To the reader:

I thought I understood the importance of decisions and the value God places on them through granting us free choice, but recent events have brought it shockingly to life. What can move one person to choose a life of service, happiness and love, and another to fear, torment and selfishness? Is it so much a matter of their upbringing? I am sure it is not. It responds directly to their choices.

I’m deeply saddened by Ricky and Angela’s death. I never met Ricky personally but considered him a brother. I know for a fact somewhere along the line he lost his sense of reality. I live the Family life daily and have never witnessed or experienced any of the abuses cited. As for Angela, if she was anything like the thousands of Family members I have known, she was a loving, devoted, and God fearing individual.

I treasure the Family, am happy in it, and thankful for every decision, however challenging, that has kept me here. I count myself among the minority that will really find the life that fulfils the deepest yearnings of their heart, which is what The Family is to me. Were I ever to leave, I pray to God that I will find the grace to deal with my decision maturely, remaining true to myself, strong in mind and with a firm grip on reality.

Now facing the real and future threat of aggression and defamation of both my family, and I, I appeal to your awareness. Jesus said; “they will kill you thinking they do God service”. If by means of your position you are responsible for shaping public opinion through the media see that you do not fit that description. Please research, find the facts. Ask God to give you wisdom and speak the truth forth boldly. Don’t kid yourself, thinking you’re a seeker of truth by reading what suits your fancy and believing what seems most likely to you to have happened. Visit us yourself. Prove that we know of what we speak, chances are you’ll want to join us for the love and peace you’ll find in our midst. If you think outside the box you may conclude that we must possess something truly wonderful if in order to preserve it we risk our very security and that of our loved ones, at the hands of a few who have been darkened in their understanding through rejection of the truth.

For those who know us, and can’t reconcile what you have seen with the ravings and slander you have heard, remember, Jesus himself was killed! Think about it! You who love and believe in Jesus, do you find it hard to reconcile the influence He has had on your life with His bigoted trial and savage death? He died to preserve a message. He died for truth and at His death loved even those who killed Him. Does it strike you as so strange that those who would model their lives by His standards should face injustice?

To you who crusade against us I am compelled to add, an insult to one’s mother or parents is considered among the worst the world over. It becomes a very personal issue for me when you classify my parents among child abusers and mindless freaks. Those of you who love your parents can understand the hurt in this. If your fight was with me I’d be feeling more temperate. I know you can’t face me and make the claims you’re making, I’d look at you like a fruit cake, after all, we had the same upbringing, remember? So is it easier for you to play victim by pegging the blame on our parents? God help you because as much as this infuriates me, what’s more is God does not take kindly to the degrading of those who have spent a lifetime in His service. I’m surprised you’d so trivially overlook this point.

In closing, to you who are yet formulating an opinion on this controversial group I proudly belong to: If you’re interested in truth you will seek it and find overwhelming evidence to our innocence. If you’re not then regardless of the facts you’ll take the easier way out and swallow the tastier tabloids. Take the riskier; less traveled road of truth, it’s the only one worth traveling!

Laura Estellés is a second-generation member of The Family International currently residing in Chile