From Tim, second-generation member of The Family International

This whole situation really saddens me. It’s really hard to think about what has happened, as I knew both Ricky and Angela very well. I lived with Ricky for quite a while in WS, and worked with him. I considered him my friend. He was the type of person who valued his friends, and had something good to say about everyone. If you were having a bad day, and someone seriously bugged you, and he heard you say something about them, he would always interject something positive about the person. That’s just the way he was.

Ricky liked challenges. He was always learning new things, and was especially gifted in fixing electronic equipment. I admired his talents, since they were ones that I didn’t have. I had different talents and abilities, but whenever I didn’t know how to do something, he would help me out, and vise versa.

Ricky and I had a friendship that I considered strong. Even though we had different lives and friends, we enjoyed many of the same things. We both enjoyed sports. We were a great volleyball team together. We sometimes enjoyed biking and running on the beach. We did many things together that I was sad to lose when he left our home. But I was happy for him, that he was going on to do what he felt led to do on the mission field. I still remember the day he left. He was positive and happy.

I’m sharing this here, not just to honor Ricky’s memory, but also to explain how surprised I was to begin hearing later some of the things that he was saying, and that he didn’t even want to have contact with anyone from the Family, including those of us he used to live with, people who never did anything to hurt or harm him or anyone else, people who really loved him and Elixir a lot. It was hard to understand how people he had previously had many good times and wonderful memories with were now considered enemies, and that those experiences which were formerly good experiences were now being retold as being bad and abusive. I mean, come on! How does that happen?! One day you’re friends, and the next you’re enemies?!

Another thing that was truly shocking to me was from the video he made, how much he had changed. I can never remember him using foul language during the whole two years I knew him. He never had an argument with anyone either. He was really just a great guy. But here, in just a few short years, he was wanting to torture and kill people! Hey! Come on! Something went wrong after he left! But I don’t want to dwell on the evil and negative. I want to remember him the way I knew him, and the way he really was, not the way he became.

Everyone knows that you take on the traits and habits of the people you associate with and look up to, and that you’re either influenced for good or bad. Peer pressure is a powerful thing. For instance, take someone from a different country, someone who doesn’t speak the language of the country they’re in. Give them time, and soon they’ll start picking up on the language, the style, the mannerisms and even the values of the people that they associate with. I know that sounds simplistic. But given that example, examine Pete’s life. He was a missionary, a Christian who loved others, and because of his upbringing, he was considered by everyone who knew him to be kind, considerate, not violent; he was sacrificial and gave his life to serve others and to make their lives better.

Now, if you take someone like that and put him in a different environment, with different values and different interests and goals, with people who even mock and put down the environment he came from, what do you think that person will do? If they want to be accepted, they will conform and change.

If you tell someone that they can only be cool if they smoke, pretty soon they’ll be smoking, even if they don’t like it at first. If you have to dress a certain way to be accepted, you’ll dress that way, even if it’s not the way you would normally dress, just to fit in. And pretty soon it will become the new “you". If you take a country kid, and bring him to the city, he will often change from how he was before, maybe even begin poking fun and looking down on the “backward” people of his previous life, all in an effort to fit in and to be accepted.

Is that what happened to Ricky? I can only surmise, from logical reasoning that something like that is where Ricky’s horrific transformation stemmed from, and what pushed him to become the person he had become in the end. I’m very sad to lose the Ricky I knew and considered a friend.

– Tim

Tim is a second-generation member of The Family International