Former Assembly Kids Tell Their Own Stories
• August 14, 2021 Perusing the old Assemblyboard recently for discussions about Assembly child training issues, I came across a piece Rebekah B. wrote in 2008 about the challenges of an AK raising a child of her own. What she wrote was so insightful I asked her if she would be willing to post it here. Here is our conversation. She also gave permission to repost the brief account of her post-Assembly journey up to that point in 2008.
• July 24, 2021 At seventeen Mary W. wrote the poem, 'My Escape' about her traumatic Assembly childhood and how she experienced deliverance. Her life afterward was a difficult journey finding her way through further traumas and pitfalls. Friends and family stuck with her, especially her mom, Gretchen, and helped her gather hope and determination. She changed her name to Andi and began a hard road to recovery. More of Andi's story is here. Andi speaks about it in this video. In May 2021 Andi graduated from Cal State Northridge with a degree in kinesiology. In July 2021 she celebrated five years of sobriety.
• 2014 Elizabeth Esther wrote a memoir, Girl at the End of the World, about growing up as Tim's daughter. Lee Irons wrote a note to her after reading it about how it affected him, and Patheos posted a review
• An anonymous "Assembly kid" wrote a very angry essay in the form of a fictionalized dream. She says, "Let me open it up and listen in and scoop out the dark."
• Anonymous from Tuscola recounts a childhood of incest in the Tuscola Assembly. It was known to the leadership but ineffectively dealt with.
• Kevin W. says, "I was a boy without a man in the home and was an easy victim."
• Mary W., at age 17, wrote a moving poem about her deliverance from the Assembly in Omaha.
• Scott McC. posted a poignant description on the Assembly bulletin board of what it was like to be an Assembly kid in Tuscola.
• 'Blue Jay' tell about growing up in the Omaha Assembly.
• An anonymous second-generation adult describes how he felt about his parents' dedication to all the meetings.
• Brent T. collected a number of responses about teen's experiences at Teen Conferences and Teen Teams.
• Anonymous AK who grew up in a Midwest Assembly recounts how she began questioning and thinking critically about the Assembly when she was in high school.
• Jason Farlow grew up in the Tuscola Assembly in the '70s and 80's. He tells the story of what it was like as a child, and how it has affected him as an adult. Jason describes how he developed a double life to deal with impossible Assembly standards.
• Paths, a poem by an anonymous 2nd gen adult about the difficulty of making decisions.
• Rachel (Geftakys) wrote a detailed account of her horrific escape as a teenager. Part 4 describes the "child-training" David inflicted on her.
