“Mom, you finally comes back home!”
“We wouldn’t even dare to dream about our mother coming to her sense! After so many years in dismay, we had already given up hope. You’ve saved both my mother and our four families. Thank you so much.”
This is the heartfelt appreciation to anti-cult volunteers from the children of Ms. Huang in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, who, with the help of those volunteers, successfully broke away from the “Almighty God” cult.
“Though we tried hard to find Mom, she has been missing for years；
Our family experienced up and down, how could absent mother had any ideas；
News that Mom was found like a timely rain, the whole thing took favorable turns；
Oh! Mom finally broke away from “Almighty God”, she started to enjoy happy family life with her dears.”
The dictation is as follows.
Mom was nowhere to find despite years of searching for her
Our mother is 63 years old this year. She graduated from an elementary school. Her ancestral home is Hunan Province. After her marriage, she moved to Qingyuan, Guangdong Province and gave birth to three daughters and one son. As a hardworking, frugal and virtuous housewife, my mother once worked with our father in Guangzhou for many years. Later, she opened a grocery store to make a living near home when getting old.
During the Spring Festival in 2001, our late grandmother and our eldest aunt (both were the “Almighty God” cult followers) introduced a young woman surnamed Xiao to visit us at home to preach “Almighty God” in the name of Christianity. Our mother started to believe in it and then gradually became obsessed with the cult. In March 2013, she ran away from home all by herself with only a few clothes. Without leaving any words or showing any sign, she just disappeared without trace.
Over the past eight years, the four of us had been searching for our mother everywhere. In the meantime, we reported to the police several times and travelled to surrounding cities such as Qingyuan, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, etc., to distribute the home-made “Notice for Missing People”. We also joined a mutual aid group consisting of relatives of the “Almighty God” victims in hope of finding our mother. However, no matter how hard we tried, we still failed to get any fragment of news about our mother.
Family changes were unknown to her
For eight years, our mother hadn’t contacted any her relative. During that period, four of us all settled down one after another by getting married and having children. Every time we wanted to share something important or joyful, we couldn’t do it with our mother. We dared not mention our mother in front of our father in case he might get angry or sad. We all felt that there was something missing in our heart, fearing that it might be irreparable.
In 2017, our father’s lung disease deteriorated and the hospital issued a critical illness notice to us. Watching our enfeebled father lying on the sickbed, we felt pain in our hearts. Although he seldom initiatively mentioned our mother, he asked about her many times when being critically ill by saying, “Have you got any news about your mother?” or “Have you found her yet?” As children, we knew that it was his biggest wish to see our mother again before he died. Regretfully, our father passed away with his unfulfilled hope. As expected, our mother didn’t show up at father’s funeral.
On May 20, 2021, a call was made to our eldest sister. It turned out that our mother was arrested by the police in a rented place while she was participating illegal cult activities.
In order to help our mother, all members except grandchildren in our four families all put a halt to their work at hand, and tried various ways that we could imagine to dissuade Mom from believing in the cult. However, after we handled all relevant matters for her about her remand on bail, our mother was still obsessed with the cult. She insisted on living in a rented place all by herself so that she could “serve the Lord and preach the Gospel” without any interference. Our poor mother had been a lost lamb that wouldn’t wake up from the cult fallacies in spite of our persistent pleading.
While we were at a loss as what to do about it, the anti-cult volunteers from the community came to our rescue to help our mother.
Brightness came after gloom
As soon as the anti-cult volunteer walked into the house rented by our mother and started to talk, our mother turned to be on guard, showing a strong feeling of resistance. She claimed that she only learned about “Almighty God” by picking up a leaflet on a roadside in April 2020, but other than that she did nothing. Whenever the conversation came down to her family or personal life, she would either refuse to commend by declaring that she had no interests in such topics, or she would just ignore the question. As long as the talk tended to be in depth or had anything to do with “Almighty God”, she would do all sorts of things to make it impossible for the talk to continue, such as being evasive, telling lies, remaining silent or moving aside to do housework.
However, the volunteers didn’t give up on our mother. They kept buying groceries and cooking for her. After learning that she suffered from chronic backache, they bought a massage device for her to do physical therapy at home. In the meantime, they did a lot of explanation work on relevant national laws and policies for her. Influenced by the patience and sincerity of the volunteers, our mother finally dropped her guard and started to explain that her original desire to believe in “Almighty God” stemmed from her fear of suffering from diseases. So the volunteers took our mother to doctors for thorough medical examinations in a top-notch hospital. The diagnoses showed that she was in a fine condition other than lumbar disc herniation. Doctors also told her some methods for pain-alleviation and rehabilitation.
All of this made my mother feel good and became willing to talk with volunteers. She said that in the past eight years, by working as a cleaner in the vegetable markets, housekeeping attendant, etc., she could only earn a little more than 1,000 Yuan a month, but she had to spent 600 Yuan on renting a house and bought cooking oil, rice, groceries at her own expense to cook dishes for those so-called “brothers and sisters” in the “Almighty God” cult organization. She would get scolded when those fellow followers were not satisfied with the taste of her cooking, which made her feel so wronged. Sometimes she would miss her family and relatives so much that she wanted to return home, but she was warned by other people in the “Almighty God” cult organization, saying that she was not allowed to go back home unless she devoted all she had to “Almighty God”, or her life became “mature” enough to be above the mundane world by cultivating away all her emotions for husband and children. She added that no one cared about her when she caught cold. So, she had to grit her teeth to work and bore the pain of missing her family alone when in the clutches of the cult. Furthermore, she had to live in fear and hiding because she needed furtively sing spiritual songs and listen to sermons with “brothers and sisters” in the cult each day. She thought what she painstakingly insisted was good for the “benefits” of her family. However, what she really got was the “grievous news” of her husband’s death.
She enjoyed the happy family life again after breaking away from cult
A few days later, seeing that our mother still wasn’t fully determined to let go of her faith in “Almighty God”, the volunteers patiently talked about it with her that the earth was safe and sound, and the World Doomsday preached by the “Almighty God” was not true. They also compared the teachings of the “Almighty God” cult with that of the Christian Bible, pointing out that the notorious “Almighty God” cult actually ripped off its victims’ money in the name of Christianity. Meanwhile, we would take our mother’s favorite grandson (less than 1 year old back then) to her rented place, accompanying her. Of course, other grandchildren were also there in turns so that our mother could enjoy the warmth and happiness of family life.
Little by little, the ties between our mother and us grew stronger and stronger. When our mother’s birthday was just two days away, the volunteers took the opportunity to ask our mother whether it was ok by her that we held a party for her. Our mother rubbed her hands and said in excitement, “Over the years, I haven’t been here to take care of my children or grandchildren; and they’ve suffered too much looking for me, so I’m not sure they would really accept me right now,” “Oh, sure, you’ll always be their mother.” The affirmative answer suddenly dispelled the dark clouds of doubt in her heart, and our mother gently nodded. When the volunteers conveyed our mother’s positive opinion to us, all of our four families were in joys. The next day, our mother cancelled her lease of the rented house and moved in to live with her son and daughter-in-law. Later, we threw a jolly party for our mother and we all enjoyed it very much.
At the dinner party, our mother held tightly the hands of anti-cult volunteers in gratitude, saying that she would neither believe in “Almighty God” nor participate in any cult activities ever again.
Our mother is finally coming back home to us! Now, Mum is planning on how to babysit her grandchildren, and she is full of vision and confidence for a bright future……
