symbiotic pattern with Ruth and Niamh. Niamh is the heart: she teaches me studies that require a lot of feeling, a lot of inspiration, and deep, nurturing talks. Ruth is the brain. She takes over when the studies talk about timelines, prophecies, Biblical history. Logic, facts and data. She feels strong and sturdy, and her body is built in kind.

They are the perfect team, the yin and yang. Niamh is the water and Ruth is the earth.

Mary is present for most of the studies, but she generally sits silently, watching and listening. I haven’t really figured her out yet, and I get the impression she’s thinking the same of me. ‘I’m here to enjoy as well.’ She smiles, and then nods at Ruth to begin. In some moments it seems as though Niamh and Ruth are taking cues from her, so she must be strong in her faith.

This time, Ruth and Mary sit down with me while Niamh flits off to go run errands in the city. ‘Today we’re going to talk about Jonah and the fish,’ Ruth says. Mary nods.

The Bible studies are blowing my mind. They’re fairly consistent with everything I was raised to understand in the Bible, but with a refreshingly modern perspective. They present angles I’ve never considered or learned before, with a focus on appealing to science, something the churches I’ve been in previously never really did.

For example, they suggest that the stories in the Bible were never meant to be taken literally, but as allegories. ‘God is a God of science,’ Ruth tells me. I was always raised to believe firmly that Adam and Eve really did eat an actual apple in the Garden of Eden, Jesus really did multiply the loaves of bread and fish, or turn water into wine, and God really did part the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites. And now I have the freedom to acknowledge how silly the idea of it all was.

The studies they present seem to be comprehensive, using many verses and passages throughout the Bible to illustrate their respective points. It’s more detailed and definitive than the studies I took as a younger teenager, less vague. It feels like I’m being given insider insight into the Bible.

The Jonah study is no different. By the time we finish the Bible study and Ruth has answered all my questions, it’s getting dark outside. Niamh has come home and is unpacking groceries in the kitchen. She peers around the fridge at us inquiringly.

‘You guys finished the study? Liz, wanna stay for dinner?’

‘Oh! Only if you guys have enough for one more? I don’t wanna impose.’

‘Not at all!’ Ruth and Niamh exclaim simultaneously.

‘I was thinking you could help me cook, actually? I could do with a hand,’ Niamh suggests.

‘Yeah, absolutely!’ I say brightly, pleased to be contributing to something. They’ve been so kind; I feel bad I’ve not ever really been able to offer anything back. I feel a bit indebted to them.

I head into the kitchen where Niamh is assembling a pile of assorted bits and pieces on the bench. Potatoes, carrots, zucchini, lemons, an onion, a parcel from the deli, spices, herbs.

‘Fresh fish was on special today and I got so excited,’ she says with a grin. ‘I love fish so much, and it goes with so many different things.’ She leans over and rummages around in her backpack, pulling out a plastic bag. ‘Look what I picked near the university today!’

She’s holding up bunches of lavender and rosemary sprigs. ‘Lavender is amazing baked in with other herbs. You’ll see.’

I can’t imagine putting lavender in savoury cooking, but I’m curious. She pulls out a cutting board and hands me a knife, and I set about washing, peeling and chopping up the vegetables. Conversation flows easily, Niamh guiding the way. We chat about food, cooking, health, exercise, and then she suddenly turns to talking about her past. She’s never spoken to me about relationships, guys, anything before, so my ears perk up.

‘I had a boyfriend years ago, when I was at uni,’ she begins, ‘and I thought I was in love with him, but he ultimately broke my heart.’

I’ve never heard her talking about heartbreak, or any kind of personal emotional pain before. I get the feeling if I say one wrong thing, she might clam up. I opt to just listen and nod.

‘After that I was in a pretty dark place. I was really depressed and confused for a long time, and started questioning everything. I’d never done it before, but I started praying. I was raised atheist, but I felt so … lost. And it felt good to pray, you know?’

‘Totally,’ I reply. ‘I always pray when I’m depressed or anxious or anything. But I love that you felt the pull to pray, even though you weren’t raised religious. God must have been calling you.’

‘Yeah, well, it sort of helped, but I still felt lost. I tried a few different churches, and I didn’t really feel at home anywhere … I searched for ages, and I just felt so lonely and depressed, like I didn’t even want to be alive anymore. I kept praying, but I didn’t feel close to God, and I just wanted to give up.’ She has that far-off look in her eyes again: a hungry sadness.

‘That must’ve been so hard, Niamh,’ I say softly, surprised at the sudden vulnerability of her admission. ‘It can take a while before you find the right church with the right people for you, and it’s hard when you just don’t fit in. I can relate. Churches can be really cliquey.’

‘Yeah, nothing felt right, and I guess I just decided to stop trying. I was in a dark place. But that very same week, I met Mary. She taught me the Bible studies you’re doing now, and I was like … wow.’ She places her fingers at her temples and mimics an explosion. ‘Blown away. This work answered all my questions about suffering, about the human condition, and about the love of God. I realised God was preparing me for Sarang Church all this time, and it truly all made sense. And now, I’m so happy. I know where I’m meant to be, living in God’s will.’

‘Wow. That’s amazing,’ I gush, genuinely inspired. ‘And I’m sure you’ll meet the right guy at the right time, too.’

‘Oh, I’m not really interested,’ Niamh replies breezily, rinsing the lavender and sage. ‘I realised dating and love were distracting me from my relationship with God. You know, like an idol. It’s not something I’ve really had a desire for since, and my life is so full. And it’s not something we’re focused on in our church. If you’re meant to get married, it will happen without you having to look for it. Why waste valuable time looking for men when you should be seeking God?’ She pauses for a second, running the rosemary under the tap, before asking, ‘What about you, are you dating anyone?’

‘No. I actually broke up with my boyfriend at the beginning of this year. He wasn’t a Christian, and it just felt … wrong. I guess, yeah, maybe I felt I was disobeying God.’

‘Looks like God was preparing you for something, hon.’ Niamh gives my arm a little squeeze, her hands still damp from the tap water.

‘Yeah. I mean, maybe.’

Aaron was my first official boyfriend, kind and sweet. He’d been in the grade above me, and when I met him he’d already graduated, but still went to parties with all the drama kids in our year. I’d secretly admired him right from when I first laid eyes on him in the cafeteria in Year 11.

We dated for maybe six months – thrilling, at first, but then the guilt kicked in.

When we went on a trip to Melbourne with some friends, he booked a hotel room with the two of us sharing a bed. I was horrified. He explained he only wanted to cuddle, but I’d been trained my entire life not to believe it ever ended there. When we returned, I broke up with him because I couldn’t deal with dating someone who didn’t share my faith anymore, which had led to mismatched expectations on both ends. He took it pretty hard.

In the Bible studies with the women, I’ve learned that sexual sin was the ‘original sin’ of Adam and Eve. That the opposite sex is a dangerous temptation to pull you away from God. It’s not incongruent messaging from my childhood, but it has a far stronger emphasis on sexual sin as the Pandora’s box containing every other sin.

Perhaps this has all been a part of God’s plan: the break-up, the difficult times at church, deciding what I want to do with my life. He sees me.

At my church, dating and marriage are among the main fixations of my peers; our pastors talk about it with us regularly. I’ve been taught that the most meaningful thing for a woman to achieve was marriage and children: not always explicitly, but implicitly. How vapid, I think now. These women are truly putting God first.

I tell Mum enthusiastically about my newfound friends.

‘I’ve been getting to know some amazing Christian people,’ I say excitedly as I pour us both tea. ‘Women, don’t worry.’ I know the alarm bells will go off if she thinks I’m hanging out with guys.

‘Oh. That’s good, darling,’ she replies, looking up from her newspaper, glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. Mum is petite, much shorter than my 178 centimetres, in contrast to Dad at a towering 198 centimetres. She’s beautiful, with radiant skin and straight dark brown hair, but doesn’t ever admit it, and dresses in understated, functional clothes until they fray. She’s nurturing, practical by nature.

‘Have you eaten today, Lizzie? What did you have for lunch?’ she asks me.

Mum grew up on a farm in Queensland raised by wartime parents. She possesses a robust just-get-on-with-things mentality. In contrast, my natural inclination is to be a bleeding heart. I’m more like my dad in that sense. He’s been known to cry watching YouTube videos of puppies.

Despite our differences, Mum is my closest confidante. She learned about eating disorders in real time alongside me, and ultimately guided me through my bout of anorexia last year, through a roster of doctors, specialists and dietitians.

I wanted to eat normally at the time, but I’d forgotten how. By the time anyone noticed I wasn’t eating, food was already terrifying to me. Calorie counts were etched into my mind. My brain was deprived of the fuel it needed to think rationally, and so I was stuck in a vicious cycle, a push and pull between wanting to get better and needing to be loved, and mistakenly using my body as the battleground.

Eventually I got to a point when I couldn’t hack it anymore. I was worn out, and in more lucid moments, the appearance of my body was beginning to frighten me. I just didn’t know how to stop. I needed help.

Slowly, with Mum’s watchful help and insistence on taking me to all of my appointments, I regained the presence of mind to choose to live and not starve. By the end of last year, I wasn’t totally healed, but I was excited for my future once more. Mum and I both felt we’d come out relatively unscathed: the acute episode had lasted ten months or so. I’m so lucky I had her with me.

‘Mum, I’ve eaten; stop worrying,’ I respond to her question. I’d like my exciting news to be acknowledged. ‘Seriously, Mum, I’m really happy about this new group. It’s so cool to have friends who share my faith, and we’re doing Bible studies together – they’re teaching me.’ I place her tea on the dining table in front of her. She immediately grabs a coaster and slides it underneath the mug.

Mum’s brow furrows slightly and her eyes search mine. She’s concerned. This irritates me. I thought she’d be happy for me, but since my eating disorder, she’s always worried. Perhaps understandable. Between my illness, caring for my two younger teenage brothers, keeping tabs on our oft-forgetful father and working in the health sector, Mum carries a lot. She crisis-checks habitually, and I’m still on slightly wobbly recovery legs. But I need her to be happy for me. I’m not partying, not drinking, not dating, not staying out late – I’m going to Bible studies, for goodness’ sake.

‘But don’t you already have Christian friends? What about Belle and Kara?’

‘Yeah, I know, but they’re not really like these guys. Belle and Kara don’t want to talk about God. Niamh and Ruth – that’s their names, the two main ones – they’re excited about God. They pray heaps. They just seem different. We connect through our faith, and it’s been really positive.’

‘I just hope it’s not distracting you from your recovery. From rest. And work. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Wait, darl – what’s the name of the church? Would I know it?’

‘It’s called Canberra Love Church. “Sarang” Church in Korean. You wouldn’t know it – it’s just a tiny house church with a few people. Anyway, it’s fine, Mum. It’s good for me. I’m praying more, and I love learning about the Bible,’ I reassure her. ‘You’d like them. They’re so nice.’

‘Koreans? Oh, OK … a lot of Koreans are believers. That’s good, darling. Is it part of the YWAM church?’

‘No, I mean they haven’t mentioned it. Just Christians, and there are a few Aussies I’ve met who’ve been part of the church for years now too. So it’s a mixed group, but they’re all super dedicated to prayer and reading the Bible.’

She softens a bit, offering a tense smile, but her still-knitted brow is a dead giveaway this is a placation. ‘Well, I’m happy for you, darl. Just be careful. It’s great that you’re excited, but make sure you’re taking care of yourself, OK?’

After a few months of Bible studies, the women of Sarang Church invite me to my first church service. I’m still volunteering at my regular church on Sundays, so I wait for the next Sunday I’m rostered off. Still accustomed to the casual nature of attending my usual church, I cut the timing finely. It turns out to be a rush, and I knock on the door on the dot of ten am.

I turn up expecting the usual exuberance, but my reception is cold as ice. Mary opens the door with a stony face, putting a finger to her lips and ushering me in. I’ve never been greeted with anything but the utmost warmth before, but this morning her disapproval is palpable. I’m a bit … frightened. What have I done wrong?

There’s silence in the room, aside from the soft sounds of a violin playing through the speakers. My eyes wander to the living room, the focal point of Sad Jesus on the wall with the pink-and-gold cushioned chair below. ‘That’s Jesus’s seat,’ Mary told me one afternoon. ‘It’s our way of acknowledging he’s here with us.’

The dining chairs have been pulled from the table and are arranged in a line facing Sad Jesus, with a modern-looking lectern underneath Him. A pretty pink-and-blue slide saying Sunday Service shines out from the projector, surrounded by a floral pattern. A woman I don’t recognise is facing away from me on one of the chairs, head bowed in prayer. Another woman I don’t know is behind a computer, and Ruth is shuffling her sermon papers. She doesn’t look up.

I’d arrived right on time, hadn’t I? But everyone is already focused – the service is under way. No small talk. I silently go and sit next to the stranger with her head down, stinging from the disapproval. I don’t know quite what I did, but I hate this feeling. I’m suddenly out of my depth, and I need to find out how to fix this.

She opens her eyes without lifting her head and looks sideways at me. ‘Hi, I’m Lara,’ she whispers. She is pretty, with glossy hair, alabaster skin and piercing blue eyes. She’s very slight: her thin cream cardigan is loose around her shoulders.

‘Liz,’ I whisper back. ‘Nice to meet you.’

She’s already closed her eyes again in prayer. I close my eyes too, following suit. It feels like an age before the violin slowly fades out and there is complete silence. I lift my head and look up. Niamh and Mary have silently taken their seats beside Lara and me. Ruth is smiling peacefully at all of us from the lectern. As I glance around, I notice everyone is dressed immaculately in light clothing, all skirts and dresses. Florals, pinks, baby blues, whites. Everyone has make-up on. I immediately feel under-dressed in my Converse, jeans and jumper.

‘Welcome, everyone,’ Ruth says, towering over us all, opening her arms wide. Her beautiful copper hair is down for the first time, thick ringlets tumbling over her shoulders.

‘It’s so good to see you all here,’ Ruth exclaims, pointedly smiling at me. She hadn’t greeted me when I showed up, but her smile now tells me that perhaps I’m forgiven? ‘Let’s open with a prayer.’ We’ve just been praying for the past fifteen minutes, I think. But fair enough.

Her prayer is simple, in the Sarang Church style I’ve become familiar with. Intimate – like she’s talking to a friend. Her voice is soft and tender, but with the same odd cadence as Niamh where she emphasises irregular vowel sounds.

‘Lord God, thank you for this beautiful day. We’re so happy to be here and listen to your Word. We’re thankful for your blessings throughout the week, and that we can come together and celebrate your love. Lord Jesus, thank you that in everything we do, you’re right by our side doing it with us. We humbly ask that you join us today and enjoy this service. Holy Spirit, please inspire us as we meditate on these teachings, and help us to become closer to God and Jesus so we can live joyfully with the Lord. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ everyone echoes, like they mean it – not just a rote response.

‘Let’s all stand and sing.’ Ruth moves aside as the screen changes to song lyrics, and we stand. The songs are ones I’m familiar with from my church upbringing – mostly old hymns – so I’m able to follow even without the help of the lyrics. After three or four songs, we sit down again and Ruth commences the sermon. It’s simple, basic even – talking about general life and faith principles. We finish the service with a final song and another prayer by Ruth.

After the sermon finishes, the woman behind the computer introduces herself to me as Kristen. She looks East Asian, but perhaps not Korean. Maybe Chinese? Just finished a commerce degree. She is, of course, super friendly.

Most of us mill around while Niamh and Mary prepare lunch. We make small talk. While I didn’t know exactly what to expect from their church service, I liked it. It felt so … reverent. I’m used to the rowdy Pentecostal-style services in which the songs are over-engineered and the pastor treats the sermon like a TEDx Talk.

Later that afternoon, Mary tells me everyone needs to turn up at least ten minutes before the service starts to pray and prepare their hearts. It was disrespectful to God to turn up late, or even just on time. No one mentioned this to me beforehand. Her rebuke is a blow – I am absolutely mortified any time I get in trouble – but I apologise and try to take it in my stride. I’ll never be late for a service again.

I go back to Sarang Church the next Sunday I have available and, over time, I begin to resent my old church. The expression of faith there seems almost crass and childlike compared to the style of Sarang Church. As I watch people shuffling in late, talking through the sermon, or another of the pastor’s terrible jokes falling flat, I want to be anywhere else.

I mention to Bella and Kara that I’ve been doing Bible studies. As I predicted, they seem to have no interest in meeting my new friends, and are perplexed that I would want to engage with people from a different church. Unspoken questions hang in the air: What’s wrong with our current church? Do you think you’re more spiritual than us or something? Are we not good enough for you?

I find myself gradually pulling away from my old church. It doesn’t go unnoticed. I can tell that everyone is at a loss for how to address it – why I suddenly went from being at every service or gathering to being a regular apology. I still volunteer as normal, though. I think many of the adults chalk up my absences to me being a flaky young adult.

The pastor’s wife, Janice, invites me out to coffee for a ‘check-in’. She’s a jolly woman, curvy, with rosy cheeks and streaky highlights in her hair. If you didn’t know her better, you’d think she was magnanimous. Previously, she ‘checked in’ when I was first struggling with my eating disorder and depression last year.

Back then, Janice had me over for tea in her living room, offered me Tim Tams I was too afraid to eat, and barely listened to anything I said before she told me dismissively she’d also had an eating disorder and depression when she was my age, but that it was far worse than mine had been, so I would be OK. ‘But just know,’ she told me, ‘that the church is always there for you if you need it.’

I thanked Janice for her support, feeling empty. Clearly, she thought my illness was me being precious, or seeking attention, rather than something I couldn’t help and was using every ounce of my willpower to fight.

I know what the check-in is about this time. She asks me about the new church I’ve been going to. Whether I’m still interested in volunteering at children’s church as I have been for the past two years. I reassure her that, yes, I’m happy to come on the Sundays I’m volunteering – but on the other Sundays, I’ll sometimes attend a different church. Her face turns sour when I say that.

She asks me about the church, and I tell her exactly what I understand it to be: a small Christian house church in the city. I enjoy going, and it’s really helping my faith. She clearly isn’t happy for me, but she can’t think of anything else to say. At that point I realise she’s really only concerned about the possibility of losing free labour.

3

SETTING CONDITIONS

MAY 2011

Bible studies start to include anecdotal stories about a pastor in South Korea: Pastor Joshua. He sounds incredibly dedicated to God, hiding out in the mountains in rural South Korea for weeks to fast and pray when he was growing up, spending the last of his money to help feed the poor, reading the Bible over and over again.

In this way I’m introduced to the concept of ‘setting a condition’. Pastor Joshua, I learn, sets conditions: physically or mentally demanding tasks or sacrifices as an impassioned attempt to grow closer to Jesus. I’m familiar with the concept of fasting or praying or reading the Bible to ‘seek God’ for something, but it wasn’t something that was pushed upon me growing up in the church. Faith was the core tenet: believing in that which you couldn’t see, a condition of the heart.

This is different. It sounds like self-inflicted suffering, because in doing so you come to more intimately understand the suffering Jesus had to endure for humanity’s sake. Action is faith, the natural and necessary extension of believing.

Niamh tells me most Christians are ‘lazy’, only wanting the benefits of faith without true and intentional sacrifice. Pastor Joshua apparently fasted in a cave for forty days and forty nights: no food or water, just prayer. And, the story went, Jesus appeared in front of him in that cave and spoke with him. It all strikes me as too absurd to be true, and in conflict with them teaching me that the stories in the Bible were actually metaphors. But Mary reminds me that while not possible in the physical realm, ‘with God anything is possible’. That I should be careful not to allow my physical understanding to get in the way of my faith. The Holy Spirit sustained him.

And, really, it’s no different from the acts of faith described in the Bible, or the miracles pastors from my old church would talk about – making the crippled walk, the blind see, the terminally ill well.

The transactional concept of suffering enough to be worthy of getting more from God is new to me. I don’t like it at first. It feels invasive and harsh.

Then I check myself. I’m not used to being confronted with a harsher ‘truth’, but just because I emotionally reel from the idea doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact, that could be the influence of Satan, wanting to keep me half asleep in a comfortable, but inadequate, faith. I don’t want to be lukewarm like other Christians. The Bible verse Revelation 3:16 had made an impression on me since I was a child – so, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I will spit you out of my mouth. How could anyone risk being so-so about God, when it was clear in the scripture that God required everything from his followers?

Mary tells me they all set conditions in Sarang Church. Not as extreme as Pastor Joshua’s, of course. Ruth has fasted for seven days straight, for example. Mary did five. Niamh sets a condition of prayer: multiple hours per day broken up into three designated times. And they all get up early – every single morning – to pray. They dedicate a certain amount of time to evangelising each week, or commit to meeting a certain number of new people. The list goes on. They almost sound like KPIs.

‘You don’t have to do it all, all at once,’ Ruth tells me. ‘Start slow and build up. You’ll find it changes your life, and Jesus loves when you set the condition to meet with Him every morning.’

‘What do you recommend, then?’ I say.

‘Maybe just try getting up at five am, and see how you go?’ she says gently.

My attitude is to jump in with both feet. After all, isn’t that what faith requires?

‘I’ll do five am,’ I say without hesitation.

And I do. At first, I’m elated. It feels wonderful to be seeking closeness with God first thing in the morning. Prayer has always been a comfort for me, ever since I was small. And with predawn prayer, I feel like I’m starting to meet Him halfway, so surely God will reward me with more closeness and insight the more I pray.

The women tell me that, in addition to early morning prayer, they make sure they dress in nice clothes, make themselves presentable before they pray. The same reasons apply as with a church service: you’re meeting God, so it’s respectful to not look dishevelled.

They suggest that perhaps I could join them some mornings for their morning service, which is at six am. And to read my Bible for an hour every day. And pray in the afternoons as well. I take it all on, set all my conditions at once. I was never very good at moderation, but there’s no room for it. As soon as I know better, I must do better.

I’m still living at home, and this makes the early mornings somewhat tricky as Mum and Dad’s bedroom shares a wall with mine. At five am when my alarm jolts me out of a deep sleep, I quietly rise, grab my Bible, pen and notebook, and creep through the dark house to the living room. The sacred quiet of the early morning feels pregnant with spiritual possibility. It’s chilly. I flick the overhead light on and shove the stiff button of our ancient mission-brown Vulcan wall heater down on the hottest setting. It rumbles to life. I kneel with my back to the heater, as close as I can without burning myself, and close my eyes.

‘Dear Father,’ I begin, ‘thank you for helping me grow closer to you by showing me how to live better. I’m excited to meet you in the mornings. This is the best part of my day now. Please meet with me, be close to me, and tell me what you want to tell me so I can understand more of your heart.’

I feel a warm glow in my chest that must be the Holy Spirit. I sit silently for a minute, listening, and then softly sing some hymns out of my parents’ old John Wesley hymn book. Midway through ‘Jesus, My Heart to Thee I Bow’, I hear the wooden sliding door roll open. I turn my head.

‘Lizzie, what are you doing up so early? Are you OK?’ Mum whispers. She’s poking her head into the crack around the door, in rose-print pyjamas, eyes half open, squinting in the light.

‘I’m fine, Mum! I just wanted to get up to pray. Nothing’s wrong.’

‘Oh.’ She squints at me for a bit. ‘OK … Well, make sure you get enough sleep. Go back to bed after this or you’ll be exhausted.’

‘I’m fine, Mum,’ I say again. ‘You should go back to bed, though – I’m sorry I woke you up.’

‘Mmm … OK, darling.’ She’s still half asleep. She rolls the door closed once more and I hear her padded footsteps travel back down the hall.

I continue with my early morning wake-ups for prayer, and Mum still occasionally pokes her head in to check on me. She asks frequently if I’m getting enough sleep, and I reassure her time and time again that I am.

It isn’t until a few weeks later that the high wears off and I start to feel tired. One particularly lethargic morning when I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, I suddenly feel a heavy, wet dread seep through me, like the water from the shower head is soaking through to my bones. It’s still dark outside, the rest of my family fast asleep.

Am I going to have to do this for the rest of my life? I wonder. Never, ever sleeping in again? A lifetime of getting up in the dark stretches out in front of me. I feel ashamed that I don’t want to get up. I check myself with the messaging I’ve been subject to my entire life. Faith isn’t supposed to be easy.

God has led me to these people who really follow Him. They tell me this is what real devotion looks like. If I choose to be ‘lazy’, not only will I earn the disapproval of the women I’ve come to know and want to imitate, but I will be disobeying Him.

Anyway, needing eight hours of sleep a night is a myth. Ruth once showed me a bunch of evidence from different medical studies on sleep, and provided examples of successful public figures to justify her point. It looked convincing, and Ruth seems far smarter than I am, so I believe her. You can easily function on four hours, they all tell me; it is just a little harder to get up. Pastor Joshua teaches them that. Everyone is sleeping around that amount and by all appearances they are functioning well. Happy and thriving. So, by that measure, I’m just weak and I need to stop being so obsessed with comfort. The shame alone is enough to motivate me onwards.

The women of Sarang Church introduce me to their version of fashion modelling. It’s pitched as being different from the worldly, ‘physical’ idea of modelling. The way they explain it to me is as another way of giving glory to God: dressing beautifully for Him and bringing joy to God by walking for Him, as a form of praise.

As foreign as the idea sounds, I’m open to it. I’ve always enjoyed acting, modelling and performing, but given my strong traditional Christian faith I felt those things were ego pursuits. I’ve been told it’s admirable to reject your physical self, reject vanity, and to dress as humbly as possible, living in relative obscurity, working hard for no recognition. As someone who has been told they’re ‘beautiful’, I’ve grown up navigating the confusing dichotomy of the Christian narrative of beauty being irrelevant – or even a burden – and potentially nothing more than a stumbling block for men, while simultaneously living in a culture that values women for their looks more than any other qualities they possess. The idea that God created us to bring glory to Him with everything He’d made us to be – to strive to be glowing and vibrant to amplify the wonders of His creation – appeals to me.

Sometimes at the end of a Bible study, Niamh will turn to me and say, ‘Do you want to do some walking practice?’ We put on high heels – Ruth is the same size as me, so I borrow hers – and Niamh teaches me how to walk, how to pose, how to turn, as we pace back and forth in the living room of the apartment. Sometimes Ruth joins in as well. We joke around and act silly. It feels light and fun.

One evening after yet another Bible study, Niamh says, ‘A few of us are headed to Melbourne to do a modelling show there with another house church we’re friends with. Would you like to come and model with some of the other women next month, hon?’

I would. It’s only for a few days, and flights are cheap, so I book flights aligned with Niamh’s. In a few weeks, we set off together.

I sleep over at the apartment so we can get up early to catch the flight. This means I join in with all of Mary, Ruth and Niamh’s rituals. We do another Bible study together the evening before, pray, and stay up talking. Everyone engages in a long session of private prayer before bed, so I do the same. I finally fall into bed but am woken just before three am by the sounds of the others getting up to pray. This early!? I gawk. I feel juvenile, only getting up at five am, so I also get up, get dressed and quietly join them under the dim light of the living-room lamp.

They all kneel in front of Sad Jesus in prayer, mostly silent, sometimes whispering in tongues. I normally can only pray for half an hour or so at a stretch, breaking up the devotional hour by reading my Bible or writing down my thoughts, but they sit there for almost two hours without moving. It feels like an eternity before anyone gets up, and I’m too self-conscious to be the first one.

Slowly, one by one, the three women silently pick themselves up and begin preparing for morning service with the sun still under the horizon. The sky is a beautiful rich pink and bathes the austere apartment in a softening, warm light.

When Niamh and I arrive in Melbourne, it’s around midday. We turn up at an apartment in the heart of the city belonging to some of the members of the house church, and they so warmly welcome us in it feels like I’m being reunited with long-lost relatives. There are about five members there, and they have all heard about me – ‘good things, of course’ – and are excited to meet me.

I’ve googled ‘Sarang Church’ since beginning my Bible studies with Niamh and Ruth, but nothing came up except for a large Pentecostal-style church in Seoul, South Korea. Mary told me that wasn’t them, but said it’s a fairly common Korean name for a church. It’s a little strange, but it doesn’t really alarm me. Small house churches are normally built on word-of-mouth, and I just feel lucky I stumbled across it when I did, tapping into a network of amazing Christians.

Everyone introduces themselves to me, the newcomer. I feel almost like a celebrity. They’re so sweet and interested in me.

The apartment is feminine and homely, much more so than the apartment in Canberra. There are decorations on the walls – not just Sad Jesus, though Sad Jesus is definitely there – the couches are covered in pink blankets and cushions, there are trinkets on the shelves and a colourful tablecloth on the dining table. Gauzy white curtains cover the floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the city. The kitchen looks lived in, unlike Mary’s stark and immaculate one. I think the only similarity is the rice cooker.

But what I really notice is the women there: most are all tall, beautiful, slim. Perfect make-up, flowing hair, and all wearing dresses and skirts in soft, light colours. Sparkly eyes just like Niamh. Everyone here is phosphorescent. There are a couple of older women who have warm, knowing smiles and sharp eyes; they introduce themselves as Lisa and Wei-Lin. They both dress immaculately, expensively.

A couple of members prepare lunch, and we all sit down to eat another hearty meal. I push through the fatigue of only having had a few hours’ sleep, on a high from all the love and attention. When I’m with members of Sarang Church, I feel like the world is painted in Technicolor.

Niamh and I stay at the currently vacant family home of a Melbourne church member, Akari, whose parents are away. It’s large, beautiful, and freezing cold. We can’t find the thermostat, so we huddle under blankets and wear thick socks. At three o’clock again the next morning, I follow Niamh’s lead and get up to pray in the dark. We eat breakfast together and then take the train into the city. Niamh is wide awake, chatting away, but despite my excitement I’m fading quickly. I try to keep my eyes open and engage. The pull of sleep is stronger than yesterday, and my eyelids are very heavy.

Today is the day of the fashion show. We arrive at a church in the city: a stunning old building with soaring ceilings, dark wooden floors and old-fashioned brickwork. Ruth and Sun-Hi have arrived, and all the Melbourne members are there too. A woman with a more casual, boyish style than the other female members walks up to me confidently and introduces herself as Sam. She strikes me as edgy and cool. We sit on the stage together briefly, watching church members rush around with equipment and decorations. ‘I like you, Liz,’ she says after a couple of minutes of chatting. I blush with appreciation.

We help set up a bit before Ruth suggests she, Niamh and I head into the city. We have fun wandering around, getting lunch, exploring the streets of Melbourne and all its little cafes, galleries and eateries.

By the time we get back, there are more people setting up, and lots of women my age – late teens and early twenties – who are there to model too. All tall, slim and beautiful.

‘Some of them we met through our modelling program and aren’t Christian – at least, not yet,’ Ruth whispers to me when they begin to arrive. ‘Others are doing the Bible studies too, but might not be where you’re up to. Best not to talk about it, just be friendly and warm.’ I feel grateful that they trust me to help support others’ faith journeys.

We all start sorting through the dresses. The theme, I am told, is ‘heavenly brides’, so the dresses are all bridal: white and flowing, in different styles. They all feel expensive. The older women take time to pick out which dress might suit whom the best, and we try some on until they are satisfied. Mine is Grecian style, with a beaded neckline and beaded sash that cinches the tulle around my waist before allowing the fabric to flow down to my feet.

We practise walking, with the older women exclaiming, ‘Oh, you’re all so beautiful! Heavenly!’ while we strut back and forth. Everyone is excited. A big red carpet is rolled out in the middle of the room, chairs are set up on either side, and soft lighting illuminates the details of our dresses. All the models wait in the wings, giggling nervously and whispering as we watch the seats fill. From what I can see, the crowd looks to be around ninety per cent South Korean. Probably about a 70/30 split between women and men respectively.

When the time comes, the show goes off without a hitch. This is about giving glory to God, I think as I walk self-consciously down the red carpet to the same soft violin music that’s played before a Sarang Church service. This is not about vanity, not about me.

The crowd is incredibly receptive, a sea of claps, ‘Ooohs’ and ‘Aaahs’. Photos are taken at the end, and everyone smiles, exuberant.

Later that night, Niamh and I get home, exhausted, and all I want to do is collapse into bed – but it’s prayer time. And then another three am wake-up. Of course, logically, I could say no and sleep properly, but the social pressure feels like too much. I don’t want to be seen as lazy or, worse, ‘lukewarm’.

The next morning, Sunday – our final day in Melbourne – Niamh and I pack up our things in the beautiful, freezing cold suburban house and travel back to the church in the city. When we get there, I notice there are way more attending members than in Canberra, though it’s still a relatively small congregation, perhaps forty altogether. Multiple rows of chairs face the photo of Sad Jesus instead of just the one. I recognise some of the faces from the audience at last night’s modelling show.

There’s the same atmosphere of reverence I’ve become familiar with and grown to admire. Everyone bows their heads in silent, sincere prayer before the service begins to the familiar strings of the violin. Everyone is dressed up in light, elegant formal clothing.

Wei-Lin, one of the older, glamorous women I’ve met, takes to the pulpit and welcomes the small congregation with wide arms and a joyful smile.

I’ve learned at this point that you interpret the proverbs according to your ‘level’. Someone with a ‘low’, in other words juvenile, spiritual understanding would likely interpret the Bible and the proverbs in a shallow way. Those with a ‘higher’ or more mature spiritual understanding interpret them more deeply. The more spiritual you are, the more layers of meaning you harvest from the same words.

I strain to understand the hidden meaning in the proverbs, because sometimes, and especially now I’m exhausted, the sermon feels basic, simplistic and repetitive. I know now that this means I haven’t raised my level high enough to take a deeper meaning from it, and with my boredom comes an acute sense of bewilderment and shame.

Looking around me while Wei-Lin delivers the message, I see those around me nodding at frequent intervals with serious faces, wide eyes, sometimes tears. Absolutely no one else seems bored or tired, and I’m told they maintain the same rigorous prayer and sleep schedule as the Canberra church.

On top of my fatigue, I’m socially immersed, overstimulated and overwhelmed, and as Wei-Lin delivers the final portion of the message, I suddenly feel close to tears. I pray under my breath after the sermon is finished for God to help me fully grasp His message like everybody else does so effortlessly.

After the service finishes and we mill around, the love that the church members show me helps allay my overwhelm and curb my sense of spiritual incompetence. I’m surrounded by kind faces asking about me, telling me I’m beautiful, saying they see something special in me – and I choose to believe them, letting this mitigate my upsetting conviction that I’m failing. And Niamh stays by my side, making sure I’m not alone. In fact, she hasn’t left my side for the entire Melbourne trip, I realise. She’s been so kind and attentive.

After the service, we take off to the shared apartment in the city to share lunch with the core members we met initially. It’s a joyful affair; it always seems to be, with these people. I’ve never seen anyone unhappy. After lunch, we chat for a while before preparing to leave for the plane back home.

I leave the apartment to haul my bags down into Ruth’s van, and when I come back, Wei-Lin is waiting for me outside the front door. Her eyes are bright and warm, bordered with shimmering eyeshadow. She grabs both my hands in hers and looks straight into my eyes. Her hands are warm and dry. I can smell the musk of her perfume. ‘This is your family now,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you again soon.’

4

MILIEU CONTROL

JUNE 2011

After the Melbourne trip, I’m equal parts inspired, invigorated and utterly exhausted. The trip has made an impression on me. I’m intimidated by how spiritual everyone seems. I feel like a failure, and that only solidifies my resolve to be better when I get back. It’s as if everyone else grasps something vital that I don’t yet understand, and I’m scrambling to arrive with no idea of the destination.

I’m still alternating between volunteering at my old church and attending Sarang Church, but I increase the mornings I get up to join Mary, Ruth and Niamh for morning service. I pray more, read more of the Bible, and I begin to turn up at my old church dressed in lightly coloured, feminine clothing as I would at Sarang Church. I’m more interested in sitting silently in prayer before and after the service than I am chatting to people over coffee and cake. I’m not there for them; I’m there for God.

Counteracting my fatigue from early morning prayer is the steam-power of spiritual euphoria. The members of my old church seem bewildered as to why I want to talk about God so much in normal conversation and why I want to pray so often when everyone else is just keen for morning tea. Despite having attended for nearly four years, not a single person asks me what’s really going on. They’re lukewarm and I’m beginning to hate them for it.

Mum is getting uneasy, too. One day, when I come home after another six am service, she expresses her concern.

‘Honey, why are you always going over to that apartment? Do you need to be there most days of the week? It’s so much,’ she says, shaking her head and closing her eyes to emphasise the last sentence.

‘Mum, I’ve told you this before. They’re Christians. I’m reading the Bible with them. I’m praying with them. How are you worried about this?’

‘I know, but, darling, you’re up very early, and then back so late. You must be so tired. Why can’t you pray here?’

‘I’m fine, I’m not tired.’ That’s a lie. ‘I do pray here too, but I like praying with them. It helps me stay committed – we pray for each other. It’s amazing! I feel more excited about my faith than I ever have. I’m not partying or drinking anymore, either. Aren’t you happy about that?’

She ignores the question; she isn’t getting on board with me. ‘You were so worn out last year. This was supposed to be a year for rest and travel and focusing on keeping up your eating. I’m just worried about you. Are you eating properly?’

‘Yes. I’m eating fine, Mum. I’m not tired. Stop it.’ I walk away as she buries her face in her hands. Why can’t she just be happy for me?

At the next Bible study, I bring up the issue of my mum with Ruth and Mary.

‘Mum’s being a bit frustrating,’ I say. ‘She’s worried I come here too often. She knows you’re all Christian, so I thought she’d be happy, but I guess because of how sick I was last year and because she doesn’t know you guys, she’s paranoid about it …’

Ruth nods slowly as I speak, a knowing smile on her face. ‘It can be difficult when parents don’t understand,’ she replies. ‘You know, Liz, sometimes Satan can work through the people closest to you to stop you getting closer to God. Satan doesn’t want you to pray all the time, or read the Bible all the time – he wants you to stay “asleep” like the other Christians in your church. I’m not saying your mum is doing it on purpose, but you need to be aware that it’s normal and a good sign that you’re on the right track.’

Mary decides it’s time to take over. She usually sits silently for most of the Bible study, nodding and smiling, but sometimes she interjects with surprising force and clarity, albeit in stilted English.

‘Look at all the verses in the New Testament about persecution. You know, it’s normal. Persecution is normal. Actually, it’s good. Pastor Joshua talks about this a lot.’

Pastor Joshua is increasingly being brought up in my studies with them. Story after story of him being a wonderful believer. Also, is this what persecution is? I guess so. It’s talked about in a similar way in my old church. I just didn’t think I’d be persecuted by people of the same faith.

‘Mark six, verse four,’ she says, licking her index finger and flicking through her Bible. She reads out the verse.

‘Jesus said to them, “A prophet is treated with honour everywhere except in his own hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house.” Pastor Joshua is prophetic, and so many people admire how strong he is in faith. He only lives for God. And the people who criticised him most when he began praying in the mountains were his own parents,’ she says. ‘Jesus told us this. And your mother, she loves God, she will come around at the right time. But for now, you need to be careful.’

She starts pulling out more Bible verses, one after the other, before she gets to the clincher, Matthew 10:34–39.

Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Mary grabs my hand and holds it tightly. ‘I’m glad you told me. Next time this happens, tell us again; don’t suffer alone. We can pray for you. And pray for your mother too. But to protect your own spirit, don’t tell her too much anymore. She doesn’t understand. Other Christians normally don’t until it’s their time. You need to stay strong in your faith. Bring it to Jesus,’ she charges me.

‘OK,’ I reply. I expected them to defend my mum, or express surprise and disappointment that she wasn’t excited about my newfound enthusiasm. But it seems like they saw it coming a mile off.

Ruth squeezes my other hand. ‘Also, if your mum would like to come to a church service any time, she’s welcome! If that would help put her at ease.’

‘Thanks, I’ll ask her. It’d be nice for her to meet you guys.’

‘You’re doing great, hon.’ Ruth smiles at me. ‘It was a good idea to tell us.’

‘And, Liz,’ Mary says, ensuring we’re holding eye contact, ‘you don’t have to tell her everything. It’s not a sin. What’s more important – following God, or your parents? A harmless lie here and there is OK, because you’re doing it for the sake of God’s will. Don’t let Satan convince you that the way you’re living is “too extreme”; that’s exactly what he wants. Do you understand?’

I nod slowly, processing this information.

I’ve always told Mum everything. She’s my closest confidante. But for the first time in my life, I feel an invisible wedge being driven between us. Perhaps this is part of growing up, I think. I can’t share everything with her; she doesn’t always know what’s best for me. And following God is never wrong.

An odd exhilaration stirs in my chest. Or is it anxiety? My body can’t tell the difference. God has already given me a trial to overcome. He wants me to follow Him more closely. I’m not going to fail this test.

5

GROUPTHINK

AUGUST 2011

Over the next couple of months, I continue to balance my time between work, social life, spending time at my old church and doing Bible studies with the women of Sarang Church. During periods in which I spend more time with Kara, Belle or old school friends, I feel myself growing uncomfortable or agitated about aspects of my experience with Niamh, Ruth and Mary. Questions start to bubble up to the surface and simmer.

The affection and attention of the women begins to feel cloying. Why are they always pushing for me to spend more time with them? I sleep in once or twice instead of getting up early for prayer, and I feel guilty. Torn between two incongruent worlds, I don’t seem to have any way of getting definitive answers. I pray about it, of course, but nothing becomes clearer.

Are they too extreme in their faith? Is it really necessary for me to wake up every morning at five for prayer, or to be constantly reading my Bible?

One day over coffee and cake with Kara, I express my concerns.

In my eating disorder recovery, I’ve worked hard to stick to my meal plan and challenge myself with ‘fear foods’. Morning is when I feel most comfortable eating, so morning tea is cake time, something I’m both anxious about and have learned to look forward to. Kara, unlike Belle, is always happy to support me by eating cake. Her relationship with food is comfortable and intuitive, not fraught with calorie counting, which helps me try to feel the same. Also, when it’s just her and me, it feels much warmer than when it’s the three of us. Belle always adds coldness to our dynamic.

When we’ve picked out our cakes and ordered our coffees, we sit down opposite each other. I’ve been distant, and I can tell she’s perplexed by my perpetually sunny demeanour, so our chats lately have felt a little awkward and strained. But today, I really need some insight about Sarang Church from someone I trust on the outside. We make small talk before the coffees arrive, and then I begin to vent my concerns.

‘You know the new friends I made at the church I told you about?’

Kara nods. She definitely does know.

‘Well … I guess I’m just feeling a bit weird about it. Like, I’m a bit confused, and I’m not sure what to think. They’re so lovely and sweet, and they’ve taught me these amazing Bible studies, and they’re super passionate about God, which is good, but … I just don’t know.’

‘OK, what’s making you feel weird?’ she asks, paying full attention. I know she’s already suspicious, and that makes me cautious about what I’m going to say next. She and Belle have been talking to each other about what’s going on with me: I can sense it. I wish they’d just be straight with me.

‘I feel like they’re asking a lot of me.’ I sigh. ‘I’m tired.’

‘What are they asking of you?’ she ventures.

‘I mean … they’re telling me I need to get up at five o’clock to pray every morning.’

Her eyes widen. ‘Five am?!’

‘Yeah. They actually all get up at like, two or three in the morning. Sometimes earlier. They sleep like, four hours a night, max. So it’s not as extreme as them, but it still feels like a lot.’

‘Two am?!?!’ she spits. I don’t think her eyes could get any wider, but they do. Her shock makes me feel justified in my suspicions that this isn’t normal or OK, and I also feel a little defensive, but right then, I just want to ignore it all and be comforted by the idea that I’m not weak or unmotivated. I can’t explain why I feel so uneasy, but an unmistakable trepidation towards the women of Sarang Church has taken root and grown inside me lately.

‘Liz, that’s so unhealthy!’ Kara exclaims. ‘I get so much sleep, like sometimes nine or ten hours a night. I need it. You need sleep.’

Even though this is what I want to hear, I’m not able to fully embrace what Kara is telling me. I know her to be a plodder. She’s always measured, sensible, relatively unemotional and highly risk averse. Honestly, so is Belle. Mostly admirable qualities, but I’m not like that. I want to strive, not plod. I just want it all to feel less crushing.

‘Yeah …’ I respond noncommittally. ‘Maybe.’

‘Definitely,’ she emphasises. ‘I think maybe … you should see a little less of them.’

‘I might just ease off a bit with my visits,’ I respond. ‘I need a bit of breathing room away from them to figure out how I feel.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Kara says with a knitted brow. She looks at me searchingly, but doesn’t say anything. I guess she doesn’t want to pry. I change the subject, and she looks relieved.

I leave feeling only partially reassured. The cost of being wrong about Sarang Church weighs on me heavily. I can’t risk disobeying God’s direction just so my life is comfortable.

A big part of me wants to believe that what’s being expected is excessive, but then I remember the early Christians who did all of that and so much more. I’m ashamed that part of me really wants to believe that Kara is right. I think on Mary’s words: ‘Satan will work through those closest to you to make you stop seeking God.’ I can’t tell anyone outside of Sarang Church about the way they live without people violently opposing it. I just want a balanced perspective, because I can’t reconcile the two extremes on my own.

I’m not used to having to figure everything out alone. Maybe I just need to pray more.

When I get home, my phone pings with a text from Niamh.

Hey hon, how are you? You free an evening this week for a Bible study? x

I put my phone in the drawer of my dresser. I won’t respond today. The following day I text back with the noncommittal, Hey! I’ve got a ton of shifts coming up this week unfortunately, but maybe next week. Hope you’re well :)

I close the door of my room, kneel and pray. ‘God, Jesus, Holy Spirit …’ I begin, trying to find the right words, ‘please help me understand what your will is. I’m tired and uncertain, but is that just Satan planting doubts in my mind to stop me from following you? All I want is to live the life you want me to, and be closer to you. But the way the women at Sarang Church live feels extreme sometimes. Am I just being lazy? If I am, please forgive me. The last thing I want is to be lukewarm. I just need to know what to do.’ Confused, frustrated tears prick my eyes.

I sit in silence for a minute, eyes closed, waiting for some feeling or sign or inner response from above. A passage from the Gospel of Matthew springs to mind, and it’s fresh in my memory because it was in the last Bible study I took with Ruth.

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

‘Lord, if that’s you reminding me of this verse, I’ll listen. I know choosing the narrow road is harder. And I’m willing to choose it. But please just show me you want me to keep getting to know these women.’

My confusion is punctuated with guilt. The women are lovely, and they’ve been nothing but kind to me. I just can’t explain why I feel afraid. I resolve to take some time and wait.

My cafe shifts can be early or late, and are always long and tiring. A week passes, and I put Niamh off again. I receive an email from Mary in the second week asking how I am, telling me she misses my ‘lovely smile’, and that she hopes to see me soon. I feel bad.

One afternoon while I’m behind the coffee machine snowed under with orders, I hear a familiar ‘Liz!’ and lift my head enquiringly. It’s Ruth.

‘Oh, my gosh, hey!’ I say, taken aback.

‘Niamh tells me you’ve been super busy, so I just wanted to pay you a visit and ask how you are,’ she says, smiling. ‘We miss you!’

‘Oh wow, that’s so sweet of you!’ I say, and I do mean it. The guilt of being suspicious sets in again. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t come over in a while, I’ve just been so flat out. Um, how are you, though?’ I’m touched that Ruth cares about me so much.

We chat for a little bit as I work, but Ruth can see I’ve got my hands full.

‘OK, hon, well, I know you’ve gotta get on with it, but let me know when you’re free for another Bible study. Also, Niamh told me you left your scarf at our place again? You can swing by any time to pick that up.’

‘It’s with you guys again?! I was wondering where I’d left it!’ I exclaim. ‘I’d love to do another Bible study but maybe in the meantime I’ll come pick up my scarf.’ It’s my favourite scarf; I’m not keen on losing it. A deep emerald-green one from Sportsgirl.

It’s the second time I’ve forgotten it at the apartment. A thought flashes across my mind: was that God trying to get me to keep going back? Immediately it strikes me as ridiculous and I swat the thought away in irritation. Not everything is a sign from God. Sometimes you just leave your scarf places.

We say our goodbyes, and I reflect on how kind it was for Ruth to check in on me out of the blue. I try to think how she knew I’d be working at that exact time, but surely I must’ve told her at some stage. They’re clearly feeling the distance I’ve created. These people genuinely care about me, and I’d miss that if it went away.

I knock on the door of the apartment the following afternoon, and I’m greeted warmly, as usual, by Niamh. She’s holding my scarf.

‘Hey, hon, how are you?’ she says and springs forwards into a hug. ‘Here you go.’ She hands me the scarf.

‘I’m so sorry I haven’t come over lately,’ I say sheepishly. ‘I’m just super busy. Thanks for the scarf. Again!’ I linger in the doorway, feeling awkward.

‘I totally understand, it’s fine.’ Niamh brushes it off. ‘We all get busy! But let me know when you’re free next, yeah? We have a great Bible study coming up, and Mary wants to make you one of her favourite dishes. She’s, like, insisting on it.’ She laughs and rolls her eyes.

Again, the guilt. I simply can’t keep putting them off like this. Maybe just one more study and I’ll see how I feel. ‘Oh, Mary’s so sweet! Yeah, sure, that’d be lovely,’ I say. Not sure yet if I mean it. But I don’t want to hurt them; I don’t want to disappoint them when they’ve invested so much time and love into me.

I feel a nagging cord of concern tug insistently on my heart, but I ignore it. I don’t know what I’m afraid of. I’m already a Christian, so they’re not trying to save me. What could their motivation possibly be except that they like me?

I take them up on their offer the following week, showing up at their house just before dinner for a Bible study with Niamh. She’s sensitive and kind, and doesn’t push any more ideas about setting conditions or working overly hard. With just her and me, I feel my tension ease a little.

In one moment, she looks at me enquiringly. ‘Are you OK, Liz? I just sense a little … maybe sadness or discontent lately. I’m worried about you.’

I work up the courage to share my heart, encouraged by her empathy. ‘Yeah, I guess … I’ve been struggling a bit. With everything. Like the setting conditions and stuff. At first, I was really excited and then – getting up at five every single morning, and praying enough throughout the day, I’ve been tired and overwhelmed. I know it’s not always supposed to be easy but … yeah. I don’t know. It’s fine, though.’

She looks at me softly. ‘Hon, it took me years to work up to the early mornings. God doesn’t expect everything of you all at once.’

‘Sure, but I don’t want to be lazy. I’m happy to work hard for God and I want to be closer to Him. Maybe it’s also because my body is still recovering from anorexia last year, I get tired and anxious. I just … feel guilty, because sometimes I can’t do it.’

‘Hon, you are doing so well. Go easy on yourself – Jesus knows your heart. I don’t want you to stress! You need rest, too.’

I feel comforted. She understands. God understands. I’m doing OK.

By dinner time, Ruth and Mary are back, and Lara and Kristen have come over too. We chat and laugh and assist with the cooking, everyone in a light-hearted mood. By the time we all sit around the table over a meal of gochujang-marinated chicken wings, a steaming pile of japchae noodles and perfectly cooked rice, it’s turned into a joyous kind of dinner party. Having Lara and Kristen there is nice, as I know our spiritual levels are similar in many ways.

Lara isn’t yet getting up at five am to pray (Ruth told me), and she’s happy and loved and excited in her faith. Kristen constantly talks about how she forgets to pray, or fails in setting a condition, her tone self-deprecating and humorous. It’s not that I’m rejoicing in their failings, but it puts me at ease knowing I’m not the only one who struggles to operate like Mary, Ruth and Niamh seem to do effortlessly.

The catch-up feels so … normal, and it’s reassuring. Honestly, I don’t know why I felt weird about Sarang Church in the first place. Perhaps that really was Satan invading my thoughts. Right now, sitting around the table watching Mary sideways-hug Ruth and Kristen crack a joke, I think, These are the most loving, caring, genuine people I’ve ever met. And I’m right in the centre of it.

I continue with the Bible studies, and I’m nearing the final few. Each one I enjoy more than the last. I’m learning things that feel far deeper than my old church could ever touch. They’re pulling in timelines, connecting Biblical prophecies to each other, and have spiritual insight I find so inspiring. They keep telling me about Pastor Joshua and how wonderful he is: how his faith, the faith of a poor man from rural South Korea, shows us how much love Jesus deserves. I was sceptical about him at first, but I tell myself it’s my tall poppy syndrome. I don’t have to feel jealous about anyone who does something far better than I ever could. I allow myself to feel inspired instead.

As we approach the end of my course of Bible studies, the tone changes slightly. It all becomes more intense, deeper, like we’re building up to a point. I’m so curious that I want to do all the rest of the studies in one go, but they make me wait each week for the next one. Ruth and Niamh keep hinting at something that I can’t quite grasp. I trust their guidance and wisdom. I can’t put my feelings and questions into adequate words, and I’m too nervous to be pushy, so I wait in deep anticipation. For what, I don’t know.

One of the last few Bible studies talks specifically about timelines. It pulls together prophecies from the Old Testament which justify what came to pass in the New Testament, and prophecies in the New Testament which are yet to come to pass. It uses mathematical calculations and numbers that appear to be justified multiple times over in Biblical passages.

They draw me a diagram illustrating the history of Christianity, ‘God’s history’. In the Old Testament, God’s position to humanity is that of a master to a servant. This is true: God refers to figures such as Abraham and Job in the Bible as ‘my servant’. In the New Testament, thanks to Jesus, God’s relationship with us shifts to that of father to child. Just like Jesus – and because of Jesus – we are children of God. I also understand this to be true according to the Bible.

Various prophecies and parables in the Bible about Christ’s Second Coming include verses that speak of God viewing humankind as a ‘bride’. I know this too, but I’ve never thought much of it.

They draw in more verses, prophecies and prophetic timelines into the diagram. What most Christians don’t realise, Ruth tells me, is that according to the timelines in the Bible, we are heading towards a new era. The Complete Testament. She shows me more Bible verses. According to her interpretation of these, God has always intended to ‘raise’ humankind to the level of a bride. God has made us as His loving counterpart.

‘When does this … Complete Testament start?’ I ask.

‘We don’t fully know yet, but it’s all there,’ she tells me. ‘Jesus revealed this to Pastor Joshua back in the seventies, while he was growing up.’ She looks like she wants to say more, but she stays quiet. I wish she’d just spill everything she knows. With the Biblical justification staring back at me, I’m inclined to believe her.

Christians are always talking about the Second Coming, but this is the first time I’ve heard that perhaps it’s closer than we thought. And why wouldn’t it be? If everything that happened in the Bible is historically true, and we are told urgently to prepare for Christ to come back, why do we feel so disconnected from that? Like it’s going to happen at some distant point in the future?

If I’ve learned anything from these women, it’s that God is closer to us than we think. And given what Ruth has just shown me in the very source I most trust, the Bible, I feel like I’ve been handed a holy secret. As if I am one of the early Christians in the New Testament who decided they would trust Jesus against all odds, this man who grew up as a carpenter in a small town and came from nothing. It’s all happening again, and, somehow, I am chosen to be a part of it.

‘So, we’re supposed to be … brides of God, ultimately?’

‘Yes. According to the Bible, this is God’s ultimate plan for humanity.’

It makes sense. At certain points in history, God raises the level. Most Christians are so comfortable in the knowledge that they’re children of God that they’re asleep to what He truly wants. So God always chooses to reveal His will to the people he knows will listen to Him. It started like that in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament.

‘At the beginning, there were only a few key figures who would listen. And then, as God’s history grew, more and more people came to understand and believe it too. The early Christians were persecuted for years before Christianity and Jesus became mainstream. And look at it now.’

This is … true. All the key figures in the Bible God used to move His will forwards came from relative obscurity and were told they were delusional at first. And then they became mouthpieces of God. True faith was ‘believing without seeing’, and they believed against all odds, which was how God was able to move. I dearly want to be someone who believes God from the outset. I’ve prayed, and I’ve been led here.

I feel I understand more deeply why these women are so passionate about their faith: they believe this is a crucial time in history and that there is no room for complacency. Jesus always said as much.

Could this be possible? Could this be real? What reasons do I have not to believe these women?

‘It’s really important that you pray about this,’ Ruth tells me. ‘Real conviction comes through prayer and the Bible.’ She hands me the study papers with all the timelines and supporting pieces of scripture. ‘I’m not here to convince you of anything. Ask God to protect your mind from Satan’s thoughts, and let Him speak to you.’

I go home and pray about it, as I have with everything I’ve learned at Sarang Church.

The grand plan for my gap year before I met the members of Sarang Church was to work, save up and travel to Europe with Belle and Kara for a month or so over September and October. I committed to it and booked the flights early in the year, so though my friendship with them is strained, thanks to my newfound devotion, the trip is still going ahead. The pastor’s wife has decided we’d be safer if we were with a church couple they know in London, so we make an arrangement to stay with them for free in exchange for babysitting and plan to use their place as a home base for our travels.

Somewhere in between the Melbourne trip with Sarang Church and the London trip with Belle and Kara, I have a vivid dream. I’m probably two-thirds of the way through the thirty Bible lessons of Sarang Church, still in the dark about the final ‘truth’, but I feel far closer to those women than to anyone from my old congregation.

It’s one of those dreams in which you can touch, see, hear and remember everything with an alarming amount of clarity. I’m in a conference room with many of the members of my old church. It’s half-empty, with churchgoers spotted around and lots of vacant seats – perhaps about thirty people in total. Mum is there too. It’s big, square and outdated, painted a stark white inside with rectangular fluorescent lights overhead. It smells musty and damp. To the right of the screens is a closed emergency exit door.

Our seats face two large projector screens with slides cast onto them. It’s a sermon of some kind: a Pentecostal-style message. I feel fidgety in my seat as I try to focus. It feels a bit juvenile. My heart isn’t in it. My head turns as I feel warm sunlight on the side of my face. The door is opening.

Suddenly, Niamh emerges with sunlight framing her silhouette. She’s looking straight at me. She stretches one arm out, silently gesturing for me to follow her outside, while she holds the index finger of her other hand up to her lips. Don’t say anything.

I turn to look back at the congregation in their seats. No one has noticed the door open or the fresh, warm sunlight that makes the fluorescent light noxious in contrast. No one turns their heads. I’m the only one who knows Niamh is there. I feel drawn to the sunlight, and I trust her lead, so I leave my seat as quietly as possible so no one notices.

I tiptoe towards her as she swings the door open, emerging onto a large grey cement balcony that appears to be the roof of a huge building. I squint in the sudden brightness, shielding my eyes with my hand.

When I regain my focus, Niamh is gone. Instead, there are black ravens with blood-red eyes and spiky feathers hopping around, pecking at each other and the ground in front of me. They begin to hop over to the other side of the balcony, at which point I see an enormous menacing-looking raven staring down at me. It must be twice my height, and fat. Its black feathers reflect a deep, inky blue under the sun. The little ravens – there are about ten – are huddling around its huge talons, still pecking and bobbing.

I freeze as the huge bird’s eyes drill into mine. Where is Niamh? Why am I out here with the ravens?

I hear my name from behind. Some of the church members are standing in the doorway. ‘Come back inside,’ they tell me. ‘Come listen to the rest of the sermon!’ I shake my head. Somehow my desire to be away from that oppressive room outweighs my fear of the ominous birds. ‘No, I want to stay out here,’ I say. They only make a couple of half-hearted attempts to get me inside before they give up, closing the door behind them. I’m on the roof with the ravens.

I don’t know what to make of the dream and its ominous symbology, so I take it straight to Mary. Niamh and Ruth always talk about how wise she is. I understand her to be very spiritual, and she always seems to have a definitive answer for everything. She tells me it’s a message about how God is calling me towards Him, away from the stale churches of my childhood – but that Satan is trying to hijack my efforts, and I need to pray more for God to protect my mind.

6

MYSTICAL MANIPULATION

AUGUST 2011

Right before I leave for my London trip, Mary excitedly tells me we’re having a visitor from the Adelaide church, a revelation receiver called Rain. A revelation receiver is someone who is understood to receive messages directly from God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. I’m not familiar with the term itself, inspired by the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, but I am familiar with the concept.

Growing up, I heard numerous stories and read many books of people being given words or visions from the Holy Trinity or angels, so this isn’t unusual to me. It’s in the Bible as well. But I’ve never known anyone in person to have had long, detailed, specific conversations with God. I’m excited to meet Rain, and everyone speaks highly of her. I learn she’s also the one who painted the images I was shown months ago when I first met Mary in the gift shop at the mall. When I hear this, I realise that the art show was never mentioned again after my first encounter with Mary, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Rain arrives on an evening in late August for dinner at the Northbourne apartment. She is short, with long silky black hair. Her round face frames huge watery, searching eyes with the same sharp edge I’ve seen in the other older Korean women in the church. She, too, dresses in expensive clothing and holds herself with similar authority.

Most of us who attend Sarang Church are there for dinner, and everyone is, as per usual, in good spirits. I haven’t seen Yujun for a while, as she’s reportedly moved to another state, but Niamh, Mary, Ruth, Lara and Kristen are there, as well as two other women I have since met at the Sunday services, Yolanda and Gemma.

They are both around twenty, like me and Lara, and doing the Bible studies like us. Yolanda is quiet and humble. She plays the violin and studies arts at university. Gemma has a shy demeanour but there’s a cheeky glint in her eyes. They are around as new as me to Sarang Church, but for some reason we all do our Bible studies separately, each with two of the older women to teach us. I’m not sure why, though I don’t mind the focused attention.

When I first meet Rain, she already knows my name. ‘Oh my goodness, it’s Liz – wow, isn’t she so beautiful, Mary?’ she gushes softly in the halting English I’ve grown used to. I’ve learned to adjust my own speech with the leaders, to simple sentences spoken clearly, sometimes broken, so that there aren’t too many words in one stream.

‘Oh, thank you, it’s so nice to meet you,’ I respond shyly. I am always dazzled by the older women and their commanding presence, and I’ve been told for a long time how special Rain is.

I’m still not used to my appearance being paid so much attention. When broken down, the factors the older Korean women find appealing are that I’m fair-skinned, slim, tall, young and conventionally good-looking. Not to say I hate the compliment – few of us revile being called beautiful – but along with the glow of feeling admired, there is always a nagging bewilderment I can’t put words to.

Perhaps it’s the frequency with which I receive this compliment, or the way it precludes anything else. Some of the proverbs I’ve been exposed to say things like, ‘If your spirit is attractive, your body will be also’, which is unfamiliar theology to me. In my Christian upbringing, the condition of the physical body is almost entirely divorced from the spiritual.

I find I like how these people make a connection between the two, though: it makes sense to me to take care of your God-given body as a component of who you are as a whole. I optimistically take the compliment to mean you have a radiance about you, like all the other people (mostly women) I’ve met in this church. So, when Rain exclaims again that I am beautiful, I hope she really means I’m spiritual.

Rain leans in close and grips one of my hands in both of hers. ‘You are special,’ she whispers, eyes boring into my soul. ‘When I was praying before this visit, Jesus spoke to me about you.’

My heart swells in my chest. And then I check myself. I don’t deserve to be called ‘special’; everyone is of equal value – aren’t they? What about the other women? Maybe she knows how much I am praying on my own? Or how desperately I want to be closer to God? But my excitement to know what Jesus told her about me drowns out the reservations.

After a Korean-style dinner of bibimbap, a rice bowl topped with freshly sauteed vegetables, beef and fried egg, we lean back in our chairs, bellies full and conversation flowing easily.

Rain gets our attention.

‘So, everyone,’ she begins, quietly commanding, ‘I’ve brought some gifts – my art – for the newcomers.’

Mary nods. ‘Oooh, girls! Exciting! Rain will get the gifts ready – Niamh, Ruth, Kristen, can you help me clear the table?’

They nod and start stacking plates and cutlery. I join in, wanting to make myself useful.

Mary jumps in. ‘No, it’s OK, pretty girl. You can go wait in the living room. Set up the chairs like we do for service with the others.’

We arrange the chairs as packing-up happens in the kitchen, and whispers come from Mary’s room where Rain is staying. Eventually dinner is packed away and Ruth has brought us all tea to sip. There is a lull in the room as we sit around in anticipation. Rain has set up four easels holding canvases draped in white sheets. The lights are low and ambient, and the night feels charged with a special energy.

She stands at the lectern, a little unusual given it isn’t a church service.

‘I came to welcome all of you wonderful newcomers to our church,’ she says, looking over at Lara, Gemma, Yolanda and me. ‘And I felt Jesus wanted me to give you a gift. Mary sent me your pictures, and I prayed for each of you, for the Holy Spirit to inspire me about how to paint you all to capture your individual spirits.’ She is warm, but solemn. ‘Think of this as a gift from Jesus,’ she tells us, before going to the first easel and pulling off the sheet to reveal a tall painting, fifty by ninety centimetres, of Gemma beaming back at us.

Gemma squeals in delight as everyone else exclaims in admiration. It is stunning. Neutral beige and blue tones form the background to a vivid portrayal of her that is bursting with life. Her eyes are crinkled up at the corners and she looks joyful and bright. And it’s exactly her; I’ve never seen a likeness that accurate or vibrant before in person. Rain calls Gemma to the front, while Mary – basically the mum of the group at this point – whips out her digital camera to snap them both in front of her portrait, chuckling at Gemma’s excitement.

When Gemma sits down again, Rain moves onto the next easel. As the sheet flutters off, Lara’s big grin and vibrant blue eyes are on display. A pink and beige background highlights her rosy cheeks, making her look angelic. Again, a perfect likeness. Lara gets up for the photo, and then it is time for the next one.

Yolanda’s bust is framed in a neutral beige, which makes her green eyes pop. Her likeness shows a peaceful smile, exuding her calm and warm persona. It reminds me of Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. As Mary beckons her up enthusiastically for a photo, I buzz in anticipation. Mine’s next.

Rain approaches the final easel and pulls down the sheet. Everyone gasps. I am stunned, staring back at myself, but … there is something in her work that shocks me more than my likeness. How did she know? I think.

Instead of the front-facing pictures of everyone else, Rain has captured me from the side, head bowed in prayer. Pearl stud in my ear. My short hair catching the wind slightly, and my eyes closed. A small smile lifts the corner of my mouth. Instead of a softer background, she has painted dreamy patches of white, cream, burnt orange, yellow, pastel blue and cerulean.

The real shock to me, though, is the shower of droplets falling on my head. Dynamic splashes of paint portray a waterfall of light rainbow colours and sparkles falling from above.

It is exactly as it was in the vision I had at my old church, all those months ago. I remember clearly, in my mind’s eye, the sparkling waterfall showering my head with droplets; prismatic light flashing this way and that. When I got home, I sketched the image in my notebook, and I remember how the woman at my church whom I’d never met before had come up to me and told me of the same vision she’d had of me. Praying with a waterfall coming down over my head.

I wondered back then what it meant – and here I am, with these women, having been painted prophetically by a revelation receiver who captured it exactly without my having told a soul at Sarang Church. At least, I don’t think I have.

All my doubts of the past few months evaporate. It’s a turning point. In that moment, I feel like Jesus is right next to me, telling me: ‘My love, this is where I was leading you.’

It’s a late night. I drive home that night to sleep at around eleven pm before getting up at five to go back for prayer and morning service. My eyes are dry and achy from fatigue.

Rain wants to catch up with me afterwards, one-on-one. I walk with her into the city, and we grab chai in takeaway cups. It’s cold; soft clouds of our breath bloom in front of us while we chat, and I’m grateful for a warm drink to hold onto.

I’ve never felt so special. I keep thanking Rain for the painting, gushing about how gifted she is. It feels like I’m hanging out with a celebrity, someone who is spiritually in tune enough to actually talk to Jesus. In my old church, those people were always lauded public figures who travelled around from church to church wearing expensive shoes and watches, keynote speakers at packed-out Hillsong conferences, rarely interacting informally with the ‘common people’ at church.

‘You know how the painting showed me praying, with a waterfall over my head?’ I venture. ‘Well … I had a vision of that months ago, before I met this church.’

‘Really?’ she says, looking at me with those watery eyes.

‘Yeah, I can’t believe you painted that. It felt like confirmation from God that I’m on the right path. And everything is going to be OK. The last couple of years have been really hard and confusing, and I wanted to spend this year getting closer to Him. I was praying about that earlier this year. It’s, like, amazing that you … you saw that. When you were praying for me.’

‘This is what I wanted to talk to you about,’ she replies. ‘Jesus told me He has been preparing you for a long time. You are ready.’ She claps one hand over the open palm of the other to emphasise the last word. ‘That He sees you, and He’s been working hard to help you to find us. And He is so happy you’re here.’

I’m more emotional than usual, thanks to the lack of sleep last night. Tears prick my eyes and my chest feels like it might burst. God heard my prayers; he understands my heart.

She continues, ‘I told you last night you were special. You have a special mission. You’re important to Jesus, and He wants to be close to you. So you have to keep praying, and doing everything you can to be close to Him. Do you understand? You have to.’ It looks like she is going to cry too.

‘I’ll do everything I can. I’m already praying a lot, but I can pray more. I’ll read my Bible more. I’m nearly finished with the Bible studies,’ I tell her. I’m being stretched. I need to work harder, and I’m currently at my capacity, which means my capacity needs to grow. I’m up for the challenge.

‘Yes, finish the Bible studies. Just remember you’re meant to be here, Liz. It’s on my heart to tell you that. Don’t get complacent, and don’t be lazy. It’s an important time in history. Most importantly, you need to realise that Pastor Joshua is the one God chose for this time, to spread His word. You need to understand this deeply, or you won’t be able to follow God. You need to trust Pastor Joshua.’

‘I think I understand. He’s a prophet, and God is using him right now.’

‘Ah.’ Rain nods, looking away. Thinking. ‘You need to really understand it, to fully understand God’s will. Make sure you pray earnestly about it.’

‘I will, I definitely will.’ I’m not sure what more there is to grasp, but clearly she believes I’m not quite getting it yet. Pastor Joshua must be more important than I thought.

My heart is full from that walk. In moments like these, my tiredness doesn’t matter. I feel like I am on the cusp of something great, some kind of meaning that extends beyond myself. I’ve always yearned for that, but it has never felt this tangible. The exhilaration of this spurs me on.

7

CULT PERSONA

EARLY SEPTEMBER 2011

At this point, I can’t say I’m terribly excited about my gap year overseas adventure, which we’ve been planning for months. My relationship with Belle and Kara has grown even more distant. I wonder how I’ll cope with being around their disapproving energy for a whole six weeks. I’m also not sure how I’ll manage being so far from the inspiring women I’ve grown close to.

Mary appears to share my concerns. I can tell she’s making a concerted effort to keep me close before I leave. She tells me they have contacts in London from a similar house church, and she’s already reached out to them to ask if they could meet up with me overseas. Knowing how I’ve been received by everyone in Australia, I’m keen to connect with them.

Right before I leave, I complete one of the last Bible studies with Ruth and Mary. I don’t remember the content exactly, but it feels more solemn than usual. Instead of working in the dining room, Ruth and I sit at a fold-out desk in Mary’s room. Mary brings me a plate of food and then pulls up a chair at the little plastic table to silently sit through the rest of the Bible study with us, watching me closely and smiling occasionally.

Towards the end, Ruth looks at me for a long moment before saying, ‘There is something you should know, before you go overseas.’

‘OK, what is it?’

‘Well … I think you’re ready to hear this.’ I brace myself a little, no idea of what she’s about to come out with. ‘Pastor Joshua was put in prison years back.’ OK. ‘He did nothing wrong,’ she says quickly, ‘but because he’s so dedicated to his faith, to Jesus, some people didn’t like it. Satan didn’t like it. They started persecuting him, making up lies about things that he did, to try to stop him from spreading the gospel in South Korea.’

Ruth and Mary both look incredibly sad. I’ve never seen them this way before, and I can tell that talking about it is painful.

‘Why, what happened?’

‘It’s not important what lies they made up, but … a number of women claimed he’d sexually assaulted them.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s horrible to even say it out loud. It was since proven unequivocally that they were lying, and there was no evidence against him at all. They wouldn’t even speak out publicly, because even they didn’t believe what they were told to say. They knew they were lying. Even though it was found to be false, it didn’t overturn his sentence. There’s a lot of persecution of Christians in South Korea.’

I know nothing of how claims of sexual assault work in Australia, let alone South Korea, but I trust Ruth and was raised to have the utmost respect for pastors and people of authority in the church, and this persecution narrative is familiar to me.

‘Wow … I’m so sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘He sounds incredible, and he clearly loves God so much. It’s terrible that he’s been imprisoned for his faith.’

‘It really is,’ replies Ruth. Mary hasn’t said anything up until this point, but she looks troubled, her lips a thin line. Ruth continues. ‘He still writes letters to everyone in church from prison. He loves receiving them, too. Maybe you can encourage him with a letter sometime soon?’

‘Oh, I didn’t know we could write to him. Sure, I’d be happy to!’

‘You can email your letter to Pastor Joshua to me. I will translate it and send it to friends in Korea who can pass it on,’ Mary says.

Pastor Joshua has suddenly gone from being a distant, almost story-book-like figure to someone I can connect with. I’m curious.

‘How long is his sentence?’ I ask.

‘Ten years. He was imprisoned in 2008, and he’s due to be released in 2018.’

‘Wow. I see.’

‘Also, Sarang Church is one of many churches all over the world Pastor Joshua planted. And we’re still growing – being in prison hasn’t stopped him from spreading God’s Word. We actually call ourselves “Providence”, internationally. But maybe just stick to calling it Sarang Church with family and friends.’

‘Providence,’ I say, testing the word out. ‘Um, what’s the reason I can’t, you know, share it?’

Ruth looks at me, then at Mary with raised eyebrows.

Mary jumps in. She’s gentle but firm. ‘It’s crucial you grasp this, Liz.’ She balls her hands into fists and squeezes her eyes closed to emphasise ‘crucial’. ‘Providence is such a special name for us. But unfortunately, because of all the slander online, if you mention the name, people who have no idea about us might read up about it and form their own conclusions based on lies. It hurts us deeply, it persecutes Pastor Joshua further, and it prevents God’s will from being done.

‘Also: you must stay away from looking him up online as well,’ she says. ‘There’s only lies on the internet. All looking him up does is feed into them. And hurts your spirit. Makes you doubt God. You need to know, from us, that he’s someone Jesus loves very much. Pastor Joshua only cares about what God wants.’ Mary is tearful. ‘Even in prison, he’s so happy, because he’s filled with God’s love and talks to Jesus all the time.’

‘I understand,’ I reply.

They’re both still observing me closely.

‘I won’t look him up.’

I wonder why they appear so concerned. Don’t they trust me? I don’t even know his full name. I’d only ever heard of him as Pastor Joshua. It hasn’t really occurred to me to look up anything further. I’m not a chronically online person, not an early adopter with technology, and neither are most small churches. I don’t want to contribute further to Christian persecution.

‘Don’t worry, I get it. I won’t. It’s obviously not worth seeing anyway,’ I reassure them both. They nod apprehensively.

‘If you want answers, you should talk to Jesus about it.’ Mary says. Makes sense.

In the small family home that Belle, Kara and I stay in just outside London, I insist on getting up at five am to pray and read the Bible. The trips to museums, restaurants and galleries feel vapid and hollow compared to the spirituality I’m consumed by. I constantly pray under my breath. Ruth has sent me multiple documents’ worth of proverbs, Bible passages with interpretations and sermons so I can keep my ‘spirit fed’ while I’m away.

It’s baffling to our hosts as much as it is to both of my friends. One of the members of the church who takes on the role of showing us around asks us what our hobbies are. I hesitate, then tell her, ‘Praying,’ and she gives me a strange look before telling me that prayer isn’t really a hobby. Belle and Kara are silent, but I can sense their irritation. ‘Reading the Bible, then?’ I reply. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t do a whole lot else these days. It further reinforces the messaging I’ve been subtly given by Ruth, Niamh and Mary that the ‘regular Christians’ have surface-level faiths.

I maintain a cheerful demeanour all times no matter what I’m feeling, willing myself to uphold that same attitude I admire so much in the Providence women. I want to be a good example. I admonish myself and repent for any negative feelings I experience. This attitude deepens my judgement of Belle and Kara, who often act negative or anxious during our trip, and the polar-opposite energies further push us apart.

Kara is homesick for the majority of our six-week trip and FaceTimes her parents in tears every morning, telling them how much she misses them. I show empathy towards her, and hate that she feels bad, but I can’t help feeling envious. I wish I could speak openly with my parents, but I now feel a deep spiritual responsibility, and my parents can’t offer me any comfort. Only God can. It’s a privilege, I tell myself.

Periodic relief comes for me when I travel into the city to meet up with the church Mary has recommended. I escape for a significant amount of time during that trip to be with them. In a cosy apartment with the now familiar framed picture of Sad Jesus, they take me in with kindness and warmth. I’m around people who want to talk extensively about God and the Bible once more, which is a welcome relief from the dismissive vibe I get from Belle and Kara.

During this time, the women of Sarang Church email me constantly, telling me how much they miss me and passing on the weekly Wednesday and Sunday proverbs and messages. Mary buys them an international SIM card so they can call me when our time zones allow. I miss them too.

One morning I check my inbox and attached to yet another email from Mary is a revelation. As I open the message, I realise this isn’t just another revelation translated from Korean and addressed to everyone – it’s a personal revelation received by Rain, for me. I can’t believe it. I’m going to hear from Jesus personally.

I read the revelation at least five times in one sitting, poring over each word of the rough Korean-to-English translation. The women of Sarang Church have started referring to Pastor Joshua as ‘sunsengnim’, or ‘teacher’, in Korean. In writing it’s shortened to ‘SSN’.

To Liz,

My beloved bride!

My beautiful Liz, when I look at you my eyes are no longer sore.

You are physically beautiful and your mind is just as beautiful and bright, it makes my heart tremble. Even though you are young, your spirit is so radiant in form.

I wanted you to be My bride since you were young so I protected you through people, and through your mind (by inspiring you) and also through environment and circumstance. I raised you and now I have brought you to Providence. Have you already realised that?

I taught you and told you everything through him. Do you know who it was? Yes, it was SSN.

Two thousand years ago I, Myself, came to earth in the flesh and preached the gospel. I am making history in the same way, in spirit, using SSN’s body, and am preaching the gospel of my heart for this time period.

Before I return at my Second Coming I will teach SSN and explain to him all of the secrets and messages of the rapture: everything that My brides need to be ready with. Focus on the words that SSN is speaking above all else.

I want you to be even more pure-hearted and put your life on the line. Set the condition of prayer and meet the heavens boldly. Be a special bride who is able to make history bravely.

I love you!

Your one and only Bridegroom, Jesus

I cry again while praying over the letter, overcome with love and gratitude. After many months of coincidences, lessons, love and prayer leading up to this point, I’m becoming convinced I’ve been chosen in some capacity.

A core tenet of the way I’ve been raised is exercising ‘faith without sight’. In Christendom, proof is in the Bible and proof is in your heart. Proof is also in the signs and symbols with which God answers your prayers. And here is some proof, delivered to my inbox, received with my open heart.

8

UNFREEZING: WHAT I KNOW NOW

During this time, and for the initial months of getting to know these women from a ‘different church’, I maintained a high level of involvement with the church community I already belonged to. I saw these women as a supplement to my faith life – there was no reason to give up one for the other, at least not at the beginning.

Although I was enthusiastic about the Bible studies, I did approach them with some caution, but scepticism wasn’t really in my toolbox when it came to my faith. I felt fortunate to have found these studies, which seemed fascinating and thought-provoking at the time. They appeared to rely heavily on passages from the Bible and were refreshingly insightful. What I didn’t realise was that these studies were actually a subtle programming tool.

This mental conditioning was coupled with careful attention from and love-bombing by the members of the church. By showering recruits with excessive levels of affection, praise and attention, a group can establish an intense bond that, over time, makes members dependent on the group for validation and acceptance. This tactic creates an emotional high, making individuals feel uniquely valued and understood. As a result, they often lower their defences and become more receptive to the cult’s beliefs and demands. The dynamics, however, shift later on.

Throughout this phase, I continued attending my old church, volunteering in the children’s ministry, attending Bible studies, and participating in Christian conferences. In fact, my initial interactions with the members of Sarang Church propelled me further into all aspects of my Christian life.

My heart was inspired, my prayer life felt greatly enhanced, and I read my Bible with an eagerness I’d never experienced before. My willingness to dedicate time and energy to anything Christian soared. I felt wonderfully close to God, and grew convinced that He had blessed me with inspiring friends from whom I could learn and who would draw me even closer to Him. I had an overwhelming feeling that God had heard my prayers to grow closer to Him and to truly live as a Christian. I didn’t realise their doctrine and social norms were slowly burrowing into my psyche like parasites.

During this time, techniques of unfreezing were systematically and covertly applied when I was deemed ‘ready’ for them. As I grew to trust them and confide in them, I inadvertently handed them further insight into how best to manipulate me and the power to do it.

Although they were careful not to come on too strong, I still had my moments of doubt. Their key was persistence, coupled with anticipating what I needed at the right time to feel reassured. They expertly performed the dance of pulling back and leaning in. I wanted to trust them because I believed Christians were inherently trustworthy, so I used any evidence I could to confirm this cognitive bias. Unbeknownst to me, they were gradually planting thought-stopping techniques and cult ideology in my mind, which slowly narrowed my cognitive reasoning.

It’s important to note that a person doesn’t have to be previously conditioned by religion or faith in the divine to be indoctrinated like this. Yes, my religious upbringing, deferment to authority and faith in the divine, belief in heaven and hell, and conditioned tendency to engage in binary thinking were all susceptibilities. And they smelled it on me. But high-control groups strategically adapt their tactics to suit whoever they might be targeting. I met many people in Providence who weren’t at all religious prior to joining, though with them, the process of getting brainwashed often took longer.

As I grew closer to the cult members, they began to elevate their relationship with me as a ‘spiritual family’ and subtly undermined my trust in my blood family, using the Bible as a tool. I began spending more time with them, and eventually the ‘milieu control’ aspect kicked in – where I was deliberately isolated, and immersed in their culture and beliefs for extended periods, such as during the Melbourne trip.

As Steven Hassan mentions, other commonly used techniques in the early stages include the fabrication of ‘spiritual experiences’, defined as ‘mystical manipulation’ in Robert Lifton’s thought-reform criteria. Personal information about the recruit may be looked up, or a member they confided in will secretly pass the confidence on to the leader. The leader then brings the information up at the right moment as though they discerned it themselves, disarming the recruit and making them feel as though the leader has supernatural insight into their life or circumstances.

Techniques used in the ‘unfreezing phase’ are often carried over into the ‘changing’ phase, so there is considerable overlap and continuity.

When I started restricting my sleep I became even more vulnerable, as my energy for critical thought diminished. I was gradually losing the identity, beliefs and behaviours of the ‘old’ me and learning to adopt new attitudes and values aligned with the group. While I wasn’t entirely psychologically entrapped, I was certainly disoriented and suggestible – leaving me wide open for them to manipulate.

The changing phase, also known as Benjamin Zablocki’s ‘identification phase’, is aimed at solidifying the ‘practice of relying on the [group] for beliefs and for a cyclic emotional pattern of arousal and comfort’. This phase encompasses both cognitive and emotional components, much like the unfreezing phase. It consists of, as Hassan states, ‘imposing a new personal identity – a new set of behaviours, thoughts, and emotions – to fill the void left by the breakdown of the old one’. This transformation is executed in both formal settings, such as sermons, lectures and sessions, and informal environments, including socialising within the group and consuming group materials.

In this phase, the ‘cult persona’ becomes more fully established. The unfreezing phase served to break down the subject’s previous identity and beliefs, paving the way for the active shaping of the cult persona. The new identity, aligned with the cult’s beliefs and values, is imposed on the individual, leading them to slowly adopt the cult’s ways of thinking, speaking and behaving. Family members who interact with a loved one recently inducted into a cult often notice that their cadence, language, affect, attitude and indeed their personality have become markedly foreign.

Singer noted that the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) cited thought reform as a contributing factor to ‘Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified’, a diagnosis frequently given to former cult members. This highlights how strong, persistent and all-encompassing the enforced cult persona can be.

Lifton’s concept of ‘demand for purity’ comes into full force in this phase, referring to the requirement for absolute conformity to the group’s ideology, not only in behaviours but also in thoughts and feelings. In religious cults, the idea that God – and sometimes the leader, by proxy – can see all your thoughts, feelings and attitudes creates a profound and pervasive internal pressure. Recruits ‘take personal inventory and relentlessly categorise their thoughts, emotions, and behaviour per the group leader’s dictates’.

‘Loaded language’ functions as a thought-stopping technique. Consider the term ‘thoughtcrime’, coined by George Orwell and adopted by some cults to condemn private doubts or independent thinking. Once a member internalises this language, they begin to police their own thoughts, fearing that even private scepticism could be dangerous. When a loaded language term is used, like a spell, members quickly fall back into compliance. Cults employ this technique extensively, saturating everyday speech with loaded language. Specific jargon differs according to the group.

Loaded language typically takes a more prominent role in the changing phase as recruits becomes familiar with the cult’s jargon, receiving inherent social rewards for using ‘in-group language’, which enhances their sense of social cohesion and creates further distance between the group and the outside world.

Religious cults, particularly in this phase, begin to urge the new recruit to ‘take it to God’. Any doubts or questions must be prayed over rather than guidance being sought from outside the group. After all, who better to answer your burning questions than God himself? This approach is powerful, as much of the cult doctrine is already implanted in the recruit’s mind. If they trust the leadership, they will take their insights to the leaders, who interpret them through the doctrine’s lens.

Confessions are shared freely with both leaders and peers in the group, where members denigrate their ‘old selves’, and compare this to their new ‘happy’ selves, who now supposedly know how best to live. This aligns with Lifton’s ‘Cult of Confession’ criterion, serving as a compass for new recruits, with oblique reinforcement of ‘correct’ behaviours, beliefs and attitudes and fostering an environment of accountability and self-disclosure. Conversely, in-group ‘gossip’ is demonised among the lower members to prevent them from sharing too much information with each other.

As in the unfreezing stage, cults use psychological force strategically. All aspects of indoctrination are introduced gradually, softening recruits and testing their limits. Too much too soon risks losing them, as they are not yet frozen.

Group psychology plays an important role here as well. Human beings are social creatures who rely on social cues and norms to navigate their perceptions. Established members present a consistent and influential front, with the utmost conviction in the ‘truth’ they represent. There is no room for differing opinions. Behavioural science dictates that behaviours within a group that conform to social norms are rewarded, whether covertly or overtly, while non-compliant behaviours are punished.

The changing phase is structured so that cognitive and emotional components support each other. If a recruit experiences cognitive dissonance, the warmth and love of the group provide reassurance. Conversely, discomfort about a particular interaction can be alleviated by frequent messaging about the cult’s doctrine, offering explanations and fresh inspiration to push past doubts.

As Hassan aptly states, ‘human beings have an incredible capacity to adapt to new environments. Destructive cults know how to exploit this strength.’

9

DEMAND FOR PURITY

SEPTEMBER 2011

I sit there in shock at the dining table of the Canberra city apartment. I finally understand what they’ve been so carefully preparing to tell me all this time.

‘So … he’s the Second Coming of Christ?’ I ask.

I feel like I’m in some kind of epic Bible story. My mind keeps going back to the early Christians, ordinary people plucked out of their everyday obscurity and plunged into God’s central timeline. I was always told that Jesus would return to earth, and the time was near. No one knows when the Rapture will be. Countless Bible verses telling us things like, Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

I just never thought that I might be a part of it. That perhaps all the exclusion and otherness I felt growing up in church, and all my yearning to be close to God that at times made me feel alien to peers, might be because He was preparing me for something bigger.

In this next chapter of God’s history, I don’t want to be a denier – I want to be one of the few who believe from the beginning.

I’m especially ready to hear all this after coming back from my overseas trip. Getting some distance from Belle and Kara felt like taking off tight shoes after a long day, and they had likely been relieved to distance themselves from me as well. I ran back into the welcoming arms of Sarang Church, excited to undertake the final remaining Bible study.

I’ve acclimatised slowly to all the insights Niamh, Ruth and Mary have provided me with, and take comfort they’re always supported by numerous verses from the Bible. But with this new piece of information, I begin to wonder if I’m just hallucinating it all. The altered state I’m in due to fatigue, layered with jet lag, gives the whole conversation a dreamlike quality.

‘Well, the Holy Son Jesus is the Messiah,’ Niamh says quickly. ‘We still pray to Jesus. But He’s working directly through SSN’s body. He’s the chosen one to receive the Holy Son and His message, and teach it to the world. It’s a big thing to tell you, I know, hon,’ she adds gently.

All three of them are looking at me intently, trying to gauge my feelings after the admission.

I weigh up a few competing impulses as I form a proper response.

‘Yeah, like …’ I try to find words to express what I’m feeling. ‘Like, clearly SSN is amazing and prophetic and inspiring, but I didn’t expect to learn … something this huge.’

I know the Bible warns against ‘false messiahs’, but it also talks extensively about Christ’s return. All the Bible verses, the numerological timelines, the Biblical prophecies – everything they’ve presented to me up until now has prepared me to receive this information. I can’t see how God would lead me here for any other reason than to stretch my faith, so my prayers to be closer to Him could be answered.

Also … I think I want to believe it. I know if I don’t accept their teachings I will lose this community, my new sense of purpose, and the ‘evidence’ that God really does answer my prayers.

Even more importantly: the risk of not believing this is much greater. If it is true, and I didn’t believe, I’d be denying God Himself. But I need confirmation from Him, away from Sarang Church, so I can embrace it.

This isn’t the grand finale to the Bible studies I ever saw coming, but at the same time, information that had previously been confusing now begins to make sense. If this is true, then it really is an epic Bible story. And I’m a character living inside it. How I choose to move forwards is of utmost importance.

Ruth interrupts my racing thoughts. ‘Also, Liz, again – it’s best not to google anything to do with SSN or Providence. There’s so much slander out there, and it will only poison your mind. You have a responsibility to protect what you’ve just learned. Do you understand?’

Mary nods in agreement, looking more serious than I’ve ever seen her before, her eyes searching mine for confirmation. It alarms me a little. She doesn’t need to worry. I don’t question her spiritual authority. I’ve learned more from the three of them in nine months than in my entire life in Christendom.

‘That makes sense. I understand.’ I feel the urge to cry and I’m not sure why. This is a lot.

As ever, the words they leave me with at the door are the same. Pray about it.

And I do. We wrap up the study, and I say goodbye, all three women lingering in the doorway, eyes on me until the front door closes.

When I get home, I shut myself in my childhood bedroom for hours. Praying in tears, again. What on earth have I stumbled across?

I think of all the ways I’ve felt closer to God since meeting the women of Sarang Church, all the love I’ve received, and all the signs and symbols that have stuck out to me. I know what it’s all pointing at – but still, I need something, anything, to tell me whether to believe this paradigm-shifting piece of information or not.

After a while alone in my room, I feel a niggle. I don’t really know how else to explain it other than an intuition that becomes stronger and clearer as I pray. Go to the bookshelves in the living room, it says. I go to the living room and stand in front of our enormous family collection of books. Pick out the prophetic book your dad bought last year. That one.

I pull it out slowly. The book in question is written by a Christian prophet my parents admire. She’s known for her stories of visiting heaven in her prayers, speaking with God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, and relaying what she receives through her writing. I’ve read it before, a while ago. It has a golden-brown cover around beige pages with watermarks of angels and clouds underlying the text.

Open it and read the first thing you see. I open it somewhere in the middle at random and inhale sharply as the passage meets my eyes.

‘The time has come for my brides to stand up,’ the Lord said to me.

Right there on the page in front of me, clear as day. I whisper an awed, ‘Thank you.’ I don’t bother to read any more. I can’t possibly deny this.

I go back to the Northbourne apartment the next day. ‘I believe you,’ I tell them.

I’m riding my brother’s downhill mountain bike to a cafe in the suburbs. It’s heavy on purpose. The pedals require force to move – uphill it’s a slow standing left, right, left, right. Downhill, back in the saddle, the wind blows through the hair underneath my helmet and my eyes are wide. I’m smiling. I’ve raced the whole way there and am out of breath, but I don’t slow down. I have so much energy to burn.

I’m still metaphorically riding what has been an ever-building wave of elation – and perhaps shock? I’m not sure. The pieces of the puzzle finally all fit together, and suddenly everything makes sense.

It’s been a week since I found out who Pastor Joshua really is: real name Jeong Myeong-Seok. Vessel for the Messiah of the Second Coming. I’ve been up since four am.

I’m the keeper of a divine secret. I’m a main character in God’s history. I’m chosen. I’m untouchable. I’m reborn.

All I want, all I need, is to get closer to Jesus. I’m intermittently praying under my breath as I pedal. ‘Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I don’t know why you chose me to know so early on. I don’t deserve it. Please help me to be better. To only do your will. Nothing else matters anymore.’

I’m meeting Kara, who I haven’t seen in almost a month, partly because I can’t bring myself to attend regular church anymore and partly because every other relationship, way of spending time, or conversation outside Providence seems pointless and empty. I don’t know how I’m going to get through an entire breakfast of small talk when I’ve discovered the Messiah of the Second Coming.

I pull up outside the cafe, chain my bike up with my helmet and head inside. Mum came here with me when I was facing my ‘fear foods’ last year. My safest bet was the spongy bread-and-butter pudding. A dollop of cream on the side. I deemed it to be the least calorie-dense option compared to the richer cheesecakes and mudcakes.

Kara is already sitting in a booth. She smiles and waves at me, a touch cool. I wish I could share my secret with her.

‘Hey, Kar.’ I beam. I’m barely bothered that she still seems mildly irritated by me and my perpetually buoyant mood. I’m also not bothered that Belle and Kara haven’t really invited me to hang out much lately and have stopped asking me whether I’m coming to church with them. What would have hurt me nine months ago doesn’t even touch the surface now. I love this feeling.

‘Hey, Liz,’ she says, and gets up to give me a one-armed hug. Neither Kara nor Belle are huggers. They oblige, because I am. I hug her with both arms.

‘No Belle this morning, hey?’ I ask.

‘Nah, she’s off to Floriade with Lisa.’ She makes a dismissing motion with her free hand. The annual Canberra flower show and the pastor’s daughter, respectively. I can see the tinge of hurt in her eyes that she’s once again been excluded from their budding friendship, and I feel for her, but I’m also grateful that I couldn’t care less about not being included myself.

‘OK. No worries.’ I smile some more. ‘How are you?’

‘Hungry,’ she jokes.

‘You head up first; I’ll mind the booth.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yep!’

When we’re both back with our coffees and I’ve had the chance to cool down from my bike ride, I realise I’m famished. I’m still getting used to how my increasingly early mornings mean I’m hungrier than normal. This feeling confuses me. I push it away.

‘Sooo, what’s been happening? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,’ Kara asks playfully.

‘Not much,’ I lie. ‘I’ve been back working at the cafe, which keeps me super busy. Early mornings and late closes.’

‘OK, sure.’

‘And attending Sarang Church.’ Not going to tell her its real name. Maybe one day. ‘Actually, it’s so amazing right now.’

I’m about to wax lyrical again – I can’t help myself. I start rambling excitedly. ‘We get together in the mornings and pray and sing, and sometimes I join them for an extra church service on Wednesday, we call it Wednesday Service, which I think is such a good idea. Like, just going to church on Sundays and then pretending God doesn’t even exist for the rest of the week seems a bit inconsistent, doesn’t it? I really think you should come along and meet them sometime. I think you’d love the Bible studies. They’d all love to meet you, too.’

‘I don’t think we all forget about God during the week,’ she says softly. I can see hurt in her eyes. She’s not acknowledging my invitation to meet my new friends. I don’t get why.

‘Oh, no, I don’t mean that you totally forget, it’s just … I guess it’s just important to also make intentional time throughout your week to connect with God and other Christians.’ I’m rapidly ascending the steaming trash pile of holier-than-thou. ‘But like, that wasn’t what I meant, Kar, sorry.’

‘Yeah, totally,’ Kara replies, resigned. ‘Well, it’s nice to see you, stranger.’

‘Anyway, how are you?’ I ask. A subject change is the only thing I can do right now to escape the weird vibes I’ve engineered. We’ve been skating on thin ice for a while now, and it’s beginning to crack.

The Providence ladies have invited me to their Friday night ‘Holy Spirit’ prayer nights. I knew this was a thing before I’d learned the truth about SSN, but this is the first time I get to go. It feels exclusive. By this point, I’m well acquainted with the concept of dressing nicely to pray. I rifle through my chest of drawers and pick out a light, flowy pink top and warm dark-purple trousers.

I put on a touch of make-up – Niamh wears light sparkles around her inner eyes and bronze sparkles on her outer lids, so I do this too. I slick down the flyaways on the top of my head and slide on a pair of silver ballet flats.

I grab my Bible, my bag, my coat, and race out the door, yelling in the direction of the kitchen ‘StayingatNiamhsplacetonightMum,’ as I exit so I can act as though I don’t hear her barrage of inevitable questions. ‘Where are you off to, Lizzie? Have you got a coat? Don’t stay up too late, when will you be ho—’

I shut the front door firmly, drowning her out, feeling a sharp pang of guilt. I walk briskly to the car and wedge the ‘P’ under each number plate.

As advised by Mary and the other women, I’ve been working on getting up earlier and earlier to pray. Three am, apparently, is the optimal time – the time when the veil is the thinnest and I’m likely to feel closer to God. I’ve learned to get up as quietly as possible to avoid Mum noticing, but I think she’s aware.

When Niamh opens the door to the apartment, the atmosphere is more festive than for a regular service. Everyone’s finished dinner and is in high spirits.

‘Lizzieeee, so so happy you can finally join our Holy Spirit nights!’ Niamh exclaims, enveloping me in a big hug, swaying me from side to side playfully. Everyone is smiling, echoing her words. My heart swells inside my chest and my cheeks turn pink. There’s no awkwardness here, only warmth. It’s so lovely.

Ten minutes beforehand, the usual hush comes over us all and the violin plays over the speakers for us to prepare our hearts for the Word. This time it’s televised via Heaven’s Culture, Providence’s international website. Pastor Joeun is speaking.

‘Pastor Joeun is Teacher’s mouthpiece while he is locked away in prison,’ Mary says. Her eyes tell me she’s about to convey something important, so I act as attentive as possible. ‘If SSN is Jesus’s body, Pastor Joeun is like the Holy Spirit’s body. So we need to receive her words just like we would receive words straight from the Teacher’s mouth, or the Holy Spirit.’

I nod solemnly.

‘She’s amazing,’ Ruth chimes in. ‘You’ll see when she delivers the message – she gets so passionate. She can feel Sunsengnim’s shimjeong, because she’s so close to him.’ I’m now familiar with the Korean word shimjeong (심정), which means ‘heart’ and ‘emotions’: it translates to feeling someone’s deep feelings and soul.

‘It’s so important to listen to every word she says,’ Ruth continues. ‘It’s always really profound. She spent years by Sunsengnim’s side, and he raised her in the faith personally. So she understands his messages on a much deeper level than the rest of us.’

Kristen casts the website to the television and the broadcast begins. I glance at the timeline at the bottom of the clip before it disappears: it’s nearly three hours long. We’re in for a long night. Instead of chairs, everyone picks a spot on the floor and settles down into a kneeling position, notebooks and pens to their side.

This is the first time I’ve seen the flagship church in Korea. There are what looks like hundreds of people in the audience, a sea of men in white suits and women in pink pencil skirts. The stage is elaborate: a fancy glass and gold lectern, vases containing enormous flower arrangements, and a backdrop of what looks like a depiction of heaven.

The worship team takes to the stage, and everyone stands on cue. I stand too. They guide the audience through a few songs before the message. They’re songs I don’t recognise, not old Christian hymns anymore – more like soft K-pop, with captions in broken English – and a lot of them mention SSN as well as Jesus. I understand why I haven’t heard any of these before. They have back-up dancers, too, wearing skin-tight dresses with flowing capes, prancing around gracefully.

Having grown up singing along to a couple of awkward teenagers on electric guitar and drums and hipster worship leaders, I feel this is worlds apart. The production level is higher, but not like Hillsong. Despite the gaudiness, it looks sincere and heartfelt. It’s not trendy, it’s not casual: it’s extremely serious. They’re all there to give glory to God.

The songs are emotive and, if I understood the original Korean, probably quite moving. I do my best to keep up with the English captions, though they’re clunky and don’t align with the time signature.

Then Pastor Joeun takes the stage. She is beautiful. Tall, slim but with model-like curves, high cheekbones, luminous skin and the glossiest black hair I’ve ever seen. She wears a figure-hugging white pencil skirt and a white-and-silver tweed blazer with pointy cream stiletto heels.

She is a moving speaker. There is a translator audio superimposed over the broadcast, stilted and flat, but it’s the way she speaks; she’s so passionate, with incredible gravitas, authority. She talks about SSN and what he has to go through to spread Jesus’s Complete Testament. How little he sleeps; how hard he works. At certain points in the sermon, she cries. She yells, in tears, calling for God’s followers to truly receive the message and its urgency in such a critical time in history.

I look to my friends, all completely absorbed in the message. Nodding and mm-ing along. I’m listening, but I feel like it’s not hitting me like it should. Why can’t I feel what God needs me to feel? Why am I not heartbroken at SSN’s imprisonment or the trials Jesus goes through to reach us? What am I doing wrong? My chest tightens as I notice Niamh already has tears streaming down her face.

Pastor Joeun finishes her sermon and leads the congregation into prayer, with rallying cries of ‘Lord … Loooord!!’

We all follow suit. On cue, I close my eyes to pray, and hear everyone around me praying loudly, moaning, crying and speaking in tongues. The South Korean congregation on the broadcast is doing the same, drowning out the stirring chords of an electric guitar and drums. I start praying quietly in tongues too. It was practically a rite of passage at youth camps growing up, so I learned this when I was fifteen.

If I open my eyes into slits, I can see everyone is rocking back and forth, Niamh is bawling, and the volume is only getting louder. I feel alarmed at the intensity, a familiar feeling growing up in a Pentecostal church, wherein it felt like the more impassioned, the holier; and I can’t lose myself in it like I feel I should.

We pray for what’s surely been two hours, having ridden what feels like countless waves of emotion and volume – swelling, quieting, swelling, softening, swelling again. The broadcast finishes, and I’m so ready to get up and crawl into bed. But no one in the room is showing signs of slowing down. My heart sinks. I thought we were finally finished.

Then, finally, a miracle happens: I start to cry. I don’t care anymore that it’s only because I’m frustrated and tired – I’m crying. I push down thoughts that I’m a faker, that I’m posturing, or that my tears aren’t anything to do with feeling God’s shimjeong, and just embrace the tears.

Another hour crawls on, and though the wailing has stopped, everyone is still kneeling, eyes closed. Ruth is kneeling like a statue, face impassive, as if she’s listening. Kristen is silently rocking back and forth. Mary and Niamh are speaking in soft tongues; I can only hear hissing ‘s’ sounds and pauses for breath. I should really stop peeking at everyone, but I can’t help myself. I don’t know how they’re all still going.

I have nothing left, and it’s so late. I gather my courage, silently pick up my notebook and pen, stand, and retreat to the camping mattress on the floor in Ruth’s bedroom, admitting defeat. Pulling up my phone in the dark, the screen flashes: 12:58am. My alarm is set for four am. Too exhausted to change into pyjamas, remove my make-up or brush my teeth, I crawl under the covers. The mattress is thin; I can feel the floor underneath my hip bone.

I cry in shame and exhaustion for a little while, and when Ruth finally walks into the room and gets into her own bed, I pretend I’m asleep.

When the truth of Providence and Pastor Joshua had been revealed to me, Ruth and Niamh brought up the Melbourne trip a few months back.

‘Oh my god, it was so stressful.’ Niamh laughed, her sentence a big whooshy exhale.

Ruth could see the enquiring expression on my face. ‘It’s because we had to make sure none of the Melbourne members told you too much. It could’ve ruined everything.’

‘I wasn’t allowed to leave you alone,’ Niamh continued. ‘I was basically assigned to you the whole trip by Mary. Every time someone from the Melbourne church would come up to you, and the conversation started heading in the wrong direction, I had to distract them or change the subject quickly. Boring my eyes into their skull so they’d get the picture.’

Ruth giggled at Niamh’s eye-rolling.

‘Oh, wow, I didn’t realise,’ I responded, a little stung by the admission. I really thought she just … liked me.

‘Yeah, and the church service on Sunday? That entire thing was adapted for you,’ Ruth told me. ‘The sermon, the songs – just like we do in Canberra for newcomers and parents, we had to take out all mentions of SSN and just do a typical Christian service.’

‘Wow,’ I said again. Was I supposed to feel special because of this? I felt guilty that an entire congregation of thirty or forty people went to all that effort. But I understood – no one would accept the truth if they learned it too soon. ‘You don’t feed a baby steak,’ they told me. ‘You feed a baby milk until it’s mature enough to eat solid food.’

The next morning, I’m torn out of a deep sleep by a buzzing alarm on high volume. Ruth’s. I look at my phone: 2:33 am. And then, not long after, I hear muffled alarm sounds coming from Niamh’s and Mary’s rooms. Footsteps. Is this genuinely how early they all wake up …!?

I’m awake now, so I may as well get up and start morning prayer with the others. It’s another blow to my confidence, learning that they all sleep so little. I know nobody naps during the day, either. I thought I was working hard, giving God my all, but clearly I have so much further to go in my journey.

During prayer, I drift in and out of consciousness for the two hours, masking it by bending my torso forwards over my legs and resting my head on my knees. At nearly five am, I’m jolted awake by the others preparing for morning service. My legs are tingling with pins and needles.

Afterwards, we have morning service – just the four of us – and everyone else appears fine despite the lack of sleep. Ruth is delivering the morning proverbs in a chic outfit, a grey pinstripe pencil skirt and matching blazer, with fresh make-up on. But the skin around her eyes is puffy, giving her away a little.

Ruth delivers about thirty proverbs slowly, enunciating every vowel and consonant like each sound is precious. She smiles softly as she reads aloud. Everyone is smiling. I smile in spite of myself.

We sing together, and then finally, finally, it’s time for breakfast. It’s only six thirty am, but we’ve been up for hours, and I’m ravenous. After I shovel it down and feel human again, we all part ways. Ruth will be delivering a Bible study to a newcomer soon, and Niamh and Mary are going out to evangelise.

I head out at around eight am, and make my way to the basement of the building, where my car is parked. I’m actually not that tired now I’ve eaten. I feel alert, even. Maybe it’s possible for me to learn to live like the others do. Maybe needing sleep is all in my head, like they keep telling me? Especially when you have God on your side.

I get into my car, begin to reverse and crash the back right-hand bumper into a cement pillar. Totally forgot it was there.

10

CULT OF CONFESSION

OCTOBER 2011

Now that I’m fully in Providence, I have translated proverbs and messages sent to my inbox almost daily straight from Korea. I read them every day, because Mary told me it’s crucial to do that to keep my mind pure, especially since I’m living at home. I help to edit them into smoother English. Ruth sends me Providence music and audio sermons, too. ‘We need to treat our bodies, minds and hearts like a temple of God. That means we don’t pollute it with things of the world,’ she tells me.

I vow to get rid of everything that reminds me of my sinful past life. While my parents are out, I take all my old CDs – Hits of Summer, Ministry of Sound, The National, a mixtape my first boyfriend made for me along with a list of why each song reminded him of me – and snap them.

I also drop all my black clothes – until now, my favourite colour to wear – at a Salvos. Apparently, black represents evil. I stop drinking coffee and alcohol. Coffee is an artificial stimulant, not appropriate for a bride, and alcohol for obvious reasons. Alcohol consumption comes with a hefty price tag in Providence: a three-day water fast.

I write to SSN every week, as I’m told to do. I tell him I pray for him every day. I ask him for advice. I confess my sins. I bare my heart to him, because I’ve learned that as Jesus’s body, he already understands our hearts. Mary sometimes gets us to pose for pictures and tells us she’s sending them to him. ‘Big smiles, ladies! He will feel your love through the camera!’ she urges us as we pose with our hands on our hips.

It’s been about a month since I was told the Big Secret. I arrive at the apartment on time, and I’ve barely got past the first two knocks on the front door when it swings open. Mary booms, ‘Liz!’ and laughs open-mouthed. ‘Ho ho ho!’

‘You’re in a good mood.’ I giggle back. When Mary is warm, I feel warm inside. She’s infectious.

‘I have a surprise for you, pretty girl!’

‘Oh my goodness! What is it?’

‘Wonderful giiiiiiirlllll,’ her sing-song voice trails off as she drifts into a bedroom, coming out with her laptop, ‘a letter …’ She pauses for effect. ‘From SSN. For YOU.’

‘Wait. Really?? He wrote to me personally? Like … himself?!’

She laughs again. ‘Shall I read it to you?’

I genuinely can’t believe this. What kind of alternate reality am I living in, where the literal vessel for the Messiah of the Second Coming put pen to paper inside his prison cell to write a message to me? Which surely also means he’s read my letters to him. I don’t know how to process this information.

Mary heads back into her bedroom and beckons me in, closing the door after me. She sits cross-legged on her bed, smoothing her ruffled floral dress out over her knees, and pats the mattress in front of her. I sit opposite, mirroring her. She opens her laptop.

‘I translated this myself, no one else has read it. I don’t want them to get jealous – SSN doesn’t write often. He wrote to Gemma as well, but nobody else here.’

‘OK, wow. Thank you.’ The way she’s smiling conspiratorially at me, as if we’re sharing a secret, admittedly makes me feel special.

‘Dear Liz,’ she reads aloud, ‘I’ve seen your photos. I’m happy that you have joined God’s new History. You have been called to walk this path and through you, many souls will be saved. Focus on modelling and save many souls that way. Stay close to me, write to me often. Make sure you work hard and pray a lot. I love you.’

Mary closes the laptop and looks up at me, expectantly. ‘Liz, this is amazing. I can feel it: he really loves you.’

‘I … I’m blown away. I don’t know what to say. I’m so grateful,’ I splutter. It occurs to me I wasn’t told about a photo being sent to him.

She leans closer. ‘Do you know what “Evergreen” means in Providence?’

‘Is it some kind of analogy? I think I’ve heard the concept before, in the Bible.’

‘Yes, yes.’ She’s impatient. ‘But in Providence, it carries deeper meaning. Another name is “Faith Star”. Everyone who comes to Providence is Jesus’s bride because of the time period, the Complete Testament. But some people, God chooses to be especially close with SSN. To dedicate their lives to Jesus and Jesus alone, living purely as His brides.’

‘What does that mean?’ I ask softly.

Mary pauses to choose her words.

‘In Providence, different people are called to different things. We have people who need to be married. That is something they care about, sometimes too much, so SSN puts them in the Blessed Family department. He chooses a partner for them based on who God tells him is the right fit. Then we have the Career Department: they work in professional careers in order to bless Providence financially.

‘But Evergreens are special. They are called to not get married, to live only as Brides of the Lord and work hard for Him. Like an elite army. They dedicate their entire lives to Providence – prayer, the word, evangelism, and being close to SSN.’

‘Oh, I see. That sounds amazing.’ I feel a tug of envy. On cue, Mary tells me exactly what I want to hear.

‘I think you should ask SSN to be an Evergreen. I think it’s your calling. But you need to ask him.’

My heart does a backflip in my chest. ‘Do you really think so?’ I ask calmly, trying to mask my hungry enthusiasm.

‘Absolutely, Liz. But first, pray about it. Keep being dedicated. Get up earlier, and start evangelising and keep working hard. Set the conditions to show Jesus you are sincere.’

‘I will. One hundred per cent.’

‘Since SSN is Jesus’s body in this time period, you need to think of SSN as your bridegroom. Your lover. Think of him often, write to him, speak to him when you pray. He will hear you. And he loves you more than you realise.’

‘OK, that makes sense.’ Actually, I probably need some time for that to make sense, but rolling with constantly new, groundbreaking information is my perpetual state of being these days.

‘It’s a privilege. Not many people are called to be Faith Stars. It’s early in the Complete Testament, so God is calling the Faith Stars now, and when more and more people believe, the Faith Stars will already be there to lead the way with SSN. We are the elite.’

‘You’re a Faith Star?’

‘Of course! For nearly thirty years. I first met SSN when I was a teenager. I used to sneak out of my parents’ house to go with my friends to listen to his sermons in Korea. My parents eventually kicked me out.’ Mary laughs. ‘They didn’t understand, but I knew I had to follow him.’

I didn’t realise she’d been in Providence for so long.

‘Niamh and Ruth, too, they are Faith Stars.’

I want to be a Faith Star even more now. Like a modern nun, I think. It would be a relief, really, to be able to live unwaveringly focused on faith.

I think back to how, in the Old and New Testaments, God’s movements were centred on men, with primarily male leaders. Now it seems to be a divine history with feminine language, centred on women. Under SSN, the key leaders appear to be women. Like Pastor Joeun and Mary.

‘Can men be Faith Stars as well?’

‘Yes, some are men.’

I grew up with the understanding that marriage was what women do: the main defining event in their lives. But so much has changed inside of me since then. I’ll lay down anything for God.

‘Oh, and Liz,’ Mary adds, ‘Tell SSN everything that’s in your heart when you write to him. Be completely honest. Tell him what you’re struggling with. The more information you give him, the more he can pray for you. And make sure you tell him you love him.’

I have another vivid dream. I’m looking into a mirror. There is a deep cut on the tip of my nose. Warm, viscous blood is oozing out of the cut, running into the crevasse under my nostrils and dripping down onto my shirt. I look down to see bright crimson stains spreading and flowering over white fabric, darkening each thread as they bloom. There is a lot of blood. I can smell metal.

I look up and see a door. Curious, I begin to walk towards it, but suddenly every step hurts and my body is cold. I look down, and I’m naked. Blood is running down my chest; my breasts are sunken into my ribcage. The skin between them outlines the little bony divot at the bottom of my sternum. I remember that divot. My hip bones are jutting out painfully. As I try to move, my bones creak from malnutrition. I’m more emaciated than I’ve ever been, and it’s agony. I could be a ghost.

The next time I see Mary, I tell her about my dream. She feels like my spiritual mother. Wise, and always with a definitive answer to anything. I’ve learned to trust her with my secrets and concerns, because I can’t bring these things to anyone outside Providence anymore.

‘What do you think it could mean? It reminded me of when I was really sick last year, but even worse,’ I confide, close to tears. I’ve had a few dark dreams since meeting the women of Providence, and they’ve frightened me.

‘Write and ask SSN. It sounds like another attack. That’s not unusual when you are chosen to follow the truth. Satan is trying to invade your subconscious, because he knows you are important. A good sign.’

In my next letter, I thank SSN profusely for writing to Gemma and me. I tell him I’ll keep praying and taking action, and that I’m working hard. I ask him if I can become a Faith Star, and I tell him about my dream. I sign off:

Love in our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ,

Liz

11

LOADED LANGUAGE

OCTOBER TO NOVEMBER 2011

I’m encouraged to begin evangelising, but with a focus on potential models. Women around my age, slim, pretty and tall. Mary tells me this is because when a country is being newly evangelised into Providence, we need to bring in people who will epitomise the idea of ‘brides’. She tells me that our physical bodies are a reflection of the condition of our spirits – if you take care of yourself, eat healthy, have clear, bright skin, are tall and dress well, it means you have a bright and clean spirit.

I secretly wonder how she reconciles this with the fact that she’s rather short, and apparently so is SSN, but I don’t question her. I know there’s a lot I still don’t understand.

‘At the minute, Niamh and Ruth teach the modelling classes,’ Mary says. ‘But when you’re ready, you’ll take over. You are meant to be one of the main leaders in modelling here in Australia.’

I’ve been practising walking back at the apartment, but I don’t think I’m anywhere close to teaching modelling. Hopefully she means in a few years.

I’m not excited about the prospect of approaching strangers on the street, but how I feel isn’t important in the face of saving people’s eternal souls. I’ve already spoken to Niamh about what questions to ask. Niamh is the best at street evangelism as she’s so warm and friendly.

‘What I normally do is ask them first if they’ve ever done any modelling before,’ she says. ‘It’s a compliment, right? Most people respond well to it. Makes them feel special. Oh, and don’t tell them that it’s a church thing – not because we’re trying to conceal anything, of course. Just because some people are less likely to want to be involved if it’s introduced as religious. And we want to give the right people every opportunity to be saved. You know what I mean?’

‘OK, but what if they’re not interested in modelling, but they would be interested in Bible studies?’ I think back to how I was first approached.

‘I think just focus on your area, hon,’ she responds quickly. ‘The rest of us can take care of that kind of evangelism. You have to trust that God will bring the right people into Providence, people who are chosen and ready. They’ll come one way or another.’

She emails me a list of questions. Some are similar to the ones I was asked by Yujun when I first met her outside the bookshop in January, but there are fewer on the list, and they’re connected by the goal of inviting the interviewee to a modelling class.

It feels strange to be suddenly on the other end of the conversation. I can see there was a strategy behind approaching me, too. It feels slightly … invasive. But, at the same time, I realise that if they hadn’t concealed certain things at the beginning, I wouldn’t have listened to them. I wouldn’t have been saved.

After morning service on a Wednesday in late October, I decide today is the day. It’s still quite cold, so I wear a big coat and scarf as I walk across Northbourne and towards the mall. On the way, I keep my eyes peeled for any women who fit the description I was given, and who look receptive. My gaze lingers on someone nearby, then someone else in the distance, but in the moment I can’t muster up the courage to approach them.

I don’t like the feeling of being ‘on the lookout’, almost like a predator. I don’t want to have to ingratiate myself to people who don’t want to talk to me, and I’m scared of being rejected. I pray under my breath for God to give me strength and to help me identify the right people. I picture Jesus walking beside me in my mind’s eye, an invisible companion and safety net. I picture Him holding my hand.

Even so, I still feel so lit up. Watching strangers go about their regular lives feels depressing in contrast – how dull life must be when you’re not yet saved. Occasionally, illustrated video messages accompany the Sunday message, depicting heaven, hell and the spiritual world. Unsaved people are portrayed like zombies, wandering around aimlessly. They have no idea how happy and fulfilled they could be.

I reach a big fountain just outside the mall and spot someone who appears to fit the bill. She’s tall and elegantly dressed, with auburn hair that obscures her face as she looks down at her phone. She’s alone, which is infinitely less intimidating than approaching a group. I swallow hard, plaster on what I hope is a warm smile, and walk over.

‘Hi, excuse me, sorry,’ I say from behind her, and she jumps before turning around. She’s pretty. ‘Sorry, so sorry!’ I’m already mortified.

‘Yes?’ she asks. She doesn’t smile back.

‘Oh, I just, um … I was wondering if you’ve ever done any modelling before? You, um, look like you could be a model.’ I can feel my face flush. I’m not coming off as professional and I’m thrown by her hostility.

‘Oh. No, not really. Why do you ask?’ It doesn’t look like she’s softened from the modelling question. Maybe now a bit suspicious. This is going badly.

‘Um, well, my church – I mean, just my friends actually – I mean, we – run a modelling course that focuses on inner and outer beauty, and I thought you might be interested.’ I shouldn’t have mentioned the church.

‘No, thanks,’ she says, alarmed, and walks away without a second look.

I’m left standing there, stinging from the rejection. But I’m proud of myself. I imagine Jesus giving me a hug. It’s not meant to be easy, so don’t let it get you down. Well done for being brave. Keep going.

I’ve set a condition to meet three people before my bus comes, so I knuckle down and approach two more women to offer modelling courses. No one is interested. Those who are called will naturally come, right? I just have to do the work.

It’s late lunch after Sunday service in early November, and everyone’s here: Mary, Niamh, Ruth, Kristen, Lara and Gemma. Well, almost everyone – Yolanda is busy: she has a family thing on. Mary pulls me aside and asks if I can text her, to check in. See if she’s OK.

By this point, all of us newcomers have reached the point in the Bible studies of learning who Pastor Joshua is, and the atmosphere is electric. The high mood is bolstered by Mary – she’s singing, giggling, poking us playfully. Childlike. She says she’s proud of Ruth and Niamh for nurturing us and bringing us in. We’re grateful we were saved. The older women can talk openly now, because we know the truth.

At one point during the meal, Mary says something to Ruth. Ruth nods, and intercepts the conversation.

‘Guys, we’ve been thinking for a while. Our lease on this apartment is running out soon, so we need to find a new place to stay. And since there are so many of us now, we thought we should start looking to find somewhere we can all live together. What do you think?’

There is a chorus of ‘Yes!’ and ‘Great idea,’ and ‘That would be awesome!’ I echo the sentiment, surprised this is all moving so fast, but excited at the prospect of living in a house of people who live the way I do now.

Ruth continues, eyebrows raised. ‘OK, well we might have got a bit ahead of ourselves here, but we’ve had a look, and there’s a place in Braddon we’ve got our eye on. We could all go see it after lunch?’

Gemma chimes in: ‘Yeah, let’s do it!’

We finish lunch, clean up together and set off. It’s later in the afternoon now, the sun just above the horizon, casting an angelic golden light over the trees on Northbourne. One big, happy group, we cross the road together, a cool breeze on our faces.

Niamh starts singing and Gemma joins in soon after. Before long, most of us are singing ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’, while Mary hums along and Kristen smiles.

The house is only a short walk away. We stroll past the petrol station in Braddon, past Hyde Park, and reach a tree-lined street with expensive-looking houses. Some are old, perhaps from around the 1950s, but well maintained with light render and wood trim. Others are newer, more modern. Many of them have hedges out the front and manicured lawns, or landscaped tanbark mulch with native Australian shrubs. Some even have decorative fountains.

We reach an enormous hedge, and Mary sings out, ‘Here it is!’

Nestled behind is a large old single-storey home. We all peek through gaps in the wood carving on the front gate to try and get a better view of the house itself. It’s restored – elegant, but modest. A triangular arch frames the patio leading to glass double doors with pine edges. Floor-to-ceiling windows show a big sunken front room with a fireplace and polished wooden floors. It looks like something out of frankie magazine. My wannabe-hipster heart is enamoured immediately.

‘It looks empty,’ Kristen exclaims. ‘Is anyone living in it at the moment?’

‘I’d say not – no furniture whatsoever,’ Ruth ponders. She gets a twinkle in her eye. ‘Should we check out the backyard? There’s something we want to show you guys!’

‘Are we gonna get in trouble?’

‘No one’s around. We’re prospective renters. Let’s just have a peek!’

We creep down the driveway to an emerald-green wooden gate. I’m glancing behind us as we go, apprehensive of any neighbours who might catch us trespassing. Ruth inches it open and we squeeze through single file to peer inside the house.

It looks lovely in there – spacious, but perhaps that’s because there’s no furniture yet. I can see a big casual dining room surrounded by windows with a semi-open-plan kitchen behind it. If I squint, I can make out steps up into the formal dining room and the living room we saw from the front of the house. There’s a wing to the right with what are probably bedrooms, but the curtains are closed. I’m embracing my nosy side when I hear Ruth call, ‘Come down the back!’

Past the leafy courtyard and down a winding little path, another hedge guides me to a big structure sitting near the back fence. It’s like a tiny house – a studio, maybe? Everyone is peering inside. It’s big, too: just one giant rectangular room with a bench, sink and cupboard on one side.

Ruth already has thoughts. ‘I reckon it was an art studio for whoever lived here before, but it’ll be so good for church services. And modelling classes, singing, dancing …’

‘And I can set up my easel there, too!’ Niamh chimes in.

‘It’s perfect for us,’ Mary says. ‘Everyone needs to pray that we get this place.’

We all nod in agreement. And in the warm evening light as we walk back, singing another hymn, I think: These are my people.

SSN has written back to me through Mary. She reads out the letter to me in her bedroom one day after morning service in late November.

SSN wants me to be an Evergreen. I’m elated.

To Elizabeth!

I read your letter and write a letter again because I miss you.

Come to Korea and see me on this school holiday or next year.

When I come out from here, I’ll go to Australia! Send me a photo of your whole body so that I can keep your photo with other stars’ photos (I will keep your photo in the Faith Stars album). Ask your pastor to do it for you.

Let’s keep making Faith Stars in Australia, too. Since you become Jesus’s lover, keep making Faith Stars and teach them.

The Faith Star means that people who don’t marry for their whole life and live their lives taking Jesus as a bridegroom like a nun. I am a Faith Star too, and your love.

Annyeong

‘I knew all along. You were chosen for this.’ Mary bows her head solemnly, knowingly. ‘But Liz, this is a big responsibility. You have to think of SSN as your husband now. Faith Stars are called to be closer with him as Jesus’s body. He is your spiritual husband. Write to him often; encourage him with words of love.’

‘I will, of course,’ I respond.

‘He wants you to visit him. We will plan a trip to Korea soon, maybe in January. I’ll let you know the dates so you can get time off work. It’s important we see him as soon as possible.’

‘Of course. I’ll make myself available.’

After returning from Europe, I quit my cafe job and started working on reception at a veterinary hospital. The pay is better and the hours friendlier, which seems like a good fit for my upcoming first year at uni. A kind lady from my old church helped me to get the job, and so far, I’m loving it. They’ll be understanding if I need to travel.

I’m still getting my head around the whole ‘lovers’, ‘spiritual bride’ thing. From what I’ve gathered, it’s a metaphor, not too far removed from the ones used in the Bible, but still profoundly different.

Niamh speaks of the difference in the spiritual relationship in a way that makes sense to me. ‘In the old faith, Christians understood themselves as “children” of God, right? So they relate to Him as a father figure. And Jesus is a brother. What does that mean?’

She opens her arms wide.

‘They’re constantly asking for things, they’re juvenile in their faith, they’re needy. Just like children. Compare that to Christians in Providence. They see God and Jesus as their heavenly bridegroom. Think about what that means for the nature of the relationship. We’re supposed to meet God halfway – we’re His bride. We don’t just plead with God to give us things to make our lives happy. To take care of us. We take responsibility.’

She pulls her hand into a fist and thumps it to her chest. ‘We comfort Him and work hard to understand His pain and heartbreak due to all the suffering in the world. We shoulder the burden of sin and persecution alongside Him. His pain is our pain. Our spiritual level is higher – harder, but so much more intimate and rewarding.’

I don’t want to be a whiny child anymore. I feel ashamed of the times growing up I used to just plead with God to give me this or that, and that was the end of it. No matter the cost, it’s time to grow up.

I’m preparing for the big move, the first time I’ve ever lived out of home. I turned nineteen this year, so I feel ready. Mum isn’t so sure. She badgers me constantly with her concerns.

‘Lizzie, why are you in such a hurry to move out?’ she says to me one Saturday afternoon. ‘You’re starting uni next year. I want home to be a safe space for you, where you don’t have to worry about working or rent, just focus on getting your degree. And I just worry … are those girls going to be a good influence on you?’

She doesn’t get it, no matter how much I explain. I’ve tried to help her to be comfortable with my new community. We’ve even had her over for a church service (adapted, of course, for newcomers – no mention of SSN, all the Providence-themed pictures taken down). It didn’t soften her up. Her reasoning seems to be that it’s all too ‘intense’, which doesn’t make sense to me given the brand of Christianity she raised us in.

‘I’m an adult now, Mum. It’s normal to move out. I want to live with people who share my values. I wish you’d just trust me.’

I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t trust me, and she definitely doesn’t think I know what I’m doing, which exasperates me further. If only she knew what I know. I wish I could share my excitement with her instead of constantly defending my choices.

‘How on earth are you going to juggle working and studying? And what about transport? Can I still take you to work?’

‘I can walk or bike to ANU easily. And yeah, if that’s OK, I’d really appreciate you giving me a lift to work sometimes, but I can also catch a bus. It’s no big deal.’

‘I can’t stop you. But I am worried, Lizzie.’

This has been one of the most difficult things to wrangle with since I joined Providence. Mum has always been a mental and emotional pillar for me, and a helpful moral compass. She found help for me when I needed it. I told her my deepest fears: of rejection, the future, loneliness, failure. But since I’ve been chosen, the foundational structure of our relationship has fractured. It’s shaky and unstable, because now I have to lie to her.

Mary has helped me to understand that this is a shift that needs to happen. I miss Mum; I miss our closeness. I feel vulnerable; a bit like a tortoise without a shell. I’m navigating a strange land.

12

THE BIG OLD HOUSE

LATE NOVEMBER 2011 TO JANUARY 2012

We spend a day moving. Niamh, Ruth and Mary have already moved their large items to the big old house, and we all pitch in to help deep-clean the apartment for their final inspection. With seven of us, it only takes a few hours of dusting, vacuuming, wiping and scrubbing. I learn that Mary is a perfectionist when it comes to cleanliness – militant, in fact. She meticulously points out little spots we’ve missed, and often insists on showing us herself how to do it the ‘right’ way. You could eat a meal off the floor by the time we’re done.

Lara, Gemma and I manage to wrangle our parents to bring our big pieces of furniture to the new place. Kristen’s parents are interstate, as are Ruth’s and Niamh’s. I don’t think Niamh’s parents even know where she lives; she has told me she had to cut them off a long time ago. They were too dangerous for her faith.

Mum and Dad help me lug a station wagon full of my belongings and stay to assist moving around furniture. Dad’s trying to ensure that the women don’t have to lift anything big, while Ruth, naturally muscular, insists on doing the grunt work with him. My parents are always keen to help, and I get the sense that Mum is taking any opportunity she can to be involved in my life as it changes. I feel sad for her.

Two small rooms come off the dining room on the right-hand side. Mary has her own room, and Niamh and Gemma are sharing one. On the opposite side of the house, Kristen and Ruth are sharing the primary bedroom, and Lara and I are sharing the fourth. The house feels light and airy with its cream walls and garden outlook, but is anchored by dark trim and heavy, old-fashioned doors.

It’s a long day, but everyone is in good spirits, and at the end of the day Ruth orders pizzas to thank the parents and to celebrate the move. Mum and Dad sit around chatting to Lara’s parents and Gemma’s dad while we all organise our clothes in our drawers.

Lara and I are both excited to have a roommate. It’s the first time either of us have lived out of home. I’ve supplied us with my big old chest of drawers and we divide it evenly. A cupboard stands over the other side of the room next to the door, and Lara has contributed a desk, which we’ve placed against the window facing the courtyard behind the house.

Now we’ve all moved in, we have a rotating cleaning roster, a cooking roster and a service roster. Ruth is a whiz with admin and keeps us all in check. It’s a shock to the system living away from home with other adults, but I love it. Now, I don’t have to drive over to the apartment most mornings and evenings. Morning service happens daily at five am on the dot without fail, which gives us all time to pray beforehand. The more experienced women all get up at around two am. Sharing a room with Lara for now provides a bit of a buffer to alleviate the social pressure – we can both only manage four am on a daily basis.

Rent is transferred to Ruth at the beginning of each month, split according to income and capacity. Ruth and Kristen pay the most, as they both have professional full-time jobs. Utilities and money for house things are split evenly. And, of course, we all tithe ten per cent of our respective incomes.

Mary wants us to function like a finely tuned machine. We all want to make her happy.

Today is the newcomers’ initiation ceremony. Lara, Gemma, Yolanda and a couple of newcomers from Melbourne are all taking part. We’ve even prepared a dance to a Providence soundtrack called ‘Toward Hope’, practising the moves from an older Providence video from the Heaven’s Culture website. The dance is flowy and feminine, as most are in Providence.

We’ve got ourselves matching outfits: white stretchy tights under form-fitting magenta dresses with orange gauze draped over one shoulder. They float when we move, twirling and waving our arms in unison. After the dancing, we sit through a short sermon, and those of us who are new stand up the front to receive flowers. We beam, exuberant copies of each other, for a photo. Mary says SSN will love it.

There are thirteen Providence members visiting from interstate, some from Adelaide, some from Melbourne, and they’re all staying at our big old house. We scramble to make space on the floors and stock up on bulk food ingredients. It’s chaos for the few days that they stay. In the mornings I groggily tiptoe over several sleeping bags to get to pre-dawn prayer.

I love getting to know everyone; it feels like I’m a part of a big, faith-based community – a family, even – all united by a common purpose. Everyone is excited to embrace the new members, and they lavish us with love and attention. Our group meals are frequent and enormous: there’s barely an hour in which a new steaming pot of seaweed soup or japchae or tteokbokki isn’t being prepared alongside a steaming rice cooker.

All the guests are happy to roll out thin mattresses and sleep on the floor in the living areas, except the head leaders; some of us in the house give up our beds so they can be comfortable. It’s a sign of respect, Mary says. I understand: after all, they do so much for us.

A couple of Korean women, Sang Hee and Jisoo, stay on to help us for a while. Neither of them speak much English, so we communicate in a weird mish-mash of broken English and Korean we call ‘Konglish’. Sang Hee is a little older, more of a leader, very warm and nurturing with laughing eyes. Jisoo is petite, funny, and sharp, and is from the dancing division. Everyone’s excited to learn more of the Providence dances.

A few days before Christmas, Mary suggests a day trip to Batemans Bay. Those of us still in Canberra all pile into Ruth’s big white van and take off. We’ve been practising Christmas hymns together for the trip, some of us learning the harmonies to form a little choir. When we arrive at the harbour, we all stand near the ocean and sing for an hour or so.

It’s so much fun, singing together. A special kind of companionship binds us as we float through the melodies of the old hymns. I don’t mind whether people listen or not. It just feels good to sing hymns by the ocean at the top of our lungs. I smile the whole way through, the rays of the sun feeling like God’s favour beaming down on us.

When we finish our set, we get fish and chips at a local store on the wharf and sit in the sunshine, squeezing lemon over battered halibut and sucking the salt and grease off our fingers.

The afternoon is gloriously warm, so we head to the beach. We change into our swimmers in the public toilets and set up on the sand. Mary is at her happiest: her best moods are ecstatic. She spreads out a big picnic rug and produces a huge container of chopped fresh fruit.

When she sees me emerge, she squeals playfully, ‘Woo-ooo! Lovely Liz, you look so cute in that bikini!’

I smile shyly. Exposing my body always feels awkward, not least because it always seems to be changing. Around these women I’m far more comfortable, though.

‘I can’t wait to get in the ocean,’ Ruth says as we sit on the rug, rubbing sunscreen onto Niamh’s back.

‘Me too!’ I squeal. I honestly think I love nothing more than submerging my body in the cool salt water, stretching out my limbs like a starfish, feeling weightless and suspended as I bob with the rhythm of the waves.

‘You guys go ahead.’ Kristen laughs from under her enormous hat. ‘I’m Chinese. We’re terrified of the ocean.’

‘I’m staying put as well,’ Lara says, squinting as she shields her eyes from the sun. She’s not even changed into swimmers, opting to stay in a baggy T-shirt and shorts. I know she has a fraught relationship with her body, as do I.

‘I’ll come in a bit.’ Niamh smiles. ‘Waiting for Gemma.’

‘Suit yourselves,’ Ruth teases. We’re halfway to the water when Mary calls out.

‘Wait, girls! Let me get a photo!’

She walks down towards the shore, camera in hand. She takes pictures on any special occasion she can.

‘Ruth, can you take off your swimming shirt? Just the bikini,’ she instructs. Ruth obliges, handing her the shirt.

‘Stand together, girls, put your arms around each other’s waists. Chest forward, shoulders back. Good. Liz, bigger smile! Imagine how happy SSN will be when he sees you both having fun. Your spiritual bridegroom. Smile for him. OK? Perfect, stay there. One, two, three, Sunsengniiiiiim!’

‘Sunsengnim!’ we repeat, with our biggest smiles, and she snaps the photo before getting us to try a couple of other poses.

Mary says she sends pictures like this to SSN so he can live vicariously through his followers while he’s suffering in prison. After all, he only gets one hour of sunlight per day, filtered through a barbed wire fence. I hope this encourages him a little, I think.

‘Can I have my shirt back?’ Ruth asks. ‘Redhead. I burn easily.’

13

SACRED SCIENCE

It’s mid-January of 2012, and Mary, Ruth and I are getting ready to fly to South Korea next week upon the request of SSN. I was able to pay for my flights with some money I saved up from my part-time job. Niamh is in Perth for a bit, so we plan to meet her there.

It’s announced that 2012 is the year of the Rapture, based on Nostradamus’s prophecies and the end of the Mayan calendar. But the world itself won’t end, SSN tells us; rather, things will shift significantly on the spiritual plane. The Rapture will be invisible: our bodies will remain unchanged, but our spirits will ascend to Heaven while we continue to work on earth to save others and advance God’s History.

But in order to rapture, we have to make ourselves spiritually perfect, our bodies and minds being our tools with which to do so. This means we all need to be even more vigilant, bold, to work even harder, keep running, save as many souls as possible, and purify ourselves as much as humanly possible so that we can each rapture spiritually when the time comes, before the year is up.

I’m worried I’m not perfect enough, not spiritually pure enough to visit SSN in person. But I’m doing my absolute best.

Everyone going on the trip is setting conditions to prepare their hearts to go, and I’m doing the same. I now get up every morning at three to pray without fail. When you set a condition, you have to do it one hundred per cent – that’s what we’re told in the proverbs and sermons we’re all sent. If I’m physically capable of doing more, I must. That’s what perfection means.

The flip side of this is that I’m confused when others don’t fulfil their conditions properly. Especially considering what’s at stake. When Niamh stays up late, and then wakes up just in time for morning service, I wonder how she reconciles that in her conscience. There’s no room for laziness – she taught me that. But on those mornings, I see her face, and it’s troubled, dark. Mary doesn’t tell her off as she would with the rest of us.

Mary is particularly hard on Kristen. Kristen laughingly tells me it’s because she’s Asian, and so Mary doesn’t need to tiptoe around her feelings like she does with Aussies. I don’t know whether to be offended at this or not. I also wonder if her lightness belies her true feelings. Normally funny and confident, she tiptoes around Mary like a frightened puppy. I feel sorry for her.

Another condition we all need to set is to meet a certain number of people each day as part of our evangelism efforts. If you miss a day, you make it up, and sometimes after a busy week of work and church activities, I need to spend a few hours in the city to meet my quota of talking to twenty to thirty people that week. We hear more and more about how difficult the conditions are for SSN in prison, and how hard he works to pray, spread the gospel and respond to all of our letters, and I feel so inadequate, but I’m determined.

I’m trying to feel his shimjeong when I pray. I pray hard, in tears, pleading with the Holy Spirit to inspire me on what conditions to set in order to prepare my heart adequately. I repent for being self-centred, being anxious, being overly preoccupied with food and calories, and for the times when I don’t pray or focus or read the Word enough. I know feeling guilty is currency: it’s the doorway to repentance, of realising how far I fall short, and by that measure, holiness.

I’ve also set the condition to take cold showers each morning, and I’ll do it for a month. I know SSN has to take cold showers in prison, even in the deep South Korean winter. I reason that the least I can do to begin to feel what he might be feeling is to also take cold showers. I consulted with Mary about it, because she always knows what’s best. She said it was a good idea, and to make sure I do it every day. Once you set a condition, you have to keep it.

By this point, I no longer attend my old church or see any of my old friends, Belle and Kara included. Mary tells me it’s only appropriate to see them if I think there’s a possibility they could be evangelised. Otherwise, it’s just sinful indulgence in the flesh. We’re all warned against seeing our families too often, as they can set us back spiritually as well, but I can still go to my parents’ for lunch or dinner once every week or two.

I head over for a Sunday lunch after service. By the end of lunch, I’m antsy, wanting to get back to my day because I have evangelism to do, prayer conditions to fulfil, chores to complete and translated sermons to edit. This is pleasant enough, but life isn’t about comfort. Mum tells me to come more often. It’s strained.

Dad absorbs Mum’s feelings and amplifies them. He’s been behaving increasingly erratically and forgetting things lately, but I know he misses me. My two brothers rebuff my constant happiness and positivity. Once again, the disconnect between my old life and my new one comes into sharp focus, and I just want to go back to the big old house. Until I met the women of Providence, I was depressed and anxious. Now, there’s only room for joy; if I wasn’t joyful, it would be a betrayal of the truth I’ve found. I want them to know the truth, too, but all they seem to want to do is debate me if I try to obliquely talk about faith. I hope I can save my family one day, too, but clearly they’re not interested right now. Stuck in the old timeline. SSN calls Christianity ‘primitive faith’.

‘Well, I’d better head off,’ I say abruptly, gulping the last of my tea.

‘OK, Lizzie, just a min. Let me get my things.’

I impatiently wait for Mum to locate her phone and keys. I need to head out. I’ve already wasted too much time.

‘Thanks for lunch, Mumma, it was so good. As always.’ She’s cooked her Sunday roast and dessert for us. Lemon delicious pudding, my favourite.

On our fifteen-minute drive into the city, we make light conversation. Mum knows I’m going away, but I told her it was for a Christian camp in Perth. Mary and Niamh told me I needed to say that so she wouldn’t try to stop me going to South Korea.

‘So, what kind of things will you be doing in Perth, then?’

‘Oh, just more of the same, really. It’s kind of like a Christian leadership camp. We’re training to be able to spread the gospel. Reading the Bible together, prayer. That kinda thing.’ It’s sort of true, in a convoluted way. Not the Perth bit, but the other bits.

‘But nearly a month, darling? Won’t you be tired when you have to dive straight into uni?’

‘Mum, of course not! I’ll be fine, honestly. Don’t worry about it.’ That came out more irritable than I wanted it to.

‘OK, OK,’ she says. She’s gripping the steering wheel tightly as she drives. She sighs, lifting her shoulders on the in-breath and dropping them down sharply. She looks more tense after the sigh than before it.

‘You OK, Mum?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘OK …’

She’s uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the drive. I wonder why she isn’t bombarding me with follow-up concerns and reminders.

We finally pull up at the house. She parks the car on the opposite side of the road. I reach for the door handle, but she stops me.

‘Lizzie, before you go …’ She suddenly looks nervous. Why is she nervous? ‘I found a pile of sermons under your bed. You left them there before you moved out, and I looked up the church you’re attending online.’ She reaches behind her and pulls out a stack of printed paper from under her seat.

I’m already screaming internally: alarm bells are going off in my head. I know what this is.

She’s trying to be gentle, which makes this worse.

‘I just printed some papers out for you. I think you should read th—’

‘GET THOSE AWAY FROM ME,’ I say quickly, loudly.

‘Lizzie, please, if you could just listen—’

‘MUM! You have NO idea what you’re talking about. I DON’T EVER WANT TO SEE THOSE PAPERS, OK?’

I shove the pile of print-outs back into her lap, grab my bag, scramble out and slam the car door behind me. My veins are pumping with adrenaline. I feel a sickly mixture of guilt and terror. My stomach is churning and my face is hot as I run across the road, towards the safety of the house.

We’ve been warned about this a lot since I learned the Big Secret. I vividly remember Mary telling us, ‘If you look up anything, or listen to anyone slandering SSN or God’s History, you’re giving Satan direct entry into your spirit.’ She extended her index and middle finger and placed them against her temple. ‘It’s shooting yourself in the spiritual world. Spiritual suicide. If anybody tries to tell you anything, run away. Protect yourself.’

Mary was right when she said Satan would use those closest to me to attack. I wasn’t careful, I left things lying around – and now Mum knows about all of those abhorrent lies. My hopes of being able to bring her into Providence any time soon shatter, and she unknowingly put me at risk.

Reeling, I head inside to seek support from the others.

As I turn the key in the front door, I look behind me to see Mum’s station wagon sitting stationary outside. I head inside and close the patterned curtains behind me, quickly moving from room to room until I find someone – Mary, Ruth, Niamh – who can give me advice or comfort. Kristen is the only one there.

‘Hey, are you OK?’ she asks straight away, mouth hanging open. My face clearly doesn’t keep secrets.

‘You won’t believe what just happened.’

We sit down at the dining table and I tell her everything in detail.

‘Oh, my goodness, Liz, you did the right thing by not looking at those papers. I’m so glad you’re OK!’ She pulls at her hair as she talks, a stress habit. ‘I get it, girl. My parents have challenged me so many times. They’re super traditional Chinese – they’re so suspicious of this church. I keep telling them they have nothing to worry about, but it’s just got to the point that I had to cut contact.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I mean, that’s just part of it, right, following the truth,’ she says, turning the corners of her mouth down. ‘I’m still trying to evangelise my little brother, though. He’s pure. Not jaded like them. But yeah. The path isn’t supposed to be easy, you know?’

‘I know. I was just so shocked that she found out. I came so close to seeing things I wouldn’t be able to unsee.’

‘You need to stay away from her. Like, I don’t mean forever,’ she waves her hands, ‘but for now. Anyway, talk to Mary. She’ll tell you what to do.’

As if on cue, Mary walks through the back door, singing. She’s wearing one of her floral dresses and has a backpack on her shoulders, and a big bow-shaped claw clip pulls her hair into a fountain at the back of her head. She looks youthful and vibrant today. I still don’t know how old she is.

Instinctively, she stops singing and stares at us both, sensing the energy in the room. Her face is frozen in an expectant smile, like she’s waiting for the punchline of a joke. Kristen looks like a stunned mullet again, her mouth hanging open, urging me to speak.

‘Can I talk to you somewhere?’ I ask.

‘Let’s go into your room, pretty girl,’ she responds breezily.

I walk towards mine and Lara’s room and she follows, slapping me on the bum playfully. She’s in a good mood again today. I hate that I’m about to ruin it.

‘So … my mum knows,’ I tell her when we’re seated cross-legged on my bed, facing each other.

She looks at me silently, waiting for me to continue.

‘She just dropped me off after lunch, and she said she found a bunch of old sermons that I’d left under my bed at her place. She looked up Providence and tried to get me to read articles full of slander.’

‘OK. Where is she now?’ Mary is calmer than I expected.

‘Um … I’m not sure. She was sitting in the car when I went inside, but she’s probably left by now.’

‘I didn’t see a car when I came in.’

‘OK, thank goodness.’

‘Listen to me.’ Mary takes both of my cold hands in her warm, firm grip. This house is always cold. ‘I have always been worried about your mother. We’ve tried to be kind, and tried to make her feel comfortable, but she doesn’t trust us. Satan has made her suspicious. She can’t let it go. And now she knows too much before she’s ready.’

‘I know, I just didn’t expect what happened today. I thought she was sort of OK with me being here, and then …’

‘This is a common problem in Providence. Parents are the number one tool that Satan uses to kill off followers of God’s history.’

The strangest thing happens then. As she turns her head to the side when she says ‘Satan’, the sunlight from my window catches her teeth. I realise her canines look especially pointy, jagged. Her normally caramel eyes look black. For a fraction of a second, I think I just saw a demon.

This is insane: Mary is the holiest person I know, she’s my direct line of authority to SSN. I shake it off internally. What is wrong with me? Is Satan in my head?

‘Does this happen to most people?’ I ask, trying not to seem spooked.

‘It happens with a lot of us. And, remember, it happened to me. My father used to yell at me, even hit me, to try to get me to stop going to Providence. Like he was possessed by a demon.’

‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Mary. I can’t imagine how hard that time must have been for you.’

‘It’s not hard anymore. I’m happy. I’m with all of you, my best girls. I’m still following the truth.’

I nod. She grips my hands harder and leans in.

‘I don’t think you should see your mother anymore. For a while, at least. It’s not safe for you.’

‘Yeah … no, I understand.’

‘You always need to tell me these things so I can help you. You did the right thing.’

Her praise is reassuring. I feel proud of myself that I handled it the right way.

‘Let me know whenever she contacts you, OK? Don’t reply. Just show me. I want to make sure you’re safe.’

‘I will, of course.’

‘Good. OK, lovely Liiiiiz,’ she sings as she slides off the bed. I haven’t ruined her mood after all. She almost seems pleased it happened.

She’s no sooner left than she pokes her head back in the doorway, suddenly grim, eyes dark. ‘Your dad is knocking on the door. Quick. Go into the main bedroom, hide in the cupboard. Sang Hee will answer the door.’ Sang Hee and Jisoo are still with us.

I do as I’m told. Off the primary bedroom is a giant walk-in robe, inbuilt study and en suite. The bedroom window and the window of the study face right out into the front yard, inviting the garden in. I crack open the heavy wooden door to the bedroom, and my stomach flips as I see Dad’s face, eyes squinted, trying to see inside. I fall back behind the door. My heart’s pounding again. These are my parents, but it feels like they’re not my parents anymore.

I wait a beat, and then slowly peer through the crack around the door towards the window again. I can’t see Dad, so I sprint through the bedroom and into the study/wardrobe nook, and duck behind a row of dresses hanging in the closet.

I can hear a soft, high-pitched voice and a booming, deep voice. The booming one is definitely Dad. I think Sang Hee is the other voice. He sounds upset, frustrated. There’s some back-and-forth. I can’t make out much, but at one point I hear ‘Where’s my daughter?’ repeated a couple of times – quickly at first, and then enunciating each word.

And then I hear him calling my name from the front garden. ‘Liz. LIIIIIIIZ!’ I feel sick knowing Dad is so upset. And afraid. I haven’t heard fear like that in his voice before. I hate that I’ve worried him and Mum, and I hate that I have to hide from them, but this is how it needs to be right now. They’ll understand one day.

Before long, Dad stops calling for me, but I don’t get a signal to come out. I can’t hear anything. I stay crouched under the dresses for maybe another ten or fifteen minutes. Then footsteps coming closer, my heart rate rising, and finally relief when I hear Mary’s voice outside the cupboard.

‘Liz? You can come out. Your parents are gone for now.’

I crawl out from my hiding spot and Mary orients herself to my position.

‘What happened out there?’

‘Your dad was knocking on the door. Sang Hee answered, pretended she couldn’t speak English and she was the only one here, so he left, but they sat in the car for a while. Your mum is in the car, too. They’ve driven past the house a couple of times.’ Mary gestures towards the street.

‘He sounded angry.’ As he’s a six-foot-six-tall man with a thundering voice, I can only imagine Sang Hee found him intimidating.

‘He was. That’s normal.’ Mary doesn’t seem fazed. All business. ‘We need to get you out of Canberra early.’

‘Wait, sorry?’

‘Go and pack your things now?’

14

SMUGGLED OUT

JANUARY 2012

I’m crouching on the floor in the back of Ruth’s white people-mover van, wedged uncomfortably between the middle and back seats. I’ve had a thick, scratchy picnic blanket thrown over me, obscuring me from view. I calm myself by breathing deeply and praying under my breath.

‘I’ll let you know when we’re a safe distance, Liz,’ Ruth calls out from the driver’s seat.

Mixed in with fear and confusion, I’m feeling an undeniable sense of exhilaration. It’s even more like some kind of Bible story, being suddenly smuggled out of the state. The early Christians in the catacombs of Rome come to mind.

It makes so much sense that, only two days before I meet the Messiah of the Second Coming and at the beginning of the year of the Rapture, Satan tries to stop me through my parents. Being smuggled like this must mean I’m valuable: precious cargo. Guilt is tugging on my heart, but I can’t allow myself to think about Mum and Dad right now. What we’re doing is far more important. I’m grateful I have these women around me, doing whatever it takes to protect me. I’m safe in their hands. I’m not alone. I wonder how long it’ll be until I see my parents again.

Once we’re out of Canberra, I get the heads-up to come out from under the blanket. We drive to an apartment housing many of the Sydney church members. When we finally get there, it’s late at night and we’re exhausted from the rollercoaster that the day has been. They offer us a simple dinner of leftover reheated fried rice with an egg on top. It’s welcome comfort food.

Mary talks extensively with the head leader there in Korean. I sit chatting with Ruth and a couple of the local members, but I can see Mary and the other leader glancing over at me often. I hope I haven’t caused too much trouble.

Overnight, we’re up at two am with the Sydney church to pray before making our way to the airport for an early morning flight. When we arrive and check in, we collide with an elated Niamh on transfer from Perth, who jumps on each of us for a hug. Walking behind her is a woman I haven’t met yet, but whom Ruth and Mary seem to already know.

‘This is Annie,’ Niamh says. ‘Another Aussie Faith Star. Evangelised in Perth around the same time as you, Liz.’

Annie has a shy but warm smile. Articulate, with a hearty Aussie twang to her voice – intelligent, down to earth. George, a member from Melbourne, arrives soon after and joins us. He’s a confident, handsome Kiwi. I avoid him as much as possible because of the dangers of the opposite sex. It’s rare to meet a male in Providence in Australia, as evangelism here is mostly focused on women to symbolically represent the new history of brides.

We have a few hours to kill in the airport, so we all sit around chatting. Normally I’m able to ward off tiredness because I never stop moving: editing sermons, reading the Word, prayer, exercising, working, chores, evangelism, cooking. But my eyes feel heavy with sleep. I sip cold water every few minutes to stay awake.

Annie fascinates me. When she listens to others talk, it’s like she is listening, but she’s also thinking deeply about something secret. Niamh said she’s very spiritual, and prays for hours on end. She also did a seven-day water fast last year. I’m curious about her, and maybe a little intimidated.

We all fly economy, in randomly allocated seats. When we shuffle off the plane, we find each other in the terminal at Incheon National Airport and head towards baggage claim. Out the window, the landscape is covered in snow – the most snow I’ve ever seen in my life. We’re all chatting excitedly, reanimated now we’ve reached our destination.

Except Mary. Her face is a dark cloud all of a sudden. She’s uncharacteristically silent and sullen as we travel down an escalator, looking off into the distance.

‘She hates South Korea,’ Niamh whispers to me. ‘Gets like this every time we go.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘Dunno. It’s why she came as a missionary to Australia – she prefers being there.’

We make our way through baggage claim and customs. I present my passport to the customs officer, hoping I look similar enough to the photo that was taken way back in Year 10 for a school trip to Fiji before I lost weight. The unsmiling photo looks like a criminal mugshot, except that I’m in my chequered school uniform. I’m such a different person now.

I’m asked why I’m visiting South Korea by the stern official.

‘Um, missionary. Christian.’ Mary told me to say that.

When our shuttle arrives, we venture out into the winter air of South Korea. The cold is biting; it’s easily sub-zero. Mary and Niamh communicate with the shuttle driver on our behalf – the only two Korean speakers in our party of six. We pile into the vehicle, along with a number of Korean natives, and ride into Seoul city. The small TV up the front of the bus plays ads for nappies and rhinoplasties.

Gradually, we’re swallowed up by skyscrapers. It’s a forest of glass, metal and cement. Stark and gritty. The trees are bare, and snow lines every street.

Finally, we reach our stop in the middle of the city. We nod at each other, get up and shuffle out of the bus. I’m wearing my brown faux-leather lace-up Cotton On boots. When my feet hit the ground, the cold shoots through my thin soles and straight up my legs. It feels like I’m barefoot, standing on ice. I’m going to need new boots.

George goes off on his own; he’s arranged to stay with someone else. He knows his way around as it’s not his first visit. We are greeted warmly by an elderly couple who introduce themselves as Kwansanim and Cheonronim – elders in the church and part of the Blessed Family department. Mary tells us they’ve followed SSN from the beginning. Cheonronim, the woman, is warm and maternal. Kwansanim is jolly and hearty. It’s a short walk back to their home from the bus stop, and Niamh translates for us so we can make small talk.

Their home – I suppose you could call it a townhouse – is down a dingy side street, the front door up a short flight of stairs. We take our shoes off by the door outside and they welcome us inside, taking our coats from us with a nod and hanging them on a rack in the entryway. It smells musty, vinegary and homely.

A Sydney member, Tim, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, has joined us. I first met him at the newcomer ceremony. He’s tall, lanky and a bit of an oddball.

Niamh translates for Cheonronim. ‘She’s going to show us where we’re sleeping.’

We all follow as she gestures enthusiastically, leading us down a narrow hallway. On our left is a spare room with a large bed on the floor, covered in a giant fluffy blanket with the face of a tiger printed on it. There are mats placed all around, too.

‘The women will sleep in here,’ Niamh says. ‘Spare blankets in the cupboard if we get cold.’

‘Gam-sa-ham-ni-da, Cheonronim,’ we all say in unison. Thank you.

‘She’s preparing a late lunch for us, so let’s get settled in.’

We roll our big bags into the room and pick out places to sleep. I take one of the thin mats on the floor. A curtain covers the bedroom window. When I sit down, I realise the linoleum floors are warm to the touch. My first time experiencing the power of under-floor heating.

I can hear Cheonronim banging around in the kitchen. Curious, I go take a peek as the other women distribute the spare blankets. It’s down the end of the corridor from the bedroom on the opposite side of the tight apartment. A single exposed lightbulb in the ceiling simultaneously illuminates the cramped space and casts shadows here and there.

The smell of garlic, kimchi and rice is pungent. I’ve come to love the smell. Pots are covering the stove and the benchtops are piled high with bags, containers and appliances. The ceiling is low and arches up towards what looks like an outdoor area where more stuff is stored, acting like a freezer. A rice cooker is steaming and Cheonronim is rummaging in a cupboard.

‘Can I help?’ I say slowly, gesturing towards the stove.

‘Ani, ani,’ she tells me, shooing me out of the room with a smile. No. She says something else to me, but I have no idea what it is. I’m enrolled in Korean as one of my subjects this coming year at university, but I know very little at present. Niamh and Mary have taught me bits and pieces, Mary always laughing at my ‘cute’ enunciation. I smile back and nod my head, retreating from the room, and head back into the bedroom.

Before long, Kwansanim calls us into the living area, and we sit cross-legged around the low table. I’m nestled between Ruth and Annie. Kwansanim and Cheonronim’s adult son emerges from a room off to the side and joins us. He’s good-looking and shy. I try not to make eye contact.

Cheonronim bustles around us, setting the table with little bowls, plates, plastic cups, chopsticks and spoons, and Kwansanim begins telling us stories about SSN. He pulls a framed photograph of a younger version of himself and a few other men, standing around a young SSN dressed in a soccer uniform, all beaming.

‘Look at SSN, isn’t he handsome?’ Mary gushes. We all murmur agreement.

Mary takes on the role of translator as we sit around chatting with Kwansanim; she loves to relay stories about SSN. We all lean in, listening intently.

‘SSN is an expert soccer player,’ Mary says. ‘Always hit the ball straight in the goals. He played six rounds of soccer every day back then.’

We nod our heads. Niamh coos in admiration, so I do the same.

‘He says that SSN taught them back in the eighties that sport, like all forms of movement, was giving glory to God, and an art form.’ She pauses to let Kwansanim speak, before translating again.

‘He began an initiative called Peace Soccer, which brought players together from all nationalities. His intention was to promote peace through sports. Thousands of people would come to watch and play. He was humble about his own abilities, but he could easily beat anyone.’

Kwansanim has a distant look in his eyes, and suddenly he’s about to cry. We all fall into a reverent silence.

‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ Annie says quietly.

‘Me, too,’ I echo.

At that point Cheonronim comes in yelling ‘Jal mogo!’, breaking the spell. Eat well. She’s holding a big tray piled high with dishes of food. She reaches between us and sets down steaming bowls of rice, cooked white fish, seaweed soup, bulgogi beef, gochujang and more pickled sides than I thought possible.

She retreats to the kitchen again while Kwansanim continues to tell us story after story about life with SSN in the eighties and nineties. Especially the building of the Wolmyeongdong outdoor temple in the countryside: this is SSN’s pride and joy, and the home of Providence.

Cheonronim comes out periodically and encourages us to eat more. We’re too skinny, she tells us. ‘Mani mogo, mani mogo!’ I wonder if she’s going to eat anything. For dessert, she brings out pillowy-soft sweet breads.

Finally, when we absolutely can’t fit any more food in, Mary interjects and says we’ll go for a walk into the city. Ruth lends me a spare pair of boots: dark brown with thick soles, lined with a fur-like fabric. Not pretty, but far more practical than mine. Before we left, after our initiation ceremony, Lisa, the head leader in Melbourne, gave me an expensive-looking khaki green coat with real fur trim and goose down inside. ‘A gift from SSN,’ she told me. Niamh’s provided me with a fleecy neck cover I can pull up around my nose when the wind gets particularly bitey.

Before we leave, Mary pulls Annie and me aside and hands us $200 worth of Korean money. Another gift from SSN. ‘For his brides. To treat yourselves. See how he takes care of you?’ We thank her profusely. That’s so kind of him.

We head into one of Seoul’s big malls using the train system and end up using most of our time in Uniqlo shopping for thermal underwear; I didn’t realise how badly I’d need it, and I’m grateful for the extra money I have to spend as I’ve nearly cleaned myself out just buying the plane tickets.

In the evening, Kwansanim and Cheonronim’s daughter takes us out to dinner at a hotpot place in an upstairs room off the street. I still feel full after lunch, but we can’t turn down their hospitality. This family is so warm and kind, which doesn’t surprise me given my other experiences with Providence members.

The conversation is a bit stilted due to the language barrier, so eventually our host ends up mostly chatting with Niamh and Mary, while Ruth, Annie, Tim and I talk together.

‘How are you finding South Korea so far?’ Ruth asks Annie and me. This is Tim’s second time visiting, and Ruth’s third time.

‘It’s so cool,’ I reply. ‘How sweet is everyone?! I’m not sure I can keep eating like this, though.’

‘I know, right.’ Annie laughs. ‘The food is amazing. My stomach feels like it might burst.’

‘I love the sides so much. We don’t get free sides in Australia; it’s hard to stop eating them,’ Ruth says.

‘I’m actually obsessed with the pickled garlic Cheonronim gave us,’ Annie says like she’s sharing a guilty secret. ‘I ate so much at lunch I think I gave myself a stomachache. I’ve been reading up about a cleansing diet where you just eat garlic and seaweed soup. I might try it when we get back to recover from all the food we’re eating.’

I’m slightly triggered by this. She goes on. ‘After my seven-day fast in Perth, I was so happy just eating very little. And only healthy foods. I lost so much weight and my mind felt clearer than it ever has been. I prayed so well, too, and received all this inspiration from the Lord. But I’ve slowly gone back to bad habits of eating bread and sugary things and I feel really … spiritually disconnected. Like Jesus knows I’ve been sinning by eating what I do.’

‘Mm, oh, right,’ I say. I don’t know what else to say. I’m feeling highly uncomfortable: my stomach suddenly feels tight with all the food inside of it, and I want to get rid of it somehow. Much of my work recovering from my eating disorder concerned removing the moral stigma attached to different foods. I’m far too scared to fast – that’d be a nightmare for me with my history.

But maybe that’s all the more reason to do it. Maybe food is too much of an idol for me, and I need to lay it down, face my fears and fast to show God I can do without it if I have Him.

‘I dunno, eating helps me to pray.’ Ruth laughs easily. ‘When I did my fast, all I managed to do was sleep.’ I breathe a little easier. If Ruth isn’t worried, I can afford to think about it later.

Annie smiles and looks down self-consciously. I get the sense she disagrees, but doesn’t want to push it. She’s far away again, thinking private thoughts.

Tim nods. ‘You guys all meeting SSN?’

‘Yes!’

‘Ah, man. I’m jealous. I wasn’t invited this time. But since so many of you were going, I thought I’d just come along for the ride. It’ll be good to spend time in Wolmyeongdong again.’

‘What’s it like, Wolmyeongdong?’ I ask. ‘I’ve heard so much about it from the others.’

‘Oh, you have to see it to believe it. It’s truly stunning. God told SSN exactly where to place each rock and plant each tree. It’s like being inside SSN’s mind,’ Tim gushes.

‘Really?’

‘You’ll see,’ Ruth says. ‘It’s beautiful. Like a piece of heaven on earth.’

Later that night, we arrive back at Kwansanim and Cheonronim’s family home, exhausted. It’s been a huge day and I desperately need to take a shower. We all settle in to pray silently, taking turns to use the one tiny bathroom. When it’s my turn, I grab my toiletries and pyjamas and head in. The bathroom is the only room in the house that’s completely exposed to the outside air with no heating. It’s absolutely freezing. The shower is more like a tap with a bucket and washcloth.

I put on the rubber bathroom slippers and begin to fill the bucket with water. As expected, it’s icy cold. I was starting to get used to my cold showers back in Australia, but I have a dreadful feeling this is going to be different.

Stay positive, I tell myself. It’s just cold water. SSN has to do this every single day in prison. I have no right to complain.

I tentatively grab the bucket, rub some soap into the washcloth, and place it on my naked body. My breath catches in my throat. It feels even colder than I thought it would, amplified by the coldness of the air.

Quicker is better. I splash the water over my body, scrubbing myself down, covering myself in soap suds, trying to regulate my erratic breathing as I do so. Cupping my hands into the bucket, I splash water over my head to shampoo my hair. There’s only one way to wash it off, so I fill the bucket some more, and raise it above my head.

As the icy water pours straight onto my scalp, I feel the skin tighten and pain shoots through my head like bolts of lightning. I’m gasping for air: it’s a complete shock to my system. Suds run down my naked body. I brace myself to do it again. Second waterfall.

This time I cry out in distress, it hurts so much. I see stars. I’m dizzy and lightheaded, and the worst brain-freeze I’ve ever had grips me. I stumble a little. I need to sit down or I’ll pass out on the tiles.

That was agony. How does SSN do it every single day? Am I just weak?

15

DAEJEON PRISON

JANUARY 2012

Today is the day we meet SSN in prison. I was so nervous last night I had trouble getting to sleep, but my exhaustion finally got the better of me, and I managed a few hours. In the morning, Mary offers to take all the women to the local jimjilbang, the bath houses in South Korea. I’ve come to love going to the jimjilbang.

The baths are a soothing ritual, but I mainly adore them because they warm me from head to toe like nothing else can. Since my eating disorder, my circulation hasn’t been amazing even though I’ve been eating well and am at a healthy weight. Even wearing multiple layers and walking around, I can’t ever seem to defrost my hands and feet.

On this occasion we head over and engage in the usual rituals, but my head is far away. I close my eyes as my skin turns bright red from the hot bath I’m marinating in. I know SSN will see the condition of my heart immediately, and I’m so far from perfect.

I don’t know if I’m ready or worthy. How do I make sure I meet him with the right attitude? What should I expect? Do I love him enough? I can’t feel love right now. I think I feel it sometimes. Does that matter? What should I say? How should I greet him?

I’ve been practising something in Korean that Mary told me to memorise and say to him when we talk. I run through the words underneath my breath over and over again as I plunge from hot to cold and back again.

‘Sunsengnim, I love you. Every day I miss you. I will keep you warm.’

The jimjilbang is underground, dimly lit. Steam lingers in the air, shiny bodies silently cutting through it this way and that. It’s quiet, hushed. I feel suspended in a dream. I join Mary, Niamh and Ruth at some point, and some older women, ajummas, are sitting on the opposite side of the bath to us, observing.

They smile and nod hello, and then turn to Mary and say something in Korean. She is short in her response. They turn to us, and gush, ‘Oh, areumdapta!’ I know that word: they called us beautiful. Ruth and I bow our heads respectfully. ‘Gamsahamnida,’ we say in thanks. How kind of them.

Niamh turns to us discreetly, her voice low. ‘They just asked if all the white women were sex workers visiting from another country. Mary said no, you’re Christian missionaries.’

We laugh, in shock. ‘Does that happen a lot here?’

‘Dunno,’ she replies. ‘Sounds like it.’

Later on, as we’re sitting in our robes blow-drying our hair, Mary pulls me aside. ‘How are you feeling, Liz?’

‘I’m … like, super nervous. I’m worried I haven’t prayed enough, or done enough, to be worthy of meeting SSN. What if he notices?’

‘Ah. Don’t worry about that. Keep praying to realise what he is going through as the Lord’s body, and realise his heart. And put on your best clothes, do your hair, wear make-up, and smile a lot. Show him love in the way you present yourself. Remember that he is your spiritual bridegroom, yes? Think about how you would dress if you were meeting your husband for the first time. That will make him happy.’

The time draws near, and we arrange for a taxi to take us to Daejeon prison. It’s just Annie, George and me meeting SSN this time, alongside Mary as a head leader. Pastor Joeun will meet us there and escort us in to see him. She always escorts visitors. I’m nervous about meeting her, too. I hope she likes me.

I’ve dressed in a light pink silk skirt with flowers sewn into it, a white blouse and a velvet red blazer. Mary helped me to pick everything out, and this was the only outfit that made her happy. Annie is dressed in a fitted navy dress with a plum blazer, and she looks just as nervous as me. George is unreadable, but seems calm. He doesn’t interact much.

Leading up to the prison is a long driveway with snow piled up on either side. Mary pays the driver and the taxi drops us off just outside. We walk through the doors into a reception area. A guard stands behind a desk with a reinforced plexiglass barrier, stern and impassive, while we provide our names and the person we are here to visit. They know who Jeong Myeong-Seok is immediately, telling us sharply to sit and wait to be summoned. I wonder if they have an inkling of who he really is.

Mary takes to Annie and me like a fussy mum, adjusting our clothing, fixing our make-up, pulling a comb out and brushing our hair, licking her thumb to fix smudges in our lipstick. In another life I would’ve thought this was so silly, but I now know that outward appearance reflects our spiritual condition on the inside, so I go along with it. George is a bit of a scruffy mess, though, his hair sticking out at odd angles, and I wonder why she’s not fixing him up.

While Mary is yanking and prodding at me, Annie bows her head in silent prayer as per usual, her soft blonde hair curtaining her face. I feel I should do the same, so when it’s her turn, I bow mine. Eventually we’re all sitting in silence, waiting and praying. Mary prods us both suddenly.

‘Look. Pastor Joeun.’

We look up to see her walking across the room with two assistants. All business, and just as beautiful in person as she was on the Heaven’s Culture broadcasts. She’s wearing pearl earrings, a white silk shirt, tan leather pencil skirt and tan leather boots that go up past her knees. A designer handbag. Her skin looks like glass, luminous and smooth.

They proceed to the front desk and the guard points them in our direction. She walks over. I feel so silly in my little floral skirt and chemist make-up. I can’t wait to talk to her, to tell her how much I admire her, but my heart drops as she barely looks our way, turning to address another guard. An assistant gestures for us to follow. I stand and scramble to adjust my jacket and my hair one last time, and follow them inside the prison.

We’re led into a small, square room with three metal chairs facing a bench and another large plexiglass screen with a single chair behind it. A large digital clock screen with a red 00:00 is on the wall beside a door on the other side of the glass. Pastor Joeun’s assistants wait outside while we head in behind her.

She takes one chair for herself, leaving the four of us to decide who else sits down. Annie hesitantly takes one, and Mary perches on one side of the third chair, beckoning me over to share it. George obligingly stands behind us. I’m so nervous, I don’t realise my jaw is clenched tightly until I release it. I can feel warm damp patches underneath my arms.

The digital clock on the wall suddenly changes, now reading 15:00. We have fifteen minutes.

And then, unceremoniously, it happens. Another impassive guard opens the door on the opposite side of the room. Behind him in a matching green tracksuit and pants walks Jeong Myeong-Seok – reincarnation of Christ, Messiah of the Second Coming.

He’s shorter and older than I expected. More tired-looking as well. Prison must be taking a toll on him.

My heart is pounding. I’m not sure how I should react internally, but I’m sure I should be feeling something bigger right now. A swell of love, tears of joy, something holier than just self-conscious nerves. There must be something wrong with me. I try not to lose my focus, because I need to remember my message.

He waves at us all, his face squinting into a smile. His eyes look puffy and weary, but he seems happy to see us. George is holding up a big homemade sign that says WE LOVE YOU, SSN in both English and Korean. He takes a seat behind the glass barrier and looks at me pointedly. Says ‘Elijabet’ in a croaky voice. He knows my name. ‘Annie. Annyeong.’ Annie is smiling hard, mouth open in surprise. I can’t believe he knows my NAME.

He exchanges some words with Pastor Joeun. Mary translates for us. ‘He says, he’s happy you came to visit. He is asking Pastor Joeun to take good care of us, to take us to a nice restaurant while we’re here. He says he wants to give us gifts when we go to Wolmyeongdong; he has something there for each of us. He says, stay warm, and make sure you eat well.’

Mary waits for him to finish, and then elbows me. Oh yeah. I remember to say the thing.

In stilted Korean, I manage to get out, ‘Sunsengnim, I love you. Every day I miss you. I will keep you warm.’

He laughs, and Pastor Joeun and Mary follow suit. Annie also says something in Korean. They laugh again, delightedly. Then he turns to Pastor Joeun and resumes his conversation with her. Mary doesn’t translate this time, so I assume it’s nothing to do with us. Church business, maybe.

The clock is slowly counting down, we’re in the last sixty seconds. Mary translates a few more pleasantries. George is now waving the sign wildly above his head, but SSN never looks his way. The digital clock flashes 00:00 again. The guard takes hold of SSN’s arm, indicating it’s time to go.

‘Annyeong,’ SSN says, smiling and waving with both hands as the guard leads him out of the room by the arm. ‘Annyeong.’ He blows kisses at us, almost childlike, until the door closes behind him.

16

WOLMYEONGDONG

JANUARY 2012

Next on the schedule is to travel to Wolmyeongdong in Chungnam Province. Mary has organised a small shuttle bus with a member of Providence for our group, so we say our goodbyes and profuse thank-yous to Kwansanim and Cheonronim until we see them in another week’s time.

We make a short stop at the school SSN attended as a child and take pictures outside it before heading deeper into the countryside. Finally, almost by nightfall, we make it to Wolmyeongdong.

The first thing I see is what looks like huskies or wolves sitting near one of the buildings outside in the snow, guarding the exterior. The whole place is covered in a blanket of white, with tall bare trees, austere against the stark landscape. We pass a small traditional-style house near the entrance tucked into the side of a mountain.

‘SSN built a house for his mother there when he saved enough money. He loved her so much. She lived for the rest of her life in that house,’ Ruth tells me.

As the shuttle bus drives into the compound, I can see a giant bronze statue of Jesus in the centre of the field, standing erect, palms open in a sombre welcome. Snow is falling gently. There are countless huge, long rocks standing – defying gravity – on their short edges in various formations around a giant snow-covered field. I can see large buildings spotted around the compound with signs in Korean directing you this way or that.

Wolmyeongdong is vast. I feel very small.

The shuttle keeps going, and drops us off behind most of the bigger buildings outside what appear to be several large shipping containers. The driver kills the engine and turns around. In broken English, he says, ‘Welcome to the Lord’s outdoor temple, everyone! This is where you will sleep.’ He gestures towards the shipping containers. ‘You can join us in an hour at the canteen for dinner.’

We climb out and carry our bags across the snow into the building. Inside are blankets rolled and stacked on makeshift wooden shelves, and a few blankets next to personal belongings which indicate we’re sharing the room with other people. Aside from that, the room is bare, with doors coming off on either side to other compartments. Our saving grace is the dial on the wall, indicating the floors are heated. We turn it on so it will be toasty by the time we come back after dinner.

We’re starving, so we take out a few snacks we packed for the journey. I suck on a Yakult drink – they seem to be popular here. We unpack our things and settle in to read the Bible or pray before dinner.

When it’s time to head down, a guide comes and collects us.

‘Welcome, my name is Eun-Ae, I’ll be your guide for this trip.’ She smiles politely at us. ‘If you will follow me, I’ll take you to the dining room.’

We slide our boots on and follow her, making deep footprints in the freshly fallen snow. It only takes around five minutes to get to the canteen, where I’m relieved to feel warm air on my face. The room is moderately full; we’re told this is where the workers who live on site eat their meals. Men with rugged faces who look like they’re well accustomed to the cold, and to hard work, greet us with warm ‘annyeongs’ and nods.

Eun-Ae gestures towards a banquet table covered in industrial-sized stainless-steel bains-marie and a giant urn underneath another framed picture of Sad Jesus looking down on the diners. Aside from the familiar picture, it almost reminds me of a school camp.

We’re in high spirits, all in agreement it’s been a wonderful trip so far, and happy we’ve made it to Wolmyeongdong. Even Mary appears to have cheered up. Ruth asks how we’re going.

‘Everyone is so kind and happy, and spiritual,’ I gush. ‘We’re in, like, the heart of God’s chosen country in this time period. The Holy Land. It’s crazy to think about. I can’t believe I’m here.’

‘That’s exactly how I felt when I first came here,’ Niamh chimes in with her lilting voice. ‘It really reminded me that this is truly God’s movement. Have you ever met people so happy and at peace? I feel so comfortable here. And everyone here knows and believes in SSN. We don’t have to be secretive. It’s freeing.’

‘I’m so grateful I’m here with you guys.’ I feel mushy and sentimental. ‘It really does feel like family.’

Niamh leans over and gives me a squeeze from the side. ‘Oww, Dijuuu,’ she teases. ‘Diju’ appears to be my adopted name, as that’s the way the Koreans pronounce it. English Ls and Zs aren’t in their phonemic inventory.

‘I agree,’ Annie chimes in. ‘I didn’t know what to expect; I hadn’t met all of you before this trip, but I feel so comfortable with you,’ she says, looking down demurely.

‘We’re so glad you came!’ we all sing out in unison.

‘Did you guys read the Wednesday message?’ Tim pipes up. He’s not one for sentimentality. ‘When it talks about “managing newcomers”, and says we shouldn’t pressure them too much or they’ll run away, what do you think that means? Like, we have to be strong in preaching God’s Word – but where’s the line between pressuring them, and pushing them forwards in a positive way? Don’t you think that for those people who respond badly to being pushed, that means they’re not chosen?’

He might not be one for sentimentality, but he is one for technicalities and theory. And he can be a bit of a bull in a china shop when it comes to his ideas on preaching the gospel. We go on discussing evangelism for a while as we finish our dinner, then rinse our trays under freezing water in a sink outside.

Eun-Ae escorts us back to our cabins, and sure enough, by the time we come back the floor has heated the room beautifully. A few Korean women are there by now, too, and are sitting on their blankets, chatting and giggling, doing their skincare routines. We introduce ourselves and join them for a while before succumbing to fatigue and falling asleep.

I wake up at one thirty am to an alarm across the other side of the room, sweating. The floor is sizzling hot. Someone hits snooze. Then one forty am, another alarm. Snooze again. By two am, the alarms are frequent and a few people have got up. I’ve set mine for two thirty, but I get up now anyway. It’s too hot to sleep and I don’t want to be the last one to rise. Besides, SSN gets up at one o’clock every morning – by that measure, I’m late.

I pull my boots on, button up my coat and grab my things. Annie is in the process of getting up too, so we decide to go together. The bathrooms are a five-minute walk through the snow. We open the door and are immediately enveloped in freezing cold, a shock to the system after the stifling heat of the shipping containers. The snow is still falling softly. The silence is all-encompassing.

I look out to the mountains and the statue of Jesus in the distance and I’m struck by how stark, how foreign, this land is. How on earth did I end up here? I think as my breath forms a cloud in front of me. We set off together into the darkness, still too drowsy to bother speaking, our footsteps crunching underneath us.

The bathroom is another giant shipping container with about four baths lined up against one wall, sinks and mirrors on the other side, and a shower in the corner. After the walk through the snow, I’ve already forgotten how overheated I felt upon waking. I’m dreading the inevitable freezing cold water.

Thanks to frequenting jimjilbangs, Annie and I are no longer uncomfortable with being naked around each other – we’ve just learned to look away and get the job done, chatting lightly to ease any tension. I go through the ritual of lathering up my body, grabbing a bucket and bracing myself against the freezing cold. I know now I have to pour little bits of water over my head at a time, instead of bucketfuls all at once, but it’s still painful.

Annie and I finish up and head into the church to pray. It’s a beautiful building: elegant, new, looking out into the mountains. Needless to say, it’s much fancier than the shipping containers. We climb a flight of stairs to the front door, taking our boots off and placing them in little nooks. Several pairs are neatly stored there already.

We each find a spot to kneel and pray among all the other silent figures, facing yet another huge photo of Sad Jesus and one of SSN himself. At five am, the morning service starts, and the church is filled. It feels glorious and unified.

At breakfast, the workers tell us they’ve made us a special ‘westerner’s breakfast’. They’re so chuffed, and we’re touched, so we don’t tell them tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce on toast isn’t exactly a breakfast staple for us. I eat my heaped serving gratefully.

After breakfast, Eun-Ae takes our little group for a hike around the mountains that cradle Wolmyeongdong and tells us stories about SSN. We walk for a few hours, admiring the natural world and the embellishments engineered by Providence under SSN’s instruction, inspired by God.

There are numerous sites of significance. We look at huge rock formations SSN has named, special clearings and views in the mountains. As we head down towards the valley, Eun-Ae tells us story after story and we marvel at SSN’s kindness, ambition, faithfulness in loving Jesus and sense of humour.

I don’t know where it comes from, but mid-hike down the side of a mountain, Eun-Ae suddenly turns to address me, half her face shielded by her scarf and hood.

‘Satan will always try to attack you through your parents. You know this, yes?’

I’m taken aback. ‘Um. Yeah, I … I’ve experienced that, actually.’

Eun-Ae nods and points at me. ‘You need to protect yourself.’

Then, wordlessly, she simply turns around and continues guiding us down the mountain towards the rock sculptures. I turn to the group as she walks ahead. ‘Did anyone tell her?’ Annie and Ruth look at me, eyes wide. Mary shakes her head. Niamh says ‘No, hon.’ I’m not sure if she just received a prophetic word, or if I’m in trouble, but: message received.

We walk down the slope and into the main field where, in summer, big sports games and international celebrations with thousands of Providence members take place. Right now, it’s empty, which makes it look far bigger than in the photos. Eun-Ae points out various rock sculptures and configurations. There is a rock with SSN’s profile carved into it, a rock dedicated to his mother, a rock with the bust of a woman, a rock formation symbolising the Holy Trinity, a rock symbolising a phallus, a rock with the impassive face of a man, a cheetah, et cetera.

Many of them are rocks SSN saw out in nature and noticed an image concealed in them. He then took great care in placing these enormous pieces in the best possible way, so their image was revealed. The biggest rocks would weigh thousands of kilograms, and apparently took entire teams of people and a crane to erect. It’s highly impressive, and even more so with Eun-Ae’s back-stories. I feel like I’m getting to know SSN so much better.

Then there are the medicinal ‘miracle’ springs, nestled into the side of a mountain, across the empty field from the church and living quarters. Annie has been especially excited about the springs, and she and Niamh have brought along empty drink bottles. Eun-Ae tells us about the thousands of people who have drunk from the springs of Wolmyeongdong – filled with natural water flowing from under the earth – and have been healed from all types of illnesses.

The water is clear, and Ruth invites me to taste from her bottle. It’s refreshing, almost sweet – nothing like tap water. I wish I’d brought my own bottle.

‘The people who were healed were the ones who believed that they would be,’ Eun-Ae states matter-of-factly. ‘You have to have faith. That is how the Holy Spirit works.’

It reminds me of the messaging of my childhood, and passages in the Bible. With faith, you can move mountains.

Just behind the springs are the caves. The entrance leads to a network of winding tunnels that travel deep into the mountain.

‘SSN built these so we could pray and seek the Lord in solitude,’ she tells us at the entrance. ‘Just like he used to seek out caves in the mountains growing up, and pray for days on end, we can now do the same.’ We walk around through the dimly lit tunnels for a bit. I spot a particular cave tucked away deep inside the maze of tunnels and make up my mind to visit it another day for solitary prayer. It’s unnervingly silent.

The final attraction Eun-Ae shows us is closer to our living quarters. It’s a tiny shipping container standing on its own in the snow. She opens the door and reveals a small mat and a Bible on the floor. It’s probably about one by two metres inside.

‘This is a recreation of SSN’s prison cell.’ She is solemn. ‘There is no heating in the freezing cold winter, nor any air conditioning in the hot summer. Very little air flow, and no comforts – just his Bible and the Lord to comfort him. You can book the room for a couple of hours and pray, one at a time. This is where you can experience what he does all the time.’ Eun-Ae points to a clipboard by the door.

We all book the room for the very next day.

It’s the final day of our visit to Wolmyeongdong. We’ve spent the week speaking to the local members about Providence and SSN, attending church, hiking, praying in the caves and drinking from the medicinal springs.

We visit the museum before we leave. It’s below the church, and consists of artworks by SSN on display. Coming off the museum is a jewellery shop, a gift shop, a tiny grocery store and a cafe. A guide takes us through the artworks, explaining the meaning and inspiration behind each one. SSN’s style is simple and abstract. Lots of drawings of nature, the human form and animals rendered with a few rough swishes of a brush or the stroke of a pencil.

Mary pulls Annie and me aside to go see the jeweller. She introduces us and chats with her briefly in Korean. The jeweller smiles and nods at us, pulling out two plum-coloured boxes wrapped in white ribbon.

‘A gift from SSN to you,’ she tells us.

‘Wow, thank you,’ we both exclaim, bowing our heads in unison. The jeweller unties the ribbons and opens the boxes for us, exposing identical fine silver chains with a pendant: an oval encrusted with diamante and three small pearls and a cursive J in the middle. They’re very pretty. We look closer as Mary explains the meaning.

‘These three pearls represent the Father, the Holy Son and the Holy Spirit.’ She points to the sparkling ‘J’ in the centre of the necklace. ‘And this stands for Jesus, but also Jeong. Think of this as a gift from your lover. He wants to treat you.’

She helps us put them on as we admire them in the mirror.

‘Wow,’ Annie and I both say.

‘Thank you so much.’ I smile at the jeweller. She smiles back and nods again.

‘Yes, thank you,’ Annie echoes. Another nod.

‘Make sure you write to SSN and thank him, girls,’ Mary says as we exit the store.

As we walk away, Mary grabs hold of my arm. ‘Come to the cafe with me, Liz. SSN has written you another letter after we met with him in Daejeon.’

I follow, excited to hear from him again, especially now. Perhaps he has some spiritual insight after our meeting. We sit down with matcha lattes and Mary reads from her laptop.

Annyeong Liz,

I was so happy to see you when you came to visit. Your heart is pure and your spirit is clean and bright. When I saw your face, I forgot the pain I am in.

Mary looks at me, smiles excitedly, and then continues.

You must remember I am always close with you in spirit.

When I see you, I want you to breastfeed me like a mother does for her infant.

Keep working hard for the Lord. When I come out, I will visit your church in Australia.

Love,

SSN

I stare at Mary, taken aback.

She looks up from the screen. ‘He is saying he wants to be close with you in spirit. You must remember, he is your spiritual husband. The breastfeeding, it’s a … like a metaphor. If you don’t understand, pray about it, raise your level. Pray to open your mind to understand the deep spiritual meaning behind the letter. This one is very special. He doesn’t write to many Faith Stars like this, which is why I don’t want you to tell anyone else about it. OK?’

I’m confused, but I trust her. She understands SSN better than everyone, and I know he is a good and righteous man. I don’t understand everything yet, but I’m trying. I berate myself internally for thinking it could be anything other than an innocent spiritual metaphor. How base of me.

‘You know the necklaces he gave to you and Annie?’ she continues. ‘The three pearls, and the shape connecting them – they represent the Trinity, but they also represent a woman’s …’ she gestures towards her groin ‘… vagina,’ she whispers gleefully.

‘Really?’

She nods. ‘Evergreens who raise their spiritual level understand. I know you are ready to hear this, which is why I am telling you.’

17

UNDERGROUND CHURCH

FEBRUARY 2012

We make our way back to Seoul, staying with Kwansanim and Cheonronim once more. Tim and George have gone back to Australia already. We’re nearing the end of our trip, but first we’re off to visit the flagship Providence church in Seoul, where many of the sermons are filmed, to hear Pastor Joeun speak in person. I can’t wait.

When we arrive near our location in the middle of the city, Mary guides us down a flight of stairs coming off a side street, and through an inconspicuous door. The place is hidden underground – there’s nothing on the exterior of the building to suggest there’s a church here, let alone a flagship one.

It makes sense, though. There are a lot of people who hate God’s history and persecute the church, just like they did in the New Testament. Christians had to gather secretly, in catacombs. It feels special and exclusive, like we’re all in on a secret.

The church itself is just as impressive in person as it was on the broadcast. There are hundreds of people here, and Mary flits around, introducing us to person after person. She seems proud to show us off. Thanks to our schedule, we’ve all only had one hour of sleep the night before, but we rally. In time, we begin to find our seats, and a pianist begins playing a soft melody. As the congregation is being seated, Ruth whispers to Annie and me, ‘Look! Pastor Joeun.’

Pastor Joeun enters from a door by the side of the stage, flanked by two unusually tall, stocky bodyguards dressed in black suits and wearing wires. I didn’t realise she was in physical danger. She must be incredibly brave.

The service proceeds just like it did on the broadcasts, if calmer than the Holy Spirit nights, because it’s Sunday service. I struggle to stay awake during the two-hour sermon, especially when I can’t make out the translator, but being here feels so special. After the service as the seats begin to empty and people chat, Annie wants to sit and pray for a while. Soak up the energy of the place. I feel a pang of competitiveness, so I decide to do the same. I wish I’d been spiritual enough to think of it first.

We’re pulled out of our respective meditations by Niamh and Ruth, who tell us that Pastor Joeun wants to take us out to lunch. I’m nervous. It’s at a traditional barbeque place nearby, so we walk there and wait for her and her entourage to arrive. We haven’t waited too long when Mary points to a large black armoured van parked just outside.

‘I think that might be her,’ Ruth says.

As a few people file out, though, I see no Pastor Joeun. Three middle-aged, well-dressed Korean women enter and greet us.

‘Pastor Joeun sends her apologies,’ one offers to Mary. ‘She had something to attend to.’

‘Of course. That’s OK,’ she says, and we all sit down to lunch. I conceal my disappointment. I can’t really understand how SSN could like us so much, while Pastor Joeun seemingly wants nothing to do with us. The ladies are polite, but not warm. Niamh whispers to me at one point that one of them is SSN’s oldest living follower. She’s been with him since the beginning. She looks to be in her seventies, and is beautiful. Distinguished.

They ask us a few questions about ourselves through Mary and Niamh. We engage in polite conversation. I get the distinct impression that they don’t like us; I’m not sure why. Perhaps they’re tired of having to meet starry-eyed foreigners who don’t speak Korean. Mary and Niamh are the only ones they really converse with at length. I know it was SSN’s request that we get taken out to lunch, so maybe they’re simply obliging. Either way, I’m grateful we got to meet Providence’s oldest living member.

Walking through the city after lunch, Mary turns to us. ‘Girls! I have an idea,’ she says excitedly. ‘Professional photos!’ She’s pointing to a sign on the side of a building with a montage of pretty photos of young women, couples, young families. All washed-out, bright colours, heavy filters.

I know none of us loves having our photo taken, but Mary is our head leader, and I really don’t want to spoil her good mood. I’ve learned with Mary that when she’s in a good mood you ride the wave for as long as you can.

We head up the stairs and into the studio, where Mary negotiates a deal with the photographer. Apparently, studio photography is far cheaper in South Korea. Soon, we’re taken into a room with various clothing items we can choose if we like, and make-up if we need to touch ourselves up. She helps us sort through clothing and pick out the right items and accessories for each of us.

We go in for a group photo, the photographer telling us to arrange ourselves this way and that. We stand as close as possible together, taking shot after shot, Mary getting up from her position to look at the raw images, rearranging us, resuming her spot, photographer shooting again.

Then it’s time for individual photos. I wore Niamh’s houndstooth blazer with tulle trim over my floral dress for the group photo, but Mary thinks I should take it off for my individual shot. The dress has a low V neckline and a cinched waist.

I feel so awkward, trying to navigate being told by the photographer to pose one way and then something different by Mary: hand on one hip, hand off the hip, forty-five-degree angle, face the camera straight on, chin down, chin up, smile, not that big, think of how much you love SSN, he’ll feel it through the picture. My smile begins to feel numb; surely I’m looking strange. Am I just grimacing at this point?

We finally get the shot she wants and I go to the dressing room to wait on the others. When we’re all done, the photographer sits down at his computer and runs through the shots for Mary to pick the best ones. He also edits the photos to your liking on the spot.

Mary stands over his shoulder the whole time, dictating the edits to him in Korean. He’s shaving a bit off Ruth’s upper arm here, making Niamh’s eyes bigger there, pulling Mary’s waist in a little, it goes on and on.

I pay attention when it gets to my individual photo. After he’s smoothed out some blemishes on my face, she motions at my chest on the screen and says something. She then cups her hands over her own chest. He begins to drag at my bust, pulling the edges out and making it look like I have full breasts. The light outline of my ribcage in the plunging neckline between my breasts makes the edit look somewhat silly.

When he’s done, she turns to me.

‘See? Much better.’

18

CHANGING: WHAT I KNOW NOW

After the initial love-bombing phase, when the new recruit is fully indoctrinated, cult leaders often switch to a hot-and-cold pattern of attention, alternating between affection and neglect or criticism. This inconsistency creates emotional instability in members, making them anxious and eager to regain the leader’s approval. This manipulation is a form of trauma-bonding, where the ‘intermittent reinforcement’ of affection and rejection deepens the member’s attachment to the leader. The psychological impact of this cycle can trap members in dependency, as they become increasingly desperate for sporadic moments of validation, mistaking them for genuine care. As you’ve likely recognised, love-bombing followed by hot-and-cold treatment is a common element of coercive control in abusive intimate partner relationships.

As mentioned, there is crossover between the ‘unfreezing’ and ‘changing’ phases, as many of the techniques used initially are still applied; however, the confusion and disorientation that characterised the unfreezing phase are now able to be replaced with certainty. This provides a sense of relief for the new recruit. And now, as Hassan states, there’s more of a focus on ‘repetition, monotony, rhythm … lulling, hypnotic cadence in which the formal indoctrination is delivered’.

I’ve heard from so many ex-members that they found the long, droning sermons boring and repetitive. There’s a reason for that – repetition is a great way to program someone’s subconscious, by putting them in a hypnotic or semi-hypnotic state – the tiredness helps with this. You absorb things like a sponge without even trying. This strengthens the hold the group has on your psyche, and the root system of conditioning burrows deeper.

In retrospect, for me, there was very little substance in the endless messages we were sent from South Korea. However, I don’t believe that anyone, when they’re fully under the spell of coercive control, would ever admit to themselves that any of the doctrine they’re given is boring. The simpler, the more profound.

Instead of just writing it off, you tell yourself, ‘This proverb is too sophisticated for me to fully appreciate. I need to pray more, work harder, and raise my level so that I can grasp its meaning.’ If this happens five, ten, fifty times a day, the pressure of needing to raise your level, and the associated shame, is strong.

Additionally, and most importantly, this never happens in a vacuum. The Bible studies alone would never brainwash me, though they were a programming tool to get me to slowly start questioning my own beliefs and instil group doctrine. As previously mentioned, study materials are also a vehicle through which cults can get to know a new recruit, understand their motivations and vulnerabilities, and establish key relationships, and this continued for me with sermons, revelations and proverbs.

Cults also subtly plant phobias in members’ minds by associating fear with any thoughts or actions that challenge the group’s beliefs or authority. This process, often referred to as ‘phobia indoctrination’, involves creating intense anxiety or dread around the idea of leaving the group or questioning its teachings. Leaders may warn of dire consequences, such as spiritual damnation, social isolation or physical harm, for those who consider leaving, or even questioning, often reframed as ‘doubting’. Over time, these fears become internalised, making members instinctively avoid critical thinking or independent decision-making. By conditioning members to associate ‘doubt’ with fear, cults effectively block any desire to leave, ensuring members remain psychologically trapped and dependent on the group.

I was still high on a frenetic energy that kept me from feeling the effects of significant sleep deprivation in the honeymoon months of attending Sarang Church. This helped me to believe what they were telling me – that if you pray and read the Bible enough, you’ll be filled with a buoyant supernatural energy. But the fatigue was only going to get more extreme, and it wouldn’t feel wonderful forever. The hot-and-cold social dynamic was beginning to reveal itself. I didn’t realise when I reached the top of the mountain that I was being primed to descend into nightmare territory.

Once a person has successfully undergone Lifton’s changing phase, the ‘refreezing’ – or Robbins and Zablocki’s ‘symbolic death and rebirth’ – phase begins. The cognitive and emotional changes to date are married together, allowing them to consistently reinforce each other. As Robbins and Zablocki state, ‘this often gives the individual a sense of having emerged from a tunnel and experience of spiritual rebirth’, establishing a sense of ownership, belonging and conviction in the new doctrine. Now fully indoctrinated, the individual is built up into the ‘new person’ with a renewed sense of purpose, internalising the group’s values and beliefs to the point where they can interact with the outside world without being easily swayed.

The concept of ‘sacred science’ refers to the demand that the group’s ideology be regarded as an ultimate truth, beyond question. The leaders are presented as infallible, and criticism of the doctrine is forbidden and often punished. The group believes it possesses an ‘ultimate truth’, viewing all alternative forms of knowledge as inferior, which reinforces feelings of moral superiority and elitism.

Standards for behaviour and beliefs are rigid and idealised, with punishment, whether material or believed, for noncompliance. Members are conditioned to view the world through a binary lens that flattens everything into right and wrong categories, effectively disabling any nuanced thinking or autonomy. The dire state of the world is highlighted and linked to people on the ‘outside’ not possessing the right knowledge.

The new recruit is told that their ‘old’ self holds them back from whatever enlightenment, success or salvation the group offers. In this context, the ‘old self’ often refers to their rational mind. They are told that a ‘letting go’ of their ‘worldly thoughts’ is necessary to fully embrace their new identities.

The memory of their ‘old’ life is now tainted through the lens of the cult ideology, leading them to minimise positive memories and amplify or attribute new meaning to negative ones. Hassan states that ‘the first and most important task of the “new” person is to denigrate [their] previous self’. Lifton’s concept of ‘doctrine over person’ explains how this process suppresses individuality, creates guilt and self-doubt when personal experiences don’t align with the doctrine, and ultimately redefines reality. Members must fully embody their new cult personas, in some cases even adopting new names to symbolise a break from their past lives.

Mirroring plays an important role in this process, as new members are often assigned to learn from more established ones. The group becomes the new member’s ‘true family’, while loved ones from their previous life are seen as unenlightened, burdensome, or even a threat.

Often, personal assets, money and belongings are surrendered to the group, leaving little room for personal ownership. As Hassan points out, this serves multiple purposes: it contributes to the cult’s wealth, strengthens the recruit’s commitment through the sunk-cost fallacy, and creates a higher barrier to leaving.

Long-term practices such as sleep deprivation, overstimulation, immersion, isolation, forced confessions and dietary changes are enforced. Labour is exploitative and gruelling, with members often living in extremely close quarters, ensuring they remain under constant observation with no meaningful time alone to reflect. Often, they are moved around frequently, and the minutiae of their lives are tightly controlled, keeping them on edge, unable to settle or feel truly at home.

Lifton’s concept of ‘dispensing of existence’ refers to how the group holds ultimate power to decide who has the right to exist and who has worth, based on adherence to the group’s ideology. ‘True’ members are the only ones with this right, while those outside the group, or worse, those who leave, are considered unworthy and morally and intellectually inferior, or even ‘evil’. In the most severe situations, this can result in mass death within the group at the leader’s command (e.g. Heaven’s Gate, Jonestown, the Waco Davidians), or it can lead to the murder of people outside the group (e.g. the Manson Family murders).

Crucially, this is also the point at which a new recruit is made to focus on evangelising others. According to Hassan, research shows that this greatly reinforces the group’s beliefs. The refreezing phase ensures the permanence and integration of the new cult persona within the individual. As Hassan notes, eventually, ‘the day comes when [the new member] can be trusted to train other newcomers by [themselves]. Thus, the victim becomes the victimiser, perpetuating the destructive system.’

With this solidification and deep internalisation of the cult persona comes Lalich’s definition of ‘bounded choice’ – ‘the way a “true believer” is constrained (or “bounded”) in terms of choices available, making choices which may seem extreme or crazy to outsiders but are understandable within that environment’.

This is something I always tell parents when they contact me, especially in the past when I helped with deprogrammings. Yes, your child is smart. But right now, they’re under the influence of coercive control. Don’t fall into the alluring trap of thinking you can simply appeal to their logical reasoning. Their critical thought is disabled. That line of questioning is like walking directly into a tripwire – it triggers the alarm system implanted by the cult and snaps them into shut-down mode.

19

THE YEAR OF THE RAPTURE

FEBRUARY TO MARCH 2012

We’re freshly inspired to hit the ground running when we come back from South Korea, which is just as well, because there’s now an accelerated sense of urgency in the sermons we’re given pertaining to the Rapture. This is the year we’ve all been waiting for.

Becoming ‘perfect’ in body, mind and spirit feels like an enormous task, but Mary assures us we can do it. The Bible is still important as a historical document, but God’s latest messages are coming in daily, hot off the press from SSN’s prison cell. Numerous sermons, revelations, proverbs and other messages are sent to us every week.

I try not to acknowledge the fear that I won’t make it. All I need to do is work as hard as possible for this year, so I’m not left behind. I understand why the sermons have to be so severe. We can’t be lazy; we can’t waste any more time. Committing even a small sin could set us too far behind to rapture. There is no room for anything else. The directive from South Korea is to save seventy thousand new souls this year across the world by bringing them into Providence. We’re told that structure is really important, so Mary will be organising our efforts in a bigger way.

Back in the big old house in Canberra, a new member, Ariana, an international student from Malaysia, has recently moved in with us. She’s a pocket rocket: bubbly, funny, energetic. Mary doesn’t seem to like her so much, though I don’t know why. The rest of us adore her, delighted with the extra injection of dynamic energy. Sang Hee has gone back to South Korea, while Jisoo has stayed on to help us with our dancing.

Annie has moved in with us from Perth as well, and Mary tells us that, just as Ruth and Niamh are spiritual counterparts, Annie and I are. We are supposed to learn from each other. I like Annie. I’m excited to have a close companion to help me grow, tempered with some apprehension around how intimidatingly spiritual she is and her sacrificial attitude towards food.

Mary has told me I need to quit my job at the vet: it’s too far away and I have no car, which means I have to rely on Mum dropping me off and picking me up. Far too risky; I can’t see her – at least not regularly, and not on her terms. I text Mum and tell her I won’t need her giving me lifts to work anymore. I keep my messages bright and warm to try to allay any concern. I spend the week before uni begins dropping off my resume at cafes in and around the city.

I often go to the Canberra Centre, trying to hit my evangelism quota. We’ve all bumped up our goal numbers under Mary’s instruction, especially now that the uni semester has just begun, so there are more young people to reach.

Sometimes a few of us walk over to the mall together and then go on alone into different areas; sometimes we just go when we can squeeze it in. I’ve met a few girls around my age so far, with mixed results. I have a couple of follow-up email addresses to reach out with information about the modelling classes we’ll be starting on campus soon. I feel like I’m slowly starting to gain confidence in talking to strangers, and I’m excited to be part of saving more souls for God.

One day, when it’s getting towards three pm and I’ve got maybe three more people to approach, I spot someone who looks friendly: pretty, with warm brown hair and a bright complexion. I walk up to her smiling politely, making sure to modulate my behaviour to the fine line between assertive and invasive.

‘Hi, I’m sorry to bother you,’ I begin, launching into a script I now know off by heart, ‘I just noticed you: you look beautiful. I wondered if you’ve ever done any modelling before? I ask because I represent a modelling agency, and we’re looking for people who might be interested in joining us. We’re called Inner Beauty Modelling, and we run classes that focus not just on modelling skills, but on personal growth. Would you be interested at all?’

Over the recent months, I’ve learned how to put people at ease by building my own confidence. I dress as well as I can afford. I wear make-up. I make eye contact, I smile, with an air of familiarity (like Niamh taught me). I compliment people genuinely, though not so much that they’re uncomfortable.

This time, though, I can tell from the get-go the girl is not having a bar of me.

‘No, I haven’t.’ Her reply is clipped. ‘And actually, you’re the second person who’s asked me that today.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ I respond quickly. ‘I didn’t realise. All good. So sorry to waste your time,’ I say again, starting to turn away.

‘Hang on a minute,’ she says sharply. ‘It just seems weird. Like, who do you actually represent? Is it a church or something?’

I feel my face flush. For a second I’m lost for words. I have no idea how she could’ve made that leap – surely nothing I said could’ve indicated who we really are?

‘No,’ I hear myself saying back, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘We’re just a modelling agency. We have no connection to a church at all. Sorry again.’ I feel so disconnected from what I’m saying; it’s like I’m watching myself from above. I’m embarrassed and ashamed and I just want the ground to open and swallow me whole.

‘No, seriously. I don’t believe you. Who are you guys?’ she pushes. She’s angry, and I’m alarmed.

‘Just a modelling agency,’ I repeat again, and then I just leg it out of there down the bright corridor of fancy stores on the upper level of the mall. I can feel her eyes on me as I make my exit, but I don’t look back.

For my first year at uni, I’m studying a Bachelor of Arts with a focus on linguistics. I’ve added Korean to my course alongside French (a subject I’ve always loved since early high school) so I can begin to read and understand our sermons in their original language. Mary is pleased I’ll be at ANU. It’s only a short bike ride away, and it means evangelism will be easier, as I’ll be on campus a lot so I can spend time meeting new people.

Kristen knows the ANU campus well, and registers our modelling group, ‘Inner Beauty Modelling’, as a legitimate social group on campus. She also secures us a room to use for free, somewhere in the STEM faculty.

It’s been made very clear to me that my studies are secondary, and I understand. Nothing else matters except saving people and growing God’s History. If you don’t do what you need and just live comfortably, you will come to ruin, the proverbs repeatedly urge us. I can’t let that happen to me. This year is all we have. Think that Satan has a knife to your throat and pray with that mentality, a proverb this week tells us.

Mary tells us we are the elite, the leaders of God’s History in Australia, so with that privilege comes enormous responsibility. We need to ensure we bring in all the others whom God has chosen this year so they can rapture with us in this first ‘wave’. Beyond that, people will continue to be saved as Providence explodes universally, but we’re told it won’t be the same; 2012 is crunch time.

We’ve also begun having house meetings after Wednesday service. Actually, we have meetings after everything, even dinner. Mary wants us in action mode. Her tone shifts rapidly between casual and easy-going to militant.

One evening, as we pack up the service equipment and prepare for more business, I confide in Mary and Niamh about what happened the other day at the mall. They look concerned.

‘Oh, I was at the Canberra Centre that day, too – I think it might’ve been me who met her earlier,’ Niamh says. ‘Brown hair, about my height, red and white striped jumper?’

‘Yeah, that was her.’

‘Oh no, hon, I’m sorry!’

Mary jumps in. ‘OK. You guys tell everyone this evening and we’ll know to stay away from her in future. She’s clearly not chosen, but she could become a problem if different members keep approaching her.’

We both nod.

Mary raises her voice for Gemma, Ruth and Annie to hear. ‘You know, guys, sometimes Satan gets into people. Strangers. They want to persecute us because subconsciously they can sense we represent God, and the demons controlling them hate that. Sometimes when they see us working hard, passionately, they might even say, “You’re just brainwashed!” You know what you say when you hear that?’

We all shake our heads.

‘You just laugh at them. Ho ho ho,’ Mary says in her characteristic booming laugh. ‘Tell them, “Yes, I am brainwashed; brainwashed with the love of God.”’

We all laugh.

This conversation brings home to me a truth I hadn’t yet fully grasped: no one on the outside is safe.

It’s mid-February, and we’ve just finished morning service. Mary has initiated a planning session each morning just after six am, so we all sit on the floor, notebooks out, eyelids heavy after a long morning of prayer. She disappears into her room and comes out with a small whiteboard and a marker. She places them beside her on the living-room couch.

‘OK, girls,’ she says, rallying us as she licks her tongue and flicks through her Bible. Her index finger punches the spot. ‘Corinthians nine, twenty-two to twenty-three. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. We need to be whatever those who are still lost need us to be. And how do we do that?’

We all look at each other, then back at her, apprehension masking as readiness.

‘We learn about them. Everything we can.’

Mary places her Bible down and picks up the marker. ‘This is our evangelism whiteboard, which we’ll use from now on. I need you to give me the names of all the newcomers you’re meeting with and getting to know. Niamh, go.’

Niamh rattles off about six or seven names: she’s the expert evangeliser here. How on earth she keeps up with all these people, I don’t know.

Mary transcribes them quickly on the board. ‘Good. OK, Ruth?’

Ruth provides about four names and Mary writes them up. She goes through the rest of the group: Ariana, Gemma, Lara, Kristen, Annie, me. She passes over Jisoo, because she doesn’t speak much English.

I only have two names to offer: women I’d met in the Canberra Centre in the past few weeks who expressed interest in our modelling group on campus, flattered, and whom I’d subsequently been able to meet for coffee to talk them through our offering. At the end we have about twenty-five names. Once they’re all written down, Mary speaks again.

‘We need to start being more organised. I want you to work hard to get to know these people, OK? You need to find out about them; be a detective. Be wise like a serpent. Everyone who is called will come, but you must do your job. Ask them questions about themselves – find out what they’re worried about, what their traumas are, what problems they have. You need to show them we have the answer.’ She says the last sentence with her hand on her heart, eyes narrowed – both earnest and cunning.

We nod. It makes sense. I’m familiar with the serpent reference from the Bible, as an instruction from Jesus to His disciples in the book of Matthew. It briefly crosses my mind that the second half of the verse ‘and innocent as a dove’ goes without mention, but it must be assumed.

‘When you find it out, write up a report for me with what you have learned.’ Mary continues lecturing. ‘Email it to me. Update me whenever you meet with them, what happens. I need to know in detail so I can help you to nurture them. Ruth and Niamh already talk to me, but I need us all to do it.’

We nod again.

She then asks us for the next date we’re meeting with each of our targets. She writes it down. If we don’t have one yet, we need to organise one for the next week. I look over at Niamh. She’s quiet, unreadable. She has a lot more work to do now, and I wonder if she can manage meeting individually with seven newcomers in the next week along with everything else.

‘Ruth, you take over these two from Niamh,’ Mary says, as if she’d read my mind. ‘You will be better for them. They are Christians, and they like the Bible.’

Now I worry about Ruth. Niamh is busy studying, but Ruth works full time.

‘OK,’ Ruth replies, but I detect a hint of unease in her voice.

Since Ruth was brought up in a religious home, she seems to know what to say to Christian newcomers. Her father is a pastor and she grew up in fundamentalist Christianity, just like I did – perhaps even more devout. Like me, she already believed in God and the Bible when she was evangelised into Providence.

Niamh, however, was raised secularly, so she understands what it is to find faith as an adult, and the questions and doubts that most non-religious people normally have. She understands the reasonable entry points and can act as a guide for the uninitiated.

These women shine in complementary ways. I understand so much more now why they tag-team, and why they did so with me while I was learning the Bible studies. I got whom Mary felt I needed at each point.

‘We will start our modelling group soon, so we need enough newcomers to show up,’ Mary continues. ‘Ruth and Niamh will run it at first, but Liz, SSN says you are the model for Australia. So you’ll watch them run it for a while, and then when you’re ready, you can take over.’

‘OK, that sounds good,’ I say, relieved I’m not expected to run things from the get-go.

‘Annie, you need to go to the modelling classes too. It’s important you learn to model and to teach.’

‘I don’t feel like I’m …’ she laughs self-consciously ‘… cut out for modelling. Can I focus on learning the 30 Lessons and teaching them to newcomers instead?’ The 30 Lessons are what I now understand to be the Bible studies we’re taught to bring us into Providence. They slowly reveal important principles of the Bible, and eventually the Complete Testament and SSN, to newcomers. It’s how anyone and everyone is brought in.

‘No.’ Mary is emphatic. ‘Modelling is our focus this year for bringing in God’s people. You need to be a part of it.’

‘Yep, OK,’ Annie replies quietly, looking down and fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

‘When you tell people about modelling, make sure you don’t say we’re a church. We’re just a self-development group. It’s OK to lie. It’s a higher purpose than what they can understand yet, so it’s in their best interests. Unless they’re Christians, and you think they’ll be more interested in the group because of that, then you can mention Bible studies. OK?’

I feel that small, now-familiar knot in my stomach. I get that we don’t share that we’re a church to all our newcomers. I know this is for their own sake. Maybe, if I push past the necessary lie, I’ll be able to embrace the excitement and intrigue of feeling like some kind of special agent for God.

20

DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE

APRIL 2012

We settle into a fast-paced routine over the next couple of months. Uni is in full swing; I’m working through my first semester of classes. I’ve secured myself a part-time job in a coffee shop on Lonsdale Street, mostly working mornings from six or seven am. This means I have time to do pre-dawn prayer, morning service and breakfast beforehand, and then work until early afternoon on the days I don’t have morning lectures. I brew myself pots of green tea behind the counter between customer rushes.

In a past life, I would’ve been delighted to work with the cafe crew I do now. The cafe itself is one of the trendiest in Canberra, and it’s run and staffed by an edgy, hipster-type crowd. They swear and drink and talk about clubbing and sex as I pray under my breath to help keep my mind pure. Though I’d have jumped at the chance previously, I decline invitations to hang out outside of work.

I become known as the ‘innocent Christian girl’ once more. I’m liked enough, but I can tell people can’t work me out. After I finish my shift at around two pm, I’m given a free toastie of my choice, which I, ravenous at that point, devour. I feel hungrier nowadays, and it makes me anxious. Mary reassures me that it’s normal to be hungrier when you’re as busy and sleeping as little as we are.

Full-time uni is a lot to factor in on top of the rest of my schedule. We maintain our daily morning pre-dawn prayer and services, pray in the middle of the day and each evening, take turns editing numerous sermons, proverbs and revelations in our downtime (it’s a blessing: gives us the opportunity to really absorb the Word), run two Sunday services per week (one for us, and an adapted one for newcomers and parents), a Wednesday evening service, Friday prayer night, and we keep up with a meticulous chore and cooking schedule. I also write to SSN each week, sending my letters through Mary.

With the apprehension of preparing for the Rapture, while also adapting to a new job and a full-time uni schedule, and no time to be still, my stomach is always churning and pulsing with a nervous energy that doesn’t quite go away. That at least helps to keep my appetite in check, along with my anxieties about food.

SSN is constantly preaching about the importance of staying physically fit. This means that Mary won’t see my compulsion to exercise as a sinful distraction, and the strong urge I have to tone down my zappy nerves by moving my body won’t be scrutinised as it was by my mother. I exercise right after morning service if I don’t have to run to work, walking up to the back of Mt Ainslie and down again, followed by a short routine on the floor of my room. I try to do it when Lara isn’t around, because I know she’s recovering from an eating disorder as well, and I don’t want to make her feel weird. I skip meals occasionally. It’s not that I’m trying to starve myself again. I’ve just got more important things to do.

Since we’ve been told to meet as many people as possible, we’ve all bumped up our goal numbers under Mary’s instruction. We all go out to meet people on campus daily, even though most of the women in the big old house don’t attend the university.

I learn how not to be intimidated by an icy reception, how to smile through it confidently, persist. I’m getting a feel for body language, recognising who is more open to engaging with a stranger. Inside, I feel deeply uneasy, bone tired, anxious. But these strangers, I discover, are just as insecure as I am, and as lost as I was – and I’m not lost anymore. I can help them.

Classes are fine: more of an inconvenience than a joy, though sometimes they’re interesting. I have far more important priorities to attend to. Where before I would’ve worked hard to excel, I now simply hope I pass. Korean is harder than I thought it would be, but I’m excited to learn SSN’s native language. Maybe one day soon, I’ll be able to write to him in Korean.

Mary has begun to insinuate that she doesn’t even think I need to be enrolled in university, and floats the suggestion of just pretending to be a student, so I’m not distracted from doing our urgent work. I tell her I’ll think about it.

She reminds us we’re in God’s army, and we must be perfect, including in our day-to-day habits. I’m learning that even a small transgression or forgotten chore is a direct reflection of our spiritual condition, and must be taken seriously. Becoming perfect, we can’t overlook the menial aspects of our lives – they’re fundamental to our salvation as well.

Most mornings now after service and our operational meeting, Mary walks us around the house authoritatively, us all trailing behind in an apprehensive clump, and points out where we’ve done a less-than-perfect job of cleaning. One morning, someone leaves a rubber band in the sink. She points aggressively to the offending item, looking at all of us as we stand there, sheepish and silent.

‘From last night. Someone needs to own up to this. Who is it?’

More silence. I’m begging for someone to speak up; she’s getting frustrated.

‘We’ll all need to do more chores this weekend if no one tells me who this was.’

Gemma’s and my eyes are wide as we look at the group, imploring someone to pipe up. Finally, Kristen quietly steps forwards like a deer in headlights, mouth characteristically gaping open. ‘Um … sorry,’ she says, terrified. She hates confrontation. ‘I think that might’ve been me.’

Mary launches into a huge lecture, shaming her in front of all of us. ‘This happens a lot with you, Kristen. You forget things. You miss things. You’re untidy and lazy. I’ve seen your room. Mess everywhere.’ Poor Kristen curls her shoulders forwards and bows her head, copping it.

Mary then addresses all of us. ‘I’ve seen this too often. Every morning, there’s something. Gemma is the only one who doesn’t make mistakes like this.’ Gemma looks down to hide her smile of vindication. I wish I was Gemma right now.

‘We need to be better. I’m starting a list with everyone’s name on it and we’ll put it up on the wall. Every time someone leaves something out, doesn’t clean properly, or forgets to do their assigned chores in time, a black mark will be added next to their name. Three black marks equals an extra chore. You’ll do window washing, or cleaning the gutters, or scrubbing the kitchen. OK?’

‘OK,’ we all respond quietly.

‘Ladies. This is for your own good.’ She punctuates the last two words with claps.

When I come home from my lectures later that day, I see a white sheet on the wall in the dining room. All our names are there in one column, a black strike against Kristen’s name in the next.

I’m at the top of a flight of stairs in a strange house, staring down an empty white corridor. I walk down the corridor, my footsteps echoing on wooden parquet flooring, and look into the first room I come across. It’s box-shaped and painted stark white as well, with pretty white trim and a large window looking out onto a tree growing in an enclosed courtyard. It’s an evergreen tree, tall, its leafy branches nearly brushing the glass pane. It feels peaceful and bright with the sunlight streaming in through the leaves.

Something catches my eye in the branches. I walk right up to the window for a better look. It’s an old-fashioned doll, perched in the crook of a branch against the trunk, facing off to the side. She’s wearing a tattered white lace dress with a matching cap, messy ringlets of blonde hair poking out this way and that underneath it.

Suddenly, to my horror, her head begins to rotate in my direction. I see twisted crimson lips forming a manic grimace below dead, black eyes. Her mouth hinges open. Laughs. It’s not a delicate laugh. It’s deep and mocking and guttural.

I duck below the windowsill in a terrified panic while the laughter booms around me. I cup my hands over my ears, crouching, waiting for it to pass.

It finally dies down to an echo, and then everything falls silent. I stay under the windowsill until I gather the courage to army-crawl out of the room and hide behind the doorway in the corridor, breathing heavily.

Slowly, I peek back through the door at the window to see if the doll is still there, and my breath catches in my throat. Dead bodies in long white gowns are hanging from their necks, ropes tied to the branches of the tree. Feet swinging gently, hair obscuring their faces. I cover my mouth with my hand to stop myself from screaming.

The doll appears again, this time standing on the window ledge like a jump scare. That bright red gash of a smile.

‘You’re next,’ she says in her deep voice. More laughter.

I wake up terrified, with tears streaming down my face. I relay the dream to Mary over breakfast, who tells me it was another satanic attack. I need to be on my guard. Tears prick my eyes as I crack an egg into a pan.

‘I’ve been having dreams almost every night lately,’ I sniffle. ‘Horror-movie dreams. I’ve barely ever watched horror at all. It’s really frightening me. I don’t know why it’s happening.’

‘This is what happens when you’re not working hard enough. Demons target you, get into your mind. You’re giving them a way in somehow. Pray more.’ She seems almost irritated, like she doesn’t have time to talk about something as silly as demonic attacks in dreams.

Lara walks into the kitchen behind us and grunts a sullen good morning.

‘Morning, beautiful girl,’ Mary responds brightly. She giggles and gives her a playful slap on the bum. Lara jumps a bit and doesn’t smile back.

I’ve noticed lately that Lara walks around with a dark cloud over her. Her normal brightness is waning. She’s taken herself off the roster for service next week and is going to spend the day with her family. I wonder if that’s even allowed. In the mornings, when I rise at three am, she’s still fast asleep, and stays that way for longer than any of us would dare.

I worry for Lara as I drag myself out of bed in the dark. She’ll walk into our morning services in her pink dressing gown, expression resentful, shoulders hunched, auburn hair framing her face like the girl in The Grudge. Sometimes she doesn’t even show up for morning service, opting to sleep in until seven. What is she doing? Doesn’t she want to rapture? Amid my worry, an uglier impulse surfaces – judgement. I take inventory of this so I can repent later.

To my surprise, Mary coddles Lara. She treats her with warmth and affection, praising her when she cooks or organises the song list for a service. She playfully calls her ‘my favourite girl’, a title that seems to be passed around between us on a daily or weekly basis.

In contrast, praise for the rest of us is scarce. I miss being told I’m impressing Mary; my efforts now seem to constitute the bare minimum. ‘She’s being extra gentle with Lara,’ Ruth tells me confidentially one evening. ‘She’s not having an easy time, and Mary knows if she pushes her, she’ll just leave.’

One morning after service, which Lara has skipped entirely, I hear a heated conversation taking place behind the kitchen door. It’s Lara and Mary. I’d avoid the kitchen, but I need breakfast to function, so I walk in as quietly as possible, scooting past them as if I hadn’t noticed the palpable tension.

Mary starts speaking in low, urgent tones, so I can’t hear. She’s appealing to Lara, frustrated. Lara is pretty unresponsive. She’s sitting on the bench, in her dressing gown again, hair messy, just out of bed.

If her companion lately has been a dark cloud, now suddenly it’s a thunderstorm. And it’s directed at Mary. I both secretly admire Lara’s courage – I could never – and feel oddly protective of Mary. She’s just trying to help us all, to lead us.

Neither acknowledges me as I tiptoe around, opening cupboards and lighting a burner under my frying pan. Instead, they head to Lara’s and my shared room to continue talking.

That evening at dinner, over Ruth’s bolognese, Lara is notably absent. Also, I realise suddenly, Ariana hasn’t been around for the past few days. I feel bad I haven’t reached out to see where she is: I’ve just been so busy.

Mary is late, and when she comes in she sits down in a huff, chewing slowly, not talking. I exchange a look with Kristen, who purses her lips. We avoid the elephant in the room for a while, Ruth and Niamh carrying much of the conversation. Suddenly, Mary pipes up.

‘I just got an email from headquarters. A member from their modelling department has been told by SSN himself to go to Australia. And she’s coming to live with us in Canberra.’

‘What!? Wow!’ we all chime in. Annie and Ruth are smiling. This is exactly what we need. I feel so far from fit to teach other women to model. It’ll give us a bit more legitimacy, too.

‘She will be amazing in helping us teach. She was a professional catwalk model – that was her full-time job. But she gave it up to be in Providence and teach other girls how to evangelise through modelling. She will sleep in Liz’s room. Liz, you will take care of her,’ Mary says, obviously feigning brightness. I’m confused. Before I can respond, Annie jumps in.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Duri. We met her once in Korea at lunch, remember. She doesn’t speak much English – yet. She will learn.’

I do remember. We first met her in Seoul at one of the many social lunches we had on the trip. Duri was magnanimous, larger than life and, of course, tall and exquisite-looking, with a curtain of near-black hair. We communicated in halting Konglish.

I’m excited to have her around, and to introduce her to Australia. But first, I have questions: I’m just a bit scared to stick my head on the chopping block while Mary is in a strange mood.

‘So … where will Lara sleep, then?’ I finally ask.

There’s a pause before Mary responds. ‘Lara will be moving out. She’s not ready to work hard. We need to manage her carefully,’ Mary replies. ‘Niamh, make sure you text her every day to check in. OK?’

‘Yep, OK, what about every second day? I don’t want to be too much,’ she replies.

‘Whatever. That’s fine,’ Mary replies, dismissively. ‘Ruth, you text her on the other days.’

‘Sure.’

More silence. I’m deeply concerned for Lara’s salvation and I’m burning to know what happened, what they talked about earlier, but I’ll ask someone else later to see if they have any intel.

‘So, when will Duri arrive?’ I ask instead, to redirect the conversation.

‘Two weeks,’ Mary says.

‘How exciting – I can’t wait! She’s so fun!’

‘Someone I can speak more Korean with.’ Jisoo smiles. Her English is getting far better, in no small part due to Kristen taking a shine to her and them hanging out at all hours.

‘Yeah, she was cool,’ Annie says. ‘Hopefully she can finally teach me how to walk like a model.’ And then quickly, to Ruth and Niamh, ‘Not that you guys weren’t good at teaching me! I just suck!’ She laughs.

‘No you don’t – you’re doing so well!’ We reassure her, but I know it doesn’t sink in. I sense the matter is finished. She’s told me privately she feels painfully awkward pretending to pose, strut and wear heels. She’s a country girl. But we all have to change ourselves, improve. Discomfort is normal.

‘So, um,’ Gemma begins, attempting to change the subject, ‘I also haven’t seen Ariana lately. I miss her! Is she staying somewhere else for a bit?’

Kristen widens her eyes and looks down. Ruth and Niamh are on edge, suddenly fixated on winding pasta onto their forks. I’m so confused. I know Ariana lives a busy life – she’s studying full time and is a social butterfly, but she hasn’t been here for a few days now. Her mattress is still on the floor, sheets tucked in sloppily.

‘She wasn’t called,’ says Mary. ‘She has too many of her own thoughts, so she had to leave.’ This is code for ‘not spiritual enough’: she hasn’t cleansed her mind through repentance and the Word. I know Ariana had a male best friend, too; she wouldn’t give him up. That’s heavily frowned upon. Satan will use a friendship like that to get you to fall sexually.

It’s a heartbreaking thought: that our beautiful friend, who we’d grown close to, has been claimed by Satan. It makes the threat of spiritual attack feel all the more real, and I make up my mind to be more vigilant.

‘Sometimes these things happen,’ Niamh says gently. She’s switched to nurture mode, sensing the mood. ‘But we’ll miss her. I’m just happy I have all of you. We’re meeting so many new beautiful girls who are excited to do modelling with us. Lots to look forward to.’

The attempt at a positive tone shift sits oddly with me. It feels like we’ve just been informed of a death. And I know there’s far greater punishment for those who leave after learning the whole truth. Much better to never have learned it in the first place. Shouldn’t we try to save her?

Mary is looking down, picking at her pasta with a sour expression.

Later, Kristen knocks on my bedroom door, the bedroom I briefly have all to myself. ‘Do you know what actually happened with Ariana?’ she whispers, conspiratorially. She loves gossip more than anyone else in here – a spiritual struggle for her – but right now, I’m grateful she does.

‘No? What do you mean?’

‘Mary never liked her,’ she begins, her voice a mixture of glee and horror. ‘Yeah, she told her she had to get rid of the guy best friend, you know, but honestly, I think it was just an excuse to kick her out of the house.’

‘No way,’ I reply, intrigued. ‘I didn’t think they were close, but I didn’t know Mary disliked her that much.’

Kristen continues. ‘She kept saying to Niamh and Ruth that we weren’t meant to evangelise her. Because she’s …’ Kristen lowers her voice and nudges the bedroom door closed ‘… not white.’

‘Wait. What …?’

‘Like, SSN says to evangelise only the race that represents the country you’re in, right? Which SSN says for Australia is white people. She only wants us to meet white women. Ariana is Malaysian. She hated her from the start.’

My sensibilities prickle with the word ‘hate’. It seems too extreme, too crude an emotion for anyone in Providence, let alone an experienced head leader. And the assertion that Australia is primarily a ‘white’ country doesn’t sit right, but perhaps I’m just not understanding SSN’s reasoning.

Kristen continues. ‘So she got impatient when Ariana didn’t do everything she told her to. Had no patience for her growth, not like for you guys. Said she needed to leave the house three days ago. Straight up. Kicked her out of Providence.’

‘I actually can’t get my head around this. So she doesn’t like her because of her race? And then, she’s kicked out of Providence – like, that’s the literal equivalent of being banished to hell!’ I hiss, still trying to keep my voice down. ‘That’s not … fair,’ I say, weakly.

‘Then – and you won’t believe this – when Mary told her, Ariana slapped her in the face.’

‘No!’

‘That’s what I heard. Niamh told me.’

I’m trying to make sense of what I’m hearing and integrate it into my understanding of Providence. Mary can be harsh, but that’s her way – the Korean way, she tells us. More blunt. ‘Australians are weaker,’ she says, ‘they need to be approached more softly, or you’ll scare them away. You can be as harsh as you want with Asians. They’re mentally stronger. They receive it well.’ A veiled insult to ‘too soft’ Australians. I say I want to be told when I’m wrong, but in truth I crumble underneath any form of rebuke, and she knows that.

Mary is soft and forgiving with Lara, a white Australian, despite Lara’s rebellion. And I’ve noticed she’s harsh with Kristen – perhaps that’s why Kristen is terrified of her – and it seems she’s applied the same approach to Ariana. I tell myself this, because I can’t bring myself to believe that Mary is … racist.

Then my protectiveness kicks in. ‘I can’t believe she slapped Mary.’

‘I know, right,’ Kristen says, and I can’t tell what the subtext is. Kristen is Chinese by heritage, first generation Aussie. I wonder if she now feels she’s walking on thin ice with Mary.

‘But Kristen …’ I begin, unsure of how to address this, ‘Mary isn’t white. Neither are you. Neither is Jisoo, and neither was Sang Hee.’

‘Well, Koreans are different, naturally.’ Kristen rolls her eyes. ‘Missionaries. With me, I don’t know. I think I just came at the right time, to help build the church here. And I know to do what I’m told.’

I don’t know what to say, so I just nod slowly, processing.

21

TRIANGULATION

APRIL TO MAY 2012

Duri arrives in Australia, glamorous and flamboyant, lugging two enormously heavy suitcases behind her containing, among other things, an inordinate number of impractical shoes. Her dynamic energy lifts everyone’s spirits, especially after Lara moving out and Ariana leaving altogether. I’ve never been close to a professional model, and I can’t help but be a bit dazzled by her diva personality.

I help Duri get settled in my room; she takes Lara’s old bed and dresser drawers. As she unpacks, she pulls out cute tops and dresses, parading around confidently in them while I make impressed noises. We converse in Konglish.

‘I need to go into … shop,’ she says, when her stuff is all put away. ‘Can you show?’ She enunciates exaggeratedly, gesturing at herself when she says ‘I’ and at me when she says ‘you’.

‘Oh, of course!’ I have an afternoon free of classes, for once, before we head in to teach modelling in the evening on campus. We usually teach two to three classes per week. ‘Walk together? I can show you.’ I find myself enunciating exaggeratedly as well, mirroring her.

We head out and walk into the city, chatting as much as our linguistic differences allow. She’s of course far better at English than I am at Korean, but she needs to learn fluent English as quickly as she can so she can move around the city by herself. I try to help her get her mouth around the R and L sounds, which happens to be one phoneme in Korean. It’s a tricky tongue placement: her Rs sound like Ls and vice versa, and trying harder just means she makes a more aggressive noise. We both laugh. ‘It’s difficult, I know!’ I say. ‘Di-fi-curlt,’ she says.

Duri soon gets lost in the high-end stores at the top level of the mall, rifling through the racks of expensive clothes. She buys two new pairs of shoes. I live hand-to-mouth, with most of my money going to rent, tithes and food, but I suppose she might have some money saved from her modelling career. Apparently she was on billboards and buses in South Korea.

Duri is, to my delight, a big foodie. On the way back home, we pass a takeaway shop just outside the mall, and she sees a picture of hot chips – apparently not common in South Korea. She insists we go inside and buy some.

When she discovers you can get cheese baked onto the chips, she nearly loses her mind. We pick at an enormous cup of them all the way home. The nervous churning in my stomach is happening more often these days, so I only have a few and make a big show of it. I’m relieved she doesn’t seem to notice or care.

Duri is quick to take up the mentor mantle when it comes to modelling. She begins by teaching me when I have spare time. Wearing high heels, I strut back and forth in the church room out the back, over and over again. I quickly find it’s an infinitely more precise exercise than when Niamh or Ruth were teaching me. Duri has a keen eye, and knows exactly how it should be done. I think she enjoys being able to boss me around as well, and I don’t mind.

‘Chest forwards,’ she tells me, placing her hand on her chest and jutting it forwards as she walks a few steps, her expression fierce.

‘I thought it was legs forwards?’

‘No. Chest forwards.’

I walk again.

‘Steps too short. Make longer.’

I walk again.

‘Stop! Like this.’ She demonstrates.

It continues for an hour or so. Tiny, almost imperceptible tweaks. I didn’t realise this would be such serious work.

The rare times I get something right, Duri claps her hands together and nods vigorously.

Soon, Mary instates morning modelling practice right after our service and planning. Our daily pre-breakfast routine is now a few hours long. I’m a little envious of Kristen, Gemma and Jisoo, who can disappear after our planning sessions, as none of them has been tasked with running and teaching modelling.

The rest of us go out to the little studio in the backyard, heels in hand, flick the lights on, and stand to attention. Mary watches Duri teach Ruth, Niamh, Annie and me with a keen eye. We try to be patient as we’re corrected over and over, Duri making no concessions for bad form.

Annie struggles the most. I know she hates being observed; she would far rather be working diligently behind a laptop screen or praying. Unfortunately, she’s also not great with moving her body the way Duri requires. She has a congenital heart condition and has spent her life protecting herself and her body, not trying to turn it into a decoration. Her body and spatial awareness work differently from ours. The instructions ‘Move more like this,’ ‘Copy me,’ or ‘Shoulders back,’ only make her contort her body into stranger and stranger positions.

We watch with growing impatience as Duri spends almost twenty frustrating minutes trying to physically mould Annie’s body into a satisfactory shape. We all have so much to get on with, it’s hard to stand still. We say nothing. Two steps is all it takes for Duri to yell, ‘Stop!’ and Annie begins again. Mary frowns as she watches, silently judging the proceedings.

The longer it goes on, the more poor Annie shuts down, shrinks inside herself. I can see the frustration and shame in her eyes; I think she’s close to tears, but she never complains. Duri is growing equally frustrated with her unmouldable subject, which makes for a tense session.

Though I feel for Annie, I’m ashamed to admit to myself that it gives me some kind of satisfaction that I can, effortlessly, do something better than she can. Mimicking the confidence in Duri’s step, the subtle tilt of her chin, the swish of her arms as she walks, feels natural. I don’t have to think about it. I’m no professional – far from it – but I know how to move.

I feel like this makes up for Annie excelling in every area that I don’t. A few nights ago, I walked the paved path through the backyard to the studio in the cool night to pray before bed as I sometimes do. I was looking forward to an empty room, so I could pray out loud, air my feelings and escape the always-busy house. No distractions, just me and God. A catharsis.

But as I slowly opened the glass sliding door, in the dim light of the lamp I could make out Annie’s form. Kneeling forwards, silent, a blanket over her knees. How long has she been here? I thought. I kneeled to pray.

I’d only planned on praying for half an hour or so that evening in order to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Surely Annie would finish up soon, and I’d have the place to myself. I was able to focus for a while, but she didn’t leave. She just kneeled there, sometimes rocking back and forth, sometimes still, sometimes pausing to write in her journal.

I know we aren’t supposed to compare, but I made up my mind I couldn’t leave until after she did. I didn’t want to appear less spiritual. Twenty minutes passed. I began praying in tongues. Out of frustration, if anything. Or maybe to make a point. I shouldn’t have to adjust my own prayer session to accommodate her.

Instead of getting up and leaving, in a few minutes Annie started praying out loud in tongues. I thought, Is she copying me? Competing with me? When I got louder, she got louder. I couldn’t tell if she was just feeling inspired and joining me in solidarity or whether it was more malicious. The frustration bubbling up in my chest made me feel more inclined to believe the latter. I channelled it into my prayer.

Thirty minutes passed, then one hour. It was getting closer and closer to the red zone for me: the time at which I absolutely need to go to bed, or I know from experience I can’t function for pre-dawn prayer and service the next day.

I finally gave in, grabbed my journal and pen, and got out of there. My face felt hot. What on earth was that? I thought.

The next morning, only four hours later, I ventured back out in the dark to the studio for pre-dawn prayer. Only soft distant bird noises announced that sunrise was a couple of hours away. As I opened the sliding door, I felt a lightning bolt of anger in my chest to see Annie, still there.

I felt the anger morph into a liquid envy that dripped slowly down the walls of my ribcage. Envy of her, anger at myself, my body, my own physical and mental limitations, my lack of resolve. Then shock at myself for feeling so strongly about someone else’s spiritual life. I spent that morning in the studio repenting in tears for letting envy take hold of my heart.

When Mary first told Annie and me that we were each other’s counterparts, this warmed our hearts. Months later, I suppose it’s true. What I excel at, Annie struggles with, and vice versa – more or less.

But unlike Ruth and Niamh, who appear to be best friends, who strengthen each other as they weather storms and generously fill in each other’s gaps, the relationship between Annie and me feels like we rub salt in each other’s wounds. We highlight what is lacking in the other without even trying, and Mary never fails to point it out.

We’re heading into the cooler months. Duri and I have been moved into the primary bedroom, while Kristen and Jisoo, virtually inseparable, have moved to our old room. Ruth, Annie, Duri and I share the primary now, with two beds and two futons, taking turns in the morning to shower in the en suite. Niamh shares a smaller bedroom with Gemma. Since Sang Hee has gone back to South Korea, Mary has her own room.

We’ve set up a website for our modelling group on campus, and Ruth organises business cards for me to hand out. Liz Cameron, it says. Modelling Coach at Inner Beauty Modelling. It feels very professional. I, on the other hand, do not.

I head out for my exercises daily after our morning rituals. SSN’s ongoing advice on the health of the body, and the importance of healthy eating and vigorous exercise, provides easy justification for me to kick it up a notch. I can feel a familiar tightening creeping into my routine.

Everyone admires my adherence to exercise, and Mary praises it. Mary’s praise has taken on a sharp edge, though. It’s more glowing than ever, like the sun is shining on you, but the edge is that everyone else is in icy shade. You just enjoy your time in the spotlight when it comes.

Over dinner one night, she praises me. ‘Liz is doing well. She never misses pre-dawn prayer. Up at the same time each morning. She exercises every day.’

This is true: as my routine increasingly tightens, screws groaning under the pressure, I cling to rigidity and structure. Waking up on the dot of three am. Praying for an hour and thirty minutes. Morning service. Meeting. Run. Floor exercises. Breakfast: four thin rounds of sweet potato, three cloves of garlic, one teaspoon of tahini, five rounds of zucchini and one fried egg. Bike to uni or walk to work.

I’ve managed to convince myself it’s commitment and integrity, not obsession. For now, I’m using it to my advantage. Inside, it feels like it’s simultaneously the only thing holding me together, and a slow and relentless torture.

Tonight, it’s clear that Mary is announcing my achievements for a reason – and here comes the shade.

‘Annie, you didn’t wake up for pre-dawn this morning. Slept through your alarms. You were late for morning service. And you eat too much. You don’t exercise. It’s not good enough,’ she says sternly, in front of us all.

Annie withers in shame. ‘I … I was inspired to set all-night prayer conditions for twenty-one days, and I just fell asleep for pre-dawn. I’m sorry, Mary.’ I’m astounded. Annie is literally attempting to not sleep for three weeks straight. I look around the table to see if anyone else is as shocked as I am at this admission. Blank faces stare back at me.

‘If you can’t manage pre-dawn, then you can’t manage all-night prayer,’ Mary replies. Annie nods, humiliated. I have a moment of vindication after the late-night run-in in the studio. Then I feel ugly inside.

22

ISOLATED BY FAITH

MAY 2012

Every Monday, Wednesday and sometimes Thursday evening, after a hurried dinner, those of us who help to teach modelling meet on campus in the room we’ve booked. It’s a classroom, so we stack tables and chairs up against the walls to make space for walking. We sometimes have six or seven students join us, and they’re all as impressed with Duri’s expertise and skill as I am. A real-life professional model.

The class runs for a couple of hours, starting with walking and posing practice, which takes about forty-five minutes. Duri is softer when she instructs them, but still characteristically particular. We’re planning on holding a runway show at the end of the year, and we’ve picked out a dance to practise as well. Jisoo teaches it to us back at home in segments, and we then teach it to the modelling girls. It feels fun and light-hearted, spending time with all the students, chatting and laughing together.

Towards the end of the session, we all sit around while Niamh leads the self-development portion of the class. She reads watered-down proverbs from SSN, which she’s adapted to make as relevant, secular and accessible as possible. She teaches as inspiringly as ever, relatable and warm. I can tell she makes many of the girls here feel like I did when I first met her.

I’m proud to say I was the one who met a couple of the girls who now attend the modelling class. I worked hard to build rapport with them, including sending reports to Mary about their likes, dislikes, worries, traumas, and following her instructions on how to communicate with them in order to win their trust.

In my previous life, it might have struck me as odd, but I now understand. It was done to me. We do whatever we can to save people. There’s no way they’d understand upfront if we told them about the Second Coming. But if we can understand their hearts, we can show them the answers they so desperately need.

I genuinely like and care for these girls. I want to help them. I start being seen as a friend by many of them, to the point that they even begin to invite me to dinners at their sharehouses. Yet I know I can’t truly integrate myself into their lives in an authentic way because of the life I lead, which creates a gnawing sense of guilt in me. Mary encourages me to go to everything I’m invited to anyway, in order to build rapport.

As I’m spending all my spare time immersed in the world of Providence, the girls’ questions throw me. ‘What do you do in your spare time?’ Pray, edit sermons and read the Bible. ‘Have you heard that new Triple J song yet?’ We only listen to old hymns and Providence music. ‘Are you dating anyone?’ I’m a bride of the Holy Son.

I can’t share any of that. I have no way to relate to them. As I’ve been trained, I turn it back on them. I learn to listen.

For me and these girls to truly become close, the only option is for them to come into Providence. But I just can’t bring myself to push them, to reach through the membrane between us and rupture it. Once I do, there’s no coming back: they will see me for who I am, and will either want the truth, or reject it – and our friendship.

At times, with shame, I ache with the desire to go back in time and be as relatively carefree as them. Sleeping in, socialising for the sake of it, resting. If I’d never learned about Providence, I’d be oblivious about the Rapture.

But I can’t let myself think that way: it’s evil. Whenever I feel that pull on my heart, I repent under my breath. ‘I’m so sorry I would ever desire not to be in Your will, Lord. I love you. Thank You for choosing me.’

I’m heading into my first exam period at university. My days are split between work, uni, modelling classes, my usual Providence responsibilities and catching up with potential recruits for coffee and brunches and ad-hoc modelling practice. Mary tells me I’ll need to quit uni next year, because having a degree is pointless as a Faith Star. Providence should be my sole focus. But for now, she says, it’s useful for a valid excuse to be on campus.

Sometimes, I head to the arts faculty to study or edit some sermons. I’ve been keeping my family at arm’s length under Mary’s instruction, but I’ve finally agreed to meet Dad at the cafe on campus, which means I’ll get a free lunch.

Dad’s late, which has become increasingly the norm, as he’s still forgetting things here and there. I worry he’ll get lost on the enormous campus, but fifteen minutes in, he arrives. It’s not until then that I realise how much I’ve missed him.

‘Heya, Lizzie!’ he exclaims, and pulls me into a huge bear hug. I smell leather and washing powder. I love his hugs. With his towering frame, I’m completely enveloped in his arms. I find myself melting into it as I’m reminded of a care that’s become alien to me these past few months. Unconditional, not because of a shared truth, but because of blood.

Happy as I am to catch up with him, I have to stay on my guard. I know the last time he came close to seeing me, he was stonewalled by the leaders at our home before I was secretly whisked out of the state, and then the country, in Ruth’s van. But he acts like nothing happened, and I appreciate him for that.

‘Ooh, I think I’ll get the meat pie,’ he says, glancing over at the pastries near the counter. ‘What can I order for you, Lizzie?’

‘Um,’ I say, poring over the menu, trying to work out what the safest option might be. ‘How about the … quiche.’ I hope it doesn’t have pastry around it.

‘So, how’s uni going, darling?’ he asks warmly.

‘It’s great!’ I reply, trying to match his energy. I comb through the small compartment in my brain that I reserve for my uni studies to find a topic of conversation that isn’t to do with Providence. ‘Yeah, actually, I’m learning about a theory in linguistics that’s really fascinating …’

We talk for a while about phonetics and syntax and culture. He engages enthusiastically. I remember how much I love talking with Dad, discussing intellectual ideas and drawing vast parallels between one theory and another. He’s a computer programmer with an advanced science degree. Almost in contradiction to this, he’s also got enormous faith in the supernatural and subscribes to the optimistic idea that everything will work out for good.

That’s something I’ve missed – him reassuring me that everything will work out – he always knew what to say. The balm I’ve sorely needed. I wish he could reassure me I’m going to make the Rapture.

As our meals come out, the conversation slowly turns to faith and God, as it often does with Dad. I talk about my prayer life, how hard I’m working to read the Bible regularly, what passages have inspired me lately.

‘Mmm, OK,’ he says. ‘Sounds like you’re working really hard, lovey. I hope it’s not too much – you know, especially in your first year of uni. Uni was such a fun time for me! Meeting new friends, learning new things, knocking around with the guys … I hope you’re taking full advantage of it. This is supposed to be the best time of your life!’

‘It is the best time of my life,’ I reply. ‘Uni is fine, but I’m happy focusing mainly on God. Isn’t that what matters most?’

There’s a long pause while Dad stares at me hard. Gearing up for a sermon, I can tell.

‘You know, Lizzie,’ he begins, ‘Jesus says salvation is freely given to all those who believe and repent of their sins. You don’t have to work so hard! The Lord gives rest to his children. There’s no rush. Just relax and know He loves you, darling.’

The gap between our meeting of minds suddenly widens insurmountably. He really thinks he’s done something, imparted some wisdom. He no longer exists on the same theological plane as I do, and only I can see that clearly. This is the time of brides, who step up and take responsibility. Being ‘children of God’ is the old way. His advice, once comforting and warm, now rings hollow. I can’t be vulnerable with him, or seek reassurance, because I’m so very far away. I’m the only one who can ensure I become perfect, rapture and find salvation.

I know Dad loves God with all his heart. It’s the most precious relationship in his life. I want to shake him, say, ‘Dad, it’s not like that anymore. You can find a higher truth. I’ve found it! Let me show you!’ But I know it won’t be received.

When the time comes to say goodbye, I put on a sunny front to make sure he doesn’t leave worrying about me. ‘Bye, Dad,’ I say, my voice muffled as I bury myself in another hug. He leaves, and I feel empty.

23

THE EMERGENCY ROOM

JULY 2012

We’re in the deepest part of winter, and it’s made all the more harsh due to the fact that Mary forbids us from using heaters except in the most extreme of circumstances. In an old double-brick home with high ceilings, this means it essentially operates as a four-bedroom, two-bathroom refrigerator. We close off the doors to the outer rooms in an attempt to conserve heat, which means the kitchen and dining room are perpetually freezing. You can see your breath in the air.

Duri jokingly calls it ‘Siberia’ when we venture into the kitchen to make breakfast together, with her scarf comically wrapped up around her neck and over her head. We all walk around the house wrapped from head to toe in heavy thermals from South Korea, jackets and thick woollen socks.

Semester two of uni has just begun, and with it, the modelling classes kick off again. This time Annie is also studying. She already has an honours degree, but, ever studious, she wants to take an ‘Eastern Religion’ unit to better understand the origins of SSN’s faith. I choose the same elective. Uni ‘break’ wasn’t really a break so much as weeks to dedicate more time to Providence, and I would still head to campus to evangelise. I was able to take on a few more shifts at the cafe as well, to try to hoard some money away to pay my rent when things are busier. Now we’re back into our regular routine.

My face looks drawn, and my lips are perpetually blue from cold. I wear big, baggy clothes over my thermals – partly because I’m freezing all the time, and partly because it hides my shrinking frame from others and, crucially, from myself. I’ve unintentionally lost weight due to ever-tightening rules – both internal and external.

Mary stipulates: work harder, sleep less, pray longer, eat healthier, exercise more, meet more people. Every new sermon or revelation or daily set of proverbs adds more requirements for attaining salvation, like falling Tetris blocks in a game that keeps speeding up.

The creeping darkness of the colder season casts a strange spell of heaviness over our big old house. We go out on fewer walks together, spend less time in the sun, and when our responsibilities are taken care of, we all prefer to retreat into our rooms and into ourselves.

Duri is having a particularly hard time with the cold. She comfort-eats, and mostly stays inside. She’s distressed at the weight gain she’s noticed. ‘My pants don’t fit anymore,’ she exclaims despairingly to anyone who will listen. She is isolated, with no friends outside our walls and a language barrier that prevents her from making any. We all try to encourage her to come out with us, join us for evangelism or grocery shopping. She rarely agrees.

Mealtimes lift her spirits, as they do for all of us: an excuse to come together and put warm food in our bellies. I love our mealtimes, too. It’s the only time I feel comfortable relaxing my food rules, purely because of the lack of control I have around what’s put in front of me. We all take turns to cook, sometimes pairing up, so it’s only my turn about once a week.

SSN is repeatedly telling us how he only sleeps for one hour now, because the time is near, and he prays at all hours of the day in prison for the salvation of God’s people. There are stories distributed to Providence branches across the world about people setting extreme conditions of ‘dying to themselves’: fasting for forty days straight, all-night prayer vigils, street evangelising for hours and hours a day, on and on. This is held up as the standard for spiritual rapture.

We’re all desperately earnest. Despite our relentless schedule, none of us in the big old house ever feels as though we’re doing enough to save ourselves, save others, please God and SSN. It’s a constant state of dire emergency. I feel it in my bones.

Much of this is spurred on by Mary, who constantly presses on us the need to be ‘elite’ as a church. She says we have it in us to be the best. I want to believe her, because she believes in us. ‘I’m training you like soldiers,’ she tells us. I never knew being a bride was this brutal.

With four of us in the one bedroom, there’s barely any floor space that isn’t covered by a mattress or futon. I wake up for predawn prayer at my usual time, pleased to find I’m the first one in the room awake so I have the bathroom all to myself. I drag myself out of the comfort of my heated blanket and rub my eyes, stumbling in the dark to the en suite and trying not to step on anyone.

I head to the bathroom and take a steaming hot shower, forever grateful I finished my cold shower condition months ago. As I dry myself off and begin to pull out my prayer clothes I’m suddenly hit with a scrunching, stretching pain in my lower abdomen. I grip the doorframe and hunch over, jaw hanging open, trying not to make an audible noise and wake the rest of the room up.

It’s searing, but after about five seconds, it passes. I pull air into my lungs, straightening myself up. ‘What was that?’ I whisper to myself. Perhaps it was just a menstrual cramp, though I haven’t bled since I moved into the big old house. I get on with dressing myself and head out into the living room for prayer. Mary and Niamh are already kneeling, casting long shadows under the soft light of the corner lamp.

No sooner have I closed my eyes than the pain grips me again. It’s like someone has reached through my abdominal wall and squeezed my organs, trying to tear them. I double over in my kneeling position, my forehead pressing against the cold wood floor. ‘Please make it stop, please make it stop,’ I pray under my breath.

Again, it passes, and I feel … rattled, but fine. I get back to praying, and I can hear more women kneeling around me. Maybe five minutes pass, and again, I’m hit with agonising pain. Stars go off in my eyes as I manage to stand, hunched, and stumble into the formal dining room to wait it out. I let out a muffled groan; I can’t help myself. I’m gasping for relief. At this point, Mary comes out, followed by Duri.

‘Liz. What’s going on?’ Mary demands.

‘I don’t know,’ I manage to get out as I brace myself against the dining table. ‘My lower stomach … pain is intense …’

I crouch, still holding onto the table, so I’m closer to the ground. I don’t know why.

Mary whips into action. She’s good like that. ‘Come into my room,’ she says, and grabs my hand. I follow her in and lie down where she instructs, on her mattress on the floor. Duri trails behind her.

‘Let me rub your stomach,’ she says. I pull up my big woollen jumper and pull down my waist-high skirt, my thermal still covering my torso.

‘Oh my gosh. Liz!’ Duri exclaims. ‘Look at your belly.’

I lift my head and look down. Between my jutting hip bones, my stomach is distended, with a huge bump on the left side.

Mary begins massaging my stomach in a clockwise motion. The pain has subsided for the time being, but the massage hurts. I tell her to stop, and then start groaning again as the pain kicks up.

‘We need Ruth,’ Mary says quickly, and disappears.

I lie there gritting my teeth while Duri sweetly tries to help make me more comfortable. In a few minutes, Ruth rushes in, clearly just having woken up. She takes one look at me and announces she’s taking me to the hospital.

‘Let’s go,’ she says calmly.

I’m grateful everyone is being so kind when I’ve ruined their mornings and interrupted Ruth’s sleep. ‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘Just let me wait this pai—’ I double over again ‘—ain out for a bit.’

When I unfurl, I follow her out the door into the dark of the early morning and into her white van, sitting up front. A very different view from our last trip. It’s still pitch black when we arrive at the emergency department, and Ruth helps me out of the car.

At not quite five am, the waiting room is virtually empty, but the nurse, stone-faced, tells us to sit down and wait. It seemingly takes ages, and I’m in agony.

‘Your face is a greyish-white,’ Ruth says in mild surprise. I think I might pass out.

Finally, an hour or so in, another nurse calls me into the ward, and I lie down on a hospital bed behind a blue curtain. Before long, a doctor – male, tall, strikingly handsome – comes in to talk to me.

‘What are you feeling right now?’ he asks.

I explain my symptoms, and he palpates my lower abdomen.

‘When was the last time you had a bowel movement?’ he asks.

‘Um,’ I pause to think. ‘Like … maybe ten days.’

I want to disappear.

‘OK, your bowel is extremely compacted. I’ll get an enema.’

I lie on my side, humiliated, and pull down the white skirt as he empties an almost comically oversized syringe into me. It takes three syringes and an hour and a half to get anything to move. Poor Ruth sits outside eating Arnott’s biscuits.

By the time we leave the ED, the sun is just beginning to peek up over the horizon, illuminating a blushing pink sky. The air is crisp and fresh; it smells like an optimism I’m unfamiliar with. Birds are singing. Ruth and I are silent.

I take a few days off work and uni to recover, which means I’m given a lot more to do by Mary for Providence. I text Mum briefly to tell her what happened. I haven’t seen her in months. She’s concerned, and I know I shouldn’t have said anything, but she’s still the first person I instinctively reach out to in a crisis like this. She knocks on the front door the same afternoon holding a container of freshly baked lemon cake, Gatorade, herbal tea. Niamh opens it before I get there, and Mary quickly joins her.

‘Oh, hi, hello,’ I hear Mum says shakily. ‘Is Lizzie here? I heard she hasn’t been well.’

‘Right here, Mum,’ I say from behind the other two. They’re still standing there, barring her entry, smiling tensely, as if to say, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Is it OK if I …? Can I come in for a tick?’

‘Yes, come in,’ Niamh replies, only allowing her a few steps past the front threshold.

‘Lizzie, you poor thing,’ Mum says, coming over to give me a hug. She’s jumpy, cautious. ‘I was so worried. Are you OK?’

‘I’m all good, Mum. It turns out I was just constipated. Embarrassing.’

‘Oh, darl, I’m worried about you,’ she fusses, lips drawn into a thin line. ‘Are you eating?’ She’s studying my face, and I wonder if she can tell I’m thinner underneath my baggy clothes. She’s imploring me with her eyes. Tell me the truth. ‘I was so shocked! If there’s anything I can do … Can I take you to a doctor?’

‘No, no, Cath, she’s fine. She saw a doctor in the ED, she’s all good now,’ Niamh interjects tersely. Mary gives me a look, still smiling, motions with her head. Come with me, now.

‘Well … here’s some supplies to keep you hydrated and fed. I hope everyone likes cake,’ Mum ventures with a weak, imploring smile. ‘You’re welcome to share it.’

‘Mum, I’m gonna go lie down now,’ I say, edging away. I can tell I’m already in trouble for letting her know about what happened, and I don’t want to make Mary more upset than I imagine she already is.

‘Oh, darling, OK, call me if you need anything, I’m here …’ Her voice is drowned out as I follow Mary into her bedroom.

When we’re inside, Mary closes the door and grabs my hands in hers, smile wiped from her face. ‘You’re in a weak state of mind right now. Let Niamh and me handle your mother.’

I understand it’s dangerous, but I wish I could talk to Mum alone for a bit. I can’t help wanting my mum. I’m touched by her sweetness in baking for me, and I miss her endless concern.

Mary heads back out, closing the door behind her. I can practically hear her plaster a smile back on again as they both chat with Mum, exchanging small talk, Niamh forcing a genial laugh here and there. The bedroom door is adjacent to the entrance to the living room, so I crack it open a little to listen.

‘You don’t have to worry, Cath, we’re taking very good care of her while she recovers,’ I can hear Niamh tell her, in her soft, sweet voice.

‘Will you make sure she eats? She looks very thin—’

‘Yes, of course, she’s eating well with us!’ Mary interjects, laughing indignantly. ‘We always have a big dinner together. She eats a lot.’

‘Thanks for coming – it’s so nice of you. We’ll make sure she’s fine,’ Niamh soothes. I can hear footsteps towards the door; Mum is getting ushered out as she continues to ask questions.

I close the door to the bedroom again before Mary comes back in and asks me if I’m still good to go teach modelling this evening. Oh, and she’s going to throw the cake out. Too much sugar.

24

DOCTRINE OVER PERSON

JULY TO AUGUST 2012

Mum has been permitted to take me to see a specialist. I have to drink a cup of milk containing radioactive markers, and I go to the hospital in a couple of days for a scan. It’s the most I’ve seen of Mum in months, and I feel like I’m breaking the rules. We’re in reception for ages, sitting on blue plastic chairs with infomercials blaring on the TV.

‘I hate that you’re unwell, but I like that it means I get to see you for a few hours. Stuck with me. How fun!’ she tells me, giggling. I lean my head on Mum’s shoulder, my neck craning awkwardly to bridge the distance as she’s so petite. She wraps an arm around my back and pats me. I’ve missed her sweetness. I know I should use this ‘spare’ time productively, rather than engaging with my mother. I should’ve brought my laptop. The obligation sits heavy on my chest.

In the appointment, they tell me that my bowel transit time is far longer than the average, and I need a colonoscopy. The usual prep is twenty-four hours of no food, the gastroenterologist tells us, but due again to my transit time, I need to fast for three days, drink laxatives. ‘You can drink lemonade, though. And eat gummy lollies, but just the clear ones.’

Mum books me an appointment in a few days to get it out of the way, which means the prep starts now. After she drops me off at the big old house, I walk to Coles. The gaudy brightness of the confectionary aisle feels like the wrong tone for picking up supplies for a colonoscopy cleanse. I carefully select one packet of snakes. I hover over the lemonade, but I can’t. The snakes are already irresponsible enough. I go for some organic apple juice nestled in the cold section of the health aisle.

The first morning of my fast after pre-dawn, I join the others in the kitchen. My mood normally lifts when we get to breakfast along with everyone else, but today I am flat and sluggish. As I smell butter being spread on hot toast and porridge on the stove, I empty a packet of sickly yellowish powder into a drink bottle and fill it with water. It’s revolting. My gag reflex kicks in immediately and I struggle to force it down.

Then I get on with the rest of my day: classes, evangelism, editing sermons, study, service, more study, prayer. I’ve taken more time off work, as I don’t think I can handle the gruelling physicality of the shifts. Ruth tells me not to worry, that if I can’t afford to pay rent this week she can cover me. Our resources are shared in the house. I’m grateful for that.

I struggle to eat more than a handful of gummy snakes that day, and my appetite is deadened by litres of the sickening bowel prep. By the second day, I feel weak and my joints ache. I know I can’t rest, though. There’s no time, and no one is giving me permission. I remind myself of what SSN has to endure every day for the sake of the rest of us.

I help teach modelling class on campus later that evening. Everything in me is telling me to sleep, cocoon myself, rest. As I smile and engage in bright conversation with the other girls, it feels as if a cacophony of discordant violins is screeching away in my nervous system.

On the third day as I walk to campus, singing worship songs under my breath to keep my spirits up, suddenly I feel a swirling sensation; my breath quickens, and I have no more strength in my legs. I reach out for a nearby tree trunk and catch hold of it, then lean my body into its sturdy frame, jacket sliding down the rough bark until I reach the base of the trunk.

As I sit there, hot tears start to fall and I briefly allow myself the feeling that’s been demanding my attention for the last few months: bottomless fear. What if I can’t rapture? What if I fail to become perfect? Why can’t I cope like the others? I’m all alone and if I can’t get it together, I’m going to hell. I can’t control my breathing anymore, my heart is racing, and then I can’t breathe, can’t pull in enough air.

I don’t know how long I’m underneath the tree for. As soon as my breathing normalises, I glance around – there’s no one around, thank goodness. It’s a quiet side street in the middle of the day. I pull a gummy snake out of my backpack and chew it, focusing on the sensation of the gelatinous sugar melting through my mouth. Then I slowly pull myself up, brush off the leaves and twigs, and force myself to continue the walk to uni, resuming my singing.

The morning of the colonoscopy finally arrives. The doctors and nurses are friendly and warm, and under anaesthesia I drift off into peaceful nothingness. I wake up in a bed next to a tray table containing a cup of tea and a curried egg sandwich cut into quarters. The sandwich is soggy and the tea is too milky, but it’s the most delicious sandwich and the loveliest cup of tea I’ve ever had in my life.

When Mum comes to pick me up, the doctor shows us images of my abdomen. He uses his index finger to trace the intestine, leading into the bowel, and as he follows its course he explains that I’ve developed a large, distended extra loop in the lower part.

‘Our records indicate you’ve lost a significant amount of weight recently,’ he says, ‘and that could be a big reason why. When you lose weight, your internal organs begin to atrophy, and when you eat less, your bowel sort of … gets less efficient from lack of use. Your intestines didn’t have the strength to push everything through like they normally would, so it’s essentially stretched way out of its proper shape.’

He tells me I’ll need to rely on heavy laxatives for now. I baulk at the idea of having to drink something similar to bowel prep every night, but it’s a relief to know I’ll have something that will stop me from ending up in the emergency department again.

As soon as I’m back at the big old house, I meet up with Annie to go evangelising at the mall. With each step, I feel a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen.

Mary encourages me to write to SSN to tell him about the hospital and my digestive issues and ask him to pray for my healing. A few days later, I receive a response. Mary relays it to me the way she always does, reading it out from her laptop.

The message is oddly translated, but in essence, SSN tells me not to drink laxatives, or take any other medication, but to self-administer colonic irrigation. He does it for himself, because God told him to. I have no idea what this is or how to do it.

‘Oh, SSN inspired me to do that. I still do it sometimes,’ Niamh tells me. ‘It’s so good. Cleans you right out – it’s really good for your gut.’ She’s the hardcore health nut in the house, often going on week-long candida cleanses or skipping meals altogether because she experiences stomach pain or brain fog. Erratic and triggering though her habits may be, she knows more about alternative health routines than any of us.

‘I’ll show you how to use the shower, it’s pretty easy,’ she says. We go into the en suite, and she unscrews the shower head, exposing the nozzle. ‘All you need is an attachment, and then you just …’ she motions behind her ‘… shoop. Stick it up there.’

‘How much water do I put up … me?’

‘Just feel it out, hon. You’ll know when there’s too much, trust me. And then as soon as you’re done, wait for a few minutes. Soon you’ll feel a sensation and you’ll have to jump straight on the loo.’

I go and buy an attachment at the next opportunity, and try it out the following morning. It’s deeply unpleasant, but at least it seems to work – and I’m relieved that I no longer have to worry about another emergency department misadventure. Now I have a bit more control. I write to SSN and thank him for fixing my problem.

I do it every second day or so, as Mary advises.

The weeks drag on in the depths of winter. The mood is shifting further; everyone seems to be secretly struggling. It’s more difficult to get up at two or three am in the freezing cold. I have constant pain in my abdomen. Everyone is talking about food and how little of it they’re having, and I silently absorb this.

Mary’s continued hawk-eyed comparisons mean I observe Annie closely. I have the feeling she does the same to me. She is diligent, can focus for hours at a time, can function sometimes on only one hour of sleep, and can water-fast for days on end, while I take a (relatively) more measured approach to all these things.

Annie is also far more analytical than I am: a deep and complex thinker. My thoughts feel trite and wishy-washy compared to hers. I’m better at building relationships with the modelling girls, delivering the sermons and being consistent with my habits. Annie works in extreme spurts. I vacillate between feeling intensely inadequate and smugly superior.

Sometimes tensions come to a head, and we won’t speak for days, before one of us inevitably grabs the other and says gently, ‘Can we chat?’ and we’ll sit together and apologise and cry and hug it out. We don’t hate each other – quite the opposite. I love her sincerely, and I think she loves me, too.

It doesn’t help that Mary has begun to monitor all our weights. ‘It’s for modelling,’ she says. ‘We need to look as good as possible.’

She speaks to both of us at the same time one evening after dinner. ‘You,’ she points to Annie, ‘you need to lose weight. Maybe five kilos.’

Annie nods, looking defeated. She’s been eating nothing but seaweed and garlic for the last few days, and occasionally, when she can’t handle the hunger anymore, she’ll head secretly into the cupboard and eat spoonfuls of tahini mixed with raw honey and cocoa powder, a healthy chocolate alternative inspired by Niamh. ‘It was so much easier when I was just fasting,’ she’ll say. ‘I exchanged meals for prayer. The Spirit gave me incredible energy. My hunger disappeared and I lost so much weight, too. I need to do another seven days soon.’

Mary then turns to me. ‘You need to put on a little weight. You’re too skinny. Maybe just a few kilograms.’

‘OK,’ I say. I resolve to do better.

When I’m alone, despite my best intentions, I struggle with the sickening anxiety of eating to fullness or beyond it, which I know gaining weight will require. I feel like those screws holding my internal rules – and therefore my ability to cope – together have rusted in place.

I tell Mary I’m struggling to put on any weight. She tells me it’s because of a build-up of toxins, apparently, in my body. She contacts a South Korean doctor in Providence who apparently confirms this. I am told to keep up the colonic irrigation and go on a restricted diet to try to cleanse the toxins so I can put on weight. I subsequently lose more weight.

I maintain my exercise schedule even through winter, making sure I find the time to do my floor routine every day. Twenty push-ups (on my knees). Prone back extension. Twenty sit-ups. Plank for one minute. Fifty star jumps. Fifty knee-ups. I keep tacking on one thing after another, cumulatively cobbling together random little sets like a magpie collects shiny objects.

SSN reminds us again in a pre-dawn message that during exercise, you have to run. It’s the End of Days. Do everything with urgency and give it your all.

So I go out in the morning, pounding down the pavement beside the leafy suburban houses. My throat is on fire. You can’t stop running. If you stop running, you don’t have what it takes to follow God. I run and run, the endless game of Tetris closing in on me, and tears of anxiety flying off my cheeks in the wind.

25

REWRITING SUPREMACY

AUGUST TO OCTOBER 2012

A prayer initiative happens across Providence globally, based on new information. In a Sunday service, where most of the biggest messages are relayed, we learn that, in fact, Jesus is not working through SSN. We were previously told that because we needed time to prepare our hearts to understand the truth. But now that we’re so close to the Rapture, we’re ready.

We all brace ourselves, sitting on the edge of our seats in our pretty church clothes. This is what we’re told:

Jesus is separate from the Holy Son. The Holy Son is of course part of the Trinity, but the Holy Son worked through Jesus’s body in the New Testament to spread the Gospel. However – and this is important – Jesus failed His mission on earth. He was killed before His time, and He wasn’t able to fulfil all that God had planned. The crucifixion was never meant to happen.

In the Complete Testament, the Holy Son came back to earth to work through SSN. This means that SSN is not Jesus; he is greater than Jesus. And SSN has become one with the Holy Son. SSN is the embodiment of the Holy Son.

We’re suddenly told to no longer pray to Jesus anymore. He’s obsolete. Instead, we should pray to SSN. We talked to SSN in our prayers before, but not like we would pray to God. Now he is, more or less, a part of the Holy Trinity.

It’s a monumental shift in theology.

We’re encouraged to fast for three days straight to pray for SSN and to understand the truth deeply. I chat with Mary, distressed.

‘I don’t think I can manage three days. I’ll get too weak, and I’m trying to gain weight,’ I implore, not wanting to bow out altogether but hoping she’ll say I can be exempt.

‘Just do one day, then,’ she tells me. My heart sinks. ‘You’re strong. You can do it!’

Everyone pads around the house with hollows under their eyes for three days, tired and faint. One day already feels like too much for me – by the afternoon, all my joints ache, and I hunch over in my room for prayer, crying. I can’t focus. I’m free-falling.

A new sermon comes out, with SSN talking about various ‘health rules’ for Providence based on what he does to take care of his own health. The main points are as follows:

He eats small meals.

He doesn’t eat breakfast.

He performs colonic irrigation on himself.

He stretches and exercises daily.

He doesn’t eat soup – it’s bad for digestion.

He doesn’t eat dairy products.

He eats nothing processed.

He doesn’t eat white rice.

He rarely eats beef – it makes your blood sick and causes cancer.

He doesn’t eat canned food.

With all of our pre-existing health rules, and the restricted ‘toxin cleansing’ diet Mary has me on, there’s already precious little I’m allowed to eat, or that I feel safe eating. This is the worst thing possible for my struggles with weight gain, with my ever-tightening internal rules.

Mary tells us all we need to eat smaller meals and no one can eat breakfast, with the exception of those with a medical condition who need to. My prior anorexia diagnosis doesn’t count, as mental health conditions are seen as no more than a symptom of harbouring and indulging in sin, thus giving Satan a foothold in your psyche.

Once again, I ask to speak to Mary in private.

‘I’m not sure I can do this. I’m already struggling to eat my meals, but breakfast is the one I’m best at,’ I plead.

‘You’re too controlled by your own thoughts,’ she tells me frankly. ‘Do you want to rapture? Because if so, you need to learn to let go of your own desires and submit to SSN’s leadership.’

Given that I’m up at two or three most mornings, the first half of the day now stretches out endlessly before me. By the time lunch rolls around, I’m only just scraping by. Everyone else seems to be doing fine.

‘I have so much more energy than I used to!’ Annie and Niamh exclaim regularly. Ruth and Kristen just put up with it and get on, though Ruth whispers to me at one point that she’s sneaking in a lot more chocolate at work. Gemma doesn’t have to follow this new eating regimen, as she has to take medication in the morning with food for her chronic illness.

Every day in the last few months has felt like a descent into darkness, and now my coping mechanisms are irrelevant. Is this a challenge from God to see how strong I can be?

We continue to run modelling, I work, I go to uni. Our morning modelling training with Duri becomes more rigorous as Mary demands a higher standard from us. After practice one morning, she holds me back.

‘I have another letter for you from SSN,’ she tells me. She’s excited, as usual, when he writes to us. We each write to him every week, with Mary chasing us up if we don’t. Generally we don’t hear back often, so when we do, it’s special. She thinks we’re setting the ‘standard’ in Australia, and we have proportionally more Evergreens than any other state. I don’t have much of a frame of reference as we barely interact with the other churches in our daily life. Every time he writes to one of us in Canberra, she feels he’s pleased with us and our efforts. In the empty studio, she reads it out to me. Most of it is normal – how are you, how is your health, how many new models have you evangelised, make sure you’re working hard, keep writing to me regularly – but then the tone changes.

‘Your white skin arouses me. I stroke your photograph on the wall of my cell.’ And then, further down, ‘I bet your vagina is pretty.’

Mary pauses and looks up at me, smiling like I’ve won some kind of prize. ‘He feels close to you, Liz. I’ve said this before: he doesn’t write to many women like he does to you. He feels your love when you pray for him and write to him.’

I try to act as pleased as she wants me to be, but I feel vulnerable and exposed. Why is he thinking about my genitals? What has my faith got to do with my skin colour? Surely I’m missing some kind of symbolism or subtext.

‘I don’t think I … understand … the whole “spiritual husband” bit. Like, I know that that’s who he is, and I love him, but what does this mean?’

‘Pray, and raise your level,’ she urges me. ‘Letters like this carry deep spiritual meaning. After all, he is speaking to you as a lover would.’ Mary leans in conspiratorially, lowering her voice, even though we’re the only two people in the room. ‘You should think about him before you go to sleep at night.’ She’s smiling like she’s telling me an exciting secret. ‘You can even think about having sex with him, if you want.’

‘OK.’ I smile back weakly. I don’t want to reveal how confused I am, or she might think less of me. ‘Maybe I’ll try that.’

‘One thing some female Evergreens do is buy pretty underwear. Lingerie. You can wear it when you pray to him so it feels more intimate.’

Though this certainly hasn’t made anything clearer, at least it’s something tangible I can take action on.

I’m a virgin, raised in a community that absolutely forbade sex before marriage, and then anorexia robbed my body of any sex drive after puberty. Finding my identity as a Faith Star in Providence was a relief: now I could avoid any form of sexuality forever. I remember early on Mary telling me that, because I remained pure, I have a ‘head start’ that the others who lost their virginity don’t. ‘Niamh lost hers before she came to Providence,’ she told me once, ‘so she had to repent a lot when she was first evangelised. You stayed pure.’

I don’t know what sex should even be like, so I don’t know what to imagine. I’m ashamed that I don’t feel what I should be feeling, no matter how hard I try. I wonder when this mysterious spiritual love will actually make sense, or whether I need to fake it until I make it and suddenly it might click.

I resolve to embrace Mary’s directive. I go out that afternoon and buy a white lacy nightie with a small pink bow at the cleavage. I’ve never bought anything remotely sexy before, so it’s still fairly modest: I can wear it in the shared bedroom without looking ridiculous or being half-naked. I write to him for the second time that week, trying my best to capture how I think someone might write to their lover. Warm. Enthusiastic. Romantic. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I have a sickly feeling that this is all starting to escape the bounds of metaphor. And if it is, then I need to understand it better.

That night when I climb into bed in my nightie, I try to imagine SSN hugging me. That’s as much as I can bring myself to imagine. I know SSN visits us in spirit, just like the Holy Trinity, and he sees all. I know he’s seeing me fail right now in understanding what it means to be a bride of Christ. I pray in a whisper, ‘I’m sorry, please help me understand and be patient with me,’ before drifting off to sleep.

I’m lucid enough to know I’m dreaming. I’m standing somewhere high up, and I can feel a cold, soft breeze on the skin of my arms. In a dim light that seems to be emanating from nowhere, I can only just make out the walls of an enormous dark grey warehouse.

I feel something wet and rubbery under my feet and look down. As my eyes adjust, a jarring sense of horror dawns and I realise: I’m standing on top of a mountain of bodies. Not whole bodies. Just thousands of fresh, dismembered parts piled up on top of each other, still oozing crimson blood, trickling down various paths to wherever the bottom is. No faces.

Panicked, I start to clamber over the piles of limbs, feet and hands, trying to find my way to the floor, but I can’t find it. I try to move towards the edge of the warehouse, but as I do so the walls seemingly retreat, getting further and further away. Then, suddenly, there are no walls, no escape. Just mountains of flesh stretching out across an endless grey landscape.

By October, even more kilograms have been shed from my body. The work we do only seems to increase, and we’re working at a frantic pace. I was grateful for the winter’s cold, because wearing layers of baggy clothes was the only thing that kept Mary from hounding me about gaining weight. Now that it’s a bit warmer, everyone is noticing.

Dance practice in the mornings means I have to take off my big jumper, and my collarbones look like they’ve been vacuum-sealed under my skin. I wasn’t careful one day getting changed in the walk-in robe, and Ruth came in unannounced. ‘Ribs, Liz!’ she gasped, shocked. I laughed it off. Mary makes me move into her room so she can keep an eye on me.

It becomes A Thing. Mary talks to me about it. I tell her I’m struggling a bit, but not to worry. I’ll be fine. The other women watch me at mealtimes out of the corner of their eye. They offer me second helpings of everything. They fuss. I spent the last few months wishing people would notice me struggling, but now they have, I wish I could switch it off somehow.

Annie approaches me in the kitchen while I prepare my lunch one day, as I meticulously ration my portion sizes onto my plate.

‘How do I get what you have?’ she says quietly, looking at her feet.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You’re so skinny, I don’t know how you do it.’

‘It’s an illness, Annie. Not something I’m doing on purpose.’

‘But, like, I see you eat?’

‘Yeah, I eat,’ I say, feeling suddenly defensive. ‘Just not … nearly enough.’

‘Seriously … how can I get anorexia? I don’t know how you do it. I have no self-control.’

I stare at her in shock.

It stings. This disease is sticky. I thought I’d healed, but it’s crept up on me over the last nine months, and I wish Annie could understand how much it’s torturing me every minute of the day. But she’s being tortured every minute of the day in her own internal world, too. All she can see is her own perceived failure to reach the weight Mary has been dictating to her. Mary constantly shames her for having a body type that isn’t stick-thin: Annie isn’t the ‘model standard’. She and I are in the same prison, separated by soundproof glass.

‘You don’t want this,’ I reply. ‘Trust me, it’s not fun. I wish I never got sick in the first place.’

I look at her face and I can tell she believes she wants it.

‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry.’ She laughs awkwardly. ‘I just … yeah. Never mind.’

Eventually, I’m forced to walk into the cafe one morning and hand in my resignation. I’m too weak to continue working, and the cafe job is physically demanding. My boss doesn’t seem surprised: I can see concern in his eyes. He tells me good luck. I buy an almond croissant to end the conversation. I give it to Ruth when I get home.

I’ll have no money, but Mary reassures me that it’s OK. The main thing she wants me able to do is teach modelling. I need to spend the energy I have on Providence and finishing off my year at ANU. Everyone suggests I apply for Centrelink. Mary volunteers to come with me for moral support. I appreciate the gesture: perhaps she does have some compassion for me despite my moral failings.

She sits with me on the plastic blue chairs in the waiting area, and does some admin on her laptop while I’m called in to meet with a government officer.

‘What did they tell you?’ she asks me when I come back out.

‘I’ll receive a small payment, but it’s not much. But they told me the best option financially is to live at home, since I’m not capable of part-time work to pay rent.’

She shakes her head.

‘I know, I’m obviously not going to do that. Don’t worry,’ I reassure her.

‘That would be the worst thing you could do for your spirit, especially while you’re fragile.’

‘I know.’

She doesn’t say too much while we walk home, and I can see she’s ruminating on something.

Ruth is kind about it when I tell her that evening.

‘You know I support Niamh a lot, seeing as she focuses on evangelism and doesn’t work. We’re a team. It’s OK if you need a bit of extra financial support right now. Just let me know what you can pay each week, and I’ll cover the rest.’

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve so much grace from her.

Mary catches me later that night. ‘We are God’s army,’ she tells me. ‘There are certain things in life that we can do, because God gives us permission, so we can spread His Word.’

‘Sure, yeah. Um, what do you mean?’

‘You know when Taya was living overseas, she and the other girls used to go out evangelising all the time like us. And they used the train line a lot, but they never once paid for a ticket.’

Taya is a well-known model in Providence. I met her when we went to South Korea.

‘Like, they were given free passes or something?’

‘No, they just trusted God enough to go on the train without a ticket. And they never got caught. Not once. You know why?’

I can guess the answer.

‘Because God allowed it. We don’t always have to play by the rules of the world. God is ultimately in charge of the government, so God owns government money. What we are working for is a higher calling.’

‘So, how does this relate to me?’

‘You go into Centrelink for another meeting, and you tell them that your dad is dangerous. Tell them that he abuses you, hits you or something, so you can’t live at home. And then they will give you the full payment. It’s not sinning. It’s just using the resources God has available to us.’

I’m taken aback by her suggestion. It sounds completely illegal, for one thing; but even worse is what it would do to my family.

‘I … I’m not sure I can do that, Mary,’ I say shakily.

‘Think about it. Remember, it’s not wrong. It’s faith.’

I take time to think over what Mary advised me to do in the coming days, weighing up both sides. If Mary tells me to do something, as our head leader, it’s from God. It makes sense that we should do what we can to enable the spreading of the gospel. But the thought of lying about my father makes me deeply unsettled. Fare dodging is one thing, but implicating Dad in something he could never, would never even think of doing … isn’t there another way?

I go back to Mary. ‘I know it’s important to do what we need to for God,’ I begin, nervously. ‘But … um. I can’t do it. I just don’t think I can bring myself to lie about Dad. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything else.’

She isn’t happy. Any compassion I’d felt from her in the past little while evaporates. I try to compensate by buying fewer groceries. I don’t really have anywhere else I can possibly cut back.

26

SHEPHERDS ALWAYS EAT THEIR SHEEP IN THE END

NOVEMBER 2012

Now the weather is warmer, my morning runs are slightly more pleasant. ‘Runs’ being alternating between running and walking, because I don’t have the strength to exert myself without feeling my heart beat in a way that frightens me.

I’ve taken to peering into people’s windows as I walk by. I can’t help myself. I don’t hang out in anyone’s front bushes; I just look as I go past. The houses around here belong to the comfortably wealthy and established. I find myself fantasising about their lives. Though I’m ashamed to admit it to myself, because I’m immeasurably lucky to have found the truth, I long for any kind of comfort or reprieve from the hellish pace and pressure of my life.

Everyone in the big old house seems burned out, though no one will talk about it, because we all know it’s sinful to struggle. It’s been a monumental year. We’ve heard that some people in Korea have already achieved the spiritual rapture, and we’re all looking at each other, wondering when it might happen to us.

When I peer inside other people’s homes, I imagine what a normal life must feel like. What it must be to sleep in, or watch television, living in a way that isn’t relentlessly militaristic. I smell coffee being made and marmalade on fresh toast wafting out of strangers’ houses as the sun rises, and my heart aches. Sometimes at night I go for walks and see families sitting in front of the television, the light from the screen bathing the room in muted red, then white, then blue. It’s mesmerising. I go home and repent for not being grateful enough that I get to go to heaven, while their souls are lost.

Modelling group is busier than ever, uni is heading into exam period yet again, and rest of any kind when I’m still far too imperfect to rapture is out of the question. If anything, Mary works me harder. The days become a cruel and gruelling blur.

Where I used to be fine with eating a shared dinner, I slowly stop being able to stomach it. I pick out small portions, or I skip the meal in favour of reading a sermon in my room. Mary darkens the sicker I get, angry that I’m causing her so much trouble, and reminds me that my body is not my own: it’s a temple of God. I’m disrespecting God’s temple.

The other women look on, not sure how to approach the situation. I wish someone would reach in and lift me out of this. Or, at the very least, acknowledge that I’m falling down a black hole.

Beyond all my food issues, I’ve begun to acknowledge what my inner psyche knows to be true, though I’ve tried hard to push it down. Food, my body, isn’t at the root of it all. It’s the oppressive, relentless overwhelm with unimaginable, eternal consequences if I can’t keep up. I’m trapped in the hell of trying to reach heaven. And right now, my sinful nature is holding me back – which only causes me more distress.

I re-initiate contact with Mum, because I don’t know who else to turn to.

‘Why don’t we take you to the GP?’ she tells me over the phone. I can tell she’s trying to sound casual about it, but there’s concern in her voice.

We go to the GP I’ve seen since I was born. The waiting room is almost exactly the same as when I was a kid, so it’s like stepping back in time. It smells musty in a comforting, sterile way. It’s strange being with Mum in a place so familiar, like a memory of my old life, now foreign to me.

I head into the GP’s office while Mum waits outside. She is a softly spoken woman, and she’s gentle with me. I get the feeling Mum has briefed her already. She asks questions while I roll up my sleeve and she wraps the blood pressure monitor around my upper arm. ‘How’s uni going?’ (Good, thanks.) ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ (Yes, I think so.) ‘Do you feel like the friends you are living with are helpful for your eating disorder?’ (They’re great.)

I step onto the scales for her and I don’t look down. She writes some notes. Asks about my eating habits. Exercise frequency and intensity. Whether I get my period. This is where I’m honest, because the evidence is in front of her, and we’ve been here before. I numbly report my answers, hoping she can see the desperation in my eyes. She writes more notes, then turns to me.

‘You are in the emaciated category in terms of BMI, and your blood pressure is very low,’ she tells me. ‘What happens in this state is your internal organs lose mass. In other words, if you don’t begin to gain weight, your heart could stop. I don’t mean to alarm you, but it’s getting urgent that you seek help.’

I nod, my eyes glassy with tears. Alarm is somewhere in the mix of emotions I feel, but the primary emotion is an enormous sense of relief and justification. I’m not being told off or punished for my condition, I’m met instead with a gravity that matches the fear and dread I feel in the pit of my stomach. I do need help. Thank God.

The problem is, I’m scared to leave the house knowing the Rapture is already upon us. I could miss my chance. My childhood GP urges me to move back in with Mum, but that is absolutely out of the question. It’s better to die and rapture, I think, than seek superficial comfort for what is just a physical body. The spirit lives forever. Though I’m comforted by her concern, she has no idea what’s at stake for me. And that’s something I need to keep to myself.

I tell her I’ll take it on board, and thank her for her advice. She looks at me carefully, like she’s trying to intuit the subtext of my words.

Mum is already investigating the eating disorder units available. Apparently in Canberra, there’s virtually nothing. There is one in Sydney, but they’re full. I tell her to hold off. I’m not ready yet. And I don’t have permission from SSN.

I wonder if I can just get some help from the women of Providence: maybe they can sit with me during my meals for some accountability. I ask Niamh and Ruth, and they agree. But with their hectic schedules they can only do so once or twice a week. Every time someone fails to check in or join me for a meal I feel abandoned, left to die. I can’t do it alone, and I’m ashamed of that. I remind myself they have better things to do than babysit me.

During pre-dawn prayer and service, I struggle to hold myself together. I cry softly and desperately as I pray. I bite my lip through the long hours of planning and dancing and walking, before rushing into the en suite, my heart beating out of my chest. I grip the toilet bowl and lower myself onto the ground, hyperventilating, unable to stop my desperate sobbing. Then I get up, wash my face and dress for uni. I begin to collapse more often on the walks in as well.

One day, Ruth walks in on me crying on my mattress. She sits behind me and wraps her arms around my waist, resting her head on my back. ‘Shhhhh,’ she tells me softly. ‘It’s going to be OK. I’m here.’ I’m comforted by her tenderness. Niamh and Annie are both crying often at this stage too, for reasons I don’t know. Mary is cold and distant. Ruth’s at capacity checking in on everyone and trying to keep us all afloat. She’s a rock, seemingly unbreakable, and I don’t know how she does it.

Exam period comes and goes, and I learn I’ve failed Korean. I’ve never failed anything before. I don’t care.

The time’s approaching for the end-of-year modelling show, something we’ve been working towards for months on end. Mary has booked a venue: it’s a goodwill event to be held at a local retirement village for the residents. I don’t know why she picked that, but I figure it was free, and I like the idea of putting on a show for the elderly. She’s also arranged for us to hire formal dresses for everyone from a store in the city, so we all head there one evening to pick some out. One for each of us, and then about ten more for all the girls.

They’re fancy and expensive looking, the same calibre of materials that were used in the bridal modelling show in Melbourne last year. Duri takes charge with a focused professionalism, rifling through racks and racks of clothing, pulling out gowns and loudly declaring things to the room like ‘NIAMH’S COLOUR’, or ‘GOOD FOR MODEL GIRLS’, or simply ‘UGLY’, while the shop attendant pretends to be distracted with something behind the counter.

We’re all given about five or six dresses to try on. I take mine into my changing room, strip off and select a sleeveless one in purple iridescent fabric with a plunging back. It’s hanging off me in odd places, but the shop assistant told us we could adjust things if we needed. When I step out, Mary and Duri recoil in visible disgust.

‘What? You don’t like this one?’

‘Liz,’ Duri says, scrunching her nose, ‘you are way too skinny.’

‘Oh,’ I say. I thought we’d already been through this, but I realise they haven’t seen this much of me since last summer.

She comes closer and starts circling around me. ‘See? Ribs! Arms! No boobs! You have to put on weight!’

‘Mmm.’ Mary looks at me like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. ‘We need one that will hide all of your bones.’

The evening of the show rolls around, and we cordon off a little makeshift changing room at the venue and begin setting up. Soon, all the girls from our classes trickle in, giggly and excited. We all give them squeezes when they arrive. Make-up bags and straightening irons are strewn everywhere, while we chatter and groom ourselves, and Mary and Duri get them all to try on and choose dresses for themselves. Everyone looks stunning.

It feels good to be among all their positive energy, and everyone from the big old house is wearing their biggest smiles. Mary is unflappably positive, and Duri is in her element. Niamh’s laughter as she jokes around so naturally with all the models is infectious. It’s like we’re all new people when we’re working together like this. No one would ever suspect what goes on at home.

The event itself goes as well as can be expected. We strut down the catwalk in our flowy dresses for the elderly crowd and staff, and they ‘Ooh’ and ‘Aah’ generously, enjoying the free show. Ruth does a small inspirational speech.

Then we perform the dance we’ve been practising all this time. I don’t say it out loud, but I’m so happy to never have to do it again. It’s happy and energetic and poppy and I absolutely hate it. We finish to an enthusiastic round of applause. After the show, everyone mingles with the residents, chatting to them and listening to their stories.

The models are elated. ‘I was so nervous!’ they exclaim. ‘But the old people were so lovely! I’d do that all again.’ I feel like we’ve really done something good.

Out of all the models, no one has actually been evangelised into Providence yet. I know Ruth and Niamh are taking a couple of them through the first few of the 30 Lessons, but it’s not happening as quickly and easily as the wave that I entered Providence with. I wonder if any of them have been chosen. Tonight, though, I’m just grateful that they feel like friends.

I write out a letter to Mary and attach it to an email.

Dear Mary,

Thank you so much for caring about my health and the health of everyone in this house so much. In my heart I absolutely want to live the way God wants me to live, in every aspect. I want to try to explain to you the reason I am sick.

I have anorexia. I thought I had got much better, but I know that recently it has come back and I have been starving myself a lot. It’s not something I want to do but this part of my mind is so strong that I can’t fight it, I feel like I am losing.

This is my biggest struggle. All my friends who have had anorexia describe it as a really deep desire to express something that you can’t express any other way. It comes over me like huge waves rolling in the ocean and I drown inside it. I have been drowning and drowning for so long.

I want to become an emaciated skeleton that is almost dead. It’s a really strong urge that I can’t easily fight.

I will write to SSN because he will understand. I really need him to pray for me. Sometimes I tell myself it’s an imaginary problem and it’s not worthy to write about, but now I am getting sicker I have to take action.

I love you so much. I feel really selfish but I don’t know what else to do, so please forgive me. Please don’t feel burdened by this – I know you have so many people you are managing so don’t worry a lot.

You are truly so wonderful and I always thank God for you. I know I couldn’t have grown so much spiritually if it wasn’t for you. Thank you!

Love, Elizabeth

Mary replies soon after, asking me to meet her in our room. I go over and we sit facing each other, as is our ritual.

‘I didn’t realise it was that bad,’ she tells me. I’m frustrated. I’ve been trying to tell her for so long. I’ve grown sick right under her nose. ‘But you can’t keep living in sin like this. You know what is right – why don’t you do it?’

‘I’ve tried to explain so many times, I’m … I don’t think I know how to eat properly anymore. I know I shouldn’t be struggling. But no matter how much I repent, I can’t seem to fix it.’

‘You need to let us know how we can help you.’

‘I know it’s sinful. I’ve been trying, I really have. But … I think I might need to go to hospital. Mum is looking at places I can go for a bit, and I don’t want to go, but I don’t know what else to do.’ As soon as the words come out of my mouth, the possibility feels more tangible.

She grips my hands in hers, squeezing hard. ‘It would be bad for your faith.’

‘I know, I just … don’t think I’m able to work as hard as I should if I can’t make myself better.’

She’s still squeezing my hands as she looks into my eyes, her own brimming with tears.

‘I know you want your mum to help you, because she has always helped you. But you have to understand that I’m the one who is here for you now. I love you more than your mother ever could.’

I nod, tearing up as well now. ‘I know you do.’

As we approach Christmas, my condition worsens. A fine, almost-invisible layer of hair has begun to grow all over my body. I’m resisting the hospital, wanting to obey Mary’s direction, but Mum is calling around regardless to find somewhere I can go. I’ve somehow secured myself a Christmas casual retail job at kikki.K as my money is running low, and I float through my shifts in a fog. It’s at least a break from the big old house and everything in it, and no one tiptoes around me here. Despite my pleading with Mary, no one is helping me heal, and I often cry myself to sleep out of fear.

I was supposed to go on a family holiday to Queensland right after Christmas. I’d been given the ‘OK’ from Mary a month ago, but as I keep getting sicker, she tells me a week out it isn’t safe to be around my family. I’m too vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. I break the news to Mum, and she’s devastated. But I have no energy to console her.

It’s partly a relief when Mary forbids me from going. I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with being out of the church environment and around my family 24/7. Would there be space in the hotel for pre-dawn prayer? How would I escape the constant gettogethers and find enough time in the day to read scripture? Would Mum pester me with her concerns about a life she doesn’t understand?

December is a haze, and then Christmas is distressing for all the predicted reasons: too much focus on food I’m not allowed to or too scared to eat, feeling separate from my family, not getting enough time to pray or read sermons. I’m eager to get home, so Mum drops me back to the big old house in the evening. She gets me to film a video for my grandmother and great-aunt in the driveway, telling them I’m sorry I can’t see them this holiday, and that I miss them.

I write to SSN almost daily, telling him how ashamed I am that I’m failing at living for God, how I’m repenting for being sinful in succumbing to my selfish disease, and promising him I’ll do better. He doesn’t write back. I finally feel like I’m reaching an absolute breaking point in which I can’t just pick myself up from my panic attacks and ‘get on with it’.

I begin missing pre-dawn prayer, instead getting up later – as late as eight am, hours after everyone is finished – and pray, in my room. It’s probably more sobbing than praying, if I’m honest. Mary has moved out of our shared room to give me ‘space’ (I think she’s tired of me). Everyone in the house has grown used to the regular sound of crying coming from my room. They stop checking in on me, at a loss for what to do or say.

January rolls around, and I receive a call from Mum. I pick up.

‘Lizzie,’ she says breathlessly. ‘I’ve just heard back from a hospital in Sydney. They’re normally full, but a place has become available for you. Can you take it?’

For the first time in months, I feel hope swell in my chest. The possibility of a safe place to heal, even just for a little while.

I ask Mary warily, and to my surprise, she concedes. ‘Go and get help, get better, then come back,’ she tells me. I can guess why. I’m no longer an asset to their operations here; I’m a liability.

I tell the others I’m going. After Sunday lunch, and yet another failed attempt from me at eating a normal-sized meal, Lara sits down with me. She often joins us for Sunday service, even though she still lives back with her parents.

‘I’m so glad you’re going to the hospital for support,’ she says gently. ‘I know there have been a lot of food rules in the house this year – I’ve heard all about it. And I just wanted to say to you, because when someone told it to me, it helped: for the average person, a Snickers bar is called an “unhealthy choice”. But for a starving person, a Snickers bar is one of the healthiest choices you can make. Any calories you can eat right now are healthy. OK?’

This is the first time in the past year I’ve heard something that counters the imposed moral narrative around food we’ve all been struggling under.

‘Thank you,’ I say. I’m crying again.

Ruth and Niamh arrange to drop me off at the Greyhound centre in the city so I can catch a bus to Sydney. They insist a bus is a better option than Mum driving me the whole way. It’s a solemn drive. I feel guilty for being so much of a problem for them, but I’m also deeply hurt at the lack of support I’ve received. I was deprived intentionally, and because I followed the rules to the letter, my eating disorder flourished. I’m convinced the only way the other women were able to maintain a healthy weight was because they ‘cheated’ and ate other foods.

Feelings of betrayal are punctuated by the fact that when Ruth opens the boot of the van, they both step back and wait for me to lift my enormous suitcase out. I can barely lift it, but no one steps in. They walk ahead of me while I struggle behind them, my pounding heart reminding me of my doctor’s orders not to exert myself. They really don’t care that I’m dying, I think as I say goodbye.

Mum has booked a room for me at an old repurposed mansion in Newtown. If I had been more well, I’d have loved exploring its old corridors and secret rooms and how it smells like my late granddad’s study. I arrive and set my bags down, and then, anxious to move my body and at a loss for what else to do, I head out for a walk along the strip.

It’s dinner time, and I walk past an endless row of bars and restaurants filled with rowdy groups, laughing and eating and drinking. I observe them as I walk, utterly alone and starving. I wonder if this is how a ghost might feel wandering around at night, on the outside looking in. The smell of fresh, hot food intoxicates me. I settle in a cafe, order a chai and sip it slowly before walking back slowly to my room, curling into the foetal position and falling asleep.

27

REFREEZING: WHAT I KNOW NOW

The apparent happiness and exuberance the women displayed drew me in from the beginning, and when I was fully indoctrinated, I learned to embody it myself. I never felt like it was fake, but an attitude you chose. More importantly, I learned I must choose this because God loved me and saved me. Months down the track, as my fatigue increased and my health began to decline, my smile became more forced as I pushed down any ‘negative’ emotions due to the internalised shame. Being unhappy was betraying God.

I wasn’t conscious of the phobias planted deep in my psyche that stopped me ever becoming disillusioned or leaning away when I’d had enough. I just understood them to be universal truths. These things are more or less set in stone in the refreezing phase. Slowly, a feeling that I was trapped in a cage of doctrine and ever-increasing rules crept up on me, but I had no way out. No control.

During this phase, many of the elements in the first two phases were continued and doubled down on. Once refrozen, my new identity was established, and the doctrine and phobias implanted in my mind were self-sustaining and internally reinforcing. I constantly analysed every thought or feeling and expelled or suppressed ones that didn’t align with the way I was supposed to think and be. It was exhausting.

New rules were introduced constantly in addition to the old ones. In many cults, sleep deprivation is often coupled with arbitrary restrictive rules around food. These might change regularly, or they might stay consistent, but the key here is that calorie or macronutrient restriction further limits energy, and thus critical thought.

We were also kept mind-numbingly occupied doing cult-related busywork for up to eighteen hours a day when not working or studying. As Sarah Steel writes in her book Do As I Say, ‘keeping people incredibly busy, whether it’s through busywork and constant menial tasks or endless meetings and readings, can result in perpetual exhaustion when this is extreme. This helps to dull followers’ critical faculties, and keeps them from asking too many questions, even just in their own mind.’

I had very little money, and the money I did have went to my living expenses and tithes to Providence. If I had been making a proper salary, like Ruth was, for example, that money would have been pooled and funnelled into Providence as well.

It’s important to note the elements of modern slavery in play here, common in many cults. These encompass various forms of exploitation where individuals cannot disobey or leave due to threats, violence, coercion, deception or abuse of power. Within the context of cults, modern slavery can manifest in several intertwined ways. These include forced, unpaid labour to benefit the cult, financial exploitation, sexual exploitation, psychological manipulation and coercion, restrictions on freedom of movement, and threats and punishments (e.g. divine retribution, shaming, physical punishment, etc.). These practices create an environment where members are systematically deprived of their autonomy, rights and freedoms, aligning closely with the definitions and manifestations of modern slavery. I’m sure you can see the parallels.

The concept of an end-of-the-world, Armageddon-style event is also a common strategy employed by cults as a further means of controlling members. Such a prediction automatically instils a highly charged sense of fear and imminent doom, which manufactures urgency and drastic action. In other words, it gets cult members to deepen their commitment and work harder. It justifies extreme sacrifice and deters doubt (no room for that when you’re busy fighting for your salvation). It also further strengthens the group cohesion and us-vs-them mentality.

Triangulation was a common practice Mary employed – strategically pitting us against each other to create a sense of competition and shame. Nothing was ever a simple mistake – anything we did ‘wrong’, which could change on a dime according to that week’s doctrine or Mary’s mood, was a sign we were lagging in our spiritual development. We learned to watch and monitor each other, knowing we were also being monitored. At the time, I believed it was because Mary wanted us to grow. When I came out, I realised that her motivations more likely stemmed from wanting to earn herself status and favour from headquarters and from SSN.

Front groups in destructive cults are strategically designed to attract new members, generate income, improve public perception, expand their influence, recruit new members and conceal the true nature of the cult’s activities. They can take various forms, including educational organisations, charities, political advocacy groups, business associations and cultural clubs. When affiliated with a religious or charity organisation, they enjoy tax-free status here in Australia, as long as they carefully conceal their abuse.

Often, as with Providence, the cult underneath the front groups remains secret. Picture a lovely river with a crocodile swimming in it. People might jump into the river and swim around happily, but those who swim out into the deeper waters are silently pulled under.

Providence has a number of front groups – soccer clubs, dancing groups, art classes, study groups and, of course, modelling, just to name a few. Then there are the chameleonic house churches that can present as Christian when it suits them. The front groups were designed to target particular demographics of people. They often recruit and even operate, unchecked, on university campuses (as many other cult front groups do), where new recruits are abundant and ripe for the picking. Universities historically aren’t great at identifying and monitoring suspicious clubs on campus.

My new status as a recruiter forced me to even more deeply internalise the doctrine and behaviours of Providence, as I understood other people’s potential salvation depended on me. I also learned to justify being opaque about what I believed and who I represented – a matter of not telling the entire story. Putting a spin on it. ‘The ends justify the means in matters like this,’ Mary always reminded me. ‘Giving people the opportunity to go to heaven.’

28

ADMITTED

JANUARY TO FEBRUARY 2013

I wake up for pre-dawn prayer, albeit a late one, before getting a taxi to the hospital. It’s nestled in the suburbs, surrounded by big trees. I walk up the front steps and check in with reception, and one of the receptionists takes me into an office. They get me to sign some forms, and then quickly hand me over to a nurse.

By the time I’m getting my blood pressure taken, I’m shaking and my lips are blue. I’m freezing cold in the middle of summer. The nurse covers me in a hypothermia blanket and tells me my blood pressure is extremely low. Then she schedules an ECG and draws a blood sample from my arm.

Most of that day is a haze of dietitians and psychiatrists telling me what will happen now, where I’m staying, when mealtimes are, et cetera. I nod along, bleary-eyed and tired.

I’m being put on a refeeding diet for the first week – a careful and gradual increase in caloric intake to avoid refeeding syndrome, a serious risk for someone in a state of starvation. Many of the inpatients here share a room with one other person, though some who stay long enough graduate to their own private room. I’m sharing; the only privacy I have is a thin curtain that I can pull around my bed. The girl I’m sharing with is skeletal, like me, and quiet. She doesn’t seem interested in conversation, and I’m relieved. I keep to myself too.

A large digital clock is mounted in each of our rooms and our mealtimes are strictly adhered to. A bell will go off when it’s time to gather, and two nurses escort the group of eating-disorder patients to the dining hall, where our individually prepared and portioned meals will be presented.

The first time it happens, I follow my roommate out and stand with the others. A couple of them give me shy smiles, but most seem wary of another new face. One girl has clearly been crying, another nervously counts under her breath over and over again, and every time we reach a break in the linoleum she hesitates, nervous about stepping over the crack. One guy is confined to a wheelchair, a nurse pushing him along while the rest of us shuffle down to eat. The mood is funereal.

The collective tension when our meals are placed in front of us is tangible. Where I could hear chatting and playfulness in the ward between the patients when I first arrived, there’s now silence as everyone has to face, and ingest, versions of their own personal demons.

I look down at my own plate: half a toasted cheese and ham sandwich. I’m not supposed to eat bread or cheese, but I don’t think Mary or SSN would hold it against me in hospital. I stare at it while the others slowly pick at their meals.

I worry if I jump right in, everyone will see I’m not actually sick. And then I might get discharged, and then I’ll keep drowning in myself, and my heart will stop. I wouldn’t even mind that, except that I’d never make it to heaven.

I wait until the others are halfway through their regular-sized meals, and begin nibbling at my own self-consciously. Then I hear one of the nurses on duty call out, ‘Only two more minutes,’ and I remember our meals are strictly timed. If you don’t eat your entire meal in the allotted twenty minutes for main meals and fifteen for snacks, you have to stay back and drink the remaining amount of calories in the form of a supplement called Ensure. Those who have privileges, like seeing their families on weekends, are stripped of them.

Suddenly, everyone is eating in a frenzy. One girl is crying, defeated, the majority of her meal still in front of her. I eat the rest of my toastie as quickly as I can.

Time is called. I made it.

We all get up, sombrely place our empty plates on a trolley, and are led out by one nurse, while the other sits beside the girl who couldn’t eat her meal. We leave her to face the relentless cruelty of the disease on her own.

Some of the patients on the ward have a wicked sense of humour, and some are delightfully quirky. Many of them are incredibly smart. Some stay so quiet I can’t work them out. I’m relieved I don’t have to try to evangelise any of them. Mary doesn’t want more ‘sick people’, and I don’t have the energy to keep up my Cheshire-cat smile.

It’s a normal occurrence to hear screaming or hyperventilating from patients’ rooms, and a nurse rushing in to sit with someone while they navigate their panic attack. The mood is a juxtaposition of irreverent humour and deep despair, and I realise there is a link. I see it in myself. We need bleak humour to balance out the heaviness.

Though I start to build relationships with the other girls, I also feel entirely separate. I still segregate myself to read the sermons Ruth sends me, write letters to SSN, and edit translated proverbs and messages. I maintain contact with the modelling girls I’m assigned to, keeping my tone bright, telling them that I’m on holiday in Queensland, as was the original plan. People on the outside can’t know I’m struggling. I also keep up pre-dawn prayer, though only at four am now. The night nurse checks on us at regular intervals. She will shine her torch on me, and tell me to go back to bed. She’s insistent. I oblige.

As soon as she’s gone, I get up again and continue praying. I have to be more vigilant in keeping up my spiritual life now I’m not surrounded by the women of Providence. I can’t let myself slip. A letter is relayed to me from SSN, responding to one of my letters about being unwell. ‘Eat so you can have a nice figure,’ he urges me. ‘Since you’ve met your lover, shouldn’t you eat?’

In quiet moments, I feel a crushing sense of absolute heartbreak. I’ve never felt heartbreak like this before. The more I ruminate, the more violated I feel. How could they let me deteriorate in front of them, work me harder because of it, punish me for falling ill? How could Mary, who claims to love me more than my own mother, watch me slowly die and continually deny my helplessness in the face of my eating disorder? And not just deny my helplessness, but exacerbate it by drastically restricting my food?

My unquestioning allegiance to her is slowly eclipsed by a growing sense of anger and fear. I asked for help so many times. My trust was betrayed and I’m disillusioned. I email Ruth, who is the only one who consistently checks in with me, and tell her how I feel. To my surprise, she supports my decision, and echoes my concerns about Mary’s leadership.

‘You can send your letters to SSN through Pastor Lisa instead,’ she says, referencing the Melbourne head leader.

Once the second week swings around, I get my own room. Outside the big old house in Canberra, and under the guidance of the nurses and doctors, I feel safer eating. I desperately want to get better. I ignore Mary’s emails and send my letters to SSN through Duri. As I write a new response to SSN, I realise I’ve been censoring myself in my letters thus far – still being honest, but writing in a way I felt Mary would have wanted. I pour my heart out.

Mary has clearly heard about how I feel. She emails me to say she’s sorry if she pushed me too hard, and that she loves me.

I feel that I need to reassure her somehow and atone for speaking negatively about her to others. I tell her I forgive her, that I know it was my own sin. That I love her too. Then I email Ruth, and tell her I don’t feel up to seeing Mary for the time being. I often cry myself to sleep.

I’ve been in the hospital for weeks now. I’ve been struggling to sleep, so I’m doped up on sleeping pills that make me feel like a zombie during the day. It’s nice, in a way – my brain torments me less, though there’s the consistent undercurrent of dread that every minute I spend not praying or reading the Bible, I’m slipping spiritually. It’s just not loud enough to be frantic anymore, and my body moves slowly.

I slowly earn the right, by being compliant with my diet, to go on short outings during the day. Ruth and Kristen come to visit once, and we go for lunch in the Sydney CBD. They are patient with me while I pore over the menu, trying to decide which meal would best fit my meal plan: protein, carbohydrates, vegetables, not too much, not allowed a salad. I feel absolutely ragged. My eyes are constantly puffy from crying and I feel like I’ve aged ten years in the last few months.

Ruth passes on a letter from SSN in which he writes to me that Mary managed us badly, did damage. She’s being reprimanded, and Ruth will be interim head leader. ‘We all went through hell last year,’ we say. Ruth and Kristen share how much they’ve been struggling: depression, anxiety, fatigue. ‘It’s not Providence. Mary is the problem,’ they tell me. ‘Don’t give away your salvation because of the damage she’s done.’

Mary has emailed me again – it’s a longer apology for hurting me, for hurting the other girls, for not understanding me or my illness. She’s been staying in Sydney in the hopes that I might let her visit so she can apologise face-to-face. Mary tells me she’s been praying for me with ‘all her heart’. It makes me feel sorry for her.

I don’t respond. A few days later, I cave in and tell Mary I miss her, and that it’s OK to visit. I anxiously await her arrival. She comes with Ruth, bringing various gifts of warm socks and knick-knacks, and they sit with me for a while. We don’t have much to say. I’m uncomfortable. I’ve also been visited a number of times by Sydney and Melbourne head leaders who have been assigned to ‘manage’ me in Mary’s place, and I wonder what all the nurses think of the constant revolving door of middle-aged, expensively dressed Korean women.

Mum visits as much as she can, and I remember again how much I miss her care and company. Until one evening, after Thai in Newtown. I have to get dessert, as per my meal plan, so we head to a frozen yoghurt place.

On the way, she tells me, ‘Oh, darling, I’ve got a friend coming to join us. I hope you don’t mind?’

I absolutely mind. ‘Mum, I’m a mess right now! I thought this was just the two of us? Now I have to be sociable with a stranger?!’ At this stage in my recovery, my happy demeanour has all but vanished. I don’t have it in me anymore to convince myself to be upbeat. I don’t want to have to perform for one of Mum’s friends.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know. She won’t stay long. I just thought you might like to meet her.’

I try to contain my anger when a woman called Emma turns up. She is younger than Mum, maybe in her late thirties. Tall, like me. She has an attractive smile with deep dimples, and the friendliest eyes. I’m not friendly back.

We get our frozen yoghurt, and at that point I don’t want to touch it. I feel like a deer caught in headlights. I half-heartedly move it around in the container as we walk the bustling streets of Newtown, and she does the heavy lifting of talking to me while I stay resentfully quiet.

‘So, I’ve heard that you’ve been living in a house with the people in your church, yeah?’

‘Um, yeah.’

‘Right. Your mum told me that it hasn’t been the easiest time for you. I’m really sorry to hear that.’

‘It was bad leadership,’ I say, keeping to the script. ‘We were mismanaged.’

We chat a bit more about my church, me on the defensive, and Emma patient and probing in a way that irritates me.

‘Do you think maybe … it could be more than just one bad leader? I’m a Christian, and in a regular church, there should be structures of accountability and safe places to report when you don’t feel safe or when you’re not being treated well. A healthy church should always be safe.’

‘Absolutely not. Unsafe, I mean. It’s super safe. It’s the best church I’ve ever been a part of.’

‘OK,’ she says, smiling gently at me. ‘Well, that’s good. What happens to you when you go back? Do you have a plan?’

I glare at Mum. I wasn’t expecting a stranger, let alone an ambush. This is a satanic attack.

‘I’m focusing on getting well now so I can go back. And things will change. We’ll have a new leader, so it’s fine.’

We keep walking in silence.

I’ve thought about what happens when I go back. I’m very aware that this is, as one of the patients in our group psychology sessions said, a ‘top-up’. I just want to get well enough to go back to the big old house and work hard again. Not because I want to, but because I need to.

I’ve also thought about the strong likelihood that I won’t be able to maintain my eating outside of the hospital program. If that happens, I’ll lose all the weight I’ve gained back, and eventually, my heart will finally stop working altogether. But even death is a far better option than denying my faith, and though I’m frightened, I’ve made my peace with it.

I’ve been pleading to get discharged lately. I meet with the psychiatrist to discuss it with him, and finally, I get the OK. With a catch.

‘So, your mum tells me the sharehouse you were living in might not have been the best for your health and stress levels.’

I agree, but I tell him it’s changing there. We’re all working together to make it better.

‘Sure, OK. But I think the best thing for you is to go and stay with your mum when you’re discharged. Just for couple of weeks, to ensure you can rest and follow your meal plan without distractions. What do you think?’

I should say no, but I hesitate. Mum would help me establish a meal plan at home. And I could rest, just for a bit, away from the stress and pressure of the big old house.

I reluctantly agree, relieved I can use the recommendation of a medical professional in my defence. For the first time in a year and a half, I’m looking forward to being with my family and in my old bedroom.

Ruth and I have been sending lengthy emails back and forth. She’s telling me all about how Mary is leaving soon, but is still hanging around, and how Niamh isn’t doing well with the change and wants to move out, too.

‘I’m frightened of them both, even though I love them,’ she writes. I didn’t think Ruth was frightened of anyone. They all want to break the lease on the big old house. She’s feeling the pressure of managing everyone, and for the first time, I appreciate just how much stress she’s under. As the ‘rock’ of the house, we’ve all taken her for granted. I resolve to do better, grateful she feels safe to confide in me. Maybe those of us remaining can all find a new place together.

She tells me there’s been more drama with some of the other Korean pastors in Australia. I suddenly can’t email Pastor Lisa anymore, because she’s also in trouble for reasons I don’t know. I send SSN’s letters through Duri, who tells me SSN has chosen her to be his ‘eyes’ in Australia during a period of upheaval. Now, I just don’t know which of the Korean leaders to trust – I’m afraid of them all. It adds to my disillusionment.

I email Ruth, saying, ‘I’m not ready to be fully back. I want to hide at my parents’ for a bit.’ She emails back, ‘That’s totally understandable. I won’t tell anyone when you’re back.’

The practice of deprogramming began with Ted Patrick, often referred to as the ‘father of deprogramming’. In the 1970s and 1980s, he gained notoriety for his unconventional methods, which sometimes involved kidnapping and detaining individuals to break their connection with cults and help them leave.

While Patrick’s approach was effective for some, it was also highly controversial and resulted in several felony charges in cases where his methods were deemed to have crossed legal and ethical boundaries. The lengths he went to were extreme, and cults exploited this by instilling fear in their followers, exaggerating claims that deprogrammers would ‘beat and rape’ them. None of those charges have been substantiated, but forcible deprogramming does raise serious ethical concerns.

Since then, cult deprogramming has taken a less controversial route, usually beginning with a voluntary intervention-style meeting. Typically, this meeting includes a cult member, select loved ones (who arrange the meeting) and a professional deprogrammer. Margaret Singer describes the process as ‘providing members with information about the cult and showing them how their own decision-making power had been taken away from them’.

Rick Alan Ross states that the goal is ‘to stimulate critical thinking and promote independence and individual autonomy’. He further describes it as an information-driven process focused on a dialogue around relevant research that ultimately questions the basic assumptions within the cult.

The meeting needs to be a complete surprise to the subject, as they have deep, conditioned phobias around engaging in any form of dialogue that might challenge the cult’s doctrine. I experienced this myself, being told that listening to any ‘slander’ was akin to shooting or poisoning myself in the spiritual world. I feared losing my salvation. Deprogrammers are skilled at addressing these phobias or fears and their underlying conditioning, which can otherwise prevent someone from fully breaking free.

You know how I used the tripwire analogy before? This is more like those movies where an agent has to duck and weave their way through a maze of lasers to deactivate a ticking time bomb. Building trust and rapport, reframing (or ‘cognitive restructuring’), gradual exposure, psychoeducation, facilitating emotional processing and reinforcing autonomy are some of the tools that the deprogrammer must carefully introduce at opportune times throughout the process, without coming on too strong – or taking the wrong approach at the wrong time – and accidentally triggering an alarm. The process is broadly laid out below.

Organising an intervention in secret involves a great deal of background planning by the family and the deprogrammer. Families are especially advised to maintain positive, non-confrontational contact with the cult member to avoid raising suspicion. This isn’t always possible or effective when relationships have already been damaged. It’s instinctive to want to appeal to a loved one’s critical reasoning skills or ‘common sense’, but when they’re already brainwashed, they unfortunately don’t follow the same logic. They believe they possess a higher truth, and any challenge to their worldview is seen as an attack.

For this reason, the explicit goals of the intervention aren’t typically presented at the outset, and instead it’s framed as simply wanting to ‘have an open conversation about their involvement’. Despite this, many cult members still flee, but many stay. From there, it involves gently and slowly rekindling the subject’s critical-thinking skills by drawing from examples and case studies of cults and their methods, explaining concepts such as coercive control, DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender: actions taken by an abuser when questioned by a target) and other related theories, while strategically applying the techniques mentioned above. Eventually, if and when the subject seems more receptive, parallels are drawn to their own group and experiences.

The process can take mere hours, but it often requires days of focused dialogue. Deprogrammer Rick Ross once told me he had around a seventy per cent success rate with his interventions, which is impressive. As you’ll see, fortunately I was one of those successes.

Once the subject accepts that they have been subjected to brainwashing, they are free to learn about their cult and are assisted to some extent in processing the trauma and cognitive distortions caused by their indoctrination. This reduces the risk of relapse or continued psychological harm. Deprogrammers can also offer emotional and psychological support, making the transition out of the cult less overwhelming. They understand the complexities of cult influence and can provide targeted interventions to address specific issues.

Overall, professional deprogramming can offer a safer, more comprehensive exit strategy than leaving on your own, addressing the deep psychological impact of cult involvement and helping individuals reclaim their lives.

Many people who leave cults are traumatised. Sarah Steel reports that around four out of five people she surveyed who escaped high-demand groups are either diagnosed with PTSD or experience symptoms that match the diagnosis. It’s a harrowing process. Though it’s not a foolproof method, I strongly believe in the power of deprogramming and intervention work to help victims make a clean break and begin the process of reclaiming their lives.

These days, there are very few active professional deprogrammers worldwide, and even fewer doing it full time. This is understandable, as it’s a dangerous field due to the aggression of cult retaliation, legal and otherwise.

It’s also important to acknowledge the costs involved. I was extremely privileged to have a mother who was able and willing to pay what likely amounted to many thousands of dollars in total. It’s not a broadly accessible service by any means, and, of course, escaping cult members generally have no funds to repay their loved ones.

We know that, statistically, most people leave on their own. As it has been described to me, it’s like a metaphorical shelf – over the years, you accumulate various experiences of cognitive dissonance, things that don’t align or that you can’t resolve. Without access to critical-thinking skills to properly analyse them, you place them on your shelf. Over time, the items on the shelf accumulate, and eventually the shelf buckles and breaks under the weight of all your unresolved dissonance.

At that point, you may walk away, if you are able to. However, leaving in that manner doesn’t provide you with the tools and resources to understand what happened or to realise that none of it was your fault. You have to seek those out on your own, and that can be incredibly hard to do. This underscores the urgent need for well-funded, specialised organisations that can offer support to families and loved ones of victims. We must ensure these organisations are equipped to help deprogram victims and provide education and resources to survivors free of charge.

29

AMBUSH

MARCH 2013

When I’m home, I allow myself to sleep. Some nights I wake up for five am pre-dawn prayer before falling back into a deep sleep, and sometimes I go to bed at eight pm and wake up at eight am. Mum helps me follow my meal plan to a T, gladly buying the extremely particular brand and type of yoghurt, bread and milk that I feel safe to eat. My brothers tiptoe around me, wanting to support me but unsure what to say. Dad is just happy his girl is home finally, away from ‘that house’. I tell him repeatedly, ‘This is only temporary.’

Ruth makes an effort to spend time with me one-on-one. She’s even brave enough to show up at my parents’ house and chat with them for a bit. One evening, we go out for pizza (a food challenge I feel ready to take on), and we go to the cinema after with popcorn and Skittles. It’s more fun than I’ve ever had with her before – she’s usually so serious, and I get to see a playful side of her. I’m aware part of her motivation for spending time with me is the need to escape the energy of the big old house, but I’m more grateful than she knows to have a friend like her.

I also tentatively catch up with Duri, who is making an effort to check in. She’s softer with me, more empathetic, than before. She opens up a bit more about her own struggles in the house.

I try to go back to uni, but I run into Annie in one of my first classes. Then, I nearly bump into Niamh in the prayer room on campus. I’m not ready to face any other Providence people yet. I don’t know why. I leave as soon as the class finishes and decide I’ll take a break from uni this year.

One morning in the second week of being home, bleary-eyed after a long sleep, I stumble out of bed and into the kitchen. On automatic, I measure out my prescribed breakfast: a cup and a half of Raisin Bran in fortified soy milk. As I sit at the counter, Mum comes into the kitchen.

‘Morning, darling. How are you?’

‘OK. You?’

‘I’m good!’ she replies a little too brightly. ‘Would you mind changing out of your pyjamas? Uncle Peter is paying us a visit this morning; I don’t want you to be caught out.’

‘I don’t care if he sees me in my pyjamas.’

‘OK, but I do.’

‘Why, though?’

‘Sweetie. Please. For me.’

‘Fine,’ I sigh. ‘Just let me finish my breakfast first.’ It’s odd that she cares so much. Uncle Peter comes to stay fairly regularly, and he’s seen all of us in PJs a ton of times.

I go and change after breakfast. My bedroom faces the path to the front door, and I hear footsteps crunching through the gravel. Not one pair – two. I throw on my clothes as I hear Peter’s voice, and then a voice I don’t recognise, being welcomed into the house. What is this?

I’m already on my guard when I emerge from my room. My eyes land on the intruder. He’s shorter than me, middle-aged, with glasses, a white polo shirt tucked into cargo shorts, wearing white Nikes with knee-high white socks. He carries a briefcase. Uncle Peter says hi, but I barely clock it.

‘Hello, Elizabeth,’ the man says genially, as he reaches out his hand for a handshake. I just stare at him. ‘My name is Rick.’ He has an American accent. ‘Your mum invited me over so we could chat about the group you’re involved in. I think it would be good if we could all sit down together and just be open and honest. Is that OK?’

‘I … I’m going for a walk,’ I reply, and run into my room. Unlike the faux-casual set-up of Emma’s ambush in Newtown, Rick is clearly all business. We’ve been warned about people like him, and we’re under strict instructions to avoid them at all costs. Mum has ambushed me again. I’m hot with anger. I change out of my clothes and begin to put jogging shorts and a T-shirt on. As I’m pulling on my trainers, Mum comes in, closing the door behind her.

‘Lizzie,’ she says. She pulls me into a hug. She’s not much of a hugger, but right now she’s gripping me tightly. I can feel her shaking. My heart breaks a little. She speaks over my shoulder in the embrace, her voice trembling. ‘I really want you to come back. Please do this for me. Please … don’t run away.’

When she pulls away, her eyes are imploring me, watching me intently.

‘OK, OK. I won’t.’

I head out the door to clear my head. As I walk, I toss up my options. I could run away. The women would come and whisk me away if I said the word. They would be terrified if they knew the danger I was in.

But I can’t break Mum’s heart. I’ve never seen her in this state before. That, and I’m also too exhausted, sick and frightened to go back to the house and away from her care while I’m trying to recover. I make up my mind. This meeting will change nothing, but I’ll sit with Rick if it means that much to her.

When I come back in, Mum, Uncle Peter and Rick are all sitting around the dining table, waiting for me. Dad strangely isn’t here. Smart of Mum to invite Peter, though: I’d be far more hostile otherwise. I pray under my breath for strength.

‘Oh, Lizzie,’ Mum exclaims when she sees me walk through the door. Another tight hug. ‘Would you like a cuppa?’

‘Sure. Just black tea, please.’

I sit down uncomfortably as she takes everyone’s tea orders and puts on the kettle.

‘So, Liz,’ Rick begins conversationally, ‘your uncle was just telling me about a group he was involved in, back in the eighties. Did you know about that?’

‘Um, no.’

‘Well, it’s a huge multi-level-marketing scheme. They sell cleaning supplies, supplements, that sort of thing. But the way they engage people to sell for them is highly unethical.’ Rick has a very American way of speaking – emphatic, engaging. ‘They promise their sales reps will become rich, sell them the dream, hold conferences that focus on motivation and personal fulfilment, but the vast majority of their reps end up broke, having lost years of their life. Right, Peter?’

‘Yeah, it took me a while to realise,’ Peter responds. He’s a very smart, meticulous man. From a science background, he loves a cryptic crossword, frequents museums and galleries in his spare time, reads widely and is always well spoken and proper. ‘At the beginning I joined because some friends wanted me to go. I kind of liked it. It was inspiring, going to these huge seminars where people would tell you if you have the right mindset you’ll make a lot of money. But after a while, I started to get a bit, um … disillusioned, I guess. I left, but it took me a while to recognise it for what it was. And Rick just now has actually helped me understand it better. It’s designed very well to manipulate people.’

‘Well,’ I say, tight-lipped. ‘It’s good you got out.’

‘You know, there are a lot of organisations – religious and otherwise – that operate in very similar ways.’

‘OK.’ I shrug.

Rick takes that as an adequate invitation to go on. He talks about Jehovah’s Witnesses, Falun Gong, Scientology, providing examples of their control tactics. He explains the spectrum of pressure in groups, ranging from benign – a book club, for example, where typically no real control is exerted and members are free to come and go – to extreme control: Jonestown. He discusses the elements of what makes an organisation dangerous. He talks about mind control. He talks about his work with the FBI trying to help victims out of the burning Waco-Davidian cult compound, instead watching them jump directly into the flames.

At the beginning, I feel reasonably confident none of this information has anything to do with my situation. He has no idea about Providence and the truth. But I know what he’s up to, and taking in too much is like drinking poison, so all I need to do is block him out.

Throughout his monologuing, I fixate on a red rose in a vase in the middle of the table and try to dissociate. I pray in my mind, sing hymns over and over in my head. Protect me, SSN, please. God, Holy Spirit, please protect my mind.

Sometimes I take the bait and challenge him. Tell him I don’t know why he’s even bothering to talk to me about other groups. He always has a logical response, without acknowledging the Providence elephant in the room. It’s frustrating. Just get to the point, and we can all get this over with, I think.

With example after example, Rick fleshes out the picture of what mind control and brainwashing looks like. How insidious it is. How inescapable it can be. And this man doesn’t take breaks. He talks for eight hours straight, only stopping when I have to go to the bathroom. He barely eats morning tea or lunch, entirely ignores afternoon tea, and his peppermint tea goes cold.

As the hours pass, despite my best efforts, I can feel cracks forming in my psyche that terrify me. I’m not willing to embrace what he’s saying, but after countless examples of other dangerous organisations that so closely parallel my own, I’m losing the ability to say, ‘Yes, but my church is different.’ My head is in turmoil.

By the time he finishes, it’s getting towards dinner time. He says goodbye, and he’ll be back tomorrow morning. I’m exhausted, but more than that, I’m highly distressed. And angry. I’m in an excruciating limbo, and everyone is against me. As soon as he and Peter head back to their hotel – everyone is clearly in cahoots – I grab the keys, get into Mum’s car and just drive. Mum calls out after me as I leave. I ignore her, and put my phone on silent. I need to be anywhere but home.

Somehow I end up at the mall, and I wander around in a daze. I buy a Diet Coke and sit on a sofa. My brain feels like it’s being torn apart, and my heart is still broken. Even the inkling that the truth I would give my life for might be nothing but a manipulation is too terrifying to come to terms with. I vacillate between resisting the feeling that I might have been deeply deceived and manipulated, and the strong feeling, more favourable, that this is some kind of sadistic spiritual test of my faith.

But where is God in all of this? Why hasn’t He helped me? I’m in so much pain. I’m so excruciatingly alone. I drive back home, sobbing the entire way, and park in an empty car park opposite my house.

It’s there that I scream. Harder and longer than I’ve ever screamed before, the sound coming from somewhere deep inside me. I scream until my voice is hoarse, pleading with God to come to my rescue. To give me clarity, to stop disappearing when I need Him the most. I’ve never needed saving more than right now, and it’s right now that He feels so distant and resoundingly silent.

When I run out of steam, puffy and exhausted, I drive across the road to my family home and walk inside. Mum approaches me, hugely relieved, and asks me if I’m OK. I can see Dad hanging back, worry on his face, saying nothing. I shake her off angrily, go into my room and slam the door behind me. Later, she knocks timidly on my door: she’s ordered Thai for dinner. She sets a plate on my desk.

‘Sweetie. Are you OK? I know you’re upset. I wish I could help you.’

‘How could you do this to me?’ I choke. ‘I don’t want dinner. Leave me alone.’

I’m horrible, but there’s so much anger leaking out of me. I can’t stand to look at her.

I google Rick Ross and see pictures of a rapper. Definitely the wrong guy. Then I google Rick Ross cults. There he is. I go to his Wikipedia page and dig up all the dirt on him I possibly can to use as ammunition the next day. I write to SSN telling him how frightened I am. That I feel abandoned, and desperately need him to help me. I send it through Duri, telling her it’s urgent. She doesn’t respond right away.

I can’t possibly sleep. Around midnight, desperate and confused, I text Duri.

Mum’s invited someone over to talk about cults. It feels like torture. I’m so confused. I think I’m in hell.

She responds by calling me. Again, and again, and again. I don’t want that. I don’t know what I want. I let them all ring out. Part of me is scared of her, scared of all of them. I want help, but I don’t know who is safe to seek refuge in anymore. Finally, she sends a text.

I’ll come and pick you up now. We can catch a plane to Melbourne church together and stay there. Call me back.

I don’t call her back. Instead, I curl over and sob.

When I wake up in the morning, it takes me a few groggy moments for the realisation, and then the dread, to set in. Rick arrives at nine am with Uncle Peter. Duri has followed up with a long email: ‘Liz, if you ever trusted SSN and ever once believed in him, I want you to come to Melbourne as soon as possible.’ I’m suspended in a freeze state with very little fight left. Rick is, again, unbothered by my hostility. He picks up where he left off.

At morning tea, I make my move.

‘You used to kidnap people,’ I say suddenly. ‘And you got sued for it. You keep going on about the unethical methods of cults. Don’t you think your methods were unethical?’

As per usual, he has an answer straight away. ‘Ah. You googled me, did you?’ he replies, amused. Not embarrassed like I’d hoped. ‘We used to do involuntary deprogramming years ago. Parents of a cult victim would hire a deprogrammer like myself, along with bodyguards, to kidnap them and take them somewhere secluded, and lock them in. Then we’d spend a few days with them helping to unravel the programming in their brains. And you know what?’ He leans in. ‘It had a higher success rate. Because they had no choice but to listen. Many cult victims nowadays run away, and it’s game over.’

He sits back, pauses. ‘When cults play dirty, sometimes you have to beat them at their own game. No one gets to choose to be indoctrinated. It’s a process of manipulation and deception. All deprogrammers do is reverse the brainwashing. Allow the victim to understand the process they’ve been subjected to.’

I sit there, staring at him sourly. I don’t know what to say to that. Instead of catching him out, I feel like I’ve helped him come into his element.

‘What you might’ve missed is that the man who brought charges against me had gone back to the cult, and they forced him to sue me. He later left. And then he engaged my services again.’

Again, nothing to say. He continues.

‘It was too dangerous to do involuntary deprogrammings after that. We all stopped. It’s a dangerous game in general. Cults are highly litigious. A fellow deprogrammer once went to retrieve his mail and found live venomous snakes in his letterbox.’

Rick leans back, satisfied. ‘So you see, Elizabeth, I’m an open book. I have nothing to hide. The only people who have something to hide are the organisations which brainwash their followers through unethical means.’

‘Fine,’ I say, defeated but not willing to admit it.

Undeterred, he continues with his planned material. I sit there, stony-faced, and try to disassociate by staring at the rose again. It’s beginning to die. He rattles off stories and anecdotes and facts. It’s more of the same: more stories of cult tactics, coercive control, and how people fall victim. Lifton’s criteria. Hassan’s BITE model. Singer’s continuum.

Today, something shifts in me. I’m spent. God hasn’t come through for me. I have no answers and no more counterpoints. I can’t keep denying the parallels. After lunch, I soften, and I listen. The cracks in my psyche are widening slowly, irreversibly. A truth I was blind to before begins, despite my fervent efforts, unrolling in front of me like a carpet, inviting me to walk down it.

Finally, around three pm, I break. Or maybe I broke last night, and I’m simply willing to admit it now. I’m too numb to tell.

‘OK, OK. I understand that JMS is a cult. Just tell me what you know about the organisation.’

Rick pulls out an enormous stack of printed material from his briefcase. He begins explaining: Jeong Myeong-Seok’s rape charges and conviction; the chequered history of Providence and the tactics they employ, so similar to any other cult; front groups; the victims who have come forward in the past; attacks on the lives of innocent people who threatened their activity; and the sinister and copious amount of material online of women, posing naked, on camera for him.

I’m thirsty for knowledge, anything that will help me make sense of what happened to me and what on earth I’ve been coerced into dedicating my life to. How I was so deeply manipulated and controlled. How the very foundations of my world could have morphed and warped into something that leached the personality and autonomy out of me.

‘You know, Elizabeth – and this is one thing I will say that might be of some comfort – I’ve performed over seven hundred deprogrammings in my career. And the more I do, the more I realise how insidious and crafty these organisations can be, and that even I, who understands how they operate, am not immune to the mind control of a cult.’

That makes an impression on me.

That evening, I say goodbye to Rick and Uncle Peter with less hostility than I did the previous day. I’m simply resigned. I don’t want to talk anymore. I grab my headphones and my iPod and head out for a long walk.

For the first time in a year and a half, I pull up The National on my playlist and listen to their music as I walk. They were my favourite band, my coming-of-age band, in Year 12. I listen to the song ‘Fake Empire’ as I walk through the bush, and the music feels like it’s made for me. I’ve missed my own music.

Despite the state of shock I’m in, I feel a heavy weight lift off me. The words ‘I was in a cult’ keep booming in my head. It all feels surreal. How on earth did that happen to me? I realise I can finally feel my own feelings.

I’ve spent so long forbidding myself to genuinely embrace my emotions. A feeling would flare up, and I would have to monitor it and find the sin in it, explore how it meant I was clinging too much to ‘my own thoughts’, and repent for it. Push it back down, like trying to hold an inflatable ball under the surface of the water.

And now the floodgates are open, I feel so much. I feel angry, heartbroken, hurt, desperately sad, confused, lonely – there are so many feelings pouring in I can’t properly grab hold of them, so I just let them wash over me. It’s awful and wonderful at the same time. I don’t have to smile if I don’t want to.

I walk for hours, just listening to my old music and feeling things.

On the third day, I have more questions for Rick. He answers them all and more. He’s an endless archive of cult psychology and information. I let myself admire him, feel gratitude for everything he’s given me, now I know he’s not the enemy.

My deprogramming has felt like whiplash, but for the time being, I’m buoyed by the focused company of my mother, Uncle Peter and Rick. We spend another day talking – mostly Rick talking – while I try to orient myself to my new reality.

When the time comes for him to leave, I don’t know quite how to express myself.

‘You actually … like, you saved my life. I don’t know how to thank you, so … just … thank you so much for coming. Travelling across the world to meet with me.’

‘You’re very welcome, Elizabeth. You should thank your mother: she was the mastermind behind all of this. I’m so glad you stayed to talk.’

I say goodbye to Uncle Peter, thanking him for his kindness in taking time to support me. He was a hero I didn’t expect, a steady and sane presence in the face of an unhinged experience. I know he was a support behind the scenes for Mum, too.

When they leave, it’s back to just us.

‘Mum,’ I say quietly. ‘Thank you.’

She pulls me into yet another hug. ‘Awww, darling. I’m just so glad you’re OK. I would’ve done anything to help you get out.’

‘I’m so sorry I was awful to you. Like, I was horrible. I just didn’t know how to process everything that was going on. I was so scared.’

‘Don’t worry. I get it. It doesn’t matter now, Lizzie. You must be exhausted. Just focus on you. Rest and heal, darling girl.’

Dad comes over and gives me one of his enveloping hugs. I hold on for a long time, and so does he.

‘I couldn’t let your father be part of the intervention,’ Mum tells me quietly later. ‘He was just too emotional about it all. You know how he is. He went out walking all day, praying for you, instead.’

Over the next few days, Mum tells me the lengths she went to to engage Rick’s services. She had him confirmed for the family trip to Queensland in January, and she had to cancel his flights from the US and hotel last minute when Mary decided I couldn’t go after all. Prior to this, Mum spent months researching cults, speaking to Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS), and planning the deprogramming. She held her tongue around me for all that time, even as I wasted away, knowing she needed to keep me on side. She had to convince the psychiatrist to discharge me to my family home after hospital, instead of back to the big old house.

Countless things behind the scenes happened because of her incredible persistence. I don’t know how to begin to thank her, to apologise to her. And I had no idea Mum could be this crafty.

I ignore the messages from the women of Providence for the time being, until I figure out how to leave. I feel afraid of many of them now, especially the leaders. When the elation of being free from the weight of a crushing ideology wears off, I am met with the full weight of the grief. It yawns open, swallowing me whole. My only relief is that I spend weeks in and out of a state of dissociation, sometimes standing in one spot for hours, staring blankly, before coming back into my body.

Whenever I come out of it, the realisation and the grief come crashing back. I have no job, no friends, no money and terrible health. Belle and Kara, though Mum tells me they know I’ve come out of hospital and out of Providence, never initiate contact. The ‘family’ in Providence I’d grown so close with now suddenly represent my own oppression. Mary, the woman I trusted with my life, who told me she would keep me safe, was grooming me for a rapist cult leader.

I cry endlessly, hungrily, hoping it might help purge something from me and make the pain stop. When it doesn’t, I curl up in my room and bang my head against the gyprock. Thud, thud, thud. The rhythmic motion combined with the dull pain lulls me into forgetting myself for a few minutes.

Mum tells me the most confusing part of it all, for her, was the fact that I stopped telling the truth.

‘You were always honest with me,’ she says earnestly. ‘I’d believed everything you said about your new church group until much later. It look me a long time to realise that you’d changed and weren’t allowed to tell me the truth.’

She’s right. Truth-telling was a key part of our relationship, until it wasn’t.

I grapple in a daze with the abrupt disappearance of my entire worldview, purpose and identity, and with the realisation of how deeply I was deceived, manipulated, used and abused. It’s a hard lesson in how entirely subjective the conviction of truth can be, and how the strength with which I clung to it had no correlation with how true it actually was.

This line of reasoning leads me down a frightening path. If God was never in Providence, despite all the signs I thought I’d received, how can I trust any evidence that God is in Christianity? Or exists at all? As soon as the thought settles in my mind, I realise if I let go of my belief in God, I will have no reason or will to live.

The idea that this shattering experience might not find its place somewhere in a meaningful story of redemption and atonement, that the God who has felt so real to me throughout my life might not exist, is far too much for me to comprehend without losing my mind entirely. I feel as though I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, peering down into pitch darkness below. I banish that question and back away from the edge.

30

FREEDOM AND GRIEF

The days, weeks and months after leaving Providence are painfully slow. I eventually write Ruth a letter. It reads:

To all in Canberra Love Church,

Much has transpired in my life during my time in Providence. Each person has a good and pure heart; that is why they came in the first place. Each person who has left, has left with a story. But no one will ever know their true stories because it is against the unspoken Providence ‘Code’. Many others before me have called upon the Providence structure to examine itself honestly for what it is. But their calls were immediately silenced or discredited, to the further detriment of Providence.

Some may wonder if I have lost my faith. To this, I say emphatically, ‘No’. If anything, I have come to understand God’s unconditional love and grace now more than ever.

I now must cut off all contact with everyone in Providence. I ask everyone to please not make any contact with me anymore while you are still in JMS. I am now re-claiming my life.

Please be clear that I have no ill feelings toward any of you.

May God direct you all to ‘whatsoever is good, whatsoever is honest, whatsoever is true’.

Sincerely,

Liz Cameron

Mum helps me pull it together. I close my eyes and hit ‘send’. Ruth never responds. I know I’m dead to them now.

Mum and I go to CIFS meetings, and stay with the founder, Ros, and Emma, her daughter, who first tried to speak to me about Providence in Newtown over frozen yoghurt. Ros and her husband own a beautiful, magazine-worthy home out in the countryside surrounded by rolling green hills and enormous old trees.

I learn Emma escaped from another cult years before I did, and Ros helped to rescue her. They’re both angels I never realised I needed, and I feel awful for being hostile towards Emma on that night out from the hospital. She assures me it’s OK, that she understands. It’s healing to spend time talking about our journeys over slow afternoons in the courtyard sipping tea.

Mum also takes me to an elderly couple, pastors in my childhood church, for spiritual ministry. The husband prays over me, exorcising all the demons he believes I allowed in during my time in Providence. All of this pushes me deeper into a dissociative state as he prays over me, yelling at the demons to ‘GET OUT.’

I know I’m running back into the arms of the God of my childhood, and they are reassuring me that He is still there, still cares for me, and has a plan of redemption.

Mum and I launch into activism. I begin to speak anonymously to media outlets, as I’ve told Ros and Emma I’m happy to speak out. I reach out to girls whom Providence was evangelising, meeting them for coffee and warning them to cut contact with all the women in the big old house. Telling them I’m deeply sorry for unknowingly putting them in harm’s way. They are kinder than I expected, and care about my wellbeing. If they had been angry, I would have understood.

Mum contacts the parents of some of the girls being targeted, as well as some of the parents of the women in the big old house. Some of the parents of the women of Providence engage, while others listen in stony silence before telling her not to contact them again. Perhaps they think it’s all too insane to be true.

I’ve managed to get my job back at the mall. It’s a welcome distraction, but I make very little money. I hear everyone is moving out of the big old house, and I want my bond back. Providence has already taken enough from me. I email Ruth tentatively, and she responds telling me to come to her new apartment. She’ll have the papers ready, and I can sign them and be on my way.

Soon after, Mum and I pull up at the apartment complex and walk up the stairs to her front door. I’m wearing all black – forbidden in Providence – just to make an impression. When Ruth opens the door, she’s jovial but distant. She offers us both tea, pulls out a bag of candied almonds and empties it into a bowl. I just want to sign the papers and leg it out of there, but we oblige.

All of a sudden, there’s a knock on the front door. Ruth opens it and Lisa and Rain walk in. They’re as sweet as honey, asking how we both are, making small talk. We sit around awkwardly, Mum and I both on edge.

Then the tone shifts.

‘Liz, you need to stop speaking to the media. This is a warning,’ Lisa tells me, now deadly serious. ‘We know you got yourself sick, and you blame it on Providence. What you are doing is evil.’

I play dumb. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You can’t get away with doing damage to our church like this. You know you’re just angry and resentful because you’re weak. You couldn’t handle it. Stop making it our problem.’

Rain pulls out a stack of papers. ‘There are many people we’ve sued in the past for spreading lies about Providence. Take it: take a look. We have a big legal team in Korea, and we will come after you if you continue to spread your falsehoods.’

She’s angry, hostile. I’ve never seen either of them like this. I wonder if the sweet, kind side was ever even real. Ruth sits there, staring down at her lap. Despite all our conversations about how much we’d suffered under Providence and Mary’s leadership, after seeing me deteriorate and collapse, I can see clearly which side she’s chosen.

Anger flares up inside of me. How dare they intimidate me like this? After everything. To my own surprise, I start laughing. I can’t help it. This situation is absurd.

‘I have never, and will never, spread lies about Providence,’ I begin, trying to maintain an even tone, though I can feel myself shaking. ‘But I’ll continue to tell the truth. And that’s not illegal.’

Rain and Lisa are simmering with rage.

‘Remember what we’ve told you. We will come after you.’

‘Where are the bond papers?’ I ask.

Ruth silently hands them to me, indicating where I sign.

I sign the papers, and Mum and I exit as quickly as we can.

31

REBUILDING THE HOUSE

First we dissolve the old, then we grow new skin, new teeth and new bones.

People who escape or leave cults and rebuild their lives on the outside are resilient. They have to be. When you join a cult, if you are in deep enough, you lose your original identity and state of existence. The very foundations of your understanding of who you are, of the world around you – and, even more profoundly, the meaning of it all – are replaced.

And so here’s what you are forced to do. You dig up the old foundations of the symbolic house you grew up in, and new ones are laid, which eventually support a fortress that you guard with your life. You’re secure within its walls, but you can no longer go outside. In fact, now you can’t even look out the window anymore – over time, those were boarded up. You convince yourself that everything you need is in the fortress, anyway.

Whether gradually or all of a sudden, at some stage, you realise the fortress isn’t protecting you. It was built up around you as a prison. Once you begin to understand that, the safety you felt turns to dread. You have to find a way out. The doors are locked; you have no keys. The only way out is to bust yourself free, and then set it on fire so you can start again.

So you do. And all you’re left with is rubble. There’s nothing of value you want to pick out of the mess; it’s all tainted. Even possessions you loved now just remind you of being a prisoner. You dispose of it all, excavate and build another structure from scratch.

You realise you don’t really know how to build anything because you never built any of your previous structures yourself. You lived in one house as you grew up, and then that was destroyed when the fortress was built for you, and now you’re building something entirely new alone, and you don’t even know what you want to build or what it’ll end up looking like. Can’t someone just hand you a house-building manual?

It’s slow and arduous and you learn a lot about building houses in the process, which you never asked for. But you still do, because you don’t have a choice. It takes a long time to figure out how to frame the house, and then how to seek out all the different elements that contribute to making it stable and functional and warm.

But when you finally build a liveable home, then you get to paint and decorate and furnish. You can cook whatever meals you want, and invite people around, and feed them, too. You might renovate here and there, or rearrange the living room, or remodel the kitchen, but you know this will be your forever home – because you built it with your bare hands from the ground up, and you know the placement of every plank and brick and nail off by heart.

This year, 2013, is the hardest year of my life. At first I think things will fall into place now I’m free. But the revelation that what was happening to me all that time was brainwashing and abuse, combined with the collapse of the paradigm I clung so tightly to, sends my system into a state of shock and grief. I feel violated to my core. The gaping hole where an all-consuming purpose and meaning and identity used to be feels almost too painful to bear some days. I’m lonely and afraid. And, oh my god, I would have died for a lie.

I stay in Canberra that year, keeping a low profile. The last I heard from Ruth, Mary had been sent to another state. Now that the Wizard of Oz has turned out to be a perverted serial rapist behind a curtain, I try not to be afraid of them.

I was diagnosed with osteoporosis during my stay in the hospital, thanks to the starvation leaching calcium from my bones and teeth. I also seriously damaged my bowels, thanks to the weight loss and atrophy but also in no small part due to Jeong mandating regular self-administered colonic irrigation.

Though I don’t miss Mary, or SSN, or Providence in general, I miss the women I lived with and loved like sisters. I miss belonging somewhere. No one else from the big old house has left except for me, and I know they now see me as satanic.

I miss the certainty of black-and-white direction as to how to live my life, down to the minutiae of the everyday. Even though my life there devolved into a hellscape, I miss having a roadmap and a community and certainty.

I lost nearly all my friends and contacts on the outside, including Belle and Kara. I know they know what happened to me, but I don’t think they know how to approach it. Mum tells me that many of the adults in that same church network, though some were quite close with her before, distanced themselves from her when she told them I’d fallen prey to a cult. As if they might catch something.

It meant that Mum was more alone than ever while she tried desperately to educate herself about cults and save her only daughter, in the same year we all began to realise Dad’s forgetfulness was a more serious issue. I have no idea how she didn’t collapse in a heap.

‘One thing I learned from all that,’ Mum is fond of saying years later, ‘was that the worst thing you can do is abandon someone when they go through a hard time, even if it feels uncomfortable to talk to them or you worry you’ll say the wrong thing.’ Mum is gracious in her forgiveness. I’m not like that: forgiveness was never earned, and I no longer subscribe to the belief that it should be given freely. Silence is a choice. And it’s a loud one.

Mum found diehard support in the most unlikely people. We’re forever grateful to those who stood by her. I tell Mum she’s my hero, and she is quick to deflect by citing all the support that she received from random and sometimes unexpected places: a chaplain from ANU when she warned them about the JMS front group, old colleagues, an old employer of mine, Ros and Emma, Uncle Peter, neighbours, Rick Ross. People who weren’t scared away by the taboo nature of the subject. People who would never, ever ask her questions like, ‘Have you forgiven yourself for letting that happen to your daughter?’

I’m immensely grateful to all those people. Thank you for supporting my mum. You are my heroes, too.

At this time, I’m alienated from the goings-on of normal life. Everyone my age is having fun, partying, casually dating, studying, going on Contiki trips, staying in rowdy sharehouses. I can’t relate to cultural references the girls at work casually bring up. I don’t know how to think or feel about anything.

I know I was lucky to have got out. I know far worse things happen to people. But healing is lonelier and more excruciating than I thought possible on multiple levels.

Mum tells me I’m young, that I’ll figure it out. It’s hard now, yes; but it will pass. I don’t feel young; I feel tired and ancient. I don’t know how to believe her, because I don’t have much experience with ‘it will pass’. Because I only have her in many ways, I feel like I strangle her with my pain. I’m so desperate for reassurance and certainty and comfort that I don’t appreciate how cruel I’m being to the one person I desperately need. ‘Tell me everything’s going to be OK,’ I say through tears, and then when she obliges, sometimes numerous times a day, ‘How can you possibly know that?!’

We can find no psychologists in 2013 who have appropriate knowledge or tools to guide me. Mum takes me to the Rape Crisis Centre, as she’s advised that’s the closest we can get to the kind of support cult victims might need. They understand coercive control within the context of intimate partner relationships, which is something. But I wasn’t actually raped or molested. After one session of speaking to an empathetic counsellor, I don’t go back. I feel like a fraud syphoning resources from victims who need it more.

I, too, was one of the few survivors of a cult who had the means (through my ever-generous mother) to seek out professional support, even though there was – and still appears to be – very little out there. Since cults deliberately sever your ties with the outside world, many victims who escape emerge not just deeply traumatised, but with no friends or family contacts, no money, no assets, no career and extremely limited skills.

I end up moving to Sydney for Bible college in 2014. Ros and Emma tell me to be careful of ‘cult hopping’: going from one system of control to another to try to find certainty and community, instead of doing the work it takes to heal. I assure them that’s not what this is. I’m just trying to heal my relationship with God.

Of course it’s exactly what this is. In trying to heal, I inadvertently expose myself to another dogmatic belief system. I don’t finally find closeness with God, or find my ‘people’, or receive some kind of divine atonement for what I’ve been through. I slowly learn to stop feeling entitled to atonement or reparation. I learn the only person who can give that to me is myself.

In the midst of all of this, in 2014, a journalist from SBS reaches out. They want to film a documentary about JMS. I agree, keen to raise awareness about cults that operate in plain sight. I want to bring meaning and purpose to all the pain. Perhaps I never fully killed my need for purpose and meaning. Perhaps it’s just part of the human condition, and cults exploit this beautiful part of being fully alive.

After it airs, Mary travels to Sydney and stalks me at my retail job. I cotton on because my boss tells me a small older Asian woman who introduces herself under a name I don’t recognise keeps coming into the store and asking for me. I hide during my lunch breaks, but she finally gets hold of me while I’m running an errand. She clutches at me, crying, telling me she’s sorry for hurting me, and begs me to stop speaking out because I’m hurting everyone, hurting her. It feels like another strange dream. Against my better judgement, I feel compassion for her.

I think because I’d been professionally deprogrammed, I didn’t walk away with the kind of persistent and haunting shame and confusion that plague many cult victims I hear from for years or even decades. I knew about dynamics of coercive control and subtle manipulation, I knew about how grooming works, and I understood how insidious these high-control organisations, religious or not, can be.

I now knew the doctrine of Providence was a fairytale written by a psychopath. I knew it wasn’t my fault. This meant one less burden to carry on my own. And it meant I was able to better spot those dangerous dynamics for myself. I now felt like I was seeing it everywhere: in relationships, in clubs, in wellness culture – and, yes, in church.

I can’t unsee it. I see it at Bible college. I try to push past it, telling myself it’s different. I complete two years and have numerous re-traumatising experiences. In that time, I also have the privilege of accompanying Rick Ross to help deprogram other victims of JMS in Australia. This is a strange juxtaposition.

I spent two years at Bible college. My dear Dad was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in his mid-sixties, though we knew he’d had it for years by that point. I left my job in Sydney and my Christian boyfriend, whom I had thought I’d marry, and moved back to Canberra before Dad forgot who I was. Somewhere in that first year of being home, I realised my faith had just dissolved. You know that viral video of a raccoon who goes to wash his candy floss in the river, and it just disappears in front of him? That’s kind of what it was like. But without the sense of alarm: it was intuitive and natural, like lowering yourself into a warm bath after a cold day outside.

Mum has retained her faith. I used to challenge her, probe her with questions and logical fallacies. But I came to recognise that faith improves her life. She has her convictions about her faith which motivate and guide her, and I have no desire to rob her, or anyone, of that. She isn’t hurting anyone or forcing her views on others.

I found a way to make it all make sense alone, and it was what I needed. I learned how to appreciate the grey areas in life. Lean into them, instead of away from them. I learned self-expression and resilience and critical thinking and boundaries (the last one was by far the hardest). I learned about me, as an entity all by myself, and then I learned how I needed others. I discovered compassion and empathy for others that feels bigger than myself.

I learn the difference between bitterness (poisonous, debilitating) and anger (productive, important, healing). Over the years to come, I navigate the necessary pendulum swing of being suddenly rageful at and suspicious of all religion, all belief systems, all authority figures; and then slowly, over time, I learn to discern what I choose to direct useful anger towards. But I needed to feel it all: to let the fire purify and temper my inner world.

Anger, in many ways, became my compass: my true north for re-learning my intuition and understanding when I needed to assert my boundaries. ‘Negative’ emotions like anger, sadness, depression and anxiety can be vital messages from our intuition that something is deeply wrong. It makes sense that cults and high-control groups demonise them and force us to sever our connection with these internal signals.

I remember Ros telling me when Mum and I stayed with her and Emma in their country house, ‘When you leave a cult, you lose that identity. But you also can’t go back to who you used to be. So you have to form a new self.’ I feel like I’ve been through so many iterations of myself, and now I’m content simply living in the grey areas. Who we are evolves constantly. I’m not stamping a label on myself anymore for existential convenience. It always ends up becoming a prison. I’m OK with being wrong, or choosing differently when I know differently. I’m now far more ‘me’ than I ever was.

The life I live now is so far removed from the way I envisioned it growing up. I don’t have a husband or children (and don’t necessarily want that anymore – unfathomable to me even five years ago). I love my career, but I’m still finishing off my first degree in psychology at thirty-two, and I don’t have a faith to speak of.

I am content with my life. I grieve for the insecure young girl growing up who didn’t know whether she was worthy of love or belonging and was made vulnerable because of that, and I’m also afraid of how desperately sad she would be knowing I never achieved any of those narrow markers of success. I ache for the confused young woman clutching at anything that could provide her some kind of relief from feeling lost and alone.

If I was able to gather her up in my arms and comfort her, I don’t know what I’d say. I wouldn’t say, ‘It will all be OK,’ because it wasn’t, and isn’t. Her pain and trauma are still deeply embedded in my body. I still regularly have horror-movie dreams. I wouldn’t tell her she’s stronger than she knows, because she shouldn’t have had to be. I wouldn’t tell her what happens over the next decade and a bit. I fought hard to know what I know now, but that’s only happened thanks to the journey she took. That girl didn’t know she was fighting tooth and nail to become me, and I’m so grateful to her.

Perhaps I’d just tell her she will find love, purpose and belonging in the most unexpected and wonderful places. And that I love her.

CONCLUSION:

FINDING THE CULTS IN PLAIN SIGHT

Here’s what I now understand about the cult that indoctrinated me – a brief history of Providence, also known as JMS or Jesus Morning Star:

Jeong Myeong-Seok was born in 1945 in South Korea.

He was originally a member of the Unification Church (AKA the Moonies) but later broke away to create his own sect. In the early 1980s, he established Providence (JMS / Jesus Morning Star) and claimed to be a messianic figure tasked with completing Jesus’ work on earth.

Jeong’s 30 Lessons – the Bible studies I undertook in 2011 – closely resemble the ‘Divine Principle’, the teachings of the Unification Church. While he heavily borrowed from these doctrines, he modified them to place himself at the centre as God’s chosen leader. His theology merges traditional Christian concepts with his own reinterpretations of scripture, often twisting Bible verses out of context to justify his claims.

Over the years, Providence expanded globally but became notorious for its controlling, exploitative and abusive practices. The group demanded absolute loyalty, financial contributions and strict adherence to its rules. At its core was a deeply manipulative system of grooming and coercion, particularly targeting young women.

Jeong’s crimes came to light when he was convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault and rape in South Korea in 2007. He had systematically groomed and abused female followers under the guise of ‘spiritual cleansing’. As a result, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, served from 2008 to 2018. Despite Jeong’s incarceration, Providence continued operating worldwide, with members denying all allegations against him.

Then, in December 2023, at the age of seventy-eight, Jeong was convicted again for raping and sexually assaulting multiple women – including Amy, someone I didn’t meet during my time in Providence but who has since become an invaluable friend. He was sentenced to twenty-three more years in prison. In January 2025, the Supreme Court of South Korea reduced his sentence to seventeen years. He is also required to wear an electronic tracking bracelet for fifteen years and is prohibited from working at child-related facilities for ten years.

Providence has fiercely defended him, of course, and continue to protest Jeong’s innocence. Reports suggest that the group even allegedly hired external protesters with no direct ties to Providence to picket outside the court.

Notably, several high-ranking leaders, including Jeong’s right-hand woman, Pastor Joeun, were also convicted and imprisoned for their roles in grooming and facilitating abuse. I like to call them his ‘Ghislaine Maxwells’. The broader web of enablers has been the subject of ongoing legal scrutiny as more survivors continue to come forward with their own allegations of abuse.

Last time I heard, Providence still operates in more than seventy countries across the globe.

A number of years ago, the focus of cult-centred documentaries and movies appeared to be the charismatic and deeply abusive leaders of well-known cults. In the anti-cult activism world, a phrase sometimes used is ‘cookie cutter cult leaders’, because they’re all so similar to each other. Typically their behaviour indicates a dark combination of cluster-B personality disorders – narcissism, histrionism, antisocial personality disorder (the current umbrella term for varying degrees of psychopathy and sociopathy, both no longer recognised as official classifications) and/or cluster-A personality disorders – schizophrenia or paranoia.

That’s not to demonise any psychological disorders – people who live with these disorders can be productive, functioning, healthy members of society, and are in fact statistically far likelier to be the victims than the perpetrators of violence. It’s simply to say that cult leaders often appear to have deep, unchecked, untreated psychological illness.

These documentaries displayed a fascination with – bordering on morbid admiration of – these destructive human beings. I hated it. You learn about one cult leader, you’ve learned about them all. They operate out of the same playbook. I don’t believe diving deep into understanding the motivations of these people as individuals is helpful. Their motivations can usually be attributed to combinations of power, sex and money.

Reporting on cult members – the victims and the perpetrators – was, and often still is, extremely sensationalised. People in cults and their strange behaviours and ways of living tend to be spoken about as if they’re crazy, delusional, erratic and even stupid. There’s very little nuance when it comes to victims and perpetrators. While it’s true that victims are groomed to imitate their own abusers, the vast majority of cult members are not perpetrators. Everyone in Providence was tasked with recruiting, and most of us did it because we genuinely, deeply believed that we were saving people.

In the last few years, we’ve seen the world become more interested in listening to the stories of victims and survivors, and understanding how they could possibly be so invisibly and pervasively influenced to act directly against their own best interests, and act solely in favour of the cult they belong to. How their personalities go through such a sudden and enormous shift, how they can abruptly cut off their loved ones, how they go from being ‘good people’ and ‘intelligent people’ to becoming instruments of crime and deception, and how so many of them die tragically and senselessly.

In 2021, Amy reached out for the first time via an Instagram DM. I believe we’ve had some similar experiences, and then, I actually lived in Korea for a year and a half right beside Jeong Myeong-Seok. So I experienced and saw a lot. She was navigating speaking out, getting bombarded with media enquiries and wanting some advice, because she knew me from the SBS documentary I took part in back in 2014. I was stunned to hear from anyone associated with Providence. We arranged a zoom call, and Amy told me about her experiences. She’d recently left. We talked for a long time, and kept in contact.

Amy was indoctrinated into Providence in Melbourne just a couple of years after I had left, and was deemed a Faith Star soon after. She is tall and beautiful, with blazing red curly locks, alabaster skin and green eyes. Jeong Myeong-Seok wanted her close to him, and she was instructed to live in South Korea for a year and a half during her time in Providence. Jeong was out of prison by that point, having been released in 2018.

I’d often worried what would happen to all the women I knew when he had served his sentence. He would write in his letters to me and the other Faith Stars that, when he came out, we could ‘live with him’ and ‘follow him closely’.

My fears were well founded. Amy was molested multiple times by Jeong while she was in Wolmyeongdong. She was in Providence for around six years. I listened to her harrowing story over a FaceTime call in tears.

She told me how I was demonised in Providence once I did the SBS documentary. I became another cautionary tale of Satan getting his claws into believers and sending them on an evil mission to tear down God’s people. I had suspected as much. I remembered hearing about people like me when I was in the big old house – only ever in hushed tones.

Amy told me about a Netflix docuseries she was going to be involved in – titled In the Name of God – and the support of Professor Do-Hyung Kim, a dogged and tireless activist against Jeong Myeong-Seok and his followers. With his backing, she was launching a lawsuit alongside another victim-survivor from Hong Kong against JMS with numerous charges of rape and molestation. I’m in awe of their courage.

We spoke back and forth as Amy went between Australia and South Korea for the trial and the filming. A couple of days before the show aired, she sent me a text.

Hey, can we speak for a minute? I have something I need to tell you.

Of course.

Over the phone she was hesitant. ‘I’ve been tossing up whether or not to tell you this,’ she said, and I could hear the nervousness in her voice.

‘Don’t feel you have to tell me, if you don’t want to,’ I reassured her. ‘You’re not obliged to tell me anything.’ I meant it, but I was deeply curious about what on earth it could be.

‘No, no, I should let you know before the show airs, because it might be mentioned.’

Jeong had told her she was my counterpart: I was deemed the ‘former’ and she the ‘latter’. He viewed her as God’s replacement for me. He would tell her many times, ‘Never change for the worse.’ When he molested her, he would speak about me, saying over and over again how disgusting and ugly I was, how much he hated me. How she was different. Better. Jeong etched his vulgar, childish rage that he’d had a toy stolen from him into her already unfathomably traumatic experience.

Amy reported the assault to a senior female Providence leader. Her response was to ‘educate’ her around the molestation she’d experienced, saying, ‘He’s your husband in the world too – can’t a husband do that kind of thing to their wife? It’s the same here: you’re the bride. You should be thankful; it’s a blessing.’

She told me she used to pray in tears for me to come back into the truth, to repent for turning against Providence.

Her grace towards me given her conditioning at the time shocks me. I feel deeply guilty that Jeong took his rage at me out on her, years later. I think about whether, if I’d left quietly, I could have prevented her being hurt in my place. I realise, in some ways, the abuse she suffered was meant for me.

Amy and I finally met in person in June 2023 when we travelled to South Korea with the crew of Channel 7’s Spotlight to film another documentary about Providence there, called The Cult Next Door.

Spotlight reporter Sarah Greenhalgh interviewed Mr Young, the lawyer representing JMS, as part of the documentary. He denied all allegations of brainwashing and sexual assault, saying he was convinced Jeong’s previous conviction for rape was a grave miscarriage of justice. He stated the women claiming to have been abused – including Amy – ‘don’t have the mental or physical signs’ of being victims. Throughout their hour-long interview, he danced around questions regarding other women being paid off in exchange for their silence.

During the trial, Providence members told the Spotlight crew, as they always have, that they believe they’re unfairly targeted by the Korean media because of their ‘unconventional’ beliefs. Cults love to play the persecution card while simultaneously gaslighting and insulting victim-survivors.

Back in Australia, Sarah Greenhalgh had a disappointing interview with Sue Woodward AM, Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), in our attempt to address the still-intact charity status of Providence churches in Australia.

For some reason, the leader of The Lord’s Hope Church in Sydney – a faction of Providence – at the time recorded and sent a video message to Amy ordering her to stop ‘attacking Providence’. If she didn’t heed their warning, she stated, they’d hold a ‘press conference against her’, revealing ‘every unfortunate, unethical, amoral thing that you’ve done … to detrimentally affect your life and definitely your future career’. This kind of threat is extremely common with cults – the only remarkable aspect being Providence greenlighting an identity-exposing video recording.

Unfortunately for the Sydney leader, Spotlight aired the video nationally as part of the documentary and reported the video to the AFP and the ACNC Commissioner.

During the interview with the Commissioner, Sarah Greenhalgh showed her the video. She watched it in its entirety, seeing direct threats from a group that is currently listed as a ‘religious organisation’ in Australia and therefore pays no tax, and hasn’t since 2014. They certainly don’t need the money – they enjoy free labour from all of their members, and tithes and generous donations from the ones with money.

The Commissioner’s response to the video threat was to stare blankly, before stating she ‘cannot comment’, and then when pushed, simply, ‘The Commission looks into every report.’

The Commission at a later date reiterated that charities are ‘encouraged to disclose information voluntarily in a system that depends on self-reporting for its efficient operation’, and that tax status eligibility was up to the Australian Tax Office. Not the kind of response you’d hope to get when the ‘charitable organisation’ they’re talking about is run by a convicted rapist from a prison cell.

Questions have since been put to the ACNC in parliament by Greens Senator David Shoebridge, urging them to properly investigate the matter. He also asked what concerns the ACNC has regarding breaches of applicable charity laws, whether criminality is being identified and responded to, and what review would be undertaken as to the tax-exempt status of the church.

Despite following up multiple times, there has been no response from the ACNC except that they are ‘looking into it’.

Cults are infinitely more common than most people think. With that comes the dire need for more understanding of this phenomenon, and subsequently, significant legislative and policy reform.

Currently, the approach to developing legislation addressing coercive control in Australia is managed at the state and territory level. At the time of writing, here’s the current landscape – which is uneven, but has thankfully seen significant progress in recent years.

New South Wales was the first state to introduce standalone legislation criminalising coercive control under the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Coercive Control) Act 2022, which came into effect on 1 July 2024. Under this law, coercive control within intimate relationships is criminalised, with penalties including up to seven years’ imprisonment.

Queensland followed with its own legislation, the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024, which was passed in March 2024 and which has come into effect on 26 May 2025. This law includes a maximum penalty of fourteen years’ imprisonment for coercive control offences.

South Australia has just introduced the Criminal Law Consolidation (Coercive Control) Amendment Bill 2024. Western Australia announced in late 2023 that it would take a phased approach to criminalising coercive control. The initial steps involve reforms to the Restraining Orders Act and implementing training for police officers.

In Victoria, aspects of coercive control are addressed under general family violence laws, which include intimidating, threatening or controlling behaviour and financial abuse. It’s a similar situation in Tasmania, the ACT and the NT, where coercive control is addressed under broader domestic violence laws. Among these, Tasmania is the only jurisdiction to actually criminalise coercive control as a distinct offence, under their Family Violence Act 2004. These jurisdictions all have yet to introduce stand-alone legislation targeting coercive control.

Legislation addressing coercive control within intimate partner and family situations is key. Australia is currently facing a crisis of violence against women, predominantly perpetrated by current or former male partners, with shocking acts of violence and murder serving as the catalyst for these coercive control laws. We know that physical violence rarely occurs in these situations without pre-existing coercive control dynamics. This must be addressed urgently: it’s taken us far too long to do so as a country, and we’ve still got a whole lot of necessary progress ahead.

While this legislation is crucial, it must be designed to protect and consider everyone. A significant concern raised by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is the risk of victims being further victimised or even misidentified as perpetrators in family violence situations due to systemic racism and a lack of cultural understanding within law enforcement. This issue also affects migrant, refugee and other marginalised communities, highlighting the critical need for nuance in legislative reform.

Given the existing coercive control legislation in Australia predominantly addresses family and intimate partner violence, it is not designed to address coercive control in high-demand groups. There is, however, increasing recognition of the broader applications of coercive control, including its relevance to cults and other group settings. We know the underlying psychological dynamics are, in so many regards, the same. Coercive control in these types of organisations often leads to other serious criminal offences, such as sexual abuse and grooming (of both children and adults), modern slavery (including child slavery), exploitative labour and human trafficking.

I and fellow victim-survivors hope and advocate for a broader, more inclusive and more culturally aware understanding of coercive control in cults and in other settings, such as child abuse, elder abuse and abuse of people with disabilities, through building on our current legislation.

In Australia the federal government has implemented several policies to address coercive control, recognising it as a pressing issue that demands a coordinated national approach. The cornerstone of these efforts are the National Principles to Address Coercive Control in Family and Domestic Violence, which aim to create a shared understanding of coercive control across the country, and in doing so, synchronise approaches to prevention, intervention, response and recovery efforts, and embed these principles into legal frameworks.

When it comes to cults, there is still a lack of formal recognition of their functioning and even how such groups are identified. Consistent and appropriate processes for identifying and addressing the plight of individuals being trapped in high-control groups – particularly among vulnerable populations – are noticeably absent from our frontline institutions, including the Australian Federal Police, healthcare specialists and social services.

My own mother’s experiences bear this out: during my time in the big old house, she called the AFP in distress a number of times to report that she was concerned for my safety, that I was in a cult, that I was increasingly unwell each time she saw me. They told her repeatedly that there was nothing they could do, unless I was being forcibly held against my own will. You can see the difficulty here, right? In reality, my will was obsolete. It had been for a long time.

If the AFP had knocked on the front door and asked me, ‘Are you being held against your will?’, after I recovered from the initial shock I would’ve replied emphatically that I chose to be there, and I was happy and well. At least at the time, they didn’t have the training, resources or even a referral system to triage my terrified mum. It’s a complex situation to navigate, and difficult to pick up on red flags of coercive control in such a curated setting like a cult without specialised training.

The psychiatrist at the hospital, too, wasn’t open to discussing with my mother how my involvement in a cult was a key reason I was so unwell. It was out of his scope, he told her, and he didn’t wish to get involved. Understandable, but even the most basic knowledge of cults could have made a difference at a crucial stage. He was still an excellent doctor, and we’re so fortunate he agreed to make sure I was discharged into Mum’s care. That decision saved my life.

I can’t imagine how Mum must have felt: desperately seeking help from institutions that are meant to provide support and assistance, and being told they have nothing to offer her. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, though. And I don’t hold this against the AFP, or the doctor, of course. There’s a far more systemic deficit here rather than a problem with our frontline responders.

Many tireless advocates in the anti-cult activism space in Australia tell me that despite numerous efforts and formal submissions over the years, they’ve yet to really see any kind of meaningful progress that specifically addresses scaled, organisation-based coercive control.

We know that the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (the ACNC) has lower qualifying and reporting requirements for ‘basic religious charities’ (BRCs). While all other charities must meet ACNC governance standards and financial reporting requirements, BRCs are exempt from such obligations. Some organisations argue that these exemptions protect religious freedom and reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, particularly for small or volunteer-run charities. However, others argue that these exemptions undermine transparency and accountability, leading to a lack of public trust. In my view, this system leaves the door wide open for unethical groups to exploit.

Cults are savvy. And greedy. They know if they assume the ‘religion’ label, they qualify for tax exemption via their charity status. Some cults have even registered as a New Religious Movement (NRM) for this express purpose. The approach of many anti-cult activists has been to attempt to strip cults of their charity status. I’m not arguing against religious freedom, which is an important part of our democracy; I’m arguing against the exploitation of religious freedom laws by malevolent groups.

Cults know how to avoid or minimise detection when they have to. With cults like Providence, they use multiple ABNs to register their locations as individual churches, with no paper trail tying them all together. This would mean that each church in each state – and to my knowledge Providence churches currently operate in most states in Australia – would need to be reported and assessed individually, laying a further evidentiary burden on victim-survivors coming forward.

Furthermore, when it comes to a destructive high-demand ‘charity’ such as a cult, you can’t reasonably balance reports of current members with past members. Current members are still brainwashed, and they’re often called on to write glowing reports of the integrity of their group, while past members report horrific abuse and extreme methods of control.

Cults do not engage in good faith. You absolutely cannot expect, like the ACNC or the redress scheme do, that these groups will truthfully engage in a voluntary reporting system. It’s not happening, and the cost of not addressing this is high. Sticking our heads in the sand isn’t going to make this problem go away.

Fortunately, some progress has potentially been made through the 2024 Productivity Commission’s Future Foundations for Giving report, with recommendations for increasing the effectiveness and transparency of philanthropy to create a more robust environment for charitable giving.

In the report, the commission proposed removing the concept of a BRC and its associated exemptions – based on the conclusion that there is no valid reason for these exemptions – so that all charities, religious or secular, are subject to the same ACNC regulatory framework. If this is adopted by the ACNC, at the very least it will subject religious organisations to the same standards as non-religious ones. If they’re above board, there shouldn’t be any issues – and I wonder why it was that way in the first place.

An expanded definition of coercive control that includes high-demand groups, with an intersectional approach that considers the unique vulnerabilities of individuals in these groups, will help create a shared understanding of how to progress. Only then can legislative and policy frameworks be judiciously updated with the inclusion of coercive control in cults within the legal frameworks that currently address domestic violence. This could involve amendments to existing laws or the creation of new legislation that specifically targets coercive control in organisational settings.

Specific training programs must be developed for law enforcement, healthcare providers and social services to recognise and respond to coercive control in cults. This can be an extension of the existing training for domestic violence but tailored to the nuances of high-control groups. Support services for survivors of coercive control should also be equipped to handle cases involving cults. This includes providing resources and referrals to specialised organisations that understand the complexities of leaving high-demand groups.

To get there, I will repeat again: the Australian Government needs to listen to survivors. As a starting point, I strongly recommend a federal inquiry into cultic groups that allows for victims to be heard, and that provides government officials and policy-makers with an understanding of what a high-control group looks like.

For now, given the serious lack of adequate and appropriate government safeguarding and resourcing in the coercive control space, we rely on grassroots organisations such as Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS), founded by my dear friends Emma and Ros. These types of organisations receive extremely limited funding and operate in their own capacity, and while they do incredible work – CIFS quite literally helped to save my life – they are in no way adequately equipped to address the enormity of the problem in Australia on their own.

EPILOGUE

DECEMBER 2023

Amy, Annie, Sam, Akari and I all sit in the living room of the rented cottage on a farm just outside Canberra. We’re sipping scotch and eating Doritos (a classless and delightful combination). We laugh a lot, cry sometimes, and share experiences and realisations only people who’ve been intimately acquainted with Providence would understand.

There’s so much to share, and even though we’ve been here three days, it still feels like we’ve only scraped the surface. At the same time, it’s a bit of a minefield: we’re all conscious that we each battle our own complex post-traumatic stress and have buried some memories forever. We don’t want to dredge up anything someone else isn’t ready for. ‘Please tell me if any of you don’t wanna talk about this,’ we say often as someone else’s memory sparks one of our own.

I raise the memory of Annie asking how to ‘get what I had’, when I was visibly unwell with my eating disorder. It takes her a minute, but then she replies, ‘Oh! I remember now. I wasn’t losing weight like Mary wanted. She’d tell me constantly that I needed to copy your eating and exercise habits. To be more like you, because you were doing really well.’

Even knowing what I know about Mary, the answer still shocks me.

‘I was visibly anorexic, asking for help, and she told you to copy me?!’

‘Many times, yeah.’

Being able to finally corroborate stories with each other, we find out so much more about what was happening behind the scenes in the big old house. I learn in more detail from Sam, Akari and Amy about how the leaders in their churches were easily as manipulative and abusive as Mary was. She wasn’t an outlier; the whole group was the problem.

I barely knew Sam and Akari, who were Melbourne members at the time, while I was in Providence. It’s only in the past year that I learned they’d come out, and it feels surreal and wonderful to see them again.

We’ve placed old photos of Jeong Myeong-Seok that we were given while we were members – him smiling, him on a horse in full riding gear, him delivering a sermon to a crowd – on the coffee table. ‘That poor horse,’ Sam jokes. ‘Probably the worst day of its life.’ There’s a running joke about how terrible Jeong was at all the activities he claimed to be expert at.

‘My cognitive dissonance really deepened when I saw him play soccer,’ Sam shares, chuckling. ‘Like, everyone was cheering him on manically, but he was so bad at it. The other players literally just let him kick the ball into the goal and then acted like he’d done something incredible.’

‘Oh my god, we were always told he was literally a world-class soccer player.’ Akari chuckles.

‘And tennis player, and singer, and runner, and artist, and musician—’

‘Did you see the video of him banging away at a grand piano!?’

‘Worst thing I’ve ever heard. Wait, second worst, after his singing.’ We all burst out laughing.

‘I think it’s time for the ceremony,’ Sam declares.

‘Let’s do it.’

We grab the photos of Jeong and start ripping them up, stomping on them, while we launch into a scotch-fuelled rant about what a horrific person he was. A rapist, a misogynist, a perverted, megalomaniacal, narcissistic, abusive pig. We all must look ridiculous, but the makeshift ritual is cathartic. After we finish, we chuck the pieces in the bin then pour out another round of scotch.

We talk about how, if our cult selves could see our current selves, they would be distraught that we’re all ‘fallen’. We reminisce about their bold faith, boundless enthusiasm and hopeful idealism: those good qualities that were exploited. We talk about our broken spirits, and of how we’ve been healing them. Our group chat is jokingly called ‘Left so we could drink and smoke’.

‘It feels so surreal being here with you all,’ I say in a rare moment of quiet. ‘Like, when I left all those years ago, I was alone. And now, nearly eleven years on, I’m surrounded by the most incredible women.’

It’s not the alcohol talking: these women are genuinely incredible. Annie, with her PhD and beautiful little family she eagerly shows us pictures of. Her strength and tenderness and sense of humour. Sam’s just completed her counselling degree, and is already helping to bust cult operations at a local university and counsel the students that have left. She is as effortlessly cool as I remember – even though she doesn’t think she is – and I learn that she’s also fearless. Akari is a passionate and knowledgeable educator, nurturing and deeply intuitive. And then there’s Amy, who I’ve come to know and respect as immeasurably brave, with unbreakable composure. A powerful woman.

Isn’t it wild, we all say. Though we initially sought community when we joined Providence, in a roundabout way we’ve now found a stronger, safer, more genuine one. With real versions of each other. Threads of our stories are intertwined, along with threads of those who have supported and championed us, and all the others who’ve escaped, and together we’ve woven lives of resilience, metamorphosis, evolution and hope.

REFERENCES

GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

ACT, ACT Domestic Violence, Family and Sexual Violence Strategy: https://yoursayconversations.act.gov.au/act-dfsv-strategy

APH inquiry on religious freedom and belief, 27 Nov 2000: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Completed_Inquiries/jfadt/Religion/relindex

NSW, Crimes Legislation Amendment (Coercive Control) Act 2022: https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/pdf/asmade/act-2022-65

NT, Review of Legislation and the Justice Response to Domestic and Family Violence in the Northern Territory: https://justice.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0003/1130385/review-of-legislation-and-the-justice-response-to-domestic-and-family-violence-august-2022.DOCX

Productivity Commission, Future foundations for giving Inquiry report. Report no. 104, 10 May 2024: https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/philanthropy/report/philanthropy-overview.pdf

QLD, Queensland Government, Coercive control laws: https://www.qld.gov.au/community/getting-support-health-social-issue/support-victims-abuse/need-to-know/coercive-control/coercive-control-laws

SA, Coercive control in South Australia, https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/law-and-justice/legislation/coercive-control-in-south-australia

TAS, Tasmanian Government – Safe From Violence – Non-Physical Violence: https://www.safefromviolence.tas.gov.au/resources-hub/non-physical-violence

VIC, Parliament of Victoria, Coercive control’ gaining recognition: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/news/justice/coercive-control/

WA, Coercive control consultation: https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-justice/commissioner-victims-of-crime/coercive-control-consultation

PUBLICATIONS

Buxton-Namisnyk, E, Gibson, A and MacGillivray, P, ‘Unintended, but not unanticipated: coercive control laws will disadvantage First Nations women’, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/unintended-but-not-unanticipated-coercive-control-laws-will-disadvantage-first-nations-women-188285, 26 August 2022

Corvaglia, Luigi, ‘Greenwashing cults: How cult apologists poison wells’, https://ssrn.com/abstract=4323801 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4323801, 13 January 2023

Cummings, S, Bridgman, T and Brown, KG, ‘Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management’, Human Relations, 69(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726715577707, pp33–60, 2016

Festinger, Leon and Riecken, Henry and Schachter, Stanley, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World, 2009

Fischer, Christy, ‘Why criminalising coercive control in Australia poses danger for First Nations women’, One Woman Project, https://www.onewomanproject.org/first-nations/why-criminalising-coercion-and-control-in-australia-poses-danger-for-first-nations-women, 28 June 2021

Hassan, Steven, PhD, Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Bestselling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults, 1988

Hill, Jess, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse, 2019

Hunter, Edward, Brainwashing: The Story of Men Who Defied It, 1956

Jones, B and Anyieth, AK, ‘CALD communities as “collateral damage” in the criminalization of coercive control: An argument for prioritizing civil system reform over further criminalization in Victoria’, Violence Against Women, 31(2), https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012231214775, pp598–616, 2025

Lalich, Dr Janja, Dr Lalich’s Theory on Brainwashing, webpage accessed 02/08/2024, https://janjalalich.com/about/dr-lalichs-theory-on-brainwashing/

Lifton, Robert Jay, Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives, 1995

Mackay, Melissa, ‘Advocates praise NT government’s ‘strong’ domestic violence reforms, but say proposed legislation does not go far enough’, ABC News, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-25/domestic-family-violence-legislation-tightened-nt-government/103020690, 25 October 2023

Ofshe, R, ‘Coercive persuasion and attitude change’, Encyclopedia of Sociology, 1, https://question12tribes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Coercive-Persuasion-and-Attitude-Change.pdf, pp212–224, 1992

Ross, Rick Alan, Cults Inside Out: How People Get in and Can Get Out, 2014

Singer, Dr Margaret, ‘Singer’s Continuum of Influence and Persuasion’, The Cult Observer, 11(6), https://www.cultrecover.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/CONTINUUM_INFLUENCE.pdf, 1994

Steel, Sarah, Do As I Say: How Cults Control, Why We Join Them, and What They Teach Us about Bullying, Abuse and Coercion, 2022

Stein, Dr Alexandra, Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems, 2021

Tobias, Madeleine L and Lalich, Janja, Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships, 1994, excerpts from chapter one, ‘The Cultic Relationship’, available at: https://culteducation.com/brainwashing18.html

Zablocki, B and Robbins, T, editors, Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field, 2001

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, to my beautiful mum: thank you, as always, for everything. I won’t harp on, but your love and support – especially during this writing process – meant the world to me.

Thank you to all my beautiful ex-Providence friends, both in Australia and abroad. Getting to know each other as our ‘real selves,’ free and unbound, is a privilege I’ll treasure forever. We share struggles and experiences that few can truly understand, and we are also much more than those shared trials.

To Amy, Annie, Sam and Akari: thank you for your friendship, assistance and solidarity. I’ve already written about how much I love and admire you, so I’ll leave it at that, but know how deeply I appreciate you.

A special thank you to Amy and Maple for your courage in testifying about the abuse you endured. That excruciating process brought down a dangerous leader and saved countless others. Thank you, too, to Professor Kim for your decades-long fight for justice and for championing this legal battle. The impact of your work is immeasurable – you’ve made it safer for us to speak out. I’m endlessly grateful on behalf of so many.

I also want to thank one man who spoke out powerfully, but his voice was shut down by Providence a few years back. Your work had great impact on me and many others. I hope your life now is full and happy.

To those still in Providence whom I care deeply about: I hope one day to meet you on the other side. Life out here is so much better than you’ve been led to believe. Please know that I didn’t write this book to hurt you.

To Uncle Peter: thank you for supporting Mum during such an incredibly difficult time and for coming all the way to Canberra for my deprogramming. You were her rock, and your presence made a world of difference. I’ll always remember your kindness and quiet strength during that time.

To my brothers, extended family and close friends: thank you for your unwavering love and support throughout this past challenging year. I love you all so much.

Thank you to my beautiful partner for being such a grounding, kind and generous support to me these past months. All the nourishing meals you delivered to my door while I was pushing out writing and edits. I do begrudgingly admit you are the better cook.

Rick Ross, thank you for your decades of work freeing people from cults. Your skill, kindness and passion saved my life. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have accompanied you and witnessed your extraordinary work first-hand.

To Ros Hodgkins and Emma Kipps: thank you for your tireless efforts through CIFS, combating cults and supporting survivors in Australia. Your kindness toward my mum as she fought to help me, and your guidance during our early days of recovery, are things I’ll never forget. I know we’re just two of the many survivors and their family members you’ve helped. I’m honoured to know you.

To Sarah Greenhalgh and Phil Goyen: thank you for giving Amy and me a sensitive and empathetic platform on Spotlight to tell our story. Your belief in us and your ongoing support made all the difference. I’m proud to call you both friends.

Sarah Steel, thank you for your generous support and advice throughout the intense process of writing this book. Lara Kaput and Laura McConnell Conti, thank you for sharing your stories and for your encouragement. I’m grateful to have allies like you in this fight and look forward to continuing to work alongside you and learn from you.

To my publisher, Tom Langshaw: thank you for seeing potential in my niche online yapping and believing there was a book in there. Your expertise, encouragement and grace carried me through this journey. I admire you immensely.

To my editor, LinLi Wan: thank you for your kindness, patience and for helping with the finer details that brought this book to life. You are a gem.

To the entire Pantera Press team: what a passionate and supportive group of experts. Thank you for everything – from designing the fabulous cover (I’m obsessed!) to cheering me on with heartfelt messages when I signed. I respect so deeply the meaningful conversations your organisation fosters, and I’m honoured to be a small part of that mission.

To Kate O’Donnell and Nikki Lusk: your thoughtful input and meticulous attention to detail helped refine this book in ways I couldn’t have achieved alone. I’m grateful for your care and dedication.

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported my social media content and this book. Your encouragement not only helps to raise awareness about cults and coercive control but also makes it safer for me, as a survivor, to continue speaking out. I still feel afraid at times, so your support means more than I can express.

And to you, dear reader: thank you. It’s a true privilege to have you pick up this book and spend time with my words. I hope it has been valuable to you in some way.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz Cameron grew up in fundamentalist Christianity and was brainwashed into the JMS cult, also known as Providence, at age eighteen in 2011. Since escaping in 2013, she’s slowly rebuilt her life while also working to raise awareness of cults and assist in deprogramming other cult victims. She now resides in Canberra and balances full-time professional work with cult awareness and advocacy, while also studying a psychology degree.

The information in this book is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Although the author and publisher believe at the time of going to press that the information is correct, they do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether they result from negligence, accident or any other cause.

First published in 2025 by Pantera Press, an imprint of Hardie Grant Publishing

Pantera Press

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Ultimo NSW 2007

Text copyright © Liz Cameron, 2025

Liz Cameron has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

Design and typography copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2025

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Pantera Press acknowledges the Aboriginal Traditional Custodians of the Countries on which we work, and we pay our respect to Elders both past and present.

This work is copyright, and all rights are reserved. Apart from any use permitted under copyright legislation, no part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing. We welcome your support of the author’s rights, so please only buy authorised editions.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 9780645858037 (Paperback)

eISBN 9780645858006 (eBook)

Cover design: Hazel Lam

Cover image: © Viktor Solomin / Stocksy

Publisher: Tom Langshaw

Project editor: LinLi Wan

Editor: Kate O’Donnell

Proofreader: Nikki Lusk

Author photo: John Varga ACS

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