This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Episode 016 – A New Dawn: Keith Green’s Foster Daughter Finds Her Voice

July 26, 2023

T: Hi, I’m Tracey

S: And I’m Sharon. And we are Feet of Clay.

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters! Last week we shared the first part of our conversation with Dawn. You remember she’s the foster daughter of Keith and Melody Green. This week we pick up with that conversation where we left off – the cliffhanger. So if you haven’t listened to part one, we encourage you to go back and listen to that one first.

S: Right. And as a reminder, we talked with Dawn on a remote call, each of us in different States – Tennessee, Florida, Iowa, so please forgive the occasional less-than-stellar audio at times.

T: I mean, that’s a long way to make soundwaves across three States.

S: Yeah. The magic of technology. No Harry Potter references though; I’m being good today.

T: You are.

S: So at the end when we’re signing off with Dawn, please stay tuned and hang around because we’ve got some more things to share as we debrief this whole experience together. Let’s rejoin our conversation with Dawn now.

…

D: So, after school I was usually taking care of the kids, but I did have time to take care of the horses on the weekend, because I did stuff with the horses on the weekend.

S: Yeah.

D: You and I did stuff with the horses on the weekend.

S: We did!

D: Yeah.

S: Let’s talk about that for a second.

T: I have to jump in and ask a question, because for those of our listeners who heard Sharon’s interview with I was a Teenage Fundamentalist, she talks about horses actually being an idol in her life before coming to Last Days and having to lay that down, so now we’re talking about a horse at Last Days, so you guys can you fill me in on how that happened.

S: Well, Keith told me when we were getting ready to move to Texas, or maybe it was right after we moved; he told me that he had promised Dawn that she could have a horse in Texas. Do you recall that Dawn?

D: I vaguely remember something about it. I don’t remember exactly when, and you understood and knew a lot about horses so I think you helped him, right?

S: Yeah, so he told me that he wanted ot have a horse for you, for Dawn, and that he also thought it would be a good idea to get a few horses so people could ride – because, you know, we’re out in the middle of nowhere, East Texas; nothing to do, nowhere to go for fun, so he thought it would be a good idea. Something for people to do, and since I was the only one who knew anything about it, he came to me. I remember being terrified when he asked me, because I had gone through this whole thing of laying down my idols and I made this promise I’m never going to ride a horse again, or I’ll never do that again Jesus, because you’re the all in all. I remember going out and praying and crying my eyes out outside somewhere going oh no, oh no don’t do this to me God, is this a temptation, am I being tested, what is this? And somehow in that weird way that we would feel God said something to us, which at some point we’ll talk about what was all of that; I think it’s just your inner deep subconscious talking to you, but it was this voice I heard in my head of don’t you think I love you enough that I could give you something that would make you happy? That was how in my head I then was okay with helping to go find the horses. I remember getting hold of some guys that had horses for sale; checking in the newspaper, asking around, and one of them had a Tennessee Walking Horse. I had never ridden one, I’d never been around one, I had this equestrian prejudice against gaited horses (which is whole other thing). I can ride a trotting horse, I don’t need something smooth and gaited, but then I got to thinking well maybe for folks that don’t do a lot of riding it could be good. So anyway we got a few horses, we got this one tall, black, beautiful Tennessee Walker, Dawn – it was to be your horse. I can’t remember what his registered name was but we got him onto the farm and said hey Dawn, this is your horse and you named him…

D: Prince Caspian.

S: Yes you did! It was great.

D: He was awesome. He was an amazing horse. He was a comfort to me for days I felt lonely and I felt like I could hang out with my horse. He was such a good horse. I could ride him bareback with a halter and he was just awesome.

S: He was. I remember really enjoying going out and getting one of the other horses and riding with you. That was fun. That was a comfort to me as well.

D: Yeah. There was something beautiful about that; horses are just – horses. They’re part of nature and part of life. There was no judgment, there was no you’re not doing this right or you’re in sin, or anything coming from the horse. The horse was just enjoying life, and we were enjoying the horses. It was like a break from all of the doom and gloom and oppressive feeling I think a lot of us felt living in the ministry.

S: Well said. Very well said.

T: Yes. Would you say that that was worse in California, or worse in Texas, or about the same, as far as that heavy sense of spiritual doom and gloom?

D: I think it was worse in Texas. I don’t know if maybe it was because I was getting older and it was harder, I was just getting tired of it, but just continuing to try the best that I could to be the best Christian, and hopefully God will accept me when I die. God. How depressing is that, right? Hoping, maybe I’ll get into heaven. Keith doesn’t seem to think I’m good enough, but maybe God will. It was a difficult time.

S: With the little house, I remember Martin and I would come down in there in the evenings. I can’t remember if it was mostly weekends or whatever, but I remember coming over to your house and staying late night, watching SCTV or we’d have video movies, or we’d play Risk. I was just wondering on nights when we or other people weren’t there, did you guys do that kind of thing as a family? Did you play games together; did you watch shows?

D: I remember watching SCTV.

S: Yeah, we must have all been there together for that.

D: Yeah.

T: Can I just say that none of us were watching SCTV, and I think we would have felt extraordinarily guilty.

D: Oh yes?

T: So yeah. We’d be like wait, what are they doing up there watching this worldly stuff while we were working 12 hours a day and putting away all that stuff. I just had to say that; I saw that in your notes and I was like, how come you guys got to do that?

S: Double standard.

D: Yeah, really. No, there was no family activities, not that I remember. Back in California Keith and Melody brought in this girl, Judy. She was, I think, two years older than I was. She, I believe, had come from an abusive family and Keith and Melody became legal guardians of her, and that’s why she was allowed to live in the house with me. It was then that we did some family things together, but she did not move with us when we moved to Texas, and the family time activities and all that stopped.

S: I see. So Dawn, I wanted to talk about something that is very painful for all of us and that was the plane crash in July of 1982, where Keith and of course two of the kids died, and I was wondering – were you at the house that day when Keith was leaving with the kids to go out to the airstrip?

D: No, I was in ICT at the time.

T: Wow.

D: I had just graduated high school and I was in the ICT dorm, I think it was, when somebody told me that the plane went down and they weren’t sure, but they thought that maybe everybody had died. So no, I was not in the house when Melody found out.

T: I didn’t know that you were at that ICT school. Do you remember Lindsay Reid, because he was in that school as well.

D: Yeah, I remember. I remember playing volleyball and basketball with him.

S: So Dawn, if you feel up for it, can you tell us a little bit more about that experience and how you felt, what they said, and how that evening unfolded with learning about what really happened?

D: The thing that I felt was that somebody who I had tried to be really close to is now gone. Somebody who had looked over me, looked out for me, is now gone. It was a shock, I can put it that way. I felt it deeply. Losing the kids too, and just the whole thing of having an entire family inside that plane, plus Keith – two adults, the pilot and Keith and Keith’s two kids – it was overwhelming to say the least. It took me at least a week to get to the point where – and I said to myself, I need to get back into a daily routine of some sort because I can’t stay here in this place. I was at ICT, so I really did not interact with Melody very much, but I did go home; it was a few days … I can’t remember. I’m sorry, I don’t have a very good memory of this time.

S: It’s alright.

D: But it was sometime after the news and I was getting back into the swing of my daily routines and stuff, and I went back to the house. I was walking up the driveway and I guess there was a photo shoot going on with Janet Burmeister and her sons and Melody, and she was still pregnant, so it was just her and Rebecca. They were doing a photoshoot. I remember thinking huh. That’s interesting. Okay.

S: Like, you’re not part of this – your position of grieving the person who has been in the role of your father for the last six plus years, and you’re not being included in this family coping and – all of that? Wow.

D: So it was like, oh hey, Dawn’s here. Why don’t you come join us Dawn? Okay. Yeah, that kind of struck me funny.

T: Yeah!

D: But it was kind of par for the course, I guess. I wasn’t too shocked about it.

S: That just makes me so sad. I remember thinking before, who is helping Dawn? Who’s helping her in this? And I guess the answer is – no one.

D: Yeah, no one. Keith was such a strong presence, a strong personality, that no one felt they could approach him. He was not somebody you were going to correct – you’re not going to correct him. You know what I mean?

S: Mmhmm.

D: So Sharon, Martin actually apologized to me for not standing up after he caught up with me on Facebook – we became Facebook friends, and he apologized to me. At that time, I wondered how many other people felt that same way, and just didn’t feel like they could go up to Keith and call him on it.

S: I think there were two things. There was not being able to go up and call Keith and Melody both on how you were being treated while he was still alive. I think some of that too was we were in this idea of submit to your leaders, and who are we, and we’re young, and we don’t know about being parents and all that sort of stuff, but still there were warnings in our hearts of something’s just not right here. Dawn, I am sorry that I didn’t have the courage or the understanding or the perspective to speak up on your behalf, and then through the time after the plane crash – it’s interesting to hear you say you grieved for about a week, and then you just had to pull it together. I would say, knowing what I’ve learned in the decades since, that that grieving process – it’s a lot longer. I think maybe what you’re referring to is that shock, just utter immobilizing shock. Thinking back now – who, who was helping you? No one! You were kind of just abandoned to navigate this yourself, a teenager, and that was just so, so unfair and so horrible. Again, I’m sorry that those of us who could have and should have known better didn’t do better on your behalf. I’m really sorry for that.

D: Well, I appreciate that. I’ve learned a lot about when to speak up for people, and get involved in other people’s lives, because it’s important. But I also know that people have their perspective and they have their beliefs, and they have their ideology that they follow. Last Days Ministries was basically a cult. I remember asking myself that – is this a cult?

S: When?

D: I think I was about 18. I said is this a cult? Oh, I know when it was. It was when – can I say her name? Is that okay?

T & S: Sure.

T: We can beep anything out, so…

D: *** and another girl, I can’t remember her name but she had really white blonde hair. She and *** were getting to become really good friends, a little too close, if you know what I mean, for Christians to feel comfortable with. I don’t know if you remember that, but Keith had the blonde girl leave because they were getting too close and it was becoming a little bit lesbian. It was about that time I was thinking you know, are we in a cult? Is this a cult? But I saw people leave – hey, it’s time for me to move on, okay, see ya. You know, people did leave so I was like well, is this really a cult then? But I was listening to an interview with an ordained minister who was talking about cults, and he said that he saw the very same thing that he now understands is part of getting people into a cult; he saw exactly the same thing in the church he was ministering in. he said this is what we do in churches. We get them to come in and feel good about themselves and people are saying hi to them, we have music going and everyone is feeling good – we get them into the church that way. It’s the same thing with cults. And I’m thinking wow – Last Days Ministries was a cult.

T: Absolutely.

S: Yep, it was.

T: My sister used to call me all the time to ask that question – can you leave? Is there a fence around, are you prevented from leaving? I think now what we’ve all learned cults do is they basically make you a prisoner of your own mind, your own beliefs. So yes you can physically leave, but that sense of guilt and shame and walking out on God, and abandoning your most holy responsibilities – that’s the hook that keeps us there.

D: Right. So I have to say that if Keith had not have died, I don’t know that I would have ever left. I will tell you this though; I did have a possible plan in place now, when I was getting ready to graduate the military recruiters had showed up, you know, they like to talk to kids who are getting ready to graduate.

S: Graduating high school.

D: Sorry yes, graduating high school. I seriously considered joining the air force but I was 17 when I graduated so legally I couldn’t, but that would have been my plan if Keith had lived.  I probably would have snuck out one day and gone down and signed up. Once you sign your name it’s law, you have to go, and there’s no talking me out of it because it’s law.

S: That was going to be your escape plan, huh?

D: That was my escape plan, yes.

S: So tell us if you would; I know you were at ICT when the plane crashed, and then I’d love to hear more about how and when you began questioning your faith, or was it just questioning being there at the ministry? And your journey out.

D: Yeah. So like I said before, that I started having better friendships, deeper friendships; more interconnection with people after I graduated high school, so that helped me during my staying there and continuing on and working for Last Days and I knew that I needed to move on. I knew I needed to get on my own two feet and get away from it. It wasn’t necessarily that I needed to stop being a Christian, but it was that I needed to get out of there. Part of it was because it was so oppressive and I felt like it was a grind, like I was chained to it and I wanted to live on my own, but I was not ready for that. I had not been taught how to live on my own. How do you get a job? How do you open a bank account? How do you buy a car? I didn’t know any of those things.

S: Real life stuff, huh?

D: I had not been taught, because Keith made it very clear that going to college is a waste of time and money; if you’re going to be a good Christian you need to be a missionary, or you stay at the ministry.

S: Arrrgggggh.

D: That’s what a good Christian is supposed to do, and have babies for God. Don’t forget that – have babies for God. Oh, I gotta tell you something. I was 17, and I think I was going up to the ministry, Keith was coming down to the house, and it wasn’t like a hey how you doing. He stopped me and said I know why you want to get married. I just looked at him and he said you want to get married to have sex. And I’m like, alright. Whatever. But that was not the reason why I wanted to get married. I wanted to get married to get away from him.

T: To get out.

D: Yes.

S: Yeah.

D: That would have been a way out.

T: Was there any conversation – what made him think that you wanted to get married and had you had anybody in mind?

D: I don’t know! I had no idea. I’d never told him I liked anybody; I didn’t say I’m interested in so and so. I wasn’t allowed to date anyway. I was not allowed to date until I was 16, then right before my 16^th birthday he says you’re not allowed to date until you’re 18 – I was 17 when he had this conversation with me and I was just like – you know, I don’t understand this. This is out of left field. Like I said, he didn’t say hello or anything, it was just I know why you want to get married; you want to get married because you want to have sex.

S: Oh gosh.

D: Whatever dude.

S: Ohhh.

T: You were in ICT when you got the news; do you remember who your group leader was at the time?

D: At ICT? No, I do not.

T: Okay. Because I think for me, watching on, I was very aware of you and your pain, and I think there were many of us who were, because we knew you spent a lot of time over there and even with your feelings with Keith, absolutely, but Josiah and Bethany. Our hearts ached for knowing what pain you must be going through. I remember consciously thinking well, I hope that kind of counsellor relationship at ICT is good for her, that she has someone she can lean on and open up to and talk to, and that they take care of her there. And it seems that that absolutely didn’t happen.

S: Well, that sort of stuff Tracey, is totally above the pay grade and scope of anyone…

D: And training.

S: I mean, come on. We’re a bunch of kids. We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing; we’re trying to look at the bible verses and thinking we can find an answer for every single thing somewhere in this thing, so oh my god, we did not know what to do.

D: Yeah.

T: I mean, well I was a counsellor in ICT for many years and when people did have a grief that struck them, and it could be your background and where you came from, but there was some people who their sheer human compassion did come out. I guess that’s the staggering realization I’m having here, is that there didn’t seem to be an avenue for – I know, because people have reached out asking if Dawn was okay – I think there were several sisters that probably would have loved to have reached out but didn’t think they could, or didn’t think it was their place, or maybe thought that you were getting the care you needed.

S: I think you’re right about that, and I think we all would have assumed that Melody would be there, because…

D: No. That was not – she was not there for me for that. But I do vaguely remember somebody just asking if I was okay. So it wasn’t like they were totally shunning and ignoring me, but we were all young, and we didn’t know what we were doing. I don’t think anybody was in a position or had the training to talk to somebody who was grieving, you know?

S: Right. But Tracey, you are right. There were a lot of folks that did have decent compassion and empathy and would have wanted to reach out and offer consolation or a shoulder to cry on, but we probably all felt it wasn’t our place.

T: Correct, because the leadership structure was so ingrained in us that you stay witnin your boundaries. I would just say how my brain would have thought – absolutely crazy now – but she’s in a school with a leadership structure, so there are people there that can help her through this, it wouldn’t be my place.

S: And her mom is Melody Green.

T: And her mom is Melody Green. I will say however – and this is the part that I know we’re trying to be as kind as we can, and I think in the whole we all have cut Melody a lot of slack because that is a terrible grief and a terrible loss, and nobody wants anybody to have to go through that. But my mom at the time was in a coma. I was 18 when she ended up going into the hospital; I was there, so I was on the phone a lot with my dad in his grief; I was grieving, and I actually became pretty good friends with Janet and saw how she was grieving. I did think that Melody was not there for you. I could see that, even though there was always a part of me that was like well maybe I’m judging a little too harshly because I don’t know all the ins and outs, but my impression was you completely got abandoned, that you completely got neglected, and that her grief kind of trumped everybody’s grief. And all that, now all the stuff we know about grief, would be fine and good if she got the help and was able to step aside and go do that but I think the very nature of touring the country and talking about how Jesus heals us, and that whole platform of being able to say he’s the answer for everything, and then kind of watch her come home and lock herself away and mistreat people, was something I noticed then and was very hard for me at the time. All that to say, it does break my heart that you, as still pretty much a child, had to go through a devastating loss in the midst of a lot of confusion and just the spiritual doom and gloom that you talk about – you are a testament that you were able to keep your head above water and eventually get out. It’s just amazing.

S: Yes, your resiliency, Dawn, is pretty astounding. So tell us more about how you began to get yourself unencumbered and extracted from the crazy.

D: So, I was selling – I think I made a bunch of cookies and sold cookies and different things at the ministry to save up money.

T: Oh my god, that’s so cute!

D: Yes – and I sold my camera to save up money to make my exodus. I found somebody who was in church in that area that I knew, she was having to be out of town a lot because of her aging parents, and she needed somebody to live in her home to take care of things in her home while she was gone. I decided I would rent a room from her, and then I found a job that was – I can’t remember who owned the property, but they had cabins and they had this soda shop and a place for seating and eating, and like a little hotel. It was these millionaires and they were retired – back then millionaires had a lot of money; now it’s billionaires – but they were retired, they bought the property because they wanted to have some kind of summer camp. So I got hired on there. Backing up a little bit, I did talk to Melody about it because I wanted to leave and I wanted to leave with her blessing.

S: This was straight out of ICT school, or was it after integrating back into the ministry?

D: I was in the ministry for several years, so I was 21 when I went to Melody and said I want to move out. I really felt like I needed her permission because that’s how I’d been programmed.

S: Mmhmm.

D: You know, you don’t do anything – especially as a kid, as a child – you don’t do anything without permission. So I really wanted her blessing and permission to leave, and she said she’d pray about it. After a week or two she came back and said that sounds like an okay thing to do. So I left, I moved into this lady’s house, she had an extra room. I had a bicycle and I was riding this bike to the camp and helping them build the ropes course. Kids would come in, somebody would rent out the place and all these kids would come in and we’d watch them to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves, and we’d go in and clean up the cabins afterwards. So that was summer, and I was saving up money to go to school.

S: During that time, did anybody from Last Days or did Melody – did anybody stay in touch with you and say hey how you doing, or let’s just socially stay connected?

D: Well, I do remember my birthday, a bunch of people from LDM came and “kidnapped” me and took me out. We had fun, and then later on I started dating the maintenance guy, and when I announced my engagement, Melody came over…

S: Wait, wait. You got engaged. Was that because you wanted to have sex? Was Keith right after all?

[laughter]

D: Absolutely not. I was looking for security. I was not in love with this man; I wanted to be safe. I still did not know how to be a human being in the world outside of the ministry. I could be a missionary, I could do that, but I don’t know how to open a bank account and stuff like that, so it took me some time to learn that. I was scared out of my mind because I was afraid if this summer camp doesn’t work out and I need to find another job, am I going to be able to find another job before I run out of money.

S: I interrupted you, I’m sorry. You started to say something about talking to Melody about it.

T: Before you go into that, just for our listeners – and you are in East Texas, the closest town is a good 40 minutes away, so it’s not easy to go pick up a job. You’re pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.

D: And I don’t have a car.

T: Yes.

D: I have a bicycle, so if this job doesn’t work out, what do I do then? I will tell you this, that Melody helped me buy a car.

S: Oh, that’s great.

D: Yeah. I wanted to go to school – and this was during the summer, I didn’t have a way to get to school, so she did help me buy a car. I had to fill it up with gas every day. This was not a good car.

T: Is this because you drove so far around East Texas, or is it because there was something wrong with the car?

D: No, there was something wrong with the car. It was only a 20-minute drive, I think, if I remember right; 20-30 minutes to school in Tyler. So I thought it was weird I had to fill it up every day, but it was all I got. So when I announced the engagement she came over and picked me up and drove me around for, I don’t know, an hour or so, just talking to me about getting married and stuff like that. See, you guys were like, match made. Keith did that with you guys…

S: Well, with me he did.

D: There was none of that with me. There was you’re not dating until you’re 16, and then he changed it to 18. He didn’t have anything like that for me, which I thought was kind of – okay; you know, he’s being very protective.

…

S: I was going to say stop the presses, but that would just demonstrate how old we are, so maybe I can call this breaking news – what do you think Tracey?

T: I think breaking news probably will resonate more with our listeners.

S: Yep. A few days ago, after we had recorded this conversation with Dawn, I heard from one of the brothers (as we used to call them) – a young man back in those early times at Last Days in Texas. He shared with me that Keith had had a talk with him, very late one night, trying to set him up in a match between him and Dawn.

T: Wh-what?

S: I know, right? I know. And then as I looked at the calendar and thought about the timing of all of this, our best calculations is that would put Dawn at barely 16 years old. And this young man was probably close to 20. So she’s clearly a minor, and he wisely steers away, WAY clear of that suggestion from Keith.

T: That’s so crazy.

S: I know, I know, but this is also really interesting, because now I’m thinking back in what she just said in the interview, where you just heard it, where we paused folks, in light of what she’s saying about how at first Keith told her she could “date at age 16” and then he pushed it back to age 18, maybe because the match he was hoping would work wasn’t going to work out and he needed more time?

T: And of course, who was she going to date? Who was she going to be allowed to date? Almost certainly it would have had to have been someone in the ministry. Ohhhh. So anyone still holding onto that illusion that all of Keith’s matchmaking was just cute and fun and harmless, just let that sink in.

S: Yep. Let that sink in. Okay. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

…

D: But I don’t know if anybody knows this, but he was talking to somebody, setting up an arranged marriage – like they do in the old days – an arranged marriage with Josiah. He was going to have Josiah marry this other – I can’t remember who it was – but this person’s daughter. I thought that was very weird. Why would you do that?

S: Wow.

D: Yeah, so he was working with this person, setting it up – when they get a certain age, we’re going to have them get married. Weird.

T: Very weird, but also biblical.

S: True that.

D: So yes, she kind of lectured me for about an hour and I didn’t say anything. I’m not going back to the ministry, and it was either chance it, maybe I’ll make it, or get married and be sure better sure I’d make it, or go back to LDM, and there’s no effing way I’m going back. I’m out now. I want to stay out. It was like I’d been freed from prison.

S: You don’t want to go back to Egypt! No going back!

D: You can keep your leeks. I don’t want that anymore.

[laughter]

S: Oh my gosh.

T: So I can imagine the fear of a lot of things, but just even marriage – I know for a lot of us, especially not dating and a lot of the teaching we received – were you terrified of being married, too?

D: Yes. It was weird. It was very weird, but again I wanted to be safe. So anyway, the marriage lasted about six years, but I had that teaching that you cannot get divorced once you’re married. That’s it. You cannot leave that person, so I had to deal with that.

S: Were you and he both Christians still?

D: I was. He had a Christian background but he wasn’t into being a Christian, not like somebody at the ministry would be. He was also a racist, and it was you do women’s work and I’ll do men’s work and okay – he would not help around the house which – you know, that was okay. I’ll do it.

S: Well you’re already used to being a house slave, right?

D: Right. But then he tried to get me to cook on the grill and I’m like, no, no, that’s men’s work.

[laughter]

D: You gotta do that.

S: Was this all in East Texas still?

D: We were in East Texas for, I want to say a year, maybe? Not long, and then we moved to Jackson Mississippi.

S: Was his family there or something?

D: No, the millionaires he worked for; their son had a manufacturing plant down there, and his son – I think he committed suicide. Anyway, he died, I’m not sure of the details, but he died and they sent us there to clean up the building so that they could sell it.

T: Oh my god, Dawn.

D: Yeah. But we were there for a year. I was about 26 years old when I was in a vehicle, in a truck, he was driving. I was looking out the window just kind of talking to myself, thinking about things. I was thinking about Christianity and the whole going to hell stuff, and why would a loving God send anybody to hell. I just didn’t understand it. it was not clicking in my head as being good, as being right. So I decided, you know what? I have to let this go. I have to let Christianity go. It was after that that I said okay, now what.

S: So that was like, you were just pondering it, and there was this moment in time when you just said, nope.

D: Yes, that’s correct. It came – I just have to let this go. I can’t follow a God who’s going to send people to hell that he loves. It just doesn’t make any sense.

S: It doesn’t.

T: I just want to punctuate that, that people spend years pouring over theologies and reading and doing all kinds of things to come to that conclusion, and you’re in a truck and you’re thinking, and you’re like – okay, I’m out.

[laughter]

D: Yep.

S: Oh my god, I wish it had been that easy for me. You’re my hero now Dawn.

D: Well, yeah. It was a big change. So I decided I need to do something. I can’t just be in limbo. I found a metaphysical store and bought some books on Native American spirituality and witchcraft, and I was enthralled. I loved it. I felt like I was coming home. It made so much more sense to me than Christianity and I started changing. I started becoming a separate person, my identity separating from all of the Christian stuff that I’d been taught, and even being married – separating myself from that. Who am I? Who am I as a human being? Where do I fit in? What do I need to be doing here? These books were all talking about nature, being a part of nature instead of being separate from nature. One of the things that really hit home for me was we use religion to get back to God, because we find ourselves separate from God. The problem is we’ve never been separated from God. We’ve always been one with God. We separate ourselves from God thinking oh I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m filled with pride and sin and all of this stuff, so there’s no way God can accept me, I’m separate from God, but you have never separated from God. It’s not possible.

S: That is so well said Dawn. I just want to say that those voices, those lies of you are not worthy, you are not good enough, there’s something defective in you, there’s something wrong and lacking – that is the voice of so much of religion, and so much of men seeking to exert power over others.

D: Mmhmm. Yeah. I heard somebody say that a cult plus time equals religion.

S: Damn, that’s good.

T: Wow.

D: I’m telling you, if you look at the history of different religions that when they started, were beautiful, were effective and loving and compassionate, and then something went sideways – somebody got in there with their ego, their power-hungry attitude and control freaks and stuff. I think a lot of these religions when they started out – I mean, when Jesus started out he was just telling people how they can free themselves from the law, you know the law of the Torah and the Old Testament, and they can be free. That they can do anything he did. Wait, what?

S: Right.

D: Wait a minute. And if you look into the Qigong masters, oh my god. These people are powerful, but you don’t hear about them because they’re not parading themselves all over the place, because part of it is keeping your ego in check. That is a big part of it, that is very powerful, so they don’t parade themselves around – look how powerful I am. So one of the things that I really found powerful with witchcraft – now of course, witchcraft brings up a lot of things in people’s minds, but Christianity…

S: Yeah, anybody out there who’s Christian is like – oh my god; their hair is standing on edge right now. Holy shit. What are we about to hear?

D: Christianity has t5wisted a lot of what witchcraft is about in an effort to make people afraid of it so they stay in the church, or they come to the church. It’s a way of getting people away from your competition and come to you, instead of your competition.

S: I’d love to hear from you Dawn, like a summary. If you were to summarize what you believe and the principles or the things that guide you in your belief and in your practice of your life, how would you describe that?

D: Basically, I am god. You are god. We are all god. And nature is our place to experience. There is no judgement. It’s do your best, listen to your inner voice, and follow nature. What I mean by that is actually tune into nature and feel it. be a part of it. I think we have separated ourselves so much – that’s why we can build these big plants that pollute; that’s why people can cut corners and allow their trains to start derailing and spill all kinds of chemicals; that’s why we put chemicals in our food that is not good for people, because we’re separate from nature. If you’re one with nature, you’re not going to do that stuff. Profit is not going to be more important than protecting the environment. So it’s more about understanding who I am and being intuitive, and really tuning into my intuition to guide me, and that there are spirit beings that I can trust and I know I can trust, because of how they feel. I can communicate with them and get information from them, and this sounds really woo-woo and out there, but it’s something I’ve experienced many, many times.

S: I’m totally tracking with you Dawn; I think what’s different – I don’t have all the answers now. There was that time in my dedicated Christianity when I thought I had all the answers, and I don’t have all the answers. I have uncertainty and questions, and I have found a sense of peace with that, that is beyond any peace I ever had when I was so certain, but the thing that has remained is a sense of connection with some transcendent wisdom. I don’t know exactly how to describe it or define it, or to say is that the thread of the universe within me, within my soul; is it the connection to other beings and other parts of the universe, material, whether animate or inanimate? I don’t know. And I don’t know what the names are, and I think that is the challenge that those of us who are on a path where we desire continued enlightenment and self-awareness and personal growth. We have these experiences, and we may have different names for them. We may call them different things, but I think it is a very interesting phenomenon that resonates as being the same thing, no matter what you’re calling it.

D: I agree. Definitely.

T: I think one of the tragedies of the oppressive environment we were in is we were trained to quiet that intuition and that inner voice – the heart is deceitfully wicked, who can trust it. did it take you a long time to free yourself enough to start returning to that inner wisdom?

D: I think because of my mom taking me to the Ashrams and having that learning about the ego, and about spirit and about god, and about those spiritual things at a very young age, I was able to quickly come back to that.

S: That makes sense.

D: I think it was much easier than most people, especially if somebody had a religious upbringing and then they went through LDM? I think it would be a lot harder for that person, but I think it was fairly easy once I picked up those books and I recognized it – this is where I need to be. So it’s led to a divorce. Things got really bad between my ex and myself because I was changing. I was changing radically, and I was changing fast. I got a job, I got a separate bank account, and I was looking at school again, because I wanted to go back to school. He did not like that and he was very upset. I was starting to meditate; I was spending time in meditation, which meant I took the extra room and closed the door, which totally freaked him out. He was threatening to take the door off the hinges so I couldn’t close it.

S: Wow.

T: Oh my gosh.

D: Yeah, he was getting abusive, and I needed to get out, so I did. By then I had figured out how to get a job, how to open a bank account, and take care of finances, and take care of myself. So I did it.

S: Good for you.

D: I’ve dated other guys that did not understand when I closed that door, and I was in there – they did not understand that. They were upset with that, and I realized if I’m with someone who doesn’t understand that, I’m not with the right person. Skip is totally okay with that. He does things on his own, meditates and things like that, and I do too. He’s perfectly alright with that.

S: And Skip is the man in your life now?

D: Yes, my soul mate.

S: Nice.

D: We get along very, very well. We’re two peas in a pod.

S: Good for you.

T: And how long have you been with Skip?

D: Oh my gosh, let’s see – since 2002? 2001?

T: Oh, a long time.

D: Yeah, we started dating in 2001, I moved out here to Iowa in 2002, and I moved in with him, I think 2006. We had a one year long-distance – I was in North Carolina, he was living in Iowa and after a year, I said you know what, I think this is going somewhere. Let’s see where it goes. What are we going to do next? So I decided to move here – his family is up here, but we didn’t move in together right away. He’s very independent, like I am, so he understands me.

S: It’s a good match.

D: Yes. Definitely.

S: Career-wise, tell me what you’re up to these days.

D: Okay, so I did graduate with associates degrees; one in Mechanical Engineering, and one in Industrial Engineering.

S: You’re a math girl then, aren’t you.

D: Mmm, trigonometry out the ears.

S: Alright!

[laughter]

D: So out of school I was working for a company that made implants, like knee replacements, pins and things to reconstruct somebody who had been in an accident. I was doing quality control there and I had sent my resume into a company called Bell & Howell. I had worked on their machines before, I had done maintenance on their machines, and I was trying to get into their engineering department in North Carolina. I was in Tennessee at the time. they got my resume; they flew me out there – they paid to fly me out there, and I was ecstatic. I was oh my god, this is amazing. I went around and interviewed with everybody and then about a week later I got a phone call saying they wanted to hire me.

S: That’s great.

D: They gave me money to move! This was my dream job, working with design engineers on developing a design and testing it, and feeding back to the engineers this is working, this is not working, maybe you should try this or what about this – that’s where I wanted to be.

S: That’s so cool!

T: You just hear this story and you think about the young girl who’s just getting on her bicycle to go work on kind of like a ranch, and you haven’t opened a bank account and you’ve never owned a car, and you don’t know how to live in your life, and you now graduate, you’re being flown into this amazing job, you have two degrees – I can’t be happier to hear you talking.

D: It’s awesome, yeah. So I live here in Iowa and I work for a company that is on contract to John Deere, the plant where they make these tractors. These are the largest tractors that they make, and they are ginormous. They’re over 13 feet tall.

S: Wow.

D: They’re huge, absolutely huge. I work with manufacturing engineers and helping them design and improve their workstations for the assemblers, and I love it. I think it’s great. I live out here on a little under three acres, lots of trees, there’s a river that they’ve dammed up so it’s a lake, they have a spillway where that water comes over the spillway, so this is paradise. This is heaven.

T: It’s amazing. So in that too, I just want to punctuate since Sharon and I also helped mail out the tracts Should A Christian Go to College,

S: Uggh.

T: and you just…

S: Wait. Let me apologize. Let me apologize. It’s really funny, I was talking with Betty Daffin (any LDMer will remember Betty), because after Martin and I were kicked out, we asked – or I demanded that that tract be taken out of print. Not because I thought it was full of awful, horrible, fucked up shit, but because I didn’t want my name associated with anything in LDM anymore. So I was scouring, trying to find a copy of that. Betty had one in her archives; she sent it to me. I got it a couple of weeks ago. I have not been able to push myself to read it, because I know that I am going to be so embarrassed and – oh, I can’t believe I did that. Anyway, so, to the whole world I apologize for that awfulness.

T: Yes. Which shows in the 40 years – however many years it’s been – you’re growing, you’re changing; Dawn’s growing, Dawn’s changing; I’m growing, we’re changing, and that’s why we’re having this time to tell this message. Because even when Keith would pull you aside and say hey, college is not for you, and we say F that.

[laughter]

T: We also have dreams and intellects, so just to hear your resilience, to be able to take that step and get out, and then even get out of a marriage, and we definitely understand the brainwashing we were all on. Each one of those steps that you took was such a risk, because you’re going against that teaching that’s held you. And now you’re a bad boss!

[laughter]

T:  A bad boss bitch.

S: No, no, I’m sure she’s not a bad boss. She’s a badass.

D: I’m a badass!

T: A badass boss, yeah.

S: So I was just thinking too, Tracey – it’s a small segment of the whole population, but those who were at Last Days, who knew Dawn, who cared about her and what happened to her, I am sure that they are really happy to hear that she has landed on her feet, doing so well, doing real life, finding joy. It just makes me smile, Dawn. I’m just so happy for you.

D: I think that it is very important to God that we enjoy life. Life is not supposed to be hard. We make it hard. Religion tells us it has to be hard, but it’s not supposed to be hard. I mean, look at the animals out in the field; we’ve got deer and squirrels and all that – they’re just doing their thing and having fun; they’re enjoying life, because they’re not making it hard for themselves. They don’t think I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not worthy. They don’t think those things. They’re just enjoying life.

T: So Dawn I have to ask; do you have a horse?

D: No, I do not have a horse. I have a cat.

S: Oh my god, Dawn, next time you want to get away come on down to Florida and visit me. I’ve got some horses, we can go riding together again.

D: Okay, that would be so cool.

T: I’d love to see pictures of that. I would love to watch you all ride; I’m not a good rider but I think that would be an awesome photoshoot for you guys to be riding horses.

S: The invite is open here for you Dawn, anytime. As we wrap this up Dawn, is there anything else you want to say about any and all of this?

D: There is one more thing that I want to say – I really pushed myself to get out and be functional, and I was able to do that, but I still had a lot of fear and a lot of worry, a lot of I’m not sure of myself and the I’m not good enough – stuff like that was still there. I learned social anxiety from Keith and Melody. I felt like I couldn’t trust people; like, maybe they were going to accuse me of something and then punish me, so I was scared of people. So I really pushed myself, and pushed myself and I finally got to a point where I’m functional. I can do it; I can ask somebody what time it is, and ask somebody for change, and not feel so overwhelmed with fear. I’m able to do that, but I still felt it. I got into life coaching. I hired somebody who teaches it; he brought me through his program and then he taught me how to help other people, and that blew my mind. It freed me from the subconscious programming that kept telling me I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough, and I have to be afraid of people, and I have to be powerless to be safe – that’s something I learned from Keith. I was not able to have any kind of power or any say over my life, and if I did, I would get punished.

S: Wait, you couldn’t have any say over your life because you would make bad decisions?

D: I’ll say this; Keith told me he did not want me – I was into acting and choir and stuff like that – he did not want me to get into the entertainment business because I would fall into sin. Not I might, but I would; he had no confidence. So no, there’s no going to college; there’s no leaving, no going out on your own because you won’t make it. That’s the attitude, so I had no – I didn’t believe enough in myself because he didn’t believe in me. So what am I going to do with that? I still had that belief, and I always had a bad attitude, because I wasn’t happy. So he called that a bad attitude. I didn’t get my allowance a lot of times because I didn’t have a happy attitude, and that taught me that money is power, and I have to be powerless to be safe. It ruined my ability to stand on my own two feet. I had to really push past that, but this life coach changed my life. The biggest thing I took away from that is nurturing my own emotional needs.

T: Oh, yes.

S: Yes!

D: When I learned that, it blew my mind, because now I realized I don’t need anybody to behave any way in order to make me happy. I need to make myself happy, and everyone can behave whatever way they feel comfortable and want to, and it’s not going to bother me because I’m nurturing myself. I don’t need anybody to make me happy. I’m making myself happy, so people won’t disappoint me, people won’t let me down, because I don’t need them to take that space in my life; I’m doing that for myself. With that, my self confidence went through the roof. Now I can get among people and I feel comfortable, I feel confident, and I feel really strong as far as who I am and where I am in the workplace. I can confront people; I can say hey, I’m not sure about this, I don’t feel good about it. Not be confrontation but you know what I mean – bring something to somebody and say hey, I don’t think this is right, about what we’re doing here. I can do that now. I don’t have to feel powerless. I don’t have to feel powerless; I can stand up, I can speak up and I’m not afraid.

S: Dawn, that’s just beautiful to hear of you being able to connect with your inner self; your inner beautiful self, and all the freedom and power that you deserve to walk in. that is really, really cool.

D: Yeah. Yeah it is. And I’m really glad we connected because you know Sharon, when we were in LDM, you seemed very serious and heavy. And now you’re light, and you’re laughing. I don’t remember you laughing very much back then.

S: Yeah, I don’t think I did. Unless I was out with the horses, in which case I was just in my own little private world, like in your private world with the horses, because that was a safe and fun place to be, and that didn’t involve other people. So, yeah.

T: And there wasn’t a lot to laugh about. I mean, we’re so sinful; and the world is going to hell, and it’s up to us to save the world – I mean, I have pages of my journal where I’m trying to have a sober spirit because that’s a mark of godliness when you have a sober spirit. So yeah, there wasn’t a lot of laughter going on. I am so glad to hear that you’ve found your voice.

D: I was going to say, it’s really good to hear from you guys that you’re in a good place now. It makes me happy.

T: Thanks everybody for joining us. This has been super inspiring for me. We are going to put some pictures up of Dawn and Sharon riding some horses. You can find those on our Instagram page.

S: Dawn, I just want to say again, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate hearing from you, and we’re going to have to stay in touch and not let it be another 30 years before we talk again, right?

D: Thanks you guys, I really appreciate doing this.

S: Thank you Dawn.

…

S: So Tracey, Tracey, Tracey. That was a lot to digest. We’ve actually had several weeks since we had our first call with Dawn, and I thought let’s talk a little bit about what this has brought up for both of us.

T: Well, you know the first thing – what is it about these high profile Christian leaders that have such abusive relationships with their household staff and nannies? I mean, it’s a typical thing that you see in all these big megachurch organizations when they fall. I happen to have firsthand knowledge that when Dawn wasn’t caring for the house and the children, there were other staff who were. We’re in contact with some of them; maybe we’ll be able to hear from one of them in another episode, if they’re willing to come in and share their story.

S: Yeah, you know, I’ll say something that I hadn’t planned to say but I’m going to say it anyway, is that my youngest sister actually came to the ministry and lived with Keith and Melody for almost a year, and she reported the same sense of being made responsible to watch the kids, way more than what seemed reasonable.

T: Yeah, and it’s a telltale sign in all of these other big ministries and big leaders, it’s something they all share in common. We were not alone.

S: It’s kind of like this servant mentality; master-servant – the elite should be served, or something like that. I don’t know. Something else that is funny to think of – not in a good way funny – one thing that I remember very clearly is after the birth of my first child, and that was there at Last Days in Texas in 1985, not very long at all after she was born, I felt this pressure to get back to work, into my duties with the ministry. I felt really conflicted; I felt awful, I felt guilty. The ministry had arranged for one of the sisters, or alternating ones, to come and do the babysitting so that I could work – and they were wonderful. I mean, some of these gals – to this day, I love them, they’re fantastic. But I really struggled, because I wanted to be the one with my baby, and this culture of providing servants for childcare – to me it just went too far. I mean, years later – life in the real world, with career and everything, we did hire help to come in the house and help us with the kids after school, or the times when my husband or I couldn’t be there, so I’m not judging that. I’m not saying hey that entire concept of childcare is bad. I’m not at all saying that. I’m just saying that it was really hard for me, then, and this whole work for Jesus with the talents you have and someone else, who maybe doesn’t have those talents you have; someone else will raise your kids. That was this institutionalized thinking at Last Days, and Keith and Melody were the initiators of that.

T: Yes, and people were assigned to those duties.

S: Whether they wanted it or not.  They had to have a servant’s heart.

T: Yes. Whether they wanted it or not. And I shared, I think on this interview – I was assigned to pick up Josiah and take him to school. It was coming into that household in the morning that I saw who was getting all the children ready. I am with you, that people can definitely have help, and if you have the resources to be able to do that, there’s nothing wrong, but I think what we’re talking about here is when it’s completely out of balance; people are assigned; they don’t have a choice; they’re not being paid; and then they’re made to basically feel that they’re the house servant, all for the name of Jesus. For the people who may come on our show and talk about their stories over there – they chose to go to Last Days Ministries for whatever reason that they chose to do that and make themselves a servant, but Dawn didn’t have those choices.

S: No, she did not.

T: She didn’t sign up to go to this ministry and work, and give her life to Jesus. She was adopted into this, and – ugh.

S: You know what; it’s like elitism and entitlement. That’s part of what drove those decisions. Another thing that really hit me hard – I was thinking about the psychological and emotional neglect that Dawn experienced. She did not have warm, loving foster parents to really support her and encourage her. Then, add to that this devastating event of the plane crash, where the only two people in Dawn’s life that she really had bonded with? That was Josiah and Bethany. And they are just taken and gone in an instant. So she’s further abandoned, and she’s left to cope with this, totally on her own.

T: Yes. I think as you said earlier, our intuitions and the things we were detecting were real. It was clear to us then, and even in hearing this now, that Melody was not in a healthy place after the plane crash, and I get it. it’s very understandable. She experienced a tremendous loss.

S: Of course! Of course. I mean, you and I Tracey – we’re mothers. The idea of losing children – I mean, I can’t even fathom it. I can’t fathom that pain.

T: But, she was standing on a national platform…

S: Global. Let’s call it a global platform; that’s what it was.

T: A global platform, proclaiming from city to city, the healing power of Jesus and how he can get you through everything, while she was walling herself off more and more and not living what she was proclaiming.

S: And actually neglecting and abandoning emotionally the daughter brought into her home to raise.

T: Yes, and she was the adult in the situation. She definitely had a deep network of friends; she had access to resources that Dawn just did not have. At all.

S: That’s right.

T: I get it, that you’re in deep grief, but you are able to tour, you’re able to get up on stage, and yet you didn’t seem able to find the resources to help Dawn through this.

S: Right.

T: This level of abandonment, honestly Sharon, is staggering to me.

S: It is. It is.

T: I feel like I just gotta come out and say it, because I know we’ve all been trying to cut slack and I’m the first one; I don’t want anyone to feel the depths of this pain, and I don’t want to pile onto that. But Melody wrote a book, and even years later she added some updates, and she never acknowledges any of this. To me that is straight up self-serving, and colossally self-absorbed.

S: Yeah. And you know, why? I’m having people say why do you have to bring this up? Why are you doing any of this? Keith is dead, the ministry’s over, Melody is in her older years – why? Well, for several reasons. This part has never been acknowledged, accounted for, it’s never been told, the public record is very skewed. On one hand it doesn’t really matter. Dawn, she has healed herself. She is doing well. And Tracey, you and I – we are doing great. But the fact is that there are a lot of people out there that suffered abuse; that suffered significant emotional and psychological damage. It’s so easy for those that want to continue to buoy up the Keith Green Last Days Ministries story to just try and poo pooh it and say oh well, that wasn’t my experience. It wasn’t that bad. But to me, this pulling back the curtain. This is what really happened. If you can see what really happened in this situation, then maybe you need to actually give some weight and thought to what other people are saying about the pain and wounds and the damage in their lives.

T: Oh, yes. Amen and amen. And these are the exact kind of red flags for all of us to take note of, when you’re joining any kind of ministry, or church, or organization – keep your eyes open. You and I both can look back, before we even talked to Dawn we had a lot of sense and feelings, we had intuition that things weren’t quite the way they were supposed to be, and we ignored those. We ignored those internal warnings.

S: Well, we were taught to. In fact, it was lauded, it was praised to put those things aside because you’re not going to question God’s anointed, and we were given all kids of scriptures to keep us doubting ourselves, and just looking to and submitting to leadership.

T: And that same belief system is still at play now, because people want to still stay quiet about the spiritual abuse. The power structure of high control groups ensures that that’s part of the conditioning. I just want to emphasize that this is still part of the teaching and conditioning that continues today through Youth With A Mission, and we hear it – why do you have to say these things; why do you have to call them out – and this is why we have to call things out.

S: We do. And, in future episodes, we will delve deeper into the underbelly of Youth With A Mission, because we’ll need to. Alright guys, you know the drill. If you like us, rate us, comment, follow our show Feet of Clay Confessions of the Cult Sisters.

T: And if you want to see some images and stay up with the latest updates on what’s happening with us, click into Instagram, Feet of Clay.Cult Sisters.