Escape From IHOP-Atlanta: The Untold Miracle

Is Welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Annalise De Né, former member of the House of Prayer in Atlanta. Annalise, it's good to finally connect with you and to let you tell your story. You have quite a story, and I think it will appeal to several people who are among our listeners in the audience. So, maybe if you could just begin by telling everybody a little bit about yourself. Well, my name is Annalise. I am 34 years old.

I am the author of a poetry book called To the Woman Who, which you can find on Amazon. I am creative of all sorts. I study dance in college, and I love ice lattes.

I am the kind of guy that likes my coffee unadulterated. I drink it straight out of the pot just as it comes. So, I'm this whole concept of putting all of these things in your coffee and drinking it cold is foreign to me. But anyway, you mentioned that you are part of the House of Prayer in Atlanta.

Now, is that in any way connected to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, which is a Mike Bickle's group? Actually, it is. So, it was called the International House of Prayer in Atlanta, and yeah, so it's, I guess, you could call it a sister ministry. There was a connection there.

The main pastor there was trained by Mike Bickle. So, yes, there was definitely a connection, and they pretty much did the same thing. 24, 7 prayer, worship, prayer meetings, etc. You know, the irony in all of this, Mike Bickle has made such a name for himself.

There are people who have never heard of the International House of Prayer until recently, after all of the scandals broke, that they believe it is just this concentrated thing in Kansas City. They don't realize that it developed into a worldwide movement, and there are satellite churches, branches, outreaches, etc. Some, there are people who are missionaries who go help establish these kind of things. And then from there, many of the groups have splintered into something else.

So, each one of the groups has its own sort of foundations and history, but I'm curious about your group, since you were in the United States and your House of Prayer in Atlanta, was connected to the IHOP KC. Did you share the same concepts that they were teaching in the, you know, what they called the prophetic history?

in Kansas City. Did they teach the prophetic history in Atlanta? I don't know all of the history to be honest. I studied dance in college and there was actually one holiday where I was visiting my aunt and basically a girl that I met on Twitter had reached out to me because she knew that I was in town in Georgia because originally I grew up in Virginia Beach but spent many years in Georgia after graduating college.

So I was doing a dance internship headed to Brooklyn and a girl reached out to me on Twitter. She told me about the house of prayer just suggested that I go felt like I wanted to do something special for me. So that was my first introduction to the house of prayer. I went to probably like a young adult service. Some people prayed for me afterwards and I would say I left encouraged and then after graduating college I moved to Georgia lived with that same aunt that I was staying with during that holiday in college and basically I got fully immersed

in the culture of the house of prayer. I've mentioned on the podcast before but I grew up from coast to coast everywhere from South Carolina to Arizona and everywhere in between. But I claimed Georgia as my home state and always have because my maternal grandparents were from Georgia and no matter where we live there were large portions of my life that I would go back and spend time you know stay the summers with my grandparents and that was like my foundational place was in Georgia. It would have been south of where you are a little bit south of Macon, Georgia is where I claim as my home state or home you know

where I was reared and raised but anyway so your group developed in Atlanta and you joined into the house of prayer. I'm curious what made you decide to choose that as your place of worship. So before again I studied dance so I was an artist very creative and very passionate about art and just you know being myself and making statement pieces through dance and I had ambitions to you know somehow get involved in the dance ministry in Atlanta or industry not ministry in Atlanta but I would say you know God had other plans so when

I got immersed into the house of prayer I would say I was in a season of like okay doors aren't opening like not really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel just kind of a little bit downcast about my future being a college graduate and just you know things don't happen like success not being instant and so I had this desire to be a part of community and you know family in the church and things like that so when I got involved I would say I began to experience those things in the young adult ministry I was there all the time

for prayer and worship sets and stuff like that. That is one of the most wonderful and most deceptive parts about a cult whenever you You, you know, whenever you start to feel it out, you start to engage and act like you're somewhat interested.

Many of the groups will give you what you, what we call love bombing. Everybody's just pouring out their blessings to you and wow, this is a wonderful place, a wonderful community. And the community is attractive, sadly, for a cult.

So people who are wandering souls or people who are seeking for something better, they'll join into the community. And when they do, they often get very engaged, very active, but they haven't really engaged their critical thinking.

So as things around them are starting to feel a little bit off, they've already embedded themselves into the community because of the nature of it. And it's very difficult to break from that community.

So like I say, it's one of the most healthy and one of the most destructive attributes of a cult. So what I see as the, as the community, I actually have fond memories of this back in my group.

I really enjoyed that tight, close knit community. It took me years to understand after leaving it that actually what I saw as blessed, how close we were together, it was an unhealthy level of closeness.

And whenever you first leave this and you go to a mainstream church for the first time, which I did, it's almost like shell shock because you don't have that close community. You have what is considered community, but everybody is a little, everybody's unique.

Everybody's their own personality. And so like I said, it's unhealthy and it's attractive, though, to people who are seeking for something better. So apparently that plays into your story. Absolutely.

I think a lot of people go in with good intentions. They're a part of community. They're at a house of prayer. They're doing some good for the Lord. You know, after all you're sitting in his house, right?

You're praying, you're worshiping and you're advancing the kingdom. And so I went in with good intentions and I actually started going there in March of 2016 and everything kind of took a turn for me in March of 2021.

Oh wow, so you got in and out very quickly. What would you say is the turning point, the thing that made you decide that you were not going to be part of the group?

I was scheduled to dance because I began to dance at the ministry on Sundays during worship. I was scheduled to dance and it was March 14th, 2021. And it pretty much was like any other Sunday.

I was getting ready. I was making coffee for a friend. We had to be there early before service to prepare to dance on stage during worship. And a bomb went off in the right side of my abdomen and I pretty much thought that it was my appendix.

I told my friend like, hey, I'm not ready to go. like just kind of don't come over to my house yet. And so time passes, I don't really know what's wrong. I just Google diagnosed myself and say it's my appendix.

So I get to church with my friend after a little while and she used to be a nurse. So she had checked out, you know, my abdomen, it was pain on the right side, you know, just to try to confirm like, hey, is this your appendix, you know, like what's going on?

And so I had had a large fibroid in my stomach at the time. And it took up a pretty big amount of space. It was huge and I was believing God to heal it.

So it was kind of hard for her to know like what was what because of the mass that was, you know, housed in my stomach at the time. How did the church react to this?

In the Brannum cults, there was this notion of divine healing and the whole worship was centered around this. So if somebody were to, if this were to happen in a Brannumite church, they were to focus on trying to heal the person rather than trying to get them to the emergency room, which should have happened.

How did the International House of Prayer react? That morning, being in that pain and being at church and my friend just trying to see what was going on, I had just decided like there's no way that I could dance because I was truly an agony.

And so she's warming up, I'm leaned over a chair and pain just like there's no way I'm gonna be able to dance. And then we had a debrief session before service and that's pretty much where the pastor just kind of gets everybody who's serving in some capacity to say like what to expect that morning and things of that nature.

And so at the time I was in agony, I don't even know what he said about what to expect. I just knew I was in pain and that there was no way I could dance.

And so after the debrief, instead of going to the back of the sanctuary to the bathroom, I went to the front of that sanctuary and out the side door, I was gonna change out of my dance clothes back into my street clothes because again, there was just no way that I could dance with the pain that I was in.

And I had never done this before, but I knocked on the pastor's office and I just said, I don't know what God wants to do today. I think he wants to heal and I said the devil's trying to kill me, my side hurts.

And he had no response at all. He literally just looked at me like a deer in headlights and I had just closed the door back and went on to the bathroom. I got flooded with condemnation, just kind of like that was stupid.

Why did you say that? Meanwhile, I'm in pain struggling to just change back into my street clothes. And so I go back into the sanctuary and service has started. My friend is up there dancing.

I go to my chair, leaned over again in agony. And the pastor who ignored me comes over to me and he asks like, hey, you're dancing. right? I'm like, no, I'm in agony. There's, you know, there's no evidence. So he does like this quick little prayer for me, you know, feel better type of thing instead that God still wanted me to dance. And so I took the stage, I danced in my street clues in front of the congregation. No one knew that I was in agony except my friend and the pastor. So I'm up there dancing and the

worship leader begins to sing about how Jesus heals diseases prophetically. And I can't say in that moment, if I thought I was going to be healed because adrenaline, agony, you know, life is just happening so fast. So there was a pause where the pastor came up, he began to pray for healing, you know, words of knowledge for what he felt like God wanted to heal. And I'm up there. And so he does all that on the microphone comes to me and ask me how he's doing. I said, I'm an agony. He asked me silently. So

nobody heard the conversation. And he did that quick little prayer again, told me to keep going. And so by the grace of God, I continued to dance in that same agony that did not leave.

This is one of those things that people from the outside looking in don't often understand whenever the Bible talks about healing and the Bible does talk about healing. It does not frame it in such a way where it places the person who needs healing in danger. And like the conversation that you had with the minister, I have witnessed the same types of conversations. And what happens is they'll have the private conversation with the person who's desperately in need. And then they'll have a sermon, which is focused on healing just as this minister has done apparently with you. But what they're doing is they're

trying to call down a healing. It's almost like a it's almost like a summoning. There's summoning the healing spirit is essentially what is happening here. But people don't realize just how dangerous this is. And it isn't so much that they, you know, I like to frame it like this, they're called they're trying to force a healing. And often cases they're trying to force a healing when one may never come, putting the patient at risk. However, if for whatever reason, the person does get better because they force this hype and this emotion. Now everybody who's part of that hype and

emotion witnesses the healing and oh my gosh, look, the presence of the Lord moved down. But there are more aspects of what's happening behind the scenes that the people in the audience don't see only the pastor and the person who's involved with it sees, which is exactly what you're describing. So to speed this story up because it's pretty extensive. That night, I ended up going to the ER. And they found a four centimeter cyst on my right ovary.

And they told me that when it burst or ruptured, I would feel better. They sent me home with pain meds, because of course I thought it was my appendix, CT skin, you know, found the cyst.

And I was pretty shocked because I had already had a fibroid in my womb that I needed got to heal. Then there was this other issue that I didn't anticipate or expect. So I left pretty discouraged, to be honest.

And so I go home, rest, wake up, take all the pain medicine, which was Zofran, hydrocoding, ibuprofen, they all failed. I immediately started throwing up. And I remember I just stayed in bed all day in pain, because they had already told me what was wrong.

They already told me what to expect. So I'm thinking I'm waiting on this cyst to rupture, right? So the pain is just all day. And I remember calling the pharmacist about the medication. And he was shocked that I had threw up Zofran because they give that to chemo patients.

That's a nausea pill. And he told me I could take Tylenol and ibuprofen together to mask the pain. But honestly, I didn't have the strength. I didn't know if we had Tylenol in the house.

I just stayed in my bed all day. And that night, my mom had made me a smoothie. And I washed down some hydrocoding, went to sleep. I woke up a little after 2am. It's the next day.

This is 316-21 to the bomb. And my abdomen just going off even more. So I'm leaning over my pillow, crying out to God. Don't know what to do. And I just start to get ready.

Because I knew that I needed to go back to the hospital. And so I am rushed to the ER. And basically, they told me that the cyst went from 4 to 7 centimeters. And that my ovary had died due to an ovarian torsion, meaning it wrapped around itself and died.

So I needed emergency surgery. And I was told that the doctor would try to save my ovary. And I didn't think that I would lose it. Because I had never heard of an ovarian torsion.

Again, adrenaline. Life is just happening so fast. And so I'm on the operating room table. I felt like I was stretched out on a cross to be honest. The morphine failed. Zofran didn't work.

I'm beginning to fade. And I just remember that I want to say it was an anesthesiologist standing over me just like telling everybody to hurry up. And let's get this surgery started. And so I wake up.

My ovary is gone. Two days later in recovery, they come and tell me that I had a rare type of ovarian cancer. I'm actually people can't see it but I'm actually sitting here cringing in pain as I listen to this. It's unbelievable. I can't even imagine the amount of pain that you must have been going through. In the Brannum cults and many of the divine healing cults that sprung off of this movement. What they teach you to do is basically it's called positive confession but basically it's to lie within yourself about your conditions. In other words, don't accept it. Just keep on believing that you don't have

the thing that you can definitely feel in the pain. How did that affect you? Did they teach the same kind of thing? Was it a positive confession type of religion? Were you willing and accepting of the fact that this was happening to your body? Or did you try to reject it and try to I guess faith yourself into healing? I did not receive that report by faith. I'm like there's no way I saw cancer after all of that. I just didn't receive it. By faith, I'm like I'm not a cancer patient. I don't have cancer. I'm told I need to see a specialist to see what's find out

what stage it is, things of that nature. Eventually I see an oncologist. He told me that it was stage one and that I didn't need chemo and pretty much his job was to take out the fibroid that was pre-existing. This whole time, people are in between doctors, visits and stuff like that.

Church members are coming over to visit me. I'm in recovery. People are bringing me food, pajamas, just things of that nature because I had a trail of staples. It's just very crazy but I was never discouraged or downcast. As a matter of fact, the spirit of the Lord was resting on me in a way that I had never experienced. You would think somebody on pain pills would be sleep, but I was actually encouraging everybody that came in my room, telling my testimony like, I don't have cancer anymore, even without having the blood work done and things like that to say,

if it was still there or not, or if it had spread, I was just going off of faith because that's who I am. I'm a woman of faith did not receive that report. I had a few visits with my oncologist, got blood work done and he was going to take out the fibroid. He thought he could save my womb and it just came down to him having to remove it because the fibroid was so so big and there was only one opposed to multiple, just one benign mass in my stomach and so he had to take the wound.

And even with that happening, first surgery was March, second surgery was June. I still have a testimony. I'm still called to testify. And through that operation, I learned that the cancer did not spread.

He took out my womb, 18 lymph nodes, my other ovary essentially was black and had died within the span of two months after the first surgery in March. And again, I still have a testimony, I'm not discouraged.

Am I shocked? I had a near-death experience, you know? The doctor told me how I had not gotten out of bed, and in return to the ER, I would not have made it, I would have died in my sleep.

And this is before I lost my ovaries. So had I not gone back, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't even be here right now. So I realized I'm a miracle, you know, and despite losing my womb, I'm still a miracle, two things to meet true at the same time, right?

Loss, miraculous power of God. Yeah, it's, but still it's like, I'm hearing it in the pain is just, you can't imagine, I'm feeling the pain in my body listening to this. How did the church react?

So if you go to a mainstream church, and I have been to some that are a very accepting of healing by God, it's not that they're against divine healing, they are against divine healers as such, and the way the church usually reacts is they will come together around the person who's in need, especially I've seen it actually with cancer patients recently after having left.

They offer their support, they're very acknowledging of the condition that the person is in, and they say, we're here to help, we'd like to help you, and we're here to help you face this battle together.

But in the divine healing type cults and everything that emerged from this, it's not quite that way. How did the church react in your situation? I had a testimony, like I said, I was sharing on social media, preaching in the hospitals, doctors to nurses, even the woman who took out my ovary, she just was an on-call surgeon, she had told me that she couldn't get offered, her couch for three days, she could not move, because she knew that if she had did anything different, I would have made it off the table.

And so I'm testifying everywhere, does it hurt that it cost me my womb? Absolutely. So I'm on medical leave, I had medical leave a couple times, and I would pop in and out of the prayer room, they would pray for me, and they knew what was going on, and told me about the cancer when it was first discovered.

I told the church I want to live and not die, so I wanted the church to pray. So surely people were praying for me, the pastor who was originally involved, he knows every single detail, every doctor's visit, I'm telling him what the doctor said, and a lot of scientists responded just like one word, just Jesus, you know, and all that to say, when it came down to testifying, I got met with a lot of hell that I did not see coming, because you know, eternally I was on stage day.

while dying. I thought that it would be a no-brainer to share the testimony of what actually was happening to me. And I was met with a lot of pushback. I would have a lot of meetings with the pastor, tell them about the medical stuff, the details, the paperwork, and he just kind of be, you know, saying nothing, just kind of looking at me, just a man of few words. And I didn't outright ask, like, hey, can I testify? They began to, there was one Sunday when I was at home. It happened to me watching the service. Somebody's wrist got healed in service. And the next week I was there.

And they had shared a testimony that actually belonged to my friend, who I had prayed for, because she had a cyst on her ovary. She had some procedures done before to have some removed, but another one had appeared. She told me that when I prayed for her, it disappeared. I never actually told anyone of that, you know, that happening. She had shared what God had did on her social media. The church gets wind of it, takes that testimony, and displays it from the platform, saying that they were the ones that prayed for her. And that's how she got healed. And so they had

combined somebody's wrist getting healed on top of my friend's cis disappearing and began to call for miracles. You know, that's the exact point I was trying to make earlier. People who are on the outside and they're looking into this thing, you can't really catch and understand what is happening to the people who are suffering the most, people who in your situation, and I've witnessed others just like it. Whenever the person has a condition that is unlikely to change, and you're in this atmosphere that is promoting this divine healing element to their faith, well, it's unlikely

that you're going to be a person who is divinely healed in this situation. And the ministers, the elders, everybody who's involved realizes and recognizes this. The difference between what happens in this type of religion and what happens in the mainstream churches that I described. In the mainstream churches, they will take the person who is suffering, who they're very aware, is probably going to continue with the conditions that they have. And they'll use them as a testimony for their courage to face the battle. In other words, yes, they have this problem, they have this issue, this sickness,

illness, whatever it is. Yes, we recognize that it's unlikely to change, but look at their faith steadfast in God as they're going through this, let's all rally and support them and encourage them as they go through it. Verses in the divine healing type religions and those that emerge from it, the person who's in the most need is usually the one whose testimony becomes suppressed.

Being a walking miracle, sitting in service, I am now confused as to why nobody is sharing or calling for me to speak, right? And I began to ask questions. I got met with a lot of pushback.

I felt like I was, you know, just being belittled, talked down to, my testimony was being so minimized. They're telling me you don't want golf claps. And the pastor did not think that I got a miracle.

And there's nothing more devastating than becoming a miracle. And then somebody's saying that you're not a miracle, right? When you just went through a near death experience that they have never experienced, right?

And even the faith and courage it takes to testify losing my womb and never having had children. That's not a testimony that you hear every Sunday. And so I just got met with so much pushback and just words that you would not say to someone when they are grieving and also celebrating their life, right?

And it felt like the church was mad that God spared my life because they certainly were not celebrating it. When all these things just added a swirl of confusion, you know, the pastor is telling me first Corinthians 12, the gifts, essentially no one laid hands on me and healed me.

And, you know, he's telling me I'm not gonna put you up there hurt. As if the testimony essentially will never not hurt, right? It's costing me some things, but it's still my testimony. And so, I mean, it was just the most shocking thing

I think I have ever gone through, you know, in a place that begs God for miracles in revival every week in prayer meetings. You have the testimony in front of you, but you don't wanna receive it.

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I really liked one of the things that you just said there. You had a testimony and the people could have heard that testimony. I think whenever you're in this box, this carus mania, this, whatever you call it, this divine healing type religion and all of its grandchildren.

I think when you're in that box, you don't realize and recognize the power of what you just said. It's not just the people who are experiencing miracles that have the testimonies. And in some cases, the people who don't experience the miracle has a much more powerful, I'll say, more powerful testimony than somebody say who went through the prayer line and became healed.

And in some cases, the healing wasn't really something that was so life-threatening as what you had. So your testimony is actually far greater than some of the other testimonies. But in the end, which testimony can you say is greater than another?

They're all testimonies and each person who is going through it to them, it is the most important thing. And in a Christian circle, everybody should be rallying around the person who's really, really going through the trials.

So how did this affect you? What did you do in this case? I began to call things out and speak up. I did not back down. They began to accuse me of wanting to make a name for myself.

When I am relatively a quiet person, I've never asked for a microphone when I work there. And they had this whole thing about like amplifying black voices, specifically black women. And it's like when it all came down to it, that was bogus.

And so it just was insane. Like imagine miracles being celebrated. And so the pastor told me he was, he's like, I'm protecting you. And it's like, I think he was protecting his image because I was up there dancing while dying.

And he didn't want anyone to know, right? That he missed it when he could have easily humbled himself and said, hey, you know, this happened on this day. And she was up here. And, you know, so it was horrific to say the least.

The pastor, the main pastor, was paying me to work there. And so the same pastor is, I feel like trampling me for how God healed me, which God didn't even negotiate the healing with me.

You know, I was believing for a miracle. And I did, I'm so many in one, to be honest, like I didn't die in my sleep. Cancer didn't spread. Never got chemo. You know, and the list just goes on and on and on.

I was treated with treated in that way was literally the most shocking thing I think I have ever experienced. And it honestly felt like the church part was worse than the cancer, you know?

You know, that's a good point that I'm glad you actually brought this up. The miracle isn't just the divine healing, which sadly the group professes this. If you can say that the doctors were wrong and I'm now healed, I no longer have this thing, I am the miracle.

that's what they're looking for because that is literally that's what sells tickets into a stage or into a convention. But it's not always the person who has a reversal that is a miracle, like your case would be declared as a miracle. This is a great miracle that happened to you.

You survived. You went through this thing and you came out on the other end. That in itself is a miracle. What did this do to your emotions? What was your emotional state after they treated you this way? To be minimized, to be silenced because you don't like it the way that God healed someone is truly insane. And I feel like this testimony actually speaks to people who don't get healed the way that they think they're going to get healed. But God is still a healer and he's faithful.

And you know, no healing, you know, God only does perfection. He is a perfect God. And so I just think the lasting effects of what I went through, I just could have never imagined, you know, just resenting my own story and thinking God should have let me die, right? Like he got it wrong.

Like, wait God, I was supposed to die. Not wanting to tell my story. Being radio silent out of fear of like retaliation, right? After getting a miracle, feeling shut down is not what you would expect.

No, it is not. And you know, it goes beyond religion. Just in normal human interactions, this is not the way that humans should behave to other humans. But sadly, when you're in these types of groups, you have completely shut off all critical thinking. But in many cases, you're shutting down the basic fundamental parts of being human, how you interact with other humans, how you support them. I can't think of any scenario, even if even if the person is atheist or Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, I can't imagine another person of any race, faith, etc., not having and showing compassion to another human. But sadly, when you're in these types of groups,

that's the type of environment that is being established. And the people are being manipulated to think that this is a good Christian thing to do. This is a way to behave. So I can't can't even imagine having gone through that. There was never any resolution. I sought biblically to see that everything would be resolved, that there could be, you know, accountability taken, just understanding of like, so this doesn't happen to someone else.

That really was my whole thing. Like, no one should have to go through this.

And not everybody has the faith and the bandwidth to still stand after going through all the physical things I just named on top of getting trampled by a ministry for how God heals you.

Not everybody is as strong in their faith. And so I saw to have meetings, to repair the, you know, what went wrong. And to just be crystal clear, that this was not the Lord. This was not the Lord. This is not his heart. This is not how he responds.

This is not how he treats his women. You know, he gave me a testimony to share it. I am obligated, according to the Word of God. It says, we overcome by the blood of the Lamb in the Word of our testimony. And in the Psalms, there's so many examples of, you know, even Psalm 40,

where David talks about how many will see and put their trust in the Lord, like see what the Lord has done in his life, bringing him out of the mud and the mire, right? And so it just, it just was really, really crazy realizing just how horrible the theology was, just how controlling and narcissistic a lot of the, the leaders were and just the manipulation, just, just trying to convince me that God really did not want me to speak. That is exactly the heart of the entire problem.

So when you're in these movements that are professing this divine healing thing and trying to categorize in their box what they consider to be a miracle, not what God might consider to be a miracle, but what they consider to be a miracle. If you don't fit that mold, then you are obviously not a miracle, but also you don't have a voice in the movement. Your voice doesn't matter. Your voice is separate from the people who are going to show a miracle. So in other words, we can see that this person is not going to be one of these great miracles that everybody can look at. Let's go

find another person. That other person probably has a better voice that is more appealing to the group. And to the person who's involved with it, exactly as you describe, it feels as though God doesn't want them. God doesn't want their voice. God is not giving them the miracle that has given to everybody else. And just think of that, the person who's being oppressed in these types of movements, their miracle, they recognize in some cases, their miracle may never come. But then they start looking at all of the people who are getting the so-called miracles. And they say,

oh my gosh, how come they're getting it? And I'm not. I can't even imagine what that would have done to your mental health as you're going through this. I had always felt otherwise. I felt a burden to share, a burden to speak in. You can imagine like getting a testimony like so and then having all these other things attached to it is heavy, right? Absolutely. There's a Bible verse that the rocks would cry out. And in many cases, that is what the people who go through this feel like. This thing is within them. They want to speak out. They want to talk to other people.

And the ministry is suppressing their voice. They have no voice in the movement. Because again, and what they're considering a miracle doesn't fit within the box of what the other leaders in the group consider to be a miracle.

So what happened after you went through this, this is a horrific thing to go through. And like I said, I feel physical pain listening to having gone through what you are describing. I'm not female, but feeling that the bursting or whatever is just, I'm uncomfortable sitting here which makes it a little bit difficult to talk.

What did you do after this? So suddenly you lost your voice. You're in a movement that is professing great miracles. You realize and recognize that you are a great miracle. And now your miracle has no voice.

Where did you go from here? Well, I fled that ministry, of course. And four years later, there's been no restoration. And I think I really sought biblically to see restoration. And sometimes you just don't get it.

And I wouldn't say that that's on me. But I lost a lot of friends, struggled financially because I used to work at that ministry and then leaving. And then just physically healing, emotionally, spiritually.

It was rough. I did not have a church home for a long time. And because it was hard to go into a ministry, because I had seen so much behind closed doors, that it was hard to trust that leaders are actually operating in integrity and just biblical principles, just taking accountability and speaking to people in an honorable way, it was very hard to trust that after everything I went through.

And then I think having a story like mine and bringing it into a church felt so burdensome and heavy because not everybody knows how to respond. And I think a lot of responses I would get.

Of course, people are forcing me to forgive. And almost wanting me to just stop talking about it, even though it's not something I can just act like it never happened because it is intertwined in my testimony overall.

So I felt pretty isolated from the body of Christ and there are times when I wanted nothing to do with it because of what I had went through. And yet I know that Christ is the head of the church and that that's not his heart for anyone to be isolated.

And I know that in the end, I think I felt at fault for sharing my testimony with the ministry and how it kind of blew up in my face. But at the same time, it worked out for me being able to see what they were really about and that helps me leave.

And yet, I just kind of made it harder going forward to find a place to land and to feel safe and... to be able to talk about a story like this in the church so that things like this don't ever take place.

You know, and it shouldn't be this way. Like I said before, it defies even what it means to be human. If you look at children, children who see other children, they don't see race or color or religion or politics, any of the things that we as adults tend to separate ourselves.

If you read the Bible, it says we're supposed to get back to that way. We're supposed to become more like children in the faith. And yet when you're in these movements, it doesn't promote that idea that we're supposed to love those people who are not aligned with our religion, a worldview, etc.

And to have a minister who's doing this to you, I can't even imagine as it related to your Christian faith, what this would have done to you. People who go through this, like if you were a spouse and you've been under the abuse of a spouse, some people say they struggle, they may never get married again because in the eyes of every male or female, whatever's the opposite sex, they see the person who is abusing them and what you're describing is spiritual abuse.

So in spiritual abuse, with every minister you start to see in their eyes, the one who was spiritually abusing you. Did that affect you in any way? I know that every pastor is not like the one that I experienced.

I know that there are great men and women of God. And so I can say, yes, I'll be able to trust a pastor again, for sure. So I have to ask just because I'm curious.

So your group was tied and affiliated to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. And the International House of Prayer in Kansas City was really focused on the prophets and like I said earlier, the prophetic history.

Did they mention many of the names of the people who were the, I don't know what you call them in, in IHOP Casey, the heroes of the faith, so-called? Did they mention like Mike Bickle and all of the others?

Honestly, they did. I did an internship in 2017. I don't really remember a lot of the prophetic history, but when I did the internship, they were teaching it. And it was very much, you know, hearing all the stories about Mike Bickle went to heaven and, you know, just all the chariots of fire, just all of the stuff.

Yeah, that was definitely going on, for sure. What would you say has changed after you left? So you went through this very, very horrific experience where people were acting less than human towards you.

Now you've left it and you've left this behind you. I'm certain that this would have left you with some sort of trauma from going through that experience. But how has it changed you personally?

How? back on this. How do you compare it to how you live and think now? What I went through and what everything that came out with IHOPKC made me realize I was experiencing like the same tactics minus some of the allegations that came out of Kansas City wasn't exactly the same, but like the narcissism, the manipulation, the control that no one takes accountability and the leaders are essentially untouchable, incorrectable in the eyes of man is what I will say regarding that. So when everything came out with Kansas City and I saw how I was treated by the main pastor at the church I was attending, I realized like okay

I'm not crazy because I think a lot of people try to make it seem like I was you know I'm crazy, I'm in the wrong, I need to be quiet, I need to forgive, so thankfully with everything coming out I was able to put like two and two together like okay, narcissists, they operate in flocks, so there's there's a lot of them and I can see where it all came from, so that gave me some comfort, you know unfortunately I wanted to see for my own story some sort of justice, right? I wanted, I wouldn't mind to see the main leader step down, I don't feel like he's

in a healthy place to lead but I didn't feel like I had the means to you know make that happen, I didn't have anyone at another ministry to stand with me, you know I'm not trying to play God but I do feel like anyone can see like with everything I've said like hey that's probably not a healthy leader, right? So that's what I would have wanted to see the leader to step down and to heal from whatever he needs to know from. Absolutely, well I'm really sorry to hear that you had to go through all of this, your testimony is a miracle, I'll be the

first to tell you and I'm certain in the comment feeds people will tell you the same, you are a walking living miracle, if you could go back in time however to when you first started getting involved with the group they're starting to love bomb you they're starting to you know teach you that we want you to become more like us and then suddenly this thing happened to you if you could go back to that exact moment and give yourself some advice or encouragement what advice would you give yourself? Well I would say pay attention to red flags that would

be the biggest thing because I feel like over the years there were some but I think when you come into an environment like that like I feel like most people come in wounded like I said for me it was like wanting family and community and that place became my family and my community right I was there all the time and so paying attention to red flags despite you know the good that I'm experiencing, that would have helped me in the long run.

Well, that's very good advice. And hopefully there's somebody who is in the movement now who's listening to you and your voice can now speak to them, your testimony, which you do have a testimony.

Now they can hear the testimony that you have. And hopefully it can help somebody. So thank you so much for doing this. Absolutely. I hope that it can help someone, you know, know that, whether it's a healing or just a horrible experience with the ministry that it might as well as that attend, that was not the Lord.

I'm not that God can't bring good out of it. I'm still believing that for myself. I can't say that I've seen the entirety of the good, but I'm still hopeful that something good will come out of this and that, you know, it didn't happen for no reason.

It's too detailed to be for no reason, right? It is. And if you could give advice to people who are still in it, what advice would you give them? I would say leave. There's no reason to stay, especially if you're in a place and you're being spiritually abused and there's no accountability and no leader there is standing on moral integrity, biblical integrity, concerning the word, then I don't think you're in a safe place to process, to, you know, bring your concerns to people who are gonna handle it with any sort of integrity, so I would leave.

And just take, take a season with the Lord to just heal and take your time when it comes to finding a new church because it takes time after going through, you know, horrendous things with leaders.

And you know, maybe there's one person who's still in it who has a testimony and doesn't realize yet that their testimony has been suppressed. Because like I said, you have a testimony, you have a story, you have a miracle and that miracle needs to get out.

So I'm very, very glad that you were able to do this and again, I hope that this can help somebody else. Thank you so much. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or want to share your story, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. 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 Automobile.