Our Stories: An Interview With Destiny Ngalula

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Destiny Galula, former member of the message.

Destiny, it's so good to have you here today to talk about your experience in the message and to share your story of escape and we've chatted a few times via email, but I'm wanting to learn more about you and I'm certain our audience is, so maybe if you could just take moment or two and tell us a little bit about yourself. So yeah, my name is Destiny. I'm in my second year of my undergrad. I'm working to be a teacher. I'm actually from Canada and I basically grew up in the message. I had a very unique childhood that most probably won't have in the message. So it's

kind of like a different perspective. I grew up going to church, but I also grew up going to public school. So I had a very conflicted childhood of like, what do I want to do? What do I want to be? And I kind of questioned everything, which is something normally people won't do.

So it kind of turned me into who I am now today. I am one of the unusual ones too. I also went to public school and my children did not, which is interesting. We chose not to my wife and I, but I'm one of the ones who was allowed in education, but higher degrees education was frowned upon.

Honestly, for the church that I, the churches that I grew up in, it was heavily frowned upon until my aunt married a person who had a doctor's in some scientific degree. And then suddenly it's okay for everybody to have a college education in the main sect of the message, which is also kind of odd. But I did not question everything until I was, gosh, I was probably 36 years old before really the question started to surface. So what was that like growing up and having questions about the message? Yeah, kind of the start. The other day I was looking back at old

family photos and I saw a picture of me and my older brother when we were young. And then the background, it's a church in the background and I really had a moment and kind of like thought about it and just was like wow this was really kind of what I was brought up in since I was a baby my parents were watching church under tv obviously because my mom had two under two so sometimes she didn't want to bring us to church and my dad was a pastor actually in a few of the churches we grew up in kind of growing up I remember not necessarily going to church often

because my mom had us all at a very young age and she used to tell me like taking us out was a big chore so she liked to keep us inside sometimes tag teaming like taking two of us at a time because there's four of us and we're all pretty close in age so I don't really remember until we moved from the moved from Ontario Montreal Quebec area we moved all the way down to Edmonton which is west of Canada and when we moved to the west I remember my parents saying that we're going to start going often and my dad was looking for some preacher position so I do distinctly

remember going to three churches in my childhood before like a period of time and I kind of remember before going for my first time consistently my parents kind of telling us about how we should act etiquette but before that I do remember often just my parents talking about like the rules that you had to follow and like deduce and don't it's kind of like the textbook some of the things and how I kind of had a very unique childhood is that I was often at heads with my dad because he was a preacher he was very strict on rules but I went to public school and my mom grew up Catholic so

this was kind of new for not just us as kids but just for my mom as well where different things like the way I would dress me and my dad would always be in heads on because he was like you need to wear skirts and dresses 24-7 and I was like no I want to wear pants and shorts like the other kids so that's kind of where in my childhood the question started I'd say when I was really young the moment I started school maybe four or five is when these questions started because of those fights of

frustration because it wasn't what I wanted to do I did not want to do these things and often but heads of my dad my mom would vouch for me often she was the one she was the one buying me those clothes and that also put a strain in their relationships so I just remember oftentimes when my mom vouching for me being like don't tell dad I bought you this different things like that and so that was kind of my childhood growing up I was often at heads of my dad oftentimes my mom would vouch for me sometimes she'd be like we lost this battle you just have to

conform but I just remember being very frustrated as a kid I wanted to do things like all the other kids and that's where those questions came from yeah it's much different for a guy because I was in public school and I could do a lot of the things that the other guys did because the rules for the girls are more extreme and the rules for the guys you know a guy doesn't really care if I'm wearing pants or shorts and I just always wore pants when I was in school so it's so much different and I can't really even relate to it but I can relate to going

to the multiple churches I went I wish I had only gone to three we went to several different ones and for me that was you know if I were to say that I had questions which I really didn't but there were times that I thought about the churches because you go to this one church and they have this thing that is their agenda and they just every surmits this this this this this thing then you go to another church and it's a different agenda and the rules are different and the people are different and sometimes if you go to church B they they don't fellowship with church A

because the rules are so different did you experience any of that when when you were shifting from church to church I did kind of recognize that because I was so young and I also had an older brother I felt like my parents told them a lot of things that were going on with other people were saying and he knows about like the different things going on that church A does not agree with what church B does and church C and church B are kind of includes with each other so yeah it was a different world yeah and I remember going to some churches where the the church pastor or maybe

a person in the church they feel like they had this prophetic gift and it was always so vague and weird I do remember clearly men getting up and saying that they had this thing from God and they whenever they start to say what it was it really had no meaning it was like it was so vague that you could apply it to anything and then you go to another church and they're like calling this guy out this that sometimes there's a battle between the churches I don't know if you experience I'm curious that in Canada.

Yeah, I would say kind of the behind the scenes and issues and why we kind of switch churches. I don't know a lot of information of this is kind of when I was a kid listening into my parents and other adults talking.

It had a lot to do with funding and where the money was coming from and where it was being spent. One church was saying that this church is using their money for themselves or selfish and in this other church.

I don't know. This is just like conversations I heard as a kid. I hope that if I talk to my brother sometime in the future, he can lean me into more about it, but I just remember my mom saying like, we're not gonna go there because they're corrupt.

And then her and my dad would get into this whole conversation. But I was just too young to understand but now that I'm older, I wanna know more about it. So tell us a little bit about what school was like.

I'm fascinated to hear that you were in a home where the two sides were kind of divided because my house it wasn't that way. And so I had the cult mindset. I was in school and I, you know, you're ingrained and indoctrinated.

You're indoctrinated with this belief that you haven't ingrained in your head. Mentality of an elitist. So there were other Christians who could have been my peers, but I never got close to them because they weren't message Christians.

And so you saw yourself as somewhat better than those people. And then at the same time, you really did not want to get close because it's a doomsday cult. You're living the end of the world.

And if there wasn't that synergy between your parents, I'm not certain how much of that would have went into your I don't know what you call it. The family dynamic sometimes focuses around the end of days.

So did you have any of those experiences? Did you feel you were different than other people at school? I definitely 100% felt different. And many ways I could say I felt different because of my family background, not just because of the church, just because of my parents are African.

They immigrated from Canada. So I felt different. I mean, they immigrated from Africa to Canada. So I felt different. I felt different because I was being grown up in a certain way. And I feel like at a young age, I was very like I've always been a critical thinker because I noticed some things that were different.

And they told me that it's okay to be different. It's okay to not be like the world because it's good, we are better. But I was questioning these things because in a way I felt sad, in a way I felt sad.

and a pity for them. It's like, oh, they don't follow our way. They don't follow our church. They're gonna go to hell and they felt bad. I felt sad. And I also felt different in the church because I was questioning things from a really young age. I did not agree with everything they said. I didn't really think that it applied to me and applied to my life. So I did. I did feel very different and I can remember kind of going to school and kind of I felt normal in a way going to school. I felt that I could be myself, less strict environment. I could be free. But

there were little things that were different about me. All the girls had their ears pierced and I didn't. And I remember one day, some kids being like, oh my gosh, you don't have your ears pierced like some little girls. And though, you know, when one person says something, the whole crew comes and they're like, what? They're asking me questions. And I remember kind of feeling embarrassed and saying like, oh, it's my religion. It's what we believe in. I just said, oh, well, maybe one day I'll get them pierced. I don't know. My parents won't let me. I didn't really give a

reason why. And some other things is that whenever we would go to birthday parties when we were younger, we weren't allowed to wear nail polish. We weren't allowed to get our nails done at all. And birthday gifts would be makeup. It would be jeans. It would be like earrings, nail fake nails. And I remember seeing that. And I'm like, I want those things. But it's against kind of what my parents believe in. And that's where I kind of felt conflicted. It's like, well, I can't make myself not want those things. I want those things. So that's kind of when I began, where I began kind

of questioning is this really something that applies to my life is just really like, like why? Like why do I have to follow these rules? And then I could say I kind of began feeling a sense of hatred. Like I just hated the way I was grown up. And I hate, I started hating going to church.

I wasn't really interested in it because I wanted to be like everybody else, but I was forced to be in this environment. And I felt like there was kind of no really way out until I was older.

So when I was younger, I kind of already planted out. I was like, I'm going to do so well in school. And that's kind of why I excelled so much in school and why it was so important.

to me for me to be my undergrad. I was like, I'm gonna move out of my parents house. I'm going to move on. I live my life the way I want it to be. I just have to get through this these years in my childhood. Yeah, so I can say that right before I left the message, I shared some of the same sentiment, not because I wanted to paint my fingernails because I I still am not really comfortable with that, but I started noticing that the churches were very, the religion itself was very superficial. It was a religion of appearances and you had to keep

up your appearances and that's different for the female half because on the female half you can visually see the differences. There are women who have the long hair, the long dresses, no makeup, no cosmetics, fingernail painting, etc. For the guys, you could have two guys, one being a message guy and one not hanging together in the mall and you couldn't tell them apart for the most part, you know. So for me, it was different for the males, but there was also the superficial appearance that you had to keep up. You had to show yourself to be better than the other

people and I began to be conflicted by this right before I left the message because many of my peers were good Christian people and they were genuine people and so there was this false sense of Christianity that you had to hold up, you had to be one of the, what do they call the chosen few, the elite, whatever you call yourself in this thing and you had to keep that up and it was very taxing on your mind to try to do this and then you could be around another Christian, he's just this genuine guy and he's just being himself and we're trying to be better than them. So while I

don't share with the painting of the fingernails, I did share the appearance side of things because I come to realize right before I left that the whole cult was really nothing more than just keeping up appearances and in many cases it was a false front because the the things that they believe weren't really that Christian. I do agree it was kind of that false front and I knew as a kid that I just couldn't fake it. I went to public school. I broke many rules that usually people in the church don't really break but it's also because of that divided household. There are many

things that we did. We lived in a neighborhood and most people usually live in properties somewhat out of town so I was exposed to a lot of that. We did own a TV. I had a phone and some kids don't really have that access to technology because it's seen that it's bad. It's seen as you shouldn't really, like, stay away from that.

Temptations are gonna come. And yeah, it was, I was like, this is kinda just like who I am, this is kinda who I'm around. I was around other Catholics because I went to a Catholic school.

My parents felt that putting me in public school. Like, in Canada, I don't know if there's like, if it's different in the States, I know in Canada there's two types of schools. You could go to like the public board.

You can go to the Catholic board and they chose the Catholic board because it's like, okay, well, it's not necessarily what we believe in but you're not exposed to the things that go on in the public board.

And yeah, I was around that. We prayed three times a day. I was around this different religion. And my family was also mainly Catholic on my mom's side. So, my parents were saying these things.

Like, people who don't believe in us is all the other religions are false. Kind of this feeling of that were better. And I began to question. I was like, well, even though they don't follow these rules, they still love God.

They still pray, they still read the Bible. Is God also not with them either? So, that's where kind of these questions kind of form and I started kind of thinking very deeply about how I feel about being a part of the message and kind of realizing that I don't really align 100% with what they believe in.

And this is from kind of as a kid from a very young age. A big thing when you kind of brought up this front is that I have an uncle. He's very, very religious.

I would say he's very, I think non-dominational Protestant, I can't really describe his church, but I've visited his church a few times throughout my childhood. And as a teen, and I would say my teen years was when I kind of fully stopped being, stopped mainly following the rules.

We also stopped going to church. We'll get to love it later, but I remember just thinking about him and just his family and their faith. And I was like, wow, there's really people that are devoted to being a Christian, devoted to their faith.

And I was thinking about same thing with the message. They're devoted, but why do we think that we're better than someone else just cause you don't follow the same rules? Remember going to church and just looking at the way people dress in a modern church versus the message, completely different.

Obviously, when you go to a more non-denominational, Sunday's best is not really a thing. Everyone's so casual going to church. It's like kind of like how people would dress going to work. And I was like, wow, like, you can just worship God, and you can just believe in Him just as you are, and not just based off of appearance.

Yeah, it's such a change. We do have Catholic schools in the States, and it's always fascinating to me to find a person who was in the message who went to a Catholic school. You're not the only one that I know that this is the case, because the Catholics were supposed to be the enemy, right?

Yeah, religion. So the parents who send them there, it's like, did they not understand the reason why this religion exists? And it's just, it's so ironic. I went to public school, but not Catholic school, and I have mentioned on the podcast, I grew up without a television.

I've also mentioned on the podcast, I also grew up with a television, because there are people who they will have it for a while, and then they'll decide, wait a minute, William Brannum said, we're not allowed to have it, so let's get rid of it.

And so they get rid of it for a while, and then it comes back, and just back and forth. So a majority of my life, I didn't have one. There were times that I did.

And right before I left, it was the on, off, on, off. So we didn't have one. Right before I moved to Jeffersonville. And I'll never forget, whenever we decided, my parents decided no more television, only thing I wanted to watch was Bugs Bunny in the cartoons, man.

And I was like, this is not wrong to watch Bugs Bunny. I don't, it was, I guess I can say, if there were a conflict that I had with the religion at that point, it was that Bugs Bunny's not bad, but that's the closest that I have to this.

But so you experienced your uncle's church, which is a different church, and you got to see both sides of, you know, non-cult Christianity and cult Christianity. There are a lot of message people that don't get to see this.

So I expect that probably was very conflicting for you to see, you know, family who were in Christian churches versus the message churches. Yeah, it was very conflicting because I grew up more in the public area.

I had school friends who were not in the message. So I'd go to their houses and see how they lived their life. And I was like, wow, that's kind of that sense of feeling very different.

I was like, wow, the way that they lived their life. is so different from the way I live my life, it's just it was just a really different world and it became so conflicting and I kind of took things from the way other people live their life and just wondered like why we couldn't be like them and like they started questioning a lot of things.

Why was I born into this kind of thought like regret like I would have been better off in a different family but obviously in this life you can't choose like where you're born in you can't choose what type of family you have you kind of just have to learn to stick through it and I kind of had to learn throughout my childhood.

I would say the TV thing very similar we had it for a few years they removed it had it they removed it and now we don't have one but we have laptops phones yeah we have a Netflix subscription so I could just watch it on laptop but I do remember that sense of when they took the TV away that sense of boredom I would say I was in around like fifth grade when the TV was taken away because I just became so used to it it was other reasons to my why they took TV away not just for religious reasons they also felt that we were watching too much television

and not doing our homework so another reason to add to it but I was just like wow I just want to watch Disney Channel that's all I care about my friends will be talking about something that happened in a common show we watched and I'm like stop don't spoil it luckily for YouTube back then I remember people just used to upload like episodes on YouTube before they started flagging them no you can't but I remember just waiting like a couple days for it to be up to watch but that was kind of my experience with the TV as well yeah and so many people today like they're

entire message churches that they're not aware they're not supposed to watch television which blows my mind because when I was growing up that was not a thing you weren't allowed but many of them do exactly like you say now they're watching Netflix or Disney and especially now that Star Wars has come on the Disney subscriptions half the message people now have a Disney subscription so they can watch this watch the little Mandalorian show and whatnot but yes just so it's just so odd and your experience also so it drove you to be more inclined to go to

college and that that's fascinating because there are a lot of women especially that they were so indoctrinated that they may never go to college, even after escaping some of them won't. I'll never forget, I went to college.

I was in the message, but I had got married before I decided to go. And I'll never forget sitting there thinking about just being there, because all of those years talking about how higher education is of the devil.

And then you get there and you're literally learning things about life. I mean, some of it is scholarly, of course, but some of the things that they're teaching you, like, I'm glad I went.

I wish everybody went. What was that like for you when you went to college? I would say by the time I started my first year of school, I was way, completely away from the message and now coming into school.

I'm learning so many things about the real world. It's insane. And I kind of wish that more people did go to school because you learn a lot of things. And you are around many different people.

I've met a lot of people from different faves, different backgrounds, and also people who look like me. And you can kind of relate to them about specific cultural things where when you're kind of stuck in one culture, you're not really exposed to that.

So, yeah, honestly, just coming to college, it's a whole new environment. I would say lots of independence. You learn so much about being independent because you have to. Nobody is going to chase you down the hallway to get your homework done like they did in high school.

There's no running away from your teachers. It's either you pass or fail and it's kind of based on your worth ethic. So, I do really like school. And I would also say my parents were very pro school which is different.

From most people, they were very pro. Like go to school, get your degree. I would say kind of in a sense not comes from a religious standpoint. It comes from their background in Africa, their culture

because African parents are very hard on their kids about school and making sure that they're raising them to be successful because they don't want you just to sit around at home, not get a degree.

What is your grandma going to think? What are the people back home we're going to think? What my mom would say. So yeah, my mom pushed many different careers on us. My mom was like, you need to go to university.

Be a doctor. or be a lawyer. She wanted something in a career of high success because that is what she seeked for us. My dad also still to this day still seeks those things but he wants at least one of us to go in the medical field because that's where he worked.

And about school, I also remember often my mom going back to school. So I don't really understand the situation. I do know she went to school before immigrating to Canada. She has a degree from the university she went to.

But sometimes when you have a degree from another country, it's not really accepted in the new country. So she went back to college. I think she has her ECE, early childhood education. She has a university degree or college degree of some sort.

She has many different degrees. I just remember when I was in school, when I like grade one, grade two, I do remember her often studying being in school. My dad obviously was a nurse and went to nursing school.

So he encouraged at least one of us to fall along his path of medicine or being a pilot. One of his dreams is for one of us to do those things. And yeah, school is a very important factor in my household.

Well, that's good. In the Jeffersonville area, there's a phrase, I think it came directly from William Brandon, but it's something to the effect. If you're going to be a thief, be the best thief you can be.

Which when you're talking about be a doctor, be a lawyer, be there's so many better aspirations than they could choose than a thief. But that's kind of the way it was. And I'm certain that was with a completely different understanding they were talking about, just simply be the best you can be.

But it's really good that you went to college or are going to college and working towards your degree. Congratulations on that. So do you remember whenever your family migrated to Canada? I was actually born in Canada.

My parents moved away before I was born. Some were between 1995 until 2000 is when they met.

And then all of us were born right after that. But I was born in Ontario. And I do remember kind of little bits of my childhood in Ontario in Quebec. But I do mainly mostly remember my time in Alberta and I lived in Edmonton.

And my parents were very heavy on school getting a good edge. Because that's kind of what they did that's kind of what they know and especially if you are a newcomer You you have to kind of play the game of Doing the best you can to survive which is going to school and Getting a degree of some sort and getting a good job and that was the main thing My parents were like you need a good job. You need a thrive. You need a survive. You need a Make sure that you are educated. You are doing well in your career

So they instill a lot of those things into us often times in our childhood Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism Transition through the latter rain care ismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website William-brannum.org On the book's page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley Stephen Montgomery John McKinnon and others with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements

If you want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top and as always Be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching on behalf of William-brannum Historical Research We want to thank you for your support So one of the things that you said that I really liked because it's the same exact thing that I tell people in the support groups Is that you must have a plan why why you're in the cult and then you realize that something is wrong

especially if you're not yet of age to move out have a plan be ready to Be ready to move out because there are a lot of people who are Wanting to leave the message some of them living with their parents and They just have no exit strategy What was it that made you decide to To form that in your mind because you you're doing really well for yourself and it seems like you have put into motion things that Many people don't even understand how to do well, I would say it kind of started When I was young that frustration

of going to school and being forced to not wear what I wanted to wear and the fights that would happen early morning and just the frustration I felt Growing up in the environment I grew up in and feeling kind of I don't really relate I don't want to be a part of this I want to move on in my life.

So the best exit strategy I can think of. And of course, my parents would wanted this for me was to be successful in school. And in that strategy, I would think that by me doing well in school, getting a degree, getting you good job, and marrying someone that may not be in the message, but at least we have a good job.

We have a nice house, and they have a bunch of grandkids. They'll be happy, not as disappointed in me. And it's kind of funny. I had that exit strategy because my life changed a lot in my teen years.

Once we moved back to Ontario, I would say I was starting about to start high school when we moved back to Ontario. And that's always been my exit strategy. I remember talking with my parents.

I'm going to move out for school, and I already planned it out. I was personally, if we stayed in Alberta, I was going to go to this school called U of A, University of Alberta.

I planned on living in a dorm. And then when I met friends, moving with friends, but I ended up moving here in Ontario. And I was telling my mom that I want to move back west for school at one point.

I told her I wanted to go to Toronto for school. And that was actually a plan. And I remember around your 11th grade year, 12th grade year, before you applied to schools, you have to take specific courses.

And I remember I was taking specific courses for a program in that school, hoping to get accepted in Toronto. But many things changed. I would say a part of the reason why all of us collectively stopped going to church was my dad had an accident.

We were still going consistently before his accident. He got into a car wreck, which was really bad. And still now he's on medical leave. He won't be going back to work anytime soon. I could think of, and this was about two, almost three years ago.

And I remember when it happened, kind of being a tragic event changed us. And there wasn't really much leeway of what I could do now when it came to leaving a way for school.

Because going to school is expensive. And who was going to fund it? My parents, I had to start working myself again. I had to start saving up. And then it kind of came to a point.

way towards the end of my teen years. Me kind of realizing it's probably best to stay home. And I would say by the time we had stopped going to church, my dad, because he is ill, has turned a little bit more lenient on me.

I remember there was a little bit of fights, but it kind of came to the point as I got older, 16, 17, 18, my dad said, I'll just let her be. So I am able now to do a little bit of whatever I want, not really, not really under the roof, but in a sense of my childhood of what I've been restricted on, I can do my hair, whatever I want.

If I don't, if I want to dye my hair pink, I'll dye my hair pink. I know that was a pink thing. Now you can do color your hair. I won't dye my hair pink, but if I want to do,

I could wear makeup more, but I've kind of always have just some, it's kind of funny. I've seen these things online of what guys think, what know what makeup looks like, but girls are actually wearing lots of makeup.

Kind of that thing. And I could get my nails than now that I'm older, because I have my own money. I have a car. I'll just drive to the nail salon. Can't stop me.

So it's different things like that that kind of changed the trajectory of my journey kind of leaving. I would say, in a sense, that when I look back to when I was a kid, I view it as I was in it, but not really in it, because I just lived a completely non-cult conventional life.

I live so outside of it, and there's so many things that I could think of as a kid that I did that isn't really allowed, especially as a girl, as a woman. I can think about me going into school sports, and that's really nothing you do as a girl.

You kind of learn to be at home with mom and learn about how to be a good wife, but I would say, yeah, some of those values were instilled, but my parents were so focused in school and education that when it came to extracurriculars, they're like, oh, wow, you know, you're doing good in school.

Share, join an extracurricular. Well, it's very good that you have your independence, and I'm sorry to hear about your father, that, you know, for people who are in a divine healing cult, which this was, it's one of the things that shakes everybody's face, because when something bad happens, they have...

had this conversation recently with another person in an interview, but it's almost like they have this rabbit's foot's god. As long as you have the message god and you can rub the rabbit's foot, you get the good luck that nothing is going to happen to you, whether it's an accident or health issues, etc.

And part of my journey coming out, I had a family member that got critically ill, almost died. In fact, it's a miracle that he is alive. But the way that it happened and the severity and the aftermath, the consequences of going through this very horrific tragedy made me realize that there was no rabbit's foot god.

There are people who are in this message, they have accidents, they get sick, they have cancers. Many people who have these things, they claim that they're healed from them, and then they die while they're still claiming to be healed from them. So that was towards the end, you know, right before I laughed, I started just really thinking about the religion itself, what it was, and how wrong it was that we tried to keep up disappearance, that we believe these things, when they, in fact, they weren't true. Did you ever, did that cross your mind at all, whenever

your father started going through what, what he went through? Yeah, just, I kind of remembered first few months of it, my dad saying things like, oh, I'll be okay. I'll be back to normal very soon.

I will go to work very soon. I'll be able to drive again very soon. But as time went on, he's gone in much worse. The results from the doctors did not look too good, and it looks like he will need a lot of intensive care for, I don't know how long, or if it will ever be healed or back to normal. But I remember looking back at those days, because just seeing that just drastic change of from who he was before to now, it's just shocking. It was, it was a very shocking moment in feeling, and I did believe what he said, because he seemed very optimistic. I didn't really

think of it as him saying that I'm going to be rapidly healed. He kind of gave a timeline of, oh, by like December, I'll be walking again, it's fine. But then as time went on, I kind of accepted that this is kind of new journey and course of action that we're in, where I know in the church rapid healing is like a main part of it. It's the main part of that. Oh, God will heal you, just pray, just believe, but In a way, kind of how I knew my thinking was differently, although this was a tough event for our family.

In a way, I was like, maybe this is just a story that was meant to happen. If I was going to go back to before the accident, and if I were to know that this was going to happen, I wasn't going to believe it.

I was going to think that this is crazy. No way that this would happen to my dad, but that this was kind of a thing that just changed our life, and this is the way our story is supposed to go.

That's when I kind of realized that my thinking was a lot different. I would say right before a big event that came to this development that just kind of realizing over when I'm older, that no, I don't really believe these things, or I ever believe these things, was a few months before his accident, my dad asked the younger three of us, so I'm the second oldest, and I have a sister, below me, and a younger brother, and I remember him asking us who wants to be baptized.

And I remember saying no right away. I just didn't feel ready, and I remember kind of this pressure coming. You have to do this. You need to. And I just remember, it caused a kind of fight between me and my parents.

No, I don't want to do this. I was kind of kicking and screaming. No, I can't. I can't because I just felt it in my heart that I couldn't do it. I just didn't believe these things.

I just didn't feel it in my heart that me getting baptized in this church was the right thing. And of course, my siblings did it because they're like, what's wrong with it? This is just kind of what we know.

I would say out of the four of us, like, I would say mainly my younger brothers still listens to sermon, still has kind of doctrine in it, but we all kind of grew up the same way.

We're kind of more, I don't know how to describe it, like out the church, like no more things about the world, but I just remember just not feeling ready and not feeling that it was right, and that it was just something laying in my heart that it wasn't.

And that was the decision I made. And I feel like when it comes kind of with the divine feeling and the divine healing is that I do believe that God can heal. God can create miracles. God can help you out of any troubles that you're in in your life. But it's not like a poof of a magic one. Like snap of your fingers. It's going to happen. It also, I also do believe that maybe it's meant to be because I remember the morning before my dad got into his wreck. He dropped me off to a volunteer assignment that I had. And I just remember having this like daunting

feeling in my heart that something wrong was going to happen. I don't know how to kind of explain it or what that really means. I've talked to my uncle about it kind of for his perspective because he doesn't really go to our church and he said maybe it's just like divine intervention or sometimes it's your conscious. I don't know. It's just that I had that feeling kind of in my heart that something was going to happen and it did. And now kind of understanding that I had that feeling, I kind of see situations differently that sometimes these things are meant to be sometimes

this is God's story to write. And maybe your story is that you're going to have to go through this tough time of recovering from an illness for an injury. And sometimes your story ends with you of this illness. But you never know. And that's kind of where I am with kind of the radical healing kind of points. Yeah, I'll never forget that feeling whenever we first started attending a church that wasn't a message cult church trying to wrap my head around that because I was indoctrinated for 37 years to think that we had the power to change the course of history and then watching

people get sick into in a church that wasn't a divine healing cult church. That was the way that it was that was the response from the pastor. This is the way this is happening. This is meant to be.

We want to pray for you. God can heal you. You know, God heals. But right now this is God's plan that this is what the family is going through. And I remember thinking, you know, you're indoctrinated to think he's a hypocrite for saying this. And he's just simply stating the facts. You know, this is this is what's happening to you. And it was more of a rally cry to bring all of the community of the church together to help the person, help.

family. And I just remember thinking how different that was because in the same scenario, I've been in cult churches where if the person had it, there was no rally cry for help. They were just kind of on their own. And if they continued to have it, it meant they did not have faith to heal themselves. And so people started looking at them differently. And so now you've got a cult who has isolated themselves from society. And then you've got a person in the cult who's further isolated. And I started seeing how all of this was just so wrong. But fortunately for you,

you saw it before leaving. I saw it long after leaving. If you could give some advice to people who have not yet made their strategy to exit. There are a lot of people who have contacted me, who some of them still living with their parents, they want to make their escape. What advice would you give to somebody who's planning their escape? I feel like for me and how I grew up, I think it's just that I have very thick skin. And just having strength is just your biggest like advice and your biggest health. Because it can be hard. It can be hard leaving a community that

you were a part of. And going out to the world, it's like us releasing a five-year-old into the world. They haven't really lived life yet. They still need to be raised by their parents. They still need to have that nurturing. And if that kind of makes sense that analogy, just like being released to the world, cold turkey, not really knowing what's next. And I'd say just having strength. There were many times throughout my childhood where I felt the sense of like I just can't do this. I just want to run away frustration, pain, and just not wanting to live like this.

But sometimes it's okay to put your foot down and say, no, this is not really the life I want to live. And it's not necessarily being selfish. It's kind of just like sticking up for yourself and just realizing that their values may not align with yours. And maybe that's just like the story that God is giving you that. He's giving you this environment for you to break through and just figure out who you are and be yourself. Even though I look back at my childhood and I have those thoughts sometimes like why was I born in this family or I wish for something else.

I feel like it was meant to be. because now that I'm out and now that I am getting ready to be on my own path as an adult and start my own family and live kind of a life different from that. That experience kind of gives you kind of the strength to navigate the world and it is going to be hard. You're going to ruffle some feathers. You're going to have tough relationships. I'd say with my parents, although I still live with them, but soon fingers crossed, soon and throughout my second or third year of post-secondary, I can move out, but it can be hard. It can be hard having to

stick under the same roof and conflict. You butt heads and I butt heads of my parents and it just kind of comes with that. It kind of comes with living under the roof and just also understanding that it's kind of the part of life living under the same roof with your parents just you start having your own ideas of how you want to raise your family and how you want to live their life and it may not 100% align with your parents' ideas. I feel like everyone goes through that whether you're living in a cult, whether you are religious or not religious and I've

had friends who are Muslim who feel the same way. It's kind of a lot along with just growing up and realizing how you want to live your life and figuring out who you are.

I think that's good advice. It's part of the journey to becoming an adult in most families, but in the cult they kind of suppress that. You don't really have that growth and it's unhealthy for a family not to have conflict because you don't learn how to properly handle conflicts if you never have a conflict. I think that's very good advice, but thank you so much for doing this with us today. I'm sure you're going to help a lot of people become encouraged by hearing your story. Yeah, thank you for having me and I hope that people who listen to this realize that

having strength is important and that sometimes when you leave you may not have the best relationship with your family afterwards and I'm still working through that, but time will tell and I really hope anyone that's leaving and is going through conflict with their families that they're able to get through that and just pray. Just pray and do a lot of self work in yourself and how to approach these conversations with them because it can be going through those conversations of why you don't believe in what they believe.

They will. They have lots of defenses. It gets, it gets really complicated. Yes, it does. 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-Branum.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Branum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Branum in his message.

Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Thanks for watching.