My name is Deborah Forsberg. I’m 28 & have been raised in the Family International. I don’t feel that I have in any way been sheltered or abused by the Family. I had a very good childhood, one that I know many of my counterparts that didn’t grow up in the Family envy. I got to travel the world, had lots of friends & so many fun & exciting experiences, awesome caring parents who did everything within their power to meet my needs & those of my siblings (& they weren’t in a position of authority). I got good training in every aspect of life from cooking to teaching & childcare to scholastics, Bible & Word studies to witnessing & telling others of the Lord’s love, I experienced bringing relief to those in need by distributing humanitarian aid in poor countries & much more. My parents & the Family taught & encouraged me to be responsible, to love the Lord & my neighbor as myself, which are the key ingredients to a happy & successful life.

I was sad to see China’s sob story & can’t help but wonder what happened to her since I last saw her at the end of 1999 when we were in Indonesia. She was living in Bali in a home with a bunch of other young people. We visited them & had lots of fun hanging out with them. They had a nice house & there were a few teenagers who had come from the States & other places to stay with them for awhile to get some experience on a mission field. I thought they had a really cool thing going & it didn’t seem to me like anyone there was unhappy or sheltered, to the contrary, they were doing all kinds of fun things, things that so many people here in the US dream about—fun beach trips on a tropical island, surfing in Bali, snorkeling on tropical reefs, meeting all kinds of different people. It didn’t seem that they had anyone over them pushing them or making them “perform”.

China also came over to our place in Jakarta to choreograph the dance routine for our show troupe of professional dancers. We were putting together an anti-narcotics program using music & dance & the plan was to perform in schools across the country. China is excellent at what she does, how did she become so good at that if she was so sheltered & given no opportunity?

Even though I didn’t know China for very long, I really hit it off well with her, she was such a cool person. She was always so happy, bubbly, uplifting and usually the life of the party. I never would have guessed that she had such a terrible childhood & life.

It’s upsetting to me that so many of the posts on this bulletin (on Dr. Phil’s site) are mocking & condescending. I’m sure that a lot, if not most of us who are members of the Family International are not personal acquaintances of those of you who are slandering us. How can you judge someone personally, their actions & decisions, without really knowing them & how can you be so disrespectful of them as a person without even knowing what they’re like or what they have really experienced. Obviously not everyone has been abused or has felt controlled or whatever you’re complaining about. Many are going by hearsay & those of you who say you’ve had all these terrible experiences, I wonder, how truthful or exaggerative are you being? And even if you really aren’t being exaggerative, just because you had it rough wherever you were doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone else did. So many broad statements are made by our apostates that really paint an inaccurate picture of way things really are or have been for the majority of those who have grown up in the Family International. No one judges the rest of society by one bad area of town!!? To judge the whole group of individual people on some bad things that happened to a few people ( & there have been consequences for the guilty & apologies made for those affected) & accuse us now of all these terrible things, to vilify & make life difficult for us & affect the good that we are doing by slandering us, is wrong & very unchristian!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 10th, 2005 and is filed under Archived, Letters to the Editor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.