‘Well, we went into the cave where the Apostle John received the Book of Revelations. Just think, it was the very place where he received in visions the final events before the End of the World!’
A few weeks later, on 2 June 1981, my half-sister, Juliana, was born in a little Greek hospital in Rafina. I couldn’t wait to see her. Solomon Touchstone drove up to the house, with Dad and Serena in the back of the car. The door opened and there was a cute little baby girl in Serena’s arms, with her eyes shut tight.
Excited, I asked, ‘Can I hold her?’
‘Sure,’ Serena replied. ‘Be careful.’
She placed the baby in my arms gently. I thought she was like a little doll as I lifted her up. But as I did, her head hit the car door and the poor thing let out a mad cry.
‘Oops,’ I said, upset. Serena quickly took her from my arms and comforted her. She didn’t tell me off though, which was reassuring.
Dad gave me a hug and we all went into the house. ‘What’s her name?’ I asked.
‘We’re calling her Juliana Faithful,’ Dad said. I was so happy to have a baby sister. I watched as Serena changed the baby’s nappies and nursed her. I even tried to nurse her myself – and got a few purple hickeys as a result. But because of the age gap between us, after the initial excitement of having a new baby sister, I saw her and Mariana rarely, except for Sundays. I preferred to spend time playing with Renee and Daniella. I was never jealous of our new addition to our family. I was Dad’s first, and he assured me that no one would ever take my place.
Sundays were our Free Days and the only time I spent with Dad and our little family. I looked forward to Freeday, but dreaded the traditional afternoon Sunday fellowship. On one of these fellowships, everyone filed in to the big communal tent and sat down on rows of benches lined up in front of a television set.
Paul led everyone in a prayer and then announced excitedly, ‘This is a very special privilege. I have here in my hands a series called the Garden of Eden. Mo has allowed us here in Loveville to view these tapes, but no one must talk about it with anyone else or discuss what he looks like.’
There was complete shock and silence, and then an excited buzz of conversation while the first tape was turned on. Except for a few trusted leaders, no one knew what David Berg looked like. His last name was never mentioned in internal publications and pictures of Moses David showed his face covered by an artist’s drawing of a lion’s head. This was done to protect his identity and whereabouts, as he was already a fugitive from the law. The media regularly printed articles about him – all of them negative – that raised public awareness and alerted government authorities around the world. All these cumulative reasons had led to David Berg – Grandpa Mo – living a shadowy life, guarded by his inner circle, who slipped from country to country with forged passports.
I was curious to find out what Grandpa really looked like and stared hard at the screen as his image came up. He had deep-set eyes, a balding head and a long, pale blond beard. He was dressed in a dark-brown robe, and around his neck he wore a great big yoke – the kind of wooden thing worn by oxen – hanging from a chain. He fit the perfect image of what I imagined a prophet would look like.
It was as if Jesus had appeared on earth. Everyone drew a breath, as they oohed and aahed.
‘It’s such a privilege–’
‘What an honour–’
‘Praise the Lord!’
The room went quiet immediately Mo began to speak. When he talked ‘in tongues’, everyone joined in. They raised their hands in the air when he did and followed his every move. I looked from one person to another, wondering what on earth was going on. I didn’t understand what they were saying. I didn’t know how to speak in tongues. When they started weeping and crying, I wondered what I was missing out on. Sometimes, during united singing the atmosphere became emotionally charged and I felt a slight shiver, like goosebumps – had Jesus touched me? People said that was what it felt like. Everyone seemed as if they had been touched by Jesus watching those videos, and I wished that something would happen to me too – but it never did.
For the next few weeks, we spent many hours watching those videos. Mo preached on the Endtime, interpreting passages from the Book of Daniel and Revelations and explaining to us that a one-world dictator called the Antichrist would soon arise and usher in the last seven years on earth. According to his calculations, Christ would return to earth in 1993.
Everyone praised the Lord. No one seemed worried or terrified that the End of the World was about to occur. Mo said that meant the Antichrist would have to appear in mid-1986 – only five years away. I was almost seven years old. To me, five years seemed like a long time.
The Garden of Eden series marked a great exodus from Europe. Mo told us to move to the Southern Hemisphere, to escape the nuclear fallout that would soon engulf the West. Paul Peloquin announced that Loveville would soon be packing up camp and moving wholesale to Sri Lanka. We were not told this at the time, but I found out later that Mo and his team had moved from France, where the Garden of Eden series had been filmed, to South Africa, and then to Sri Lanka. We would simply be following in our prophet’s footsteps.
A few days later, Dad told me that he had been asked to go on a scouting team ahead of the rest of us to find a suitable place to re-establish Loveville.
‘I don’t want you to go, Dad,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ll miss you.’
‘Don’t worry, honey. It will only be a few months.’ He tried to encourage me.
I clung on tight like a baby when he said goodbye and Serena had to prise me away.
‘Where are we going to live in Sri Lanka?’ I asked.
‘You’ll see. It’s a surprise,’ Dad said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Did you know that it was a Sri Lankan radio station that was the first to play Music with Meaning? It’s a beautiful country, and the people are receptive to the Lord’s message.’
When we stopped over at Karachi International Airport, I knew Pakistan was near India, and I gazed avidly out of the airport windows, through the heat haze across the Arabian Sea. The air smelled vaguely familiar, a mixture of exotic spices and gasoline, as were the intense heat and humidity. I was close but so far from the place where I had last seen my mother. I thought about my sister Kristina. If only we could have stopped off in Bombay to see them. Then it was time to board another plane to Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital city and I was caught up with the excitement of arriving on an island in the Indian Ocean.
After the long trip, we stayed in the capital at a hotel resort for the first two days to rest up before continuing our journey. The air was hot and humid, filled with the fragrance of frangipani, the sacred temple flowers that were used in Buddhist ceremonies. You could see these trees everywhere, their brightly coloured flowers hanging down in bunches, the ground beneath them littered with fragrant carpets of yolk yellow, white, purple pink and red. My first day in this beautiful, exotic land was unforgettable. The first thing I noticed were black birds crowing loudly. They seemed to be everywhere. As I walked under one of the banana palms in the grounds of the resort, I felt something warm hit my head. To my horror, I discovered a crow had shat on me.
The journey to our new home was exciting. Dad kept saying, ‘Just wait, you’ll see.’ The anticipation was killing me. We crammed all our belongings into the air-conditioned bus we’d hired to take the three-hour drive into the mountains. It was all so different after the barren rocks and scant vegetation of Greece. Here, palm trees and the rich red soil of fields where black-skinned buffaloes toiled gave way to rounded slopes covered with tea plantations. With so much rain – the island is in the path of tropical monsoons and hundreds of inches of