Speaker 1: Trust me? Do you trust me?
Speaker 2: Right? Ever? Lead you wastry? Trust?
Speaker 1: This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 3: If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
Speaker 3: welcome to trust me. The podcast about Colt's extreme belief
Speaker 3: and manipulation from two horse girls who've actually experienced it.
Speaker 3: I'm low Lablanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth. This week we're
Speaker 3: joined by Jasper Hoffman, writer, podcaster, and former Mennonite. In
Speaker 3: part one, today, she's going to tell us about how
Speaker 3: her parents went from being a punk rock atheist and
Speaker 3: an anthropology major to homesteading and homeschooling, which eventually led
Speaker 3: them to church, first a non denominational one and then
Speaker 3: of course, a Mennonite church that came into town when Jasper.
Speaker 1: Was a kid.
Speaker 4: She'll tell us about how it then escalated to her
Speaker 4: family moving to the Midwest, getting rid of all their
Speaker 4: material possessions and committing wholeheartedly to being Mennonites with redacted
Speaker 4: encyclopedias and physical punishment in the basement for children who
Speaker 4: are considered rebellious, and why she was forbidden from going back.
Speaker 3: To school, and stay tuned next week for part two
Speaker 3: because she will tell us about leaving the church, but
Speaker 3: before we go to men and I was going to
Speaker 3: try to make that a thing before we go to
Speaker 3: into the Medonit world with her, Megan, what's your cult
Speaker 3: het thing?
Speaker 4: Well, as you might know, there's a guy named Samuel
Speaker 4: Bateman who started as called sure Is and he was
Speaker 4: sentenced to fifty years in prison, which is incredible. We've
Speaker 4: been following the story through your mom. We've had Gnomes
Speaker 4: on the podcast, we have mckel coming up on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Lots of people who have escaped from this man's grip.
Speaker 4: And I've been watching court TV of him representing himself.
Speaker 1: Can you say Ted Bundy, Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Something I learned this weekend was that so called sovereign
Speaker 3: citizens represent themselves in court because they don't recognize the
Speaker 3: government and they don't recognize lawyers as like legitimate and
Speaker 3: Sam apparently because I was watching this with my this
Speaker 3: presentation with my mom, she was whispering to me saying,
Speaker 3: that's why Sam represented himself because he subscribes to this idea.
Speaker 1: Stop.
Speaker 4: Well, he did a really bad job, thank god. And
Speaker 4: it's just so number one, he's like really turning on
Speaker 4: this Michelle Dugger voice, so he's almost talking like a
Speaker 4: woman now, Like he's trying to be super sweet, so
Speaker 4: you know, he like like the sweetest sweet as sweet
Speaker 4: could ever be is his new cadence, and he's impossible
Speaker 4: to understand.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 4: He cannot make a clear point to save his life.
Speaker 4: He thinks this is all about like the girls being
Speaker 4: in the tractor trailer. The trailer, I guess I'm not
Speaker 4: attractor trailer, and like he keeps being like, I didn't
Speaker 4: know they were in there, and it's like, that's not
Speaker 4: the problem. You did know they were in there, but
Speaker 4: that's not actually what any of us really care about. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just always fascinating to watch these people really think
Speaker 4: that they are smarter than the average bear.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know, please please keep that in.
Speaker 4: So I I'm so glad he got served way more
Speaker 4: than the fifty years, because then there's all these other
Speaker 4: child endangerment clauses, whatever the fuck it's called. I'm not
Speaker 4: a lawyer, and I know that, so you know, he's
Speaker 4: going to jail for a long time. It's so satisfying
Speaker 4: and more to come on this story, Yes, definitely, And
Speaker 4: it's been really fun to see all the women at
Speaker 4: his child together in cahoots, you know, like cheering each
Speaker 4: other on, like yeah.
Speaker 3: What a nice ending to a very otherwise very alarming story.
Speaker 4: I know. I mean they're just like making direct eye
Speaker 4: contact and being like, yep, you're an asshole.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I know. It's so sick. It's so awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, God, it's the earth is healing.
Speaker 1: What about you? What's your cultios thing?
Speaker 3: I went to my first cult conference, which I'm so
Speaker 3: sad you weren't able to attend, I know, but been
Speaker 3: meaning to go to this for years. So IXA is
Speaker 3: the International Cultic Studies Association, and every year they have
Speaker 3: a conference. It's in a different city every year. It
Speaker 3: was like Manchester a few years ago, so I definitely
Speaker 3: didn't go to that one because what am I made
Speaker 3: of money? But this year it was in San Diego,
Speaker 3: which is just a couple hours south of us in
Speaker 3: LA and so I was able to go and met
Speaker 3: my mom there and saw so many of our former guests,
Speaker 3: which was so cool because some of them I've only
Speaker 3: ever seen in the little square on the on the screen,
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I got to go to some presentations there, some really
Speaker 3: interesting ones. There was this guy Dave Buddha who did
Speaker 3: one that that was just like a fascinating premise, which
Speaker 3: is he called it planned obsolescence in personal growth.
Speaker 1: Okay, this idea that.
Speaker 3: Like, you go to these larger group awareness trainings like
Speaker 3: a Tony Robbins or whatever, a landmark, and you are
Speaker 3: sort of sold this idea that you're going to have
Speaker 3: a permanently altered state of your life after that, when
Speaker 3: in reality, there's a very knowingly, a very temporary and
Speaker 3: fleeting emotional state being induced in you in these weekends. Yes,
Speaker 3: and the goal is to get you to try to
Speaker 3: keep chasing that feeling with the belief that it's going
Speaker 3: to be eventually permanent. But instead it's actually like they
Speaker 3: are well aware that it's typically not. I mean, of course,
Speaker 3: there are some people whose lives are changed forever, but
Speaker 3: for the most part, and he was, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of describing how it's a bell curve and most people
Speaker 3: are in the middle, and of course there's people on
Speaker 3: either end of the you know, extremes, but generally, you go,
Speaker 3: you feel something, you go back to your life, you
Speaker 3: don't feel it anymore, right, And so just the idea
Speaker 3: of planned obsolescence, which for the folks who don't know
Speaker 3: that term. That's kind of like this idea that let's
Speaker 3: say your iPhone or whatever technological product, whatever product you have,
Speaker 3: is designed to not last forever because if it eventually breaks.
Speaker 1: Down, you do have to buy another one.
Speaker 3: And I just thought that was a really cool concept
Speaker 3: to apply to like self help seminars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I relate to this a lot, and that the
Speaker 4: two by two is the cult that I grew up in.
Speaker 4: We would have these conventions that were like four day long,
Speaker 4: pretty intense seminars, you could say, and afterwards you would feel,
Speaker 4: in my experience, would almost bring all of our parents
Speaker 4: because I'm looking at this from my head into like
Speaker 4: an OCD state of mind where it's.
Speaker 1: Like fresh slate, clean slate. We've got to be perfect
Speaker 1: from here on out, you know. And then it would
Speaker 1: just be like.
Speaker 4: Slowly, slowly, you'd start to make human mistakes and then pray.
Speaker 1: It would it be like.
Speaker 4: Ramped up for next year's convention where you felt so
Speaker 4: guilty for not being perfect, and everyone would pray, Like
Speaker 4: people would literally pray that they would die on their
Speaker 4: way home from convention.
Speaker 1: So that they would be clean.
Speaker 5: Ah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like, you know, it just pretty typical,
Speaker 3: this idea that there's some state of perfection you're going
Speaker 3: to achieve, when, of course, we are human. We are
Speaker 3: human beings. Yeah, we're human beings. And I did say beans.
Speaker 3: I just want to clarify that was intentional. I was
Speaker 3: being cute. Sorry, I don't think it's.
Speaker 1: I was like, totally, we are we're human beings.
Speaker 4: Although I will say that Tony Robbins conference did permanently
Speaker 4: jage my life, but not for reasons about him. I
Speaker 4: just left it early and came home and caught my
Speaker 4: boyfriend doing that.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if we can attribute that to that. No,
Speaker 1: but I did leave. Oh so look at that. I
Speaker 1: was like holding the notebook.
Speaker 4: I was holding the notebook, the Tony Robbins notebook that
Speaker 4: I'd filled out, and I was like, I'm leaving you.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Anyway, what a perfect breakup story, Tony, call me shout out.
Speaker 1: Anyway. That was just one of many.
Speaker 3: There was another one on how cold you know, how
Speaker 3: many of them replicate their coercive dynamics even after the
Speaker 3: leader dies. You know, there's just a lot of interesting stuff,
Speaker 3: and so folks check out, it's if you feel so inclined.
Speaker 3: Sounds like some future topics for us to discuss. But
Speaker 3: for now, Cindy, shall we talk to Jasper? Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Welcome Jasper Hoffman to trust me. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for being with us.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much to talk to you about.
Speaker 3: First of all, you host a podcast called The Plain
Speaker 3: People's Podcast, and the reason that you host this podcast
Speaker 3: is because of your own upbringing. First of all, what
Speaker 3: does plane people refer to?
Speaker 5: Good question, because a lot of people mistake it for
Speaker 5: the planes people because they think it's people that are
Speaker 5: out on the planes and it's not.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: Plain people is a term that's very commonly used within
Speaker 5: the church and then outside of the church to describe
Speaker 5: members of the conservative Anabaptist churches. So that would be
Speaker 5: conservative Amish, Mennonite Brethren, a little bit of maybe like
Speaker 5: the Hutterites.
Speaker 2: But yes, so the plain people.
Speaker 5: It ties into wanting to be separate from the world,
Speaker 5: so they want to be viewed as plain and simple.
Speaker 5: So the plain People's just a nice little umbrella term
Speaker 5: to kind of include all those churches.
Speaker 1: Do they talk to each other?
Speaker 3: Like in my head the Amish people don't like Mennonite,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, thinking like of a.
Speaker 4: Like West Side Story kind of thing where they hate
Speaker 4: each other, but they sound like they kind of have
Speaker 4: a lot in common.
Speaker 2: They do.
Speaker 5: I will say that any cult or any church is
Speaker 5: a lot like lasagna, where it's pretty much all the
Speaker 5: same ingredients, but everybody has their own little unique flavoring
Speaker 5: and everyone thinks that they are the winner.
Speaker 1: Of the pot luck for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so they do talk to each other, and it's
Speaker 5: very common to for churches, like if you'll leave Amish,
Speaker 5: then they'll go to Mennonite, or some Menonite will.
Speaker 2: End up going Amish.
Speaker 5: And then there's kind of to make it even more confusing,
Speaker 5: you have Amish Menonites. Oh so you just kind of
Speaker 5: have every branch that you could possibly want to go into.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, wow, yeah I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm so curious about the ins and outs of
Speaker 3: the different ones, But firstly, let's start with the one
Speaker 3: you're in. Also, something so fascinating by your story is
Speaker 3: that you were not born into it. You your parents converted.
Speaker 3: So what was going on with your parents before this happened?
Speaker 3: How did this transition happen.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 5: I had a conversation with my mom at breakfast over
Speaker 5: this because she was like, did you tell anybody like
Speaker 5: this portion of it? I was like, no, that's your story.
Speaker 5: So I try to keep their stuff for their own telling.
Speaker 5: But ultimately as an adult now I'm in my forties,
Speaker 5: and it changes the perspective of looking at your family
Speaker 5: joining a cult versus when you're in the experience. So
Speaker 5: I look at them as individuals, not only as my parents,
Speaker 5: and I really think that what was happening. Obviously, we
Speaker 5: didn't have social media back in the you know, up
Speaker 5: until recently, so it was more difficult to connect with
Speaker 5: people that had common lifestyle goals as you and My
Speaker 5: mom grew up in Hollywood, she went to private French school.
Speaker 5: She grew up in Rolling Hills, so she went to
Speaker 5: school with Jodie Foster Christie Brinkley. So it's like, not
Speaker 5: how you would think would want to start quilting. Yeahs
Speaker 5: opposite world, Yeah, okay, totally.
Speaker 2: And she was a punk rocker, so wow.
Speaker 5: I was really into alternative living, which kind of makes
Speaker 5: sense when you think about joining into a cult, because
Speaker 5: it too is alternative living and it's just not going mainstream.
Speaker 2: So I think there was.
Speaker 5: Always that with that attraction there for something that was
Speaker 5: like a little bit unique and different. And my parents
Speaker 5: met in college in northern California, in Humboldt County at HSU,
Speaker 5: and my dad was an anthropology major my mom was
Speaker 5: studying history, so they were very fascinated with culture also,
Speaker 5: and they ended up getting married and lived in southern California,
Speaker 5: where I was born, and by the time I was three,
Speaker 5: they realized they didn't want to raise me in the city,
Speaker 5: and so they moved back up to Humboldt. And if
Speaker 5: anybody knows anything about humbold County, it is hippies, lots
Speaker 5: of weed, and very alternative, off the grid living. And
Speaker 5: so it should come as no surprise that in the
Speaker 5: early late eighties early nineties there was this very large
Speaker 5: movement which we see today with the tradwife movement, but
Speaker 5: there wasn't social media to really drive that and to
Speaker 5: curate that, so instead it was a lot of homesteadying
Speaker 5: and a lot of people that were pulling their children
Speaker 5: out of public school to homeschool them, way before it
Speaker 5: became accepted like it is today.
Speaker 2: So I was a product of that. So I went
Speaker 2: to public school through third grade, and at that time
Speaker 2: there was some changes in the family dynamic.
Speaker 5: My grandfather passed away, and so my mom, who was
Speaker 5: a self proclaimed atheist punk rocker, made a promise to
Speaker 5: her father that she would take me to church. He
Speaker 5: was devout Catholic, and so she started attending a non
Speaker 5: denominational church with me. And at this point I was
Speaker 5: nine years old, so I was in third grade, and
Speaker 5: through this non denominational church, we were introduced to the
Speaker 5: homeschool group that was there, and it was large. I
Speaker 5: mean we had several families, so the variety was there.
Speaker 5: Whether it was somebody that was secular that just was
Speaker 5: anti government, or it was this fundamentalist movement with conservative Christians.
Speaker 5: So it was kind of like you could fall into
Speaker 5: the spectrum, and so it was very welcoming for my parents.
Speaker 5: I feel like, at that time.
Speaker 3: What is a homeschool group, Like, it's just a smaller
Speaker 3: version of school. Then at that point, right, how does
Speaker 3: it work exactly? I was homeschool for part of my
Speaker 3: schooling as well.
Speaker 5: It was very organized, so we had a secretary, we
Speaker 5: had somebody that was curating different field trips, we had
Speaker 5: lots of learning experiences.
Speaker 2: The families really connected and got together. So yes, in
Speaker 2: a way, we were not all studying together, right, So
Speaker 2: we were within the home doing our own schooling and
Speaker 2: had our own curriculum based off of a family's needs,
Speaker 2: which is what ties into how we were introduced to Mennonites.
Speaker 2: But for community and connection, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: support whenever it came to doing field trips, into doing
Speaker 2: I see a lot of things. So you weren't just
Speaker 2: isolated kind of on your own, right, right, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I will say I remember like playing a softball team
Speaker 4: in high school that was the homeschool team, and I
Speaker 4: was like, this is gonna be a piece of cake,
Speaker 4: and they like beat our asses. A very organized system.
Speaker 4: The practicing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in high school, I was in the I was
Speaker 3: in a homeschool program in Burbank in LA. But it
Speaker 3: was like a lot of like actor kids, So it
Speaker 3: wasn't it wasn't like that organized.
Speaker 1: And I went to homeschool prom and it was the worst.
Speaker 1: It was so bad. Nobody knew each other. It was
Speaker 1: so awkward.
Speaker 4: Were you voted homeschool prom queen? Of course not left early.
Speaker 3: I was like I feel so alone anyway, so I
Speaker 3: feel you okay, So well, I'm just so curious of
Speaker 3: how it felt to be a third grader with these
Speaker 3: parents who are seemingly so cool, and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden they're like, wait, we're doing this now, Like
Speaker 3: what were you thinking and feeling?
Speaker 5: I liken it a lot to just being bore, like
Speaker 5: a lobster. So you have no idea really what you're
Speaker 5: getting into with this.
Speaker 2: And I was sick. I was nine. All I wanted
Speaker 2: to do was ride horses and not have to sit
Speaker 2: in school. So to me, they did. They did ask me.
Speaker 5: My parents did ask me if I would be interested
Speaker 5: in being homeschool So I did have some autonomy at
Speaker 5: that point and a voice, I feel like, and so
Speaker 5: at that time it sounded fun. So initially it was great.
Speaker 5: And the only thing was is I just remember there
Speaker 5: being a lot of contention in the home because my
Speaker 5: parents are artsy fartsy, and all of a sudden we're
Speaker 5: trying to learn math and having somebody, you know, everybody
Speaker 5: hates math and the family, and so I just remember
Speaker 5: it being a lot of arguing over like science and
Speaker 5: anything that just didn't come naturally.
Speaker 2: For us, and it was difficult, so through that homeschool group,
Speaker 2: though at the time there were not a lot of
Speaker 2: supporting textbook companies, so we had Abecca Christian Light Publications.
Speaker 2: There was a few other that were coming.
Speaker 5: Like from Bill Gothard, more fundy type of things than Brooklets.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly so.
Speaker 5: And the nice thing about, I guess homeschooling is that
Speaker 5: you can kind of pick and choose your curriculum based
Speaker 5: off of how you want to teach your children. So
Speaker 5: one of the textbooks companies was coming out of Crocket, Kentucky,
Speaker 5: and they are called Roden Staff and they produced the
Speaker 5: text most of the textbooks used in Amish and Mennonite schools,
Speaker 5: and a lot of homeschool families like how simple it
Speaker 5: is to teach out of the Rowden Staff books.
Speaker 2: They make it very easy.
Speaker 5: So a lot of the families were sourcing their books
Speaker 5: from Roden Staff, to the point where Roden Staff had
Speaker 5: reached out to the secretary of the homeschool group to
Speaker 5: see why, because obviously there wasn't a church out there,
Speaker 5: and so they were trying to get a little bit
Speaker 5: of a feel for the area, and so they had
Speaker 5: asked if they sent missionaries there to do a Revival
Speaker 5: week long service of Mennonite.
Speaker 2: Would there be interest?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Oh, so there was? And my parents were like, I'll
Speaker 5: never forget. My mom was like, oh my god, those
Speaker 5: are the people that make the quilts. Yes, So we
Speaker 5: ended up hosting a family. They sent missionaries down from Alberta,
Speaker 5: Canada and up from Farming to New Mexico.
Speaker 1: What does Revival week mean? Really quick? What does that mean?
Speaker 2: So? Really?
Speaker 5: Like from what I remember being that age, it was
Speaker 5: pretty much church service, every evening evening service. And I
Speaker 5: think they were just gauging what the opportunities were and
Speaker 5: what the interests were, if if it was worth sending
Speaker 5: and establishing a pop up church there, which there was,
Speaker 5: so they did.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 5: My parents are one of the founding families to bring
Speaker 5: Mennonights to California.
Speaker 1: Pute a claim debate.
Speaker 4: So these revival people come and they're bringing their books
Speaker 4: and there are things, and you're going to church every night,
Speaker 4: which ps sounds like my worst nightmare. And you are
Speaker 4: like this seems weird or cool or interesting or I
Speaker 4: think at.
Speaker 2: That time, well, I mean to be fair.
Speaker 5: The week prior to that, I had a horse that
Speaker 5: kicked me in my face, and so I had a hole.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, that's important to note. So you're in
Speaker 4: a weird state of mind.
Speaker 5: And literally yes, So I literally was like had to
Speaker 5: miss some of the revival because I was just like
Speaker 5: laid up with my face like completely just massacred.
Speaker 2: So there was that going on. But I remember just
Speaker 2: being intrigued. I mean, it doesn't I was nine, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm going with other children that were
Speaker 2: in the homeschool group, so it didn't seem like I
Speaker 2: was really at odds. And so I just really don't
Speaker 2: think that I had a full understanding of what was
Speaker 2: going to be required of me. Yeah, and there is.
Speaker 5: It's the love bombing phase of any church, I believe,
Speaker 5: and any abusive relationship where everything just looks so pretty
Speaker 5: on the outside. And to boot, they have amazing food.
Speaker 5: So you've got great, great food you have you know,
Speaker 5: everything is like just very warm and comforting and it
Speaker 5: feels fun.
Speaker 2: And it provided a lot of.
Speaker 5: Structure for families in the area that had a lot
Speaker 5: of dysfunction within because I think naturally people are drawn
Speaker 5: to these authoritarian, high control, high demand religion because I mean,
Speaker 5: you guys know, there's something internally. That's like not being
Speaker 5: met a need, and people don't know how to source
Speaker 5: that from within, so they're looking for a guidebook. So
Speaker 5: typically people that were joining in were coming from very
Speaker 5: financially irresponsible families, people with a lot of dysfunction, mental illness,
Speaker 5: abusive homes, alcoholics, you know, any addicts. They're just naturally
Speaker 5: kind of flocking to this structure, especially conservative churches, because
Speaker 5: they have a guidebook telling you what to where.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's your framework for a life, totally.
Speaker 2: Literally, so it takes all that guessing out of it,
Speaker 2: and the responsibility too if things go wrong.
Speaker 3: Right, So, Amish people do not use electricity? What about
Speaker 3: Mennonites or like, explain that, because I feel like it's
Speaker 3: going to be a question.
Speaker 2: It's really not black or white, because why make it easy.
Speaker 5: So a lot of Amish do have electricity and phones
Speaker 5: and technology. Not all do, okay, okay, not all Mennonites do, okay, okay.
Speaker 5: So you have some Mennonites that are even more conservative
Speaker 5: than Amish. And interestingly enough like the work that I
Speaker 5: do now because I'm actively working within conservative church churches
Speaker 5: and especially I've been in Ohio for the last two
Speaker 5: and a half years working in Old Order Amish communities,
Speaker 5: and they are all in agreement that I grew up
Speaker 5: more conservative than they are currently as Old Order.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, yeah, So just because it's Mennonite doesn't mean
Speaker 5: like it's the one hundred calorie pack snack pack of
Speaker 5: the Anabaptists.
Speaker 2: Like it still is in some ways more conservative. Right.
Speaker 3: So I'm picturing like like, oh, there's a revival week,
Speaker 3: We're gonna all play what's the word that I want?
Speaker 1: Little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's cause playing little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, But don't we see that today with the
Speaker 5: childwife movement?
Speaker 1: Certainly?
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, it's the same stuff.
Speaker 5: It's just you're not putting it online for people to,
Speaker 5: you know, and promoting it and getting discount codes on
Speaker 5: protein powder.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I saw my mom my whole life and like very
Speaker 4: long dresses, the hair up. We were often mistaken for Mennonites. Actually,
Speaker 4: people would think that we were a lot. But I
Speaker 4: can't imagine having a mom who was punk rock, who changed.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, what an arc? What was that evolvement? What
Speaker 1: did it look like?
Speaker 2: It was? It was gradual.
Speaker 5: So my mom was always really into vintage clothes from
Speaker 5: so she's shot vintage in Hollywood before it was cool.
Speaker 1: The vintage clothing pipeline.
Speaker 2: So she always dressed a little.
Speaker 5: She was never in pants ever, but it was always
Speaker 5: really cute, like cool things from the fifties, you know, forties, fifties.
Speaker 5: So to see her just kind of naturally go into
Speaker 5: like wearing jumpers and.
Speaker 2: Things made sense. It wasn't so extreme.
Speaker 5: And I think I also have a hard time separating
Speaker 5: like my own experience, to think about what it was
Speaker 5: like to watch my mom, because I know for me
Speaker 5: what was the most difficult was slowly having to lose
Speaker 5: my identity at that age by things, you know, so
Speaker 5: like my clothes were slowly I was not allowed to
Speaker 5: start purchasing pants, and I always hated dresses. I was
Speaker 5: such a tomboy, and so it was like the slow
Speaker 5: progression of like losing access to TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we still really maintained because it was a
Speaker 2: mission church and it was a little bit more liberal
Speaker 2: than the one I ended up in later on. I
Speaker 2: think there was a lot of leniency towards us as
Speaker 2: we were looking at joining into the church. They weren't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like we were coming into something established.
Speaker 5: Right where I mean the majority of people that were
Speaker 5: attending were not met at night.
Speaker 2: They were interested in joining in, So there was like
Speaker 2: not the strictness that you I found later on. Right.
Speaker 4: It's always leniency when you're love bombing people, that's it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then I look back.
Speaker 5: I look back with a lot of empathy though, on
Speaker 5: the first family that came to California, thinking about how
Speaker 5: overwhelming that must have been for them, coming from growing
Speaker 5: up in the church and then suddenly having to sell
Speaker 5: their dairy, sell everything, and then end up in northern
Speaker 5: California with thirty families constantly at their house that are
Speaker 5: so dysfunctional, wanting their lives to be fixed by this
Speaker 5: one family.
Speaker 2: I mean, the amount of pressure that that must have
Speaker 2: been on them.
Speaker 5: It was a lot, because I know some of the
Speaker 5: families that were there were really really messed up in
Speaker 5: a lot of ways, and they look to the church
Speaker 5: to save them in a way, and the church being
Speaker 5: two families.
Speaker 3: Okay, there's a revival week and you're going and your
Speaker 3: parents are like, actually, we like this, Actually, we like
Speaker 3: this so much, we're going to try to start this
Speaker 3: church here. So how did that transition happen into like
Speaker 3: we are full time Mennonites, because that's a big leap,
Speaker 3: you know, half.
Speaker 1: Time to fall time, part time to fault time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So that was a course of about three years, I
Speaker 5: would say, of gradually kind of becoming more and more established.
Speaker 5: But what my parents realized is that they wanted to
Speaker 5: go to a more established church. My parents really, in
Speaker 5: comparison to a lot of the other families, really had
Speaker 5: their shit together. They were financially really smart, they were
Speaker 5: pretty level headed with a lot of things. We weren't
Speaker 5: meeting a lot from like the Mennonite families to provide support,
Speaker 5: and so I think they realized they wanted to go
Speaker 5: to something that kind of met them.
Speaker 2: Where they were at.
Speaker 5: So that looked like moving sight unseen to the Midwest,
Speaker 5: which was very difficult for me. That's when things started
Speaker 5: to get really hard around the time I was fourteen.
Speaker 2: So there's a church directory for all the churches, and
Speaker 2: you can look it up and it will tell you
Speaker 2: all of the members that are in a particular church,
Speaker 2: who the bishop, minister, everything, their children, who they've married,
Speaker 2: and phone numbers. So we began my parents began looking for.
Speaker 5: Property that was conducive to all of their goals as
Speaker 5: far as home steadying, and they found an area here
Speaker 5: and stud Illinois, and it just so happened that there
Speaker 5: was an established church with a school, but it was
Speaker 5: a more conservative Mennonite church, so it was kind of
Speaker 5: like a step up.
Speaker 1: That's not till you're fourteen, though, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's a chunk of time where you're living
Speaker 3: a men in Night lifestyle in northern California and it's
Speaker 3: not this like super conservative vision yet correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like it's like still kind of I
Speaker 5: was having fun. I had my girlfriends and we were
Speaker 5: riding horses, and I was still being homeschool.
Speaker 2: I didn't go to Menonight school.
Speaker 1: It was menon night Light. Yes, men in light, Men
Speaker 1: and Light. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I heard you tell a story on a podcast about
Speaker 3: you coming home and your belongings were gone? Yeah, when
Speaker 3: did that happen? And can you tell us that story?
Speaker 5: That's really like when we're starting to move, because they've
Speaker 5: made a decision that we're moving, and at that time,
Speaker 5: like I was volunteering at a local vet clinic because
Speaker 5: I was always very interested in animal science and horses
Speaker 5: and I wanted to be a vet. So this is
Speaker 5: where things started to kind of rift because I knew
Speaker 5: that I wanted to pursue some sort of higher education
Speaker 5: that I was not going to.
Speaker 2: Get in the Mennonites at all.
Speaker 5: And so around that time when they decided to move,
Speaker 5: that's when I was coming came home and you know,
Speaker 5: everything's gone pretty much like we don't have a TV anymore,
Speaker 5: and we're not listening to musical instruments and we're making
Speaker 5: the shift. And then when we moved, that's when everything
Speaker 5: was really perched because we were not taking anything with us.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, like my grandfather's player piano was and that
Speaker 5: was like my last piece of like connection to what
Speaker 5: I wanted. You know, I wanted to learn how to
Speaker 5: play the piano and that was taken and that was really,
Speaker 5: I think, really hard.
Speaker 1: That's awful.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like everything you have an emotional attachment to
Speaker 3: or that it's like part of your identity is just
Speaker 3: like gone.
Speaker 2: It's gone.
Speaker 4: If I would come home from whatever I homeschool were church,
Speaker 4: I guess you don't come home from homeschool.
Speaker 1: From playing with your friends, from beating people at softball.
Speaker 4: And like all my books had been gone as a child,
Speaker 4: I would have gone feral insane, like absolutely would never recover.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what's the expectation of, like what you do
Speaker 1: with your days? Then?
Speaker 5: After that, so the whole focus then shifts to learning
Speaker 5: how to be a keeper at home, And that was
Speaker 5: always really kind of like there right, the subtleties.
Speaker 2: The difference was is that I never molded into the
Speaker 2: good keeper at home gentle spirit girl, because all I
Speaker 2: wanted to do was be outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, that was it.
Speaker 5: And so I very much rebelled and was able to
Speaker 5: rebel a little bit with that and still kind of
Speaker 5: get away with it and ride. But when we started
Speaker 5: packing up to move, I had no choice in the say,
Speaker 5: and had a lot of trepidation. I remember, and yet
Speaker 5: you're stuck, like when you're fourteen, you can't get out
Speaker 5: of that.
Speaker 2: You're just a product.
Speaker 5: You just got a it's awful feeling that helpless.
Speaker 2: Up until that point, I feel like it was just
Speaker 2: a gradual well.
Speaker 5: We're just not going to turn the TV on or
Speaker 5: we're not going to you know, listen to our music anymore.
Speaker 5: But the reality really sunk in and there's no coming
Speaker 5: back from that too.
Speaker 3: Wow, So you land in this new area, in this
Speaker 3: new church and new menonit. School life state, Yeah, what's
Speaker 3: the new lifestyle then, what's happening every day?
Speaker 2: Well, so at that point we moved in August, two
Speaker 2: weeks before I started meda night school for the very
Speaker 2: first time, which was ninth grade.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm like a seven layer dip of education
Speaker 5: because at this point I've been public school, I've been homeschooled,
Speaker 5: and now.
Speaker 2: I'm going to Mennonite school.
Speaker 5: And the adjustment for that is really hard because I'm,
Speaker 5: you know, going back into a school setting and all
Speaker 5: of this church is established.
Speaker 2: You know, the girls my age, they've all grown up together.
Speaker 5: They've never had somebody come in from the outside like
Speaker 5: at their age. They had sent me letters prior to moving,
Speaker 5: welcoming me saying they were excited like I had. All
Speaker 5: these girls that were reaching out. So that made me
Speaker 5: feel a little bit more comfortable, like they'd sent me
Speaker 5: photos of what they looked like. And so we moved
Speaker 5: in and I started school two weeks later, and it
Speaker 5: was a really large learning group for me. I was
Speaker 5: the only girl in ninth grade and there were only
Speaker 5: two of us in ninth grade.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, who so there's another The boy, Yeah, there's a.
Speaker 2: Boy was not very welcoming and so Medda Night School
Speaker 2: is different where they have the upper graders in one
Speaker 2: classroom together with the lower grade, and then depending on
Speaker 2: the side, sometimes they'll have like the middle grade, like
Speaker 2: sixth and seventh, but this one we had seventh through
Speaker 2: tenth altogether in our classroom. And in Illinois they go
Speaker 2: state by state.
Speaker 5: They abide state by state laws as far as the
Speaker 5: age of how long they can stay in school. So
Speaker 5: in the state of Illinois, it was sixteen or tenth grade.
Speaker 5: So that's as high as the school went. Oh wow, Like,
Speaker 5: I'll never forget walking into the library. The encyclopedias were
Speaker 5: missing pages, they were glued together, they were blacked out
Speaker 5: with mark or anything that had to do with science, psychology,
Speaker 5: things that I had been raised around. And so it
Speaker 5: started right out the gate like feeling very, very, a
Speaker 5: lot more serious and a much larger opt in in
Speaker 5: order to be here.
Speaker 3: So they wouldn't be a science textbook, So what textbook
Speaker 3: would they be blacking out?
Speaker 5: Even Well, they had the textbooks, but they were from
Speaker 5: Roden Staff, remember, so everything was church proved, but it
Speaker 5: was the encyclopedia.
Speaker 2: Anything that had yes that came from outside information.
Speaker 4: Oh my, imagine being your job to go through an
Speaker 4: encyclopedia and blackout that.
Speaker 1: That makes me don't learn that?
Speaker 3: But yeah, oh my god, you're like, sell, Oh I
Speaker 3: see something about molecules, that's the devil.
Speaker 2: Yeah crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was hard, Like it was immediately as soon
Speaker 5: as we got here. It was a whole different ballgame
Speaker 5: of seriousness. I feel like in expectations on me, which
Speaker 5: up until that point I had not And that's difficult
Speaker 5: to move at that age to begin with, and then
Speaker 5: all of a sudden have to be forced into compliance
Speaker 5: and changing. We obviously moved into a more conservative church,
Speaker 5: so there were rules and it was like I had
Speaker 5: to abide by them. It was a really difficult learning curve,
Speaker 5: and I was in trouble a lot.
Speaker 1: With the me too.
Speaker 3: So you guys are more than me. I was so
Speaker 3: scared of authority, but.
Speaker 2: I was too. What the thing was is like I
Speaker 2: didn't know what the authority was innostantly like messing up,
Speaker 2: and then there's all this pressure because you're coming into it.
Speaker 2: It's like the Lord of the flies.
Speaker 5: Yeah, where you know you or I was a huge
Speaker 5: threat because it came from the unknown territory of the world.
Speaker 4: That I will say that there is this stage too
Speaker 4: that I've witnessed. Maybe you'll agree, maybe you won't, But
Speaker 4: like when a family joins a higher control group, at
Speaker 4: first their love bumed right, and then once they do
Speaker 4: join it, the expectations on them are suddenly higher than
Speaker 4: other families, and.
Speaker 1: You're required to like extra proove yourself.
Speaker 4: So you've gone from like them, being very you know,
Speaker 4: oh it's okay if you do that, like your transitioning,
Speaker 4: you're learning to like suddenly you're this example to the
Speaker 4: people inside of people from the world joining and you
Speaker 4: have to be extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I feel like I saw that even in Mormon Church too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I don't know if you thought it was
Speaker 4: your experience, but it is.
Speaker 2: And I see that like podcasting too. It's like one
Speaker 2: of the ways that people from the inside of the
Speaker 2: church will try to diminish what my experience was is
Speaker 2: by saying that.
Speaker 5: I wasn't born Menonite, so I'm not really Mennonite, and
Speaker 5: I didn't experience what it was like to be Menonite.
Speaker 2: And I like to remind them that anybody that joins
Speaker 2: into these actually has a much harder life because you
Speaker 2: are always proving your worthiness for citizenship.
Speaker 5: It's pretty much, you know, trying to come into a
Speaker 5: foreign country and learn the language and learn all of
Speaker 5: the nuances of the culture and then having to prove
Speaker 5: always that you were worthy of citizenship. So it is
Speaker 5: they're even more difficult on people that join in and
Speaker 5: the pressure also then if you have parents that haven't
Speaker 5: learned how to self regulate, and they're joining into these
Speaker 5: cultures anyway, they don't have a cut off switch and
Speaker 5: valve of like I don't need to prove myself like
Speaker 5: I've done enough, I'm in church compliance.
Speaker 2: There is still a.
Speaker 5: Need to feel worthy and approved and needed, and so
Speaker 5: that doesn't change when they join into these cultures. What
Speaker 5: it does is then it fuels them into going more
Speaker 5: and more and more conservative because they're still trying to
Speaker 5: earn approval from some sort of authority.
Speaker 2: We've just switched out the parent role to now the
Speaker 2: church being the parent. Right, So it's very common for
Speaker 2: families to stay at a church for a little bit,
Speaker 2: and then they'll go to a more conservative one, and
Speaker 2: then a more conservative one, and before you know it,
Speaker 2: they don't have cars and they don't have paneling on
Speaker 2: the walls. And that's I've just seen that pipeline. It
Speaker 2: started with the punk rockers and the pitch.
Speaker 4: Just yeah, crazy. Did the Mondon Nights do they live
Speaker 4: on compounds? I can't remember, Like the Amash do they
Speaker 4: live together or.
Speaker 2: So they don't, but they live close by.
Speaker 5: And really from the Homish perspective, it makes sense because
Speaker 5: of transportation, right, so they cannot drive cars.
Speaker 2: They can own cars, but they can't drive them. That's
Speaker 2: the loopholes.
Speaker 5: So if you have a if you have a child
Speaker 5: that doesn't isn't a church member yet, they can drive
Speaker 5: you in your family car.
Speaker 2: Oh man, So they will live close.
Speaker 5: By just for the proximity and the ease and then
Speaker 5: manna nights. We live around each other, but not necessarily
Speaker 5: on accountpound Did your family drive? Yes, we had vehicles
Speaker 5: only church approved and church approved colors.
Speaker 3: The colors beige, black. That's like a cool color. I
Speaker 3: know I was expecting.
Speaker 2: I don't know, right, Yeah, so you can have black,
Speaker 2: navy and some more subdued plain colors.
Speaker 1: You can't show up in a bright yellow now or
Speaker 1: red like.
Speaker 2: God for red.
Speaker 5: And you had to have church approved cars in vehicles.
Speaker 2: The tire had to be church approved. You couldn't have
Speaker 2: any chrome. You had to cut off your antenna.
Speaker 4: Oh same we If we didn't cut off our antennas,
Speaker 4: the workers would snap it because that's the radio.
Speaker 1: Oh oh my god. Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you don't want people to know that you
Speaker 5: could be possibly listening to the radio and that it
Speaker 5: would cause somebody to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I forgot about the antennas, you guys, I forgot
Speaker 3: what they what purpose they served?
Speaker 1: Everyone has. So when you're in.
Speaker 3: School, your daily activities or are they just like okay
Speaker 3: and now we're washing the clothes and we're baking the
Speaker 3: pies and like what was expected of you?
Speaker 2: No, we actually had curriculum, and in some ways I
Speaker 2: liked it because it's like our math class was. I mean,
Speaker 2: they talk you how to do taxes and balance a checkbook,
Speaker 2: and I feel like.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh there are a lot of great things that you
Speaker 2: can learn in the school. But yeah, No, it was very,
Speaker 2: very very regulated, regimented.
Speaker 5: And we also obviously had to recite Bible versus and
Speaker 5: write things.
Speaker 2: So there was the spiritual component as well. But no,
Speaker 2: I mean it was it was a very structured school
Speaker 2: for sure, and we had recess. We were for a
Speaker 2: time being allowed to play co ed softball. Volleyball, I know,
Speaker 2: it's always volleyball is controversial, you know. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: it's I don't know why. It's like the gateway to sinning.
Speaker 4: Well, because because they know you're going to head to
Speaker 4: the beach someday and do it. They know that that volleyball,
Speaker 4: you're going to say I want to play on the
Speaker 4: beach in a swim suit and then somebody's going to
Speaker 4: be in my swimming suit. Sure, very common to Roderick
Speaker 4: as well. What do we do? They want to play volleyball?
Speaker 3: Okay, so the school is has some some things that
Speaker 3: are it's like not, no, I should go to the
Speaker 3: school teach me how to do my tex Yeah I
Speaker 3: need to. But in terms of like the expectation of
Speaker 3: you as a teenage girl and what your future is
Speaker 3: going to look like, like what is the track that
Speaker 3: you're expected to be on?
Speaker 5: Right, So it's it's just very I mean, obviously we're
Speaker 5: being trained to be housewives. So like you would look
Speaker 5: at your math and it would be like your math
Speaker 5: questions were all about like cutting recipes or adding you know,
Speaker 5: to different.
Speaker 2: Things which are phenomenal. I still use that today. So
Speaker 2: everything was very geared towards like what your career path was,
Speaker 2: and then just making sure that you were like I
Speaker 2: learned how to type.
Speaker 5: We had typing class because correspondence within the Mennonite communities
Speaker 5: is huge.
Speaker 2: Everybody always is doing letters.
Speaker 5: And so when we had art and it wasn't awful,
Speaker 5: like we obviously all cleaned the schoolroom once and the
Speaker 5: girls had the job of like cleaning the bathrooms and
Speaker 5: the baseboards and everything, and it was very much a
Speaker 5: community thing and that was expected and probably it's child labor,
Speaker 5: but also that was your skills, right, so you kind
Speaker 5: of chipped in as a community and work together to
Speaker 5: maintain your environment, which is a big part of the
Speaker 5: community still how they are. The thing was is that
Speaker 5: there was a lot of discipline that was happening also
Speaker 5: in the school, and so there was the basement and
Speaker 5: you would hear children being beaten if they were out
Speaker 5: of line, and that was hard, and so you just
Speaker 5: tried to stay out of the basement and stay in
Speaker 5: compliance with what was expected of you.
Speaker 1: What kinds of things would get you sent to the basement.
Speaker 2: My brother got in trouble for there was a school
Speaker 2: meeting called because he was using slang and he was saying,
Speaker 2: you guys seeing the work, guys is so a lot
Speaker 2: of vernacular.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: If you were not listening to the rules, you just
Speaker 2: had to be very very obedient. You could not question anything,
Speaker 2: and you know, no loing obviously or being distracted. But yeah,
Speaker 2: they knew what was expected of them too, so they
Speaker 2: tried to really maintain the discipline in the school that
Speaker 2: they would have at home too.
Speaker 4: Right were you ever taken to the basement?
Speaker 2: I was not. I was too old for that. But
Speaker 2: I wasn't allowed to come back to school the following year.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so yes I was.
Speaker 2: I was not.
Speaker 5: They did not want me to come back. They had
Speaker 5: too many problems with me. So I only I finished
Speaker 5: my education in ninth grade.
Speaker 2: But that was pretty much it for me.
Speaker 3: Wow, what did why? Because you were questioning too much?
Speaker 3: Like why were you not allowed to come back?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think so. And I was too too familiar with
Speaker 2: the boys. I was too friendly.
Speaker 1: Oh that would be my problem.
Speaker 4: I was just going to ask you, and I was like,
Speaker 4: because I'm just picturing myself as a fourteen year old
Speaker 4: girl and like, were there cute boys here, because that
Speaker 4: would have made a different for me.
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean what I thought, we're cute.
Speaker 5: It's still funny because still to this day, I'm like,
Speaker 5: I just like a Mennonite looking guy, and my friends
Speaker 5: all was like, really, like, I just love a clean
Speaker 5: cut guy that looks a little culty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I understand, I understand.
Speaker 4: Okay, so you're like a little too familiar, like chatty
Speaker 4: kathy with them and you're not supposed to.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There were people in my church who thought I was
Speaker 3: a bad influence when I did absolutely nothing wrong ever,
Speaker 3: but just because I would like talk to boys too
Speaker 3: much and we're cute outfits.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was caught writing notes to boys and it
Speaker 5: was but it was like I was fourteen and I
Speaker 5: it wasn't anything bad, but it was just like that
Speaker 5: was the only way that you communicating. And I'm like,
Speaker 5: I wanted to be friends with the boys just as
Speaker 5: much as the girls. The boys were more interested in
Speaker 5: what I was interested in. I didn't want to talk
Speaker 5: about like sewing. I wanted to talk about farming.
Speaker 2: So I was caught writing notes and I wouldn't stop
Speaker 2: writing notes that's iconic.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, you're done learning.
Speaker 2: To many Yeah you could write too, well, absolutely not
Speaker 2: your that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So what did that feel like then? If you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to go back to school?
Speaker 2: I think, like really like there was just a combination
Speaker 2: of a lot going on at that time, because I
Speaker 2: had also applied for membership, because the girls were at
Speaker 2: that time, and there was there's such a peer pressure
Speaker 2: to you know, at the time when you were wearing
Speaker 2: your hair down and braids. I just wore one braid,
Speaker 2: which was also the rebellious thing, instead of wearing two braids.
Speaker 2: But I wore one braid, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: all of your peers at revival so they'll have fall
Speaker 2: revival service. And so the girls were one by one, like.
Speaker 5: Starting to wear head coverings because they were standing up
Speaker 5: to become Christian and then applying for membership, and so
Speaker 5: I succumb to that because you know, what do you do.
Speaker 5: I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be accepted,
Speaker 5: so I did that as well. And then the amount
Speaker 5: of pressure then when you're in instruction class, which is
Speaker 5: very similar to Catholicism, where you take instruction class for
Speaker 5: a year before you're baptized, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: if you're coming into the church, there's even more scrutiny
Speaker 5: on you and there's more pressure improving. So I was
Speaker 5: just trying to really at that point, from that age on,
Speaker 5: to fit in, and the microscope was on me even
Speaker 5: more so when I didn't get asked back to school.
Speaker 2: There was also other things going on, and it's performance driven.
Speaker 2: You know that it's you. I mean it's not, but
Speaker 2: the church makes it feel like it's you. And so
Speaker 2: you're proving proving that I'm worthy, I'm worthy, I'm.
Speaker 5: Worthy, and there's a lot of great area and they'll
Speaker 5: move the carrot around quite a bit for you.
Speaker 2: So it's psychological torture.
Speaker 5: And then on top of it, then to find out
Speaker 5: that you're not allowed to come back to school and
Speaker 5: when you're trying to fit in with your peers is mortifying, yeah.
Speaker 2: And very humiliating, which is why they do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it was just another form of psychological manipulation
Speaker 5: and it really was not great for my mental health.
Speaker 5: But then there was this side of like, you know, well,
Speaker 5: I guess I'll help my mom and try to become
Speaker 5: like the best housewife possible in training.
Speaker 3: So you're still you're still bought in, Like you still
Speaker 3: like think this is the correct lifestyle.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, but at this point, like I bought it
Speaker 5: hook line and sinker, right, And so it was just
Speaker 5: I was literally immersed in it and was trying to
Speaker 5: be the best Mennonite possible. There was never any point
Speaker 5: where I was like this is blowney, right, And I
Speaker 5: have my journals.
Speaker 2: I was so pious, y'all. Like I was so nauseatingly
Speaker 2: Like I have one entry where I was like sitting
Speaker 2: in the airport and I was just like these people
Speaker 2: I was praying for them, like my journal, like they
Speaker 2: were you know, these women were working and traveling for work.
Speaker 2: I hoped that God would intervene.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, but a tweet of you and your
Speaker 4: and your own way.
Speaker 1: Yeah care about trying, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah I did. I did so Yeah, So I was.
Speaker 5: I was never rebellious in the fact where that's what
Speaker 5: was so difficult, where I was like, it wasn't like
Speaker 5: I was sticking my feet in the mud and saying
Speaker 5: no f this, like and then could get in trouble
Speaker 5: with the ministry.
Speaker 2: I was trying so hard and they were never approving
Speaker 2: of money. That sucks, Yeah, it does. It's hard.
Speaker 3: Were you sad about like the loss of the dream
Speaker 3: of becoming a vet at that point? That wasn't something
Speaker 3: that was on the table for you, right correct.
Speaker 5: What I ended up doing was just shifting my focus
Speaker 5: so much on becoming the perfect night girl so I.
Speaker 2: Would marry well.
Speaker 5: So it was like that was my next like goalpost,
Speaker 5: and I still really like I. I ended up getting
Speaker 5: a horse around the time that I was kicked out
Speaker 5: of school, and that was also a source of contention
Speaker 5: because the girls didn't have horses, like they were not
Speaker 5: allowed to.
Speaker 2: The boys could, but the girls couldn't.
Speaker 5: But there was nothing in the standard book that said
Speaker 5: that the girls could not have horses. So then it
Speaker 5: became this trying to find ways to make me look
Speaker 5: like I was defying the standard Book in order to
Speaker 5: back up their claims of like why they didn't want
Speaker 5: me to have this horse. And that was something that
Speaker 5: I did really sink my feet in, and I was like,
Speaker 5: I'm not giving up on this, like I can, I
Speaker 5: should be able to do this. I bought this with
Speaker 5: my own money, like I worked the hard. Let the
Speaker 5: horse girl have her horse.
Speaker 2: Ye, let me do it.
Speaker 1: That seems publicly accurate.
Speaker 3: And that's where we leave Part one four today. Come
Speaker 3: back next week for part two to hear the rest.
Speaker 3: Megan quick questions. So do you think you would join
Speaker 3: the Mennonite I think I said in this.
Speaker 4: Interview or maybe it's next weeks that my family was
Speaker 4: often mistaken for being Mennonite, and that was one of
Speaker 4: my least favorite parts of it was just looking so
Speaker 4: different and I really didn't like that. So I think
Speaker 4: I would be more susceptible to clults that let you
Speaker 4: dress a little bit more under the radar. That's so fair. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I just still can never get over it will never
Speaker 4: cease to be interesting to me how people go from
Speaker 4: counterculture to super conservative religions wild.
Speaker 3: Will never not be interesting to me. I mean, it
Speaker 3: happens all the time. It's so incredibly common, And every
Speaker 3: time I'm like, they went from that to that, as
Speaker 3: though it's the first time I've ever heard of that happening.
Speaker 4: It just seems so impossible. Well, but people do it
Speaker 4: all the time.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: You get disillusioned and you swing the other way. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you shoot for the stars. Sometimes you end up in
Speaker 4: a cult. Yeah, shoot for the starshoo, for the stars
Speaker 4: and reach. Sometimes you might land among a cult. Put
Speaker 4: it on a shirt. Please put that on a shirt.
Speaker 4: We should put that on a shirt. Okay, no one
Speaker 4: would wear that shirt.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for listening to another episode of
Speaker 4: Trust Me. Please raise us five stars if you are
Speaker 4: so inclined, and as always, remember to follow your gut,
Speaker 4: watch out for red flags, and never ever trust me.
Speaker 1: Bye.
Speaker 3: This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 1: Blanc and me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Gee Holley.
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 4: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
Speaker 4: is Patrick Kuttner.
Speaker 3: Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4: Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Hell, Gareth Georgia
Speaker 4: hart Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 3: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
Speaker 3: or on TikTok at trust.
Speaker 1: Me Cult podcast.
Speaker 4: Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Speaker 4: Shoot us an email at trustmepodat gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts