Working Without Pay: My Experience as a Christian Cult Member, Part 4

When I initially met the cult leader, I was lured into joining the group by the promise of meaningful ministry opportunities. On occasion we did go to Mexico to help with food distribution, and one Christmas we went across the boarder with blankets to give out to families living in cardboard homes. We also built some homes for a few families in Mexico. But those occasions for helping the poor were few and far between. Most of the time it seemed we existed for the sole purpose of keeping the "ministry" going.

Every morning we had what was called a "body meeting." We were required to go to it. It always included little bits of indoctrination, and then went into a time of work assignments for the day.

I had it easier than most people because I worked as the assistant to the cult leader. I handled all of the administrative tasks that needed to be done. I also spent time in his home, home schooling his son. Since my secretarial duties combined with my home schooling responsibilities kept me busy, I seldom had to do the real dirty work. The exception was cooking. Like all of the other single females there, I was assigned kitchen duties, around one day per week. On those days I was required to be in the kitchen at 4:00 a.m. to start breakfast. Once breakfast was done, I reported to the office for my secretarial duties, or to the leader's home to work on home schooling. I would take breaks from my other responsibilities as needed to also cook lunch and dinner. I'll never forget the first time I had kitchen duty -- I was all alone, with nothing more than the menu which told me what to cook. There were no recipes, and no instructions, and I was expected to prepare food for 60 people, three times per day, in the middle of all of my other duties.

Men seemed to have it hardest. They did all kinds of manual labor, for seemingly no reason. I remember seeing guys shoveling gravel. That job never seemed to end, no matter how much gravel was shoveled day in and day out. They were also always unloading bags of potatoes, many of which had rotted. You could always tell which "brother" had been on potato duty by the stench of rotten potatoes all over his clothing.

One of my most bizarre duties was as a prison guard, in a detention facility for illegal aliens. This organization had bid on a government contract for building and staffing a large detention center. They won the bid because they were able to bid lower than anyone else. Why? Because they had all kinds of free labor. We were all expected to help build the facility and then to work in it once it was built.

The facility was so large, it took almost all of the manpower we had, so in addition to all of our other duties, we also had to work at the detention center. I was assigned the unpleasant task of guard duty, working the graveyard shift.

I've never been one to sleep well during the day, so this was an absolute nightmare for me. I worked all night, and then tried to get some sleep in between other things I was expected to do such as work in the office, cook, and home school.

In addition to malnutrition, sleep deprivation became a very real issue for me. I became despondent and depressed, and was reduced to tears on a regular basis. I was told many times to "stop sniveling" and get back to work. This brought me close to a breaking point. Thankfully, for who knows what reason, they had the detention facility taken away from them so I was eventually relieved of those duties.

We all typically worked 16 hours per day, six or seven days per week. All of this work was done by everyone, for absolutely no pay.

Although I don't know how this work schedule compares with most other cults, I do know that work without pay is a common experience for cult members. The lack of pay is one thing that keeps people there -- it is hard to leave a place with absolutely no money, and no friends outside of the cult.

My next installment on my experience as a cult member will cover the fact that there was no regard for personal property.