My name is Jewel Woerter. I have grown up in the Family; I’m 20 years old. By now, you should think someone my age old enough to “think” for themselves and make their own decisions and I am. No one has forced me or anyone else for that matter to be in the Family. In fact I have been encouraged to make my own decisions from a very early age. So yes, of my own free will I have chosen this lifestyle and I love it.

If I were to use one word to describe life in the family it would be “fantastic.” Even this would be putting it mildly. Where else do you find the support and love of so many individuals such as we have? No one has to care, no one has to be a support to anyone else but we in the Family choose to. And sure I have, at times, made self-centered decisions and who hasn’t but I have been humbled by the unselfish decisions of all those around me.

I was born in the Family, and never once have I either experienced or heard of any abuse whatsoever! Yes, I have been reprimanded for many things but nothing I couldn’t live with and definitely nothing I would even consider “abusive” in any way.

I have recently become a mother and I think I speak for my husband as well when I say that we are honored and greatly privileged to have the option of having our daughter grow up in the Family, yes, with the same upbringing we had.

Sure there were tough times and there were some things that happened that I would have, at that time, wished they didn’t, but who am I to say? God does have a plan for my life and if he allowed it to happen then I am fully convinced that it was good for me and has made me a better person.

To those of you who have chosen to pursue a different life, I am happy for you and I hope and pray that you have found what you were looking for. I agree that the Family is not for everyone. And I do not condemn you in fact to the contrary I greatly admire you for taking that step to find something you felt you were better suited for.

But to you who are “uprooting” every aspect of my way of life and are doing your best to tear down all that I know to be true and love so dearly…God help you! If you’re not happy then I am sorry for you but don’t you dare try to make others miserable along with you—stop being so selfish. Like the quote says “Laugh and the world will laugh with you. Cry and you’ll cry alone.” If you want to be happy along with me then you’re more than welcome but if not then, leave me alone and let me be happy.—Stop being a drag. What have I ever done to you? I have not defamed you and the way of life you have chosen. For the love of God, if you have any, don’t defame and try to ruin mine.

When I first heard the sad news of the deaths of Angela and Ricky I had very mixed emotions. Anger, sadness, as well as a great sense of loss of what could have been a beautiful life. I don’t believe that this was Ricky’s “destiny.” I am more inclined to believe that through some wrong decisions he made he ended up where he did. As for Angela, I did not know her personally but if she was anything like I know other members of the Family to be like then I would say that she must have been a really wonderful person and it is sad that her life ended in this way.

If any of you reading this had any part in this and I mean through your defamatory remarks and slanderous, demeaning half-truths or I might say more appropriately Lies, which pushed Ricky to do this then I hope and pray to God that you will wake up before it’s too late and you contaminate others with your SHIT and spill more innocent blood.

I love Jesus and it is his love and his love alone that constrains me from doing and saying what I feel like doing and saying right now. God has given me the freedom of choice and I have chosen this way of life—life in the Family. Who are you to take that away from me? Leave me alone! If I am wrong and if all I believe is wrong then one day I will “wake up” and realize it but if I’m not BEWARE!! Lest you find yourself fighting against God.