NewDayNews Recovery Forum
Posted By: Jane <Send
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Date: Tuesday, 13 September 2005, at 3:07 a.m.
The decision was made to move our troops to the area around Perpignan, very close to Spain. The advance scouts (of which I was one) found a camp grounds near the town. It was also near a large WalMart type of store out in the boonies, actually in the middle of wine grape orchards. This came in handy because now we weren't part of the main supply team and had to provide for our own sustenance. So we did a bit of litnessing to get money to eat.
After securing the camp grounds we went back up to Narbonne to meet up with the other teams. This was where I first met Zohar. He was with his wife Naomi and their two little girls Bethie(4) and Claire(2). Zohar became the leader of our team in Perpignan. He drove a Land Rover with most of us in it and towed a trailer behind. I sat in a little kid seat that Zohar had built right between the two front seats. I was kind of high up and straddling the shift stick. It made it rather....um, close? when Zohar had to shift the gears.
For a week or so we hung out in the camp grounds. Jeremy and I lived in a little pup tent with all of our stuff. Jeremy and I started bickering and fighting. One night in the tent he hit me during an arguement and I stormed out. I went to Zohar to cry on his shoulder. Others lived in the trailer and some in vehicles. Jonathan, Bithias son was with us here, part of the passle of kids. I also met up with Judy, a tall buxom blonde from California, a bit older and more mature than me. She told me that she remembered meeting me when I was a babe in Pasadena. Since then she had been in lots of places including Spain and Tenerife. For a brief while she was part of the FFing thing going on there. Now she was part of Mothers team.
During this time the letter "Hot Potatoe" came out. We only had one copy for all of us in the camp and so we gathered at night in the trailer to read it together. I remember Judy apologizing to Jonathan who was trying to sleep in there, but was listening to the letter being read. It was all about spanking and spanking hard, keep on spanking until they quit crying and quit begging for you to stop. We were all stunned.
A message came from Mother for a small team of us to go down and pioneer Barcelona. I was to be part of the team, along with a guy and another girl. So we went down there on the train. I saw a flock of hundreds of pink flamingoes in a swamp near the border. In Barcelona we got a room in a cheap hotel. We tried litnessing, provisioning and scouting around, but Barcelona just didn't seem to agree with me. I kept getting sick and none of this was any fun.
One night on our nightly call to Mother Eve the guy mentioned how difficult things were and that I was sick a lot. Mother said 'Well, she is pregnant, isn't she?'. I was a bit taken back because it had never occurred to me but then realised that it must be so. I didn't know anything about being pregnant. Not a clue. No wonder the food there didn't agreee with me. Mother called me back to France and I took the train alone to Carcassonne where apparently the team had moved to. I walked from the train station to the camping ground just outside of town. I found our trailer in the back of the camp grounds and waited for what would come next.
It was now late fall and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was cold. Snow flurries even. All I had for shoes were my little french summer canvas slip ons and I didn't have a coat anymore. I was cold, constantly hungry. Jeremy and I were fighting again, like we had started to do in Perpignan. Jeremy wanted me to get out litnessing. I was too cold, too tired, and too hungry. Jeremy wanted me to at least wash the clothes but I would have had to do it by hand and I just didn't have the strength. I wanted and needed food desperately. For a couple of days I stayed in the trailer huddled around a floor heater. At the time I only weighed 82 pounds. Jeremy went out every day to go raise money for the two of us.
One day while Jeremy was gone Mother Eve came by with Mene. I was surprised to learn that they were staying in the mountains close by. The weather wasn't too bad that afternoon and Mother sat at the picnic table while Mene and I played on the swing set and teeter-totter. We were playing and laughing together when out of the blue Mother asked me if I wanted to come live with her. Again it seemed like she was offering me another life preserver. I accepted, packed my bag and went with them that very day.
Now what I didn't know was what Mother Eve told Jeremy. She told him that he was a terrible husband and shame on him for not taking care of his wife. He could not have me back until he went and got proper clothes for winter, a coat, boots, and a hat. In some respects she was right but also, I realise that he had many things of his own that he was dealing with. He had never been a husband before. He had no idea, like me, what pregnancy did to a woman. We were so ignorant of each other and each others needs.
Off I went to happy land with Mother Eve to a place in the mountains where I met Beriah, the guy who provided all the tapes to the Family. This was his house. An old farm house surrounded by steep hilly pastures. The Ark was parked on the side of the country road in front of the house. John lived in the Ark with Mother. It still boggled my mind how that beautiful man slept with the old lady. I slept in a little alcove of the attic which was huge. Zohar,Naomi and their girls were here in a little room partitioned in the attic. Stephen and Adria had a room here too. Adria was big pregnant, close to time to have the baby. She gave me some clothes, a coat and a pair of sturdy shoes. Actually the stuff was on loan but I appreciated it all the same. She told me about taking food to bed with me so that I could eat something before I even sat up in the morning. It would help to settle the nausea. Amazing, it worked.
When Adria had the baby she went to a hospital. We all got to visit her and the baby. In the babys bassinet was an 8X10 photo of....MOSES DAVID!!! Oh my god, I had never seen his face before...no one had. And now there was his face for the baby to look at. (Before anyone crucifies me...remember, these are my memories of what I was thinking back then. Certainly not my current state of mind or feelings.) A few copies of this photo were passed out but I never got one and then one day it mysteriously disappeared without comment. I later found out that they had been chastised by the man himself for displaying his picture in public.
Mother Eve was having some problems with her teeth. It was pretty bad and she couldn't eat or chew food. They took to blending the food in the blender and she would drink it, but was still in lots of pain. Eventually after several excruciating days they took her to see a dentist. I don't remember if they had to pull teeth or what happened.
I was given the job of teaching Mene how to write scriptive, you know the fancy way of writing. She was only 5 but already knew how to read and print very well. So we would sit down in the attic and work. Sometimes because I was such a kid also, we would get distracted and I would draw cartoons for Mene. She loved it and we ended up doing all sorts of art work. Since Christmas was coming I made her a shoebox decorated with the manger scene popups in it. It had everything including the animals and the star on top. Mother Eve saw the box and asked me to make Christmas Cards for them to send out. She wanted me to draw cartoons of them! I was really scared of drawing her in an unflattering way and making her mad. As far as I know she did indeed send out my cartoon Christmas cards that year.
Mene and I spent a lot of time together. She and I would talk like two friends hanging out. I found her delightful and fun, extremely bright. She told me that she was puzzled by Davidito getting all this attention. How come she wasn't getting to be with Grandpa? After all she was his granddaugher and wasn't she important too? I didn't know what to say to her about that. It was something that caused her upset. When Mene wasn't with me having school or hanging out, she was down with the other kids in Beriahs living room. Someone had taken a giant cardboard box and made a play house out of it, curtains and all. She got along with all of the kids, Zohar and Naomis, Stephen and Adrias, Beriahs. She was the leader of the pack when it came to the kids. One time we went down to the castle near Carcassonne. Inside the castle was a real town with little touristy shops. Mene and I played while the grownups went shopping. None of the other kids were with us. Mene and I ran on the grassy area between the two walls of the castle. She loved to play angels. We pretended that we had wings and were doing good deeds. It is one of my favorite memories of her. Her happy little cherub face and that white blonde wispy hair floating around it. She did look like an angel.
Christmas came when I was up there in the mountains with Mother Eve. I had no gifts to give but was rather used to that in the Family. I had made the Christmas Cards for everyone to send out and they were delighted with them. Mother Eve stopped me one day and asked me if I was from California. I said yes. She handed me an avocado and said Merry Christmas. I hadn't had an avocado my whole time in Europe and was very happy with my Christmas gift. I remember Mother asking Mene what she wanted for Christmas. Mene said she wanted a baby doll with clothes and everything. On Christmas that is exactly what she got, clothes and all, even the little bottle to feed the baby.
Back at the farm house in the mountains, when Mene wasn't with me, Zohar was. We began to spend a lot of time together. Naomi didn't seem to mind and even began to push us closer. Sharing hadn't started in the rest of the Family yet, but it came a little sooner for some of us. I fell for him hard. He was kind, gentle and loving. So when Mother came to me one day and told me I was going back to Jeremy, I was broken hearted. But I took it outwardly with a cheerful face.
I never saw Mene again.