Cult survivor: I was lured in at the shops
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Here, Liz Cameron shares her story in her own words
Walking through the local shopping centre in Canberra where I lived, I was approached by a woman.
‘Could you fill out a survey about Australian culture?’ she asked innocently.
The woman explained she was a student from Korea and wanted to learn about our way of life as part of her studies.
A people-pleaser, I agreed to help.
It was January 2011 and, aged 18, I’d recently finished school and was looking forward to a gap year before studying an arts degree at uni.
Having passed my email address to the girl, I was asked to complete another survey the following week, after I’d identified as a Christian in the first one.
This one was all about my faith and what it meant to me.
The following week I was invited to the girl’s Bible study group.
Keen to make friends, I decided to go along.
It was a tiny church run out of a house with just a few members. They called it Canberra Love Church, or Sarang Church in Korean.
Everyone was so kind and warm, and the ladies seemed radically different from the church I’d come from, where people just went through the motions.
Soon I was with these people more often than my other friends.
‘You’re spending so much time over there,’ my mum, Catherine, said.
‘You’d like them. They’re so nice,’ I replied.
‘I’m happy for you, darl,’ Mum smiled. ‘Just make sure you’re taking care of yourself, okay?’
I’d previously struggled with disordered eating so I knew Mum worried about me constantly.
Over time, my church group often spoke of Pastor Joshua, also known as Jeong Myeong-seok, the leader of the larger church, which was called Providence, in South Korea.
He was known for his steadfast commitment to his faith and the extreme lengths he went to prove it, including fasting for 40 days. Devastatingly, the self-professed ‘messiah’ was serving time in prison.
My new friends told me he’d been falsely accused of sexual assault.
How sad, I thought.
From everything I’d been taught, he seemed like a man with such strong values. He couldn’t possibly be capable of what people had claimed.
They also told me not to research Pastor Joshua or the church online, as people were trying to tear down the group. Wanting to be the best friend and Christian I could be, I agreed not to look him up.
As I spent an increasing amount of time at Sarang Church, my other friends began to fall away.
In June I was asked to participate in a modelling show the church was putting on. The theme was ‘Heavenly Brides’ and we donned beautiful white gowns like it was our wedding day.
Four months later I received an email explaining Pastor Joshua was the second coming of Jesus, sent to save mankind. Incredibly, I’d been chosen to be one of Providence’s many brides of God, destined to marry Joshua spiritually.
Feeling part of something special, I didn’t question it.
That December I was delighted when the girls from Sarang Church invited me to move into their share house. Every night felt like a sleepover as four of us shared a room. We also shared meals and joined in group prayer sessions. I felt like I’d truly found my tribe.
To contribute towards household costs, such as bills and groceries, I handed over a portion of the money from my part-time job in a coffee shop. Our bills were split according to income, so two of the older women with professional full-time jobs paid more.
It was so generous of them, but I still had barely any cash left over.
During meal times I was instructed to cut out carbs to keep myself healthy and looking my best for God.
My alarm was also brought forward increasingly earlier, so I could wake up and pray. What started as a 5am wake up call turned into 4am… then 3am… then 2am…
Soon, the exhaustion from under-eating and a lack of sleep started to catch up with me.
I constantly felt light-headed and lethargic.
But determined to show my faith and to fit in with my new friends, I kept it up.
By now, I felt worlds apart from my former friends and family. When they questioned my new church, it only drove me away from them further.
‘I’m not sure the church is what you think it is,’ Mum said after a family lunch in January 2012.
When I told my housemates they convinced me to stop speaking to Mum and Dad as much. They’d prepared me for ambushes like this, which they said were attacks from Satan.
The next day I was flown to South Korea with the group to meet Pastor Joshua in prison. Sitting on opposite sides of plexiglass, we couldn’t speak the same language, but when he said my name, my heart leapt. I really was the chosen one.
Afterwards I was gifted a beautiful necklace from Pastor Joshua with three pearls and a J in the middle.
Back in Canberra I began studying at uni. When Pastor Joshua wrote to me, my heart swelled.
Make sure you’re working hard. Keep writing to me regularly, he wrote.
When I come out of here, I’ll go to Australia, he wrote in another letter.
As the months passed, and I strived to keep up with my demanding routine, I became desperately thin.
By January 2013 I was suffering frequent panic attacks and was weak and emaciated.
Reaching out to Mum, who I kept in touch with on and off, she took me to the doctor who was alarmed by my incredibly thin size.
‘If you don’t begin to gain weight, your heart could stop,’ she gravely warned.
Mum took me to hospital in Sydney, where I was treated by a psychiatrist. Afterwards, I was discharged into Mum’s care.
Two weeks after being discharged, my uncle Peter came to visit with a friend named Rick.
Rick explained he was an international cult deprogrammer. He spoke to me about other cults and brainwashing.
I’m not in a cult, I thought, furious.
I tried to ignore what he was saying but, after hours of speaking to Rick about the mind control techniques used by certain groups, I realised my church wasn’t any different.
Overwhelmed and confused, it was painful to think I might’ve been involved in something bad.
Rick told me Pastor Joshua had founded the church in 1978.
He had been convicted of multiple charges of sexual assault and rape in South Korea in 2008.
All the claims were true after all, I realised, horrified I’d been writing to the very man who’d committed the sick offences. Distraught, I broke down to Mum.
‘How could I let this happen?’ I cried.
Mum admitted that when she’d realised I’d been brainwashed, she’d enlisted the help of Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS) for months.
She’d even gone as far as inviting Rick from the US to our family holiday on the coast to help me escape, but I’d been forbidden to attend by the church.
Rick had pretended to be Uncle Peter’s friend – Mum knew that was the only way I’d actually hear him out.
Realising the lengths Mum had gone to in trying to help me and free me from the cult’s grasp, I’d never felt more loved.
But with my belief system totally broken, I cried endlessly.
The cult had targeted my vulnerabilities.
In a manipulation much like coercive control, they’d love bombed me to draw me in, planted subtle messages and isolated me from my church, made me distrust my friends and, horrifically, my family.
Mum and I went to CIFS meetings in Sydney and I began to help deprogram other survivors who’d escaped Providence and other cults.
It became more important than ever when in 2018, Jeong Myeong-seok was released from jail and his offending continued.
In December 2023 in the Daejeon District Court, Jeong Myeong-seok, then 78, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexual violations against three of his female followers – including another Australian – between 2018 and 2021. His sentence was later reduced to 17 years. It means he will likely die in jail.
In a bid to educate others about cults, I wrote a book, Cult Bride, while completing a degree in psychology.
Sadly my beloved dad passed away in July last year, aged 73, before my book was published, but I know he’d be so proud of how far I’ve come. And I know Mum is incredibly proud of me too.
With Providence still operating in countries around the globe, I’m thankful for Mum’s unwavering support to free me from the cult.
Content retrieved from: https://www.thatslife.com.au/real-life/liz-cameron-lured-providence-cult-jeongmyeong-seok/.
