'CULT' RIPS FAMILY APART

Fraser Coast Chronicle - Australia
July 4, 2008

By Jessica Grewal
Haunted by the memory of the day her grandchildren shunned her, a Hervey Bay woman has made a plea to the elders at the Brisbane Christian Fellowship to allow her to see her great-grandchildren before she dies.
The woman, whose name has been withheld, attended the Maryborough Christian Fellowship, a sub-church of the Brisbane Christian Fellowship, for many years with her husband before being shunned.
She insists she never speaks so publicly about private issues but feels she "is getting on in years" and can't understand why her grandchildren, who attend the Brisbane Christian Fellowship, won't let her see her three great-grandchildren.
"I wanted them to know that they have a great-grandma who loves them dearly before I die," she said.
The woman's problems with the Brisbane Christian Fellowship started seven years ago when her daughter was ex-communicated from the church to which she refers as a "cult" for refusing to cut contact with her shunned daughter, the woman's grand-daughter.
When the woman's daughter left the church, her husband and two other children stayed behind.
"I have a grand-daughter and a grandson in the Brisbane Christian Fellowship," the woman said.
"They rang me separately, word perfect, obviously under instruction, to tell me they can never have contact with me again."
Apart from the situation with her daughter, the woman believes part of the reason she was shunned was because she and her husband left the MCF when they moved to Hervey Bay to retire.
The woman's grand-daughter has since had three children but refuses to let her contact them.
"I rang (my grand-daughter) to find out if and when I could see them only to be told by her husband that I have not got any great-grandchildren," she said.
The woman says that on Mother's Day 2006 she went to her grand-daughter's house and asked to see her great-grandchildren but was told the only way they could unite was "through submission to the headship".
"There is so much talk these days about broken families," she told the Chronicle.
"I never thought my much loved, respected and cherished family would be on the list.
"Is it fair that my three great-grandchildren are innocently growing up, never to know of my desperate love for them?"
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http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3777564