Celeste Jones - Not Without My Sister: The true story of three girls violated and betrayed by those they trusted

Celeste Jones, Kristina Jones,

and Juliana Buhring

To our sister, Davida
To my sister in sorrow:
Too well did I understand
The look in your haunted eyes;
Pain and disillusionment.
You fought a losing battle,
And lost.
And died.
I will shedfor you the tears
Of a lifetime you will never live.
The tears you will never more shed.
Madonna of suffering,
Wrapped in the cold shroud of death.
I wept with you.
I weep foryou.
For I still can.
The tide of tears has turned.
Sleep, my sister,
Ad weep no more.
(Written on Davida's tombstone, Juliana 2005)

In January 2005, our sister Davida died from a drug overt dose. She was twenty-three. The shock of Davida's death affected us deeply though we understood her pain and despair. Each of us in our own way has struggled with painful memories of abandonment, neglect, and abuse as children born and raised under the malign influence of a religious cult, the Children of God.
We were systematically abused, physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually; from the earliest age. We were separated from each other and our parents and raised communally in this organization, which was also known as the "Family."
Unlike our parents who had burned their bridges and left their former lives, we were never given a choice over the paths our lives would follow. Isolated from society, we were controlled by fearfear of the government, police, doctors, and social workers, and the even greater fear of God's wrath if we ever left the protection of the Family.
Our childhood was dominated by one man: David Berga man we never met, but who was like an invisible ghost that was with us at all times. He was the warped and manipulative force behind the Children of God. David Berg liked to see himself as a benevolent parental figure, and called us, his followers, the "Children of David." He saw himself as the successor of King David and the Prophet Mosescalling himself Moses David, or Mo for short. The children were taught to call him "Grandpa." He was the head of our family, the prophet, the leader, our "light in the midst of darkness." The rules we followed were dictated by his words. We read about every detail of his life, his dreams, his likes and dislikes, and the women he slept with and the children he abused. From a very young age we memorized his words and hours of every day were dedicated to studying his writings, called Mo Letters. "Word Time"which was the time spent reading these letters and studying the Biblewas an important part of daily life. It would be difficult if not impossible to write about our life without acknowledging the dominating influence of David Berg on our lives.
From birth, we were conditioned to obey and follow the way of the cult. We had no choice, and knew no other way. We never heard our father express an opinion that was his own; it was always, "Grandpa said..." If we were punished it was because we had disobeyed Mo's rules; if we were rewarded it was because we were "faithful followers." Our father's devotion to Berg and faith in his prophecies and predictions was unwavering. If he questioned if any of it was real, or if it was a chimerasmoke and mirrorshe never showed it, not even behind closed doors.
Berg taught that birth control was rebellion against God, so within a few years there were thousands of children born into the group. He boasted that we were the "hope of the future"a pure second generation untainted by the outside world. We were told it was the highest privilege to be born and raised in the Family, free from the shackles of the "System," as the outside world was called. It was our destiny to become God's Endtime soldiers, and to give our lives for the cause. Berg predicted the world would end in 1993, and we would become the leaders of the New Millennium. As our lives on earth would be short, we were never allowed to just be children. Our individuality was suppressed, and we were simply commodities used to further the collective goals of the group.
The belief that damaged us the most was Berg's "Law of Love." God was love, and love equaled sex. Sharing your body with someone else was considered the highest expression of love. Age was not a barrier in Berg's Law of Love and Family children were made to participate in his warped, pedophilic philosophy. His own children and grandchildren suffered from his incestuous predilections.
In this book we describe the emotional journey we undertook from our earliest years, through to our teens when we secretly, then more openly questioned itand finally, when we struggled to break free, like butterflies caught in a spider's sticky web. This is a story of darkness and light, of imprisonment of the soul, of redemption and freedom. We survivedmany didn't. Thousands of the Family's second generation have had to deal with the devastating consequences of their parents' blind faith in a leader who claimed he was the voice of God on earth. Those who have bravely spoken out about their suffering have been vilified and slandered by their former abusers. Our hope is that in telling our story, you will hear the voices of the children they tried to silence.

Celeste Jones, Kristina Jones, Juliana Buhring England 2007

The Children of God started in Southern California in the late 1960s, among the hippiesdropouts of Huntington Beach. The founder, David Berg, was born in 1919, in Oakland, California. His mother, Virginia Lee Brandt Berg, was a celebrated evangelist with the Christian Missionary Alliance. In 1944 Berg married Jane Miller, a young Baptist youth worker. After the birth of their second child, Berg became the pastor of a Christian Missionary Alliance Church in Arizona. However, after only three years he was expelled, reputedly for a sex scandal. His expulsion began his life-long bitterness and disillusionment with organized religion.
In December 1967, Berg moved his familyhis wife Jane (later known as Mother Eve) and their four children, Deborah, Faithy, Aaron and Hoseato Huntington Beach, California, where they stayed with his eighty-year-old mother. She had started a small ministry from a coffee shop called the Light Club, distributing sandwiches to the hippies, surfers, and dropouts who congregated on the pier. But when the Light Club's clean-cut image failed to attract the longhaired hippies, Mrs. Berg saw the opportunity for her son and grandchildren to minister to the youngsters with the music and fervour of their own generation. In a short time, David Berg and his family began attracting the youth in droves with the free food and anti-system, anti-war message they endorsed.
The group traveled across the United States gathering more young disciples as they went, and soon opened communities across the country. They attracted a substantial amount of media coverage, and in some articles the writers referred to them as the "Children of God," a name that the fledgling group subsequently adopted.
After a string of illicit affairs with some of his young female members, Berg found a devoted companion in his young and ambitious secretary, Karen Zerby, aka "Maria." Publicly branding his estranged wife Jane and late mother the "Old Church," Berg endorsed Maria and the Children of God as the "New Church," and himself the last prophet of the Endtime. He also started using the pseudonym "Moses David," identifying himself with King David of the Bible and the prophet Moses, who had led the Children of Israel out of captivity in Egypt (the "System") to the Promised Land. Berg decided to start a royal dynasty. His series of residences were designated "The King's House" and he crowned himself and Maria, the King and the Queen.