Today I had a delightful 3 hour phone conversation with Lisa, the third woman to be excommunicated into the shed on ACMTC’s compound in winter of 1987. She was my closest friend in there, and when I was finally kicked out, I think she helped me more than anybody else to understand what I’d come out of. We’d stay up until all hours of the morning talking, brain storming thoughts about what had just happened, and what’s going on behind the doors of ACMTC. We knew it was dark. It was an amazingly time of new awareness for us, and it bonded us forever. I feel so close to this woman I haven’t seen in 25 years.
Lisa holds a master’s degree in education, and she’s created a lovely life for herself where she’s making a big difference in other people’s lives.
Lisa and Abe had just come home from spending two years in the Philippines when Lila Green prophesied judgment on her. They weren’t there when shit first hit the fan, when god’s judgment came into the camp. Below, with Lisa’s permission to publish, is an email she sent me yesterday, before talking with her today for the first time in about 25 years. Such an amazing joy to reconnect with this strong and beautiful woman.
“Lila’s systematic and methodical approach to separating mothers from their children and husbands was so vile and sinister, her goal to create individuals with no sense of self, value or a knowing that they were loved by mothers, helped to further her goal of control and blind devotion. I feel so grateful because my daughter was so young and her memories of that time are rooted in our life in the jungle and a world of the natural indigenous way of being. In harmony with all life and respectful of the tribe and community. It is this experience in the jungle that strengthened and propelled me to leave that shed. I had been living in the natural world for two years, in balance with all creation and within three days my soul knew that what was occurring at the ministry was not of God. I had to escape. Alas my husband who had shared a life of amazing grace and had witnessed miracles with me in the Islands was lost to oppression, fear and unnatural mind control. It was devastating. Today I struggle from time to time with the loss: but I have overcome so many hurdles, racially, professionally, financially, emotionally and spiritually that it is frightening for me to consider revisiting that past. I have dedicated my life to serving marginalized communities of women and children regarding health access, so obviously I am committed to assisting the vulnerable from harmful influences and oppression. I just wish to stay personally safe in the process.”
Lisa, former ACMTC member
