The Mental Health Crisis Inside the NAR

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend, Pia Hugo, form a member of the New Apostolic Reformation. Pia it's good to be back and talk about this subject that you chose today which I'm gonna let you know straight from the very beginning it will anger me because this is one of the things that really pushes my buttons. I watched this. This is nothing new to the New Apostolic Reformation. We're going

to be talking mental health and the way that it is treated and handled in this movement it really angers me because I know people that suffer needlessly because they could just simply go get therapy or get some medication and and be better. But the reason it angers me the most is I left the cult 2012, January 1st, 2012 and we started attending mainstream churches and this thing that we had this evil thing that we had with this faith healing divine healing submit to your authority it has crept into the mainstream churches. So we were in a

mainstream church and suddenly one day they come in and they said we are going to set up a facility where we will treat mental health and you who have and they listed all the things you know bipolar disorder all of these things that they are not capable to treat and they said if you submit to our authority and you eradicate the sin from your life you will not need your medications and it wasn't long after that we walked out. Some of your audience may know this already but I am a trauma informed counselor and director of our safe house in the

Philippines for abuse women and children so I have been at this for a while now I'm gonna say 20 years of just just training and experience in counseling victims of all kinds spiritual abuse sexual abuse domestic violence you know I mean it just runs the gamut doesn't it and and when we're talking about church abuse it can be as simple and I put that in quotes because nothing is really that simple but it can be as simple as you walk into a church one Sunday. And the pastor is just, let's just say talking falsehoods from start to end because you

actually are able to still use your critical thinking. You weren't born into the system. You didn't marry into the system. You're just a visitor. And so you walk out and you're just upset. Like those guys, they don't even know their Bible. And then that's it. And you move on. And so you weren't that affected by that false church. But then you have people like you who not only were you born into it, your whole family, all your closest friends. They were all part of this very toxic community, but you didn't even know it. You just thought that that was normal. And say with me, I'm married

into the system at 19 years old. And really, what did I know back then? So I wanted to thank you for allowing all of us, you know, to be much, much more educated and aware of all these things that really many of us have just been so blinded and deceived. You know, it's taken quite a while to get here. But I really feel like it is starting to help. When I first began this, I had somebody tell me, John, you need to get some experts in theology and history and psychology to come on to help you with all of this because it'll never work. And what I found was that yes, I could have

done that. But the people don't really connect with those who are telling them that they're doing something wrong. But if you get a bunch of people who are all also doing many of the same, making many of the same mistakes, I'll say it like that. What happens is they make the mistakes, they share the experiences and others learn. So it's a, it's an organic growth of learning. It's not me. It's not you. It's basically everybody who has involved. We all speak out, we share our experiences. And others can connect and understand, well, wait a minute. That's happening to me too.

So this is really starting to work. I want to start again, where we left off, where we were talking about my former place of employment, which is PDI, people of Destiny International. Is that okay with you, John? Yeah. Okay, so I have a, I had a coworker and I'm going to name her Sally. It's not her name, but Sally and I were very close. We were actually best friends. And when I joined the PDI staff, I was fresh out of college. I was, 22 years old. And I think she was like 26 or 27. She was older than me. And she was directly

under Larry Tomzack, who was the director of PDI. She was his personal secretary, personal assistant. And our offices were adjacent to one another. And so we would often have lunch breaks together. And you know, sometimes we would take our lunch breaks in the stairwell, you know, in the hallway. And we would just sit on the steps leading up to the office.

We didn't want to eat lunch at the staff lounge or in our offices because we never had any privacy. So this was the only place, unless of course there was like a hidden camera or something.

But back back in the day, I don't think hidden cameras were very popular. Now it is. So anyway, we were sitting on the steps. And we would just talk about our challenges. And we both were married to men at that time who were I'm just going to say abusive, you know, verbally, mentally,

later on in my case, my ex has been did become physical, physically abusive. But not when we were living in Maryland, okay, this was in the early years of our marriage. And she had been married longer than I was. And she was really having a lot of marital issues. And she would complain to me about her boss, Larry Thompson. And I'm not going to say much here about him. Let's just say that he was very demanding. And he expected her to perform at a very high level.

So it was like a double whammy, John. She was getting all these criticisms from these two male authority figures in her life, her husband and her boss. And because we got to be close, I learned from her that her father was also very domineering and demanding.

In fact, if memory serves me correctly, I think she ran away from from home eventually. So this poor girl, that's all she knew. And that's not uncommon, by the way. It's a psychological phenomenon that happens with female victims where if they grow up with an abusive father or male authority figure, they will often marry someone just like their father or and they will work for a man just like their father and Sally was a perfect example of this.

Now mind you, again, I'm in my early 20s, I know nothing about this, right? We're just two gals commiserating, you know, sharing in our common sources of misery, right?

Our husbands and our bosses. And in mind you, you know, just in case my other bosses

are watching this, they are not all like Larry, okay? But he was quite difficult. So I think what I wanna interject here at this point

is this idea of the Proverbs 31 woman, which was a very ingrained and often like pushed upon us,

this concept of you have to be like the Proverbs 31 woman. So instead of her being like an inspiration, she actually was this, you know, figure, this martyr like figure that we all had to somehow emulate.

And so what does a Proverbs 31 woman look like? Well, she's submissive. She is this, you know, perfect servant, never complains. She's forgiving, she's hard working, like works from dawn to dusk. And yeah, in the end, you know, it says, yeah, we should all aspire to be like this woman because her husband, you know, praises her and her kids, you know, are blessed to have her.

But ask any wife and mother, Dawn, is it even possible? When you create that hierarchy and they, I don't know why they come so hard against the women, but it's usually the women who are the subordinate to everything.

When you create that hierarchy, that's just one aspect of trauma that's in that person's life. Now compound it with all of the other traumas that they have in this religion and they're a woman that are just basket cases.

I have seen people in the support groups show photos. I don't know. You've seen this yet or not, you will in time. People will share with you photos. This is what I look like when I was in it and I look sick and old and tired.

And this is me now, look at the difference in the photo and you can actually see it in their person, right? So for me, this is a problem. It runs deeper than most people realize, but in the end, it has to do with the way that they've structured the doctrine to empower men to become, and usually only men, to become leaders that people will respect as a spiritual authority.

And in the cases of trauma, in the cases of mental health issues, this becomes problematic because while they may have good intentions to help people, they're usually out of their realm. Many of them are not psychologists, many of them do not understand trauma.

And you can't say God will heal you of your trauma and then just pray for it and it go away. Yes, God has the power to do this, but usually God works through somebody who is helping you through the trauma.

Yeah, to your point about how the male leaders, whether over the church or over their own households were encouraged to just step up. And yeah, if you have any problems, issues just go to them and they'll take care of it.

Well, the problem is sometimes these women, like I said, Sally, my coworker,

she was already broken when she got married. And then her brokenness was even more compounded, not just within the marriage, but now within her workplace. And so, yeah, I'll get more into her story later, but I just wanted to share this because sometimes people will ask me, well, why go to a therapist or a psychiatrist when you can just go to our almighty pastor.

So gifted and anointed. And like you said, they just have to lay hands on you and do a prayer, deliverance prayer. It's probably just a spirit of rebellion, or pride or whatever. And that is the danger when people are just not trauma-informed and they don't understand the cycles of abuse.

So this is what I wrote here. Pastors are trained in theology. So there are very good pastors out there who know what they're doing, they've got compassion. And they know their Bible, right? They've gone to Bible school.

So we're not even talking about false teachers and false pastors. You can go to a very gifted and nurturing type of pastor. But again, are they really trauma-informed? Are they really trained in anything but their theology?

No, therapists, they are trained, but they're trained in trauma. Sometimes you need to even go to a psychiatrist, like you said, where there's chemical imbalance, where there's personality disorders, psychological disorders, that are very serious, and it needs to be treated chemically.

Now, I came from these PDI-nar churches that said any kind of chemicals, any kind of medication for mental health is from the devil. They even discouraged just going to a professional therapist. Let me tell you what happened to poor Sally.

As we got closer and closer, and I realized that this was a woman who was desperately needing psychological help. We actually started going to the same small group. I would also see her in our weekly Bible studies.

I asked her, can I go to our small group leader and tell him a little bit about what you and your husband are going through. At first, she was hesitant, but we're told that everything is confidential.

I have sits learned that no, not everything is confidential. Just because you're talking behind closed doors in your pastor's office doesn't mean that it stays there. Because again, are they trained in this? Therapists are trained in this.

Either way, I am not a professional therapist. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist. I've never pretended to be. I've taken enough courses. I do have a secondary degree in psychology. I would never talk about my clients' problems with anyone.

That's just basic. I just remember being so shocked when I heard that through the grapevine, having an affair or secretly gay, how do we even know these things? Because in the prayer group, we're praying for them.

And the guys of, please pray for this couple. or please pray for this individual, when, in fact, that kind of information was said in strict confidence in the pastor's office. So that's another issue.

But anyway, so we did go to the small group leader and he was just, he realized very soon, he was way over his head, right? I mean, he did have that humility to understand understand that this was something he needed to take up now to the pastors.

So yeah, I got to the point where the pastors got involved and then eventually Larry, you know, found out about it. And this is where it gets really sad. This is where the story gets sad, John.

She started having serious, serious mental issues, instead of being helped, it actually got worse. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share just a few signs of when the symptoms get worse mentally for somebody who is stuck in these kinds of toxic, spiritually abusive environments.

So inside, it usually starts out with anxiety. Now you're, you're feeling stressed, you're feeling anxious. And so in Sally's case, she had a very high, you know, demanding job and was expected to fulfill all these demands in her household.

So like I said, it was coming from both directions. So she was anxious all the time and she just got more and more stressed. Then that led to depression. She started getting, you know, like, she would take more and more breaks, right?

She would pull me aside and she'd just say, please pray for me, you know, we'd pray in the bathroom, we'd pray in the stairwell, we'd pray in our car.

And then it leads to burnout. And we talked about this, you know, in previous podcasts, volunteer burnout, staff burnout, because again, these workers, they're aware that something is seriously wrong.

But when they take it up to the minister that they're working for, they're often brushed aside. Like, oh, you know, we'll figure it out later. But meanwhile, you know, you have like these people of integrity, like my, my friend Sally, like you couldn't just tell her, like, you know what?

Let's just not worry about the money right now, you know? And she's like, no, like it's my job to meet the budget. And you need to tell me, where is this money going to come from?

You know, you want to do this and that and fly here. by there and the money's not coming in. So these are things that she just started worrying about. You know, it was very hard for her to compartmentalize and not take her problems at work, you know, to her house, which it did not help their marriage.

She started getting panic attacks. She started having more emotional exhaustion and eventually it led to a full-blown mental breakdown. She stopped going to work and I tried to reach out to her and she just stopped receiving my calls.

I mean, I think she got to the point where she felt she couldn't even trust me because now, you know, so here you are, you feel like you're going crazy. You feel like nobody's really listening to you and then to make matters worse, then people start pointing fingers at you and saying, I think she's going crazy.

I think, you know, what's wrong with her? All of a sudden, you are now the subject of gossip. Instead of people having compassion for you, you know, because you can't get with the program, because now you're breaking down, you know, mentally, you know, you're no longer able to hold all that mental anguish, you know, inside of you and it's now coming out.

And like you said, that's why people lose weight. That's why, you know, those pictures that you were saying that before and after, your body keeps the score. So you're literally like not able to eat, not able to sleep.

It's showing up in your body. And so this was what was happening to Sally. So the end of the story is very tragic. Instead of helping her, she was fired from her job, right?

Because again, she's not showing up anymore. She couldn't function in that high capacity that they expected of her. And last thing I knew, or last thing I heard, they just moved away. She and her husband moved away to a different state.

And I never heard from her or saw her again. But, you know, John, I never forgot that. I just never forgot how tragic it was for Sally to not just suffer under extreme pressure

and under such dire circumstances and not ones that she get the help that she needed from the church.

The church that's supposed to be the safe place, the refuge, you know, the Bible says that, you know, he covers us with his wings. Well, I'm sorry, but the spiritual covering that she got were not like God's nurturing, caring wings.

It was more like she was being stifled and strangled and suffocated. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

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On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I have a cousin who lost his battle with depression, and if you can read between the lines, I can't say the word on YouTube, but he lost his battle with depression, and he is not with us anymore.

Whenever I first began talking about this, I started noticing that there were many other people who shared similar stories, either with one lady with her husband, some mother, some brothers or sisters, friends. This is widespread, and it's really so sad to me because this is something that, while I understand the suffering that leads to it, if you had the right help to begin with, you can head that off at the pass.

You can get people to help that they need, and here's the root problem that I have found, and it's not just with the movement that I came out of, it's not with the New Apostolic Reformation.

This goes back many decades, many centuries, of these movements as it was growing like we said before, like a snowball down a hill. Let me say it like this. If you believe that Jesus is God, and you believe that God is eternal, God is omnipotent, God is all knowing, all powerful, and you believe that God exists not just in our frame of mind or in our time or space, but through millennia and has helped his people to progress in ways that are better for themselves.

You have to believe that medical science is part of this. We don't suffer like they do in days gone by because we have progressed as a people, and if you believe that God is in control of all of this...

you would say that God is in control of medical science. The problem is they have taken simple truths like Jesus is all you need. They've taken that simple truth and made it a half truth because when an abusive system starts to cut people off from therapy, from medication, from reporting abuse, outside help, you basically you're taking people away from their safety to support what you are now creating as a half truth.

For me, this is a huge problem, but it is a systemic problem. Like we said in the last few episodes, this is a system that's like a snowball going down a hill of bad doctrine.

You had one bad doctrine to it, it rolls a little bit, you had another bad doctrine, and you can go back through time, look at people like John Alexander Dowey, we've talked about him several times.

He was this con artist that was telling people, Jesus is all you need, come to me for your healing, don't go to the medical doctors because that's the devil. And all the while he's whisking out bodies at night, people who have died in these healing homes, telling people that Jesus is all they need, they can be healed.

Well, that was for physical healing for the most part. It has developed and progressed into now mental health is the big issue. Jesus is all you need, but we'll allow you go to, to go to a medical doctor, we will not allow you to go to a psychiatrist or a therapist because if you do that, that's the devil.

It's just so wrong and it's really the same thing, it's just the same snowball rolling down the hill. And for me, once you get to the point where you are putting your doctrine above the people and people are starting to die from it, you really don't care about them, you don't care about their suffering, you don't care about the way that your doctrine is causing such harm.

And mentally, there are people who are suffering anguish, mentally because of the way the doctrines are keeping them from the help they need. It's just, it's so wrong. Yeah, when I first heard about those instances that you talked about in your podcast, John, I could scarcely believe it, that it had gone to that extent where they were preventing people from getting the medical attention that they needed because they were forcing them to just rely on faith.

I do believe that Jesus is all you need but the way Jesus comes to help us comes in many ways. It's like, you probably know this story of the man who was drowning because of the flood and saying, Jesus helped me, Jesus helped me and someone was floating by on a boat and said, here, come.

No, no, I'm waiting for Jesus. Somebody comes to the chopper with a rope. No, no, no, it's okay, you know, Jesus got me, you know, and I forget the other ways, but he finally dies, he travels and goes to heaven and says, Jesus, where were you?

It's like, well, you know, the boatman, you know, the pilot of that chopper, like, sometimes we don't recognize how Jesus shows up. Guess what? Jesus gave these doctors and these nurses knowledge and trading and experience to help us. He gave us medication, you know, sure, there's always going to be bad doctors and there's going to be bad drugs, but that's where our critical thinking skills come in.

We should be able to discern what's really helpful and what is harmful and that includes churches and that includes church leaders, you know, we just can no longer say, oh, you know, you've got the title pastor in front of your name, you must be trustworthy. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. So you're right. So today, if somebody breaks a leg,

very few churches will now say, oh, well, let's all lay hands, call the elders. Let's just pray that this leg will be healed. No, most of us will call 911 and make sure that that poor man goes to the hospital. But here's the thing, John, if we can do that for a broken leg, why can't we do that for brokenness that we can't see inside? Because mental, psychological, emotional and spiritual brokenness is just as important as physical brokenness. You know, that that adage six and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

That is the most false statement there ever was because here's the thing. Your broken leg will heal in a year with the right surgery and with PT. You'll be back walking in no time, right?

But words, angry, critical words, verbally abusive words from a father, a teacher, a church leader, those kinds of words they can kill you. Absolutely. And you know, it's not that I'm attacking prayer or scripture or pastoral care.

All of those are good things. It's more about the system. The system has been designed so that the spiritual authorities are substitutes for the professionals that you need. Think of it like this. If you go to a medical doctor and you've got a fever, you go to a medical doctor and he gives you, you know, flu medicine, whatever it is that you need, that's okay.

You would never go to your dentist to handle your flu. It's just, that's not what you do. Or vice versa, if you have a incredible toothache, root canal, worthy. You're not going to go to a medical doctor for your root canal.

That's just not the way you would do it. But the way that this system has been created, they want to tell you that your spiritual authority is everything. In other words, go to your spiritual authority when you have a mental health issue.

He is going to take care of you. And in some cases, they separate it. Yes, you can go to a medical doctor but don't go to the mental health professional because that's the devil.

In other words, we do, we want you to have the root canal at your medical doctor's office. That's really what it is. When you have that level of control over the people, it leads to all forms of abuse.

I don't want to go into my own story, but you know, suffice it to say that I was sexually abused as a child and didn't get the help I needed. I watched my brother take his own life.

Hopefully that's OK to say. When I was 17. And then I came to Jesus at 19 and was swept up into this whole PDI nar system. And so I've known abuse after abuse trauma after trauma.

And I knew by the time I was like 27 years old and desperate for psychological help myself. This was years after I had witnessed what had happened to Sally because as much as it hurt me watching my friend go through that when I was still living in Maryland, I continued to drink the Kool-Aid.

I thought this was an isolated case. And when I moved to California to be part of Harvest Rock Church with my former brother-in-law, Cheon. And I went to them and I went to my sister-in-law for help.

It was the same thing all over again, but this time it was me. So going back to how words can really either build us up or do the opposite, break us down, tear us down.

So there's three verses I wanted to share. Proverbs 18-21. Death and life are in the power of the... tongue. James 3, it compares the tongue to a small spark that can set an entire forest on fire. And again, I have seen words spoken from a trusted apostle, prophet, pastor, literally like fire and spread a broad, destroying families, destroying churches. I mean, it's really serious what we're doing here, John. You know, I'm sure you still get people who tell you like, why are you being the accuser of the brethren? You know, why are you doing this?

Like, don't you have anything better to do? Like, you shared with me that you have a boat. I hope that's okay to say you could be in your boat right now, John. I mean, why not? Right? I could be sitting at the beach playing with with my with my the children at our school. But this is important work that we're doing because there are still people out there who do not even realize how much they are being like my friend Sally, stifled, smothered, strangled in this very oppressive environment. And there's actually hope. And the first step, you just open that door and step out,

it's as easy as that. And don't look back. Keep walking. Actually run. Don't walk run to the nearest exit because this fire, this this very dangerous fire that's being spread, um, could like we've been saying literally kill you if you're not careful. And the last one, Ephesians 429, you know, it talks about how believers should use words to build up and encourage. Like, can you imagine what would have happened to Sally if she had just received more compassion, more professional trauma informed counsel instead of being told you're not working hard enough.

You're not being submissive. You're you're being unforgiving. And it's piling on the shame and the false guilt. It's like, what's wrong with you? Everybody else is getting on with the program. Why can't you? And so you're left thinking that you you are the broken one. You you are the one that we need to toss aside.

And just ignore because we've got more important things to do, right? Like, don't you know we've got a revival that we're trying to run, right? We're trying to save souls. So why don't you go over there and just have your little pity party and lick your wounds and, you know, but we're moving on to bigger, better things.

And honestly, John, that is how I felt when I eventually got the divorce from my ex-husband. And then was kicked out of my church because I had disabayed my pastors and done that. And yeah, for seven years, you know, I walked away from church and ministry.

I mean, I didn't walk away from God. I was kind of upset with God, but, you know, I know people, and we've talked about this, who've walked away from church and from God, and they're still not back.

So this, I'm hoping that this topic will be heard by different types of viewers, former victims or current victims, because I just want to say like, your story doesn't have to end like where the story of Sally ended.

I mean, I'm really hoping, I don't know where she is right now. I'm really hoping she got out and she's getting the help that she desperately needs. We were in the system. We've been talking about the system for several episodes.

What has happened is the version of Jesus that they're teaching you is the rabbits foot Jesus, like I said before, but it's the rabbit foot Jesus in a system that was intended to heal you, but it's actually the system that harmed you.

And so whenever you are in a system that is causing many of your anguish and grief, many of your complex traumas, you're in a system where the Jesus that they're serving you is not the Jesus of the Bible.

So it becomes this thing that's not quite true, but yes, it does have the name Jesus. To the point you were making just right before I started talking, I believe, I truly believe that people who leave God from this movement are leaving that half-truth Jesus.

Many of them don't even realize they're not leaving the God of the Bible. They're leaving this other God that's not really God because it's a powerless God. It is a God that can't use medicine because he's not allowed.

It's a God that can't use the example of the helicopter in the boat. It's a God that can't do this. God is not strategic in this form that they're giving you. Giving you is this dummy God that's not really intelligent.

And for me, for people who critically think, this is a problem because if you're allowed to critically think and you realize that, wait a minute, I'm smarter than this God that they're telling me about, why would I want to serve this God that I'm telling about?

Something's not true here, and that's where I was really heading with this. What has happened is the system has become more important than the people. If they can maintain the system, if they can keep the experience going, they can keep the, there is a mental, there's a, there's a chemical high that you get from being in these revival meetings, these big conventions, et cetera.

If they can keep this going, they can keep the revenue going. The revenue spends the cogs that we were talking about in this engine, in the system. So by maintaining the system, they've lost focus of the people.

And for me, that's a huge problem. The emotional high that you can get when you're in these environments, and then you're surrounded by all your friends, it's just like being in a very nice concert with your favorite band.

And I think for me, why did I stay so long within these PDI-NAR systems? Because that's all I knew. And I actually loved going to these meetings. And I think that was the last to go for me, like as far as my love for the music, I would still listen to some of these music that I cannot listen to anymore, by the way.

But there were some songs that I would play over and over and over again. The way I look at those things now, they're not inherently wrong, was Jesus in these meetings. I'm going to say, I think so.

However, is that all Jesus had for us? No. No, and that's the problem. Because does Jesus not want us to eat ice cream? I think that's blasphemy if you say that Jesus doesn't want us to eat ice cream.

How dare you? It's one of his greatest gifts to mankind, right? However, if all we're going to do is eat ice cream, you know, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I do think Jesus will have to say something at that point, because that's just silly, right?

And that's bad for your health, I mean, you know, so my point is, we cannot sustain ourselves with going from one revival. hyper emotional, you know, revival meeting to the next because that's just like getting high on dopamine, you know, it's just, wow, isn't this great. But what happens when you go back like in my case to a husband who yells at you and, and you know, just does things that hurts you all over again. So, you can't rely on these feelings of high and these, these, these wonderful thoughts of we're going to conquer the world, we're going to be the

head, not the tail, we're going to, you know, be at the top of every mountain, like that's nice, right? Like, you might be caught up in that whirlwind of, you know, excitement and, you know, and if, and if everybody is reaching towards that same goal, you, you feel like, well, you're in a community of people who get it, right? We're, we're the elites, we get it. We're going to work or, you know, what's off, but you know what? It's worth it because the, it's so noble, like the end justifies the means. And I'm sorry, that's not biblical. That's not biblical. Jesus

always cared for the little people. He cared about the means. He cared very deeply about how you do it. And if you're going to run over people in these systems in your pursuit of the great revival, then you are entirely missing the point, in my opinion. So, I just want to end, you know, with the five hours of restoration that we use in our safe house, and I'm just going to throw it out there. We don't have time to unpack it. But when we deal with, let's say, the sexually abused human traffic girls that we help in the Philippines, the first hour is rescue. You got to get out of the

system, right? You can't really help someone get healed mentally, emotionally, physically. If you, if they're still being abused. So, the first hour is rescue. Is that man who's saying, I'm drowning. Okay, here, take the rope. And, and we'll, we'll whisk you to safety. The second hour is reattachment to a safe family. So, that family can look like a safe house that, that can look like a group therapy that can look like, you know, a family of Christians who genuinely care about you.

You know, so reattachment to a safe family or community, the third R is rehabilitation. And again, that runs the gamut, right? Therapy, self-help groups. And again, I say that deliberately, John, because some of the secular self-help groups that I participated in during the seven years when I was walking away from church really truly helped me.

You know, I am not want to say, well, let's have the label Christian on it. If you go in, and of course, they're not going to talk about Jesus, they're not going to talk about the gospel, but there are psychological tools that I've been tried and tested.

So, and again, rehabilitation, that also includes really understanding the gospel, the power of the cross. There is real power. Jesus is enough in many. The true Jesus is enough, but you have to have, again, I used to see in ears to hear when the real Jesus is providing you with help.

And then the fourth R is reintegration back to society. So, you know, for our girls, that means we train them, you know, in getting a job after they leave us. Many of these girls, they were sexually abused.

They were groomed and sexually abused and primed for human trafficking since they were little girls, so they don't know anything else. So we educate them and we provide job training. And by the way, I'm going to apply it to spiritually abusive, toxic systems.

I'm glad that you, you are educated in IT, John or whatever your background is. A lot of these kids who grow up in cults, they don't know anything about ministry. They do not have job skills.

Some of them, they don't even have a high school diploma because they were homeschooled. And their idea, and I, please do not write me and say that, what, you're against homeschooling. I am not against homeschooling.

I'm an educator. I know many homeschooled kids who are phenomenal. I'm just saying that let's have a balance. Let's have a balance. We cannot over-spiritualize everything. We cannot be so heavenly minded that we are no longer any earthly good, right?

So anyway, so reintegration back to society. And the fifth r is my favorite, re-free- our stories. That's what I do now. I really try not to dwell too much on my my tragic story. I did write a book about it, but you know what? I'm living for the for the hero now. You know, I'm living for the future. It's unfortunate that I went through all the traumas that I did, but you know, I think God that I don't live there anymore. I don't live in my past. And that's what I want to encourage anyone listening who's still trapped in those feelings of hopelessness and

depression and anxiety and you know, just caught in this cycles of abuse. You know, there is there is hope. There is healing. There is restoration. Jesus will complete the work that he has begun in all of us. And I hope that maybe for some even listening to this podcast will be step one in their healing and restoration. Yes, I hope so. Thank you so much for doing this. You're welcome.

Thank you, John. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Brandom.org and piohugoministries.com. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.