From Mercy Langille, 26, Bangalore, India

“Yea, all that live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” That is the verse that came to me when I first heard about the slander that is being thrown at The Family. (we must be doing something right, or no one would be saying anything)

I am a second generation adult who was raised in The Family. I have been through a lot, I’ve seen a lot. I’ve experienced things people my age can only dream of. I am 26 years old and have lived in 8 different countries. Aside from bring a fulltime missionary (which I know I am called to be), I have chosen as my profession to be a teacher. I’ve worked with children of all ages, from babies to 12 year olds. I’ve studied Family child training techniques and I use them daily with the children that I teach. If there is anything I know, it’s how children are raised in The Family. I see it every day! Are they abused? Not from what I have ever seen. These children are loved and cared for in every way.

Was I abused as a child raised in The Family? Certainly not! I was raised in a very loving environment. Though for several years my mom was single and had to raise 4 of us on her own, we never lacked for anything. We always had good food, warm clothes, comfortable beds, and she saw to it that we were educated properly. I’ve never attended public school a day in my life, yet I completed high school plus 3 college courses. I could read at the age of 2 and this started me on a lifelong love for books and I taught myself a lot that way.

I don’t know who is going to read this. I don’t know if you will even believe me, but I don’t really care. Those of you who were raised in The Family but are no longer with us and are actively fighting against us ought to be ashamed of yourselves for making it your life’s mission to destroy a good thing. You were here. You know what The Family is like. It was your choice to leave. Just because you decided that you didn’t like it here anymore is no reason for you to now try and ruin our lives.
We made our own choices too. I am here because I chose to be here. There are 15 of us sitting here right now in this room, writing something because we feel the truth needs to get out and because we love our way of life and can’t stand the fact that you smear it and make it into something that it is not and try to destroy it. Go and live your life the way that you want to and leave us alone.

If there was child abuse in The Family, I would have been gone long ago. I am not stupid enough to stay in a weird cult with weird people. I want to love my life. I love freedom. If The Family were a cult, I would have left as soon as I could. I can’t stand conforming to what others do and I feel sorry for those that are in abusive cults. I feel sorry for their children who have to suffer.

Why were we first known as The Family of love? Because we follow what Jesus taught – “to love God and love your neighbors as yourself,” even to “love your enemies and do good to them that hate you and despise you.” To you former Family members who are fighting us, I say I love you but I hate what you are doing. Maybe you have forgotten what it says in the Bible about touching the people of God and seeking to do them harm. What happened in the Bible when the prophets and those who had a message for the world weren’t listened to or were imprisoned or detained? God cared for them but those who tried to harm them suffered big time in the end. Just read the story of Daniel in the lion’s den one more time and see what happened to the men who tried to get rid of Daniel.

Who knows what could happen to you when you touch God’s children?

Mercy Langille is a second-generation member of The Family International