I watched this the other night. It's powerful. When you want to know what trauma looks like, watch it. There are interviews with people who escaped, had relatives and friends die there and what was going on in other branches of the People's Temple. The lingering heartache did not fade with the years.
Escape from a madman
"It was a slave camp run by a madman," and escape from Jim Jones' Peoples Temple cult compound in Guyana meant hiking 30 miles through the jungle. Leslie Wilson was one of the lucky handful who did escape 30 years ago. More than 900 others didn't. full story
Jones stockpiled cyanide
Escape from Jonestown, 9 p.m., Thursday
My name is Nikki, and I am approaching my 40th birthday next week.My last 30 birthdays have been sort of memorials. Not only because the tragedy took place the day before my 10th birthday, but also because I was born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana. I remember this so very vividly, in color like it was yesterday. I cannot, even now imagine what the survivors live with every day. I do pray that each passing day brings some measure of peace and comfort, and I hope that you guys have not given up on God. He was sadly misrepresented to you all, but he does exist as a caring loving, and invisible God. I pray that if you have not yet discovered this truth, that you soon will. I am glad that you are alive. I wish you peace, blessings and happiness. NikkiZam1@aol.com.
ReplyDeleteNikki, I am so sorry you have carried this within you, but grateful your faith has provided you with strength.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right on this man. Unfortunately there are too many "leaders" that never really knew the faith they claimed. We are all easily confused by them because we look to them for guidance. If we had invested the time on our own, opened the eyes of our own soul while reading the Bible, no one would ever have the ability to ever do this again.
People forget that the Bible is a love letter from God to us. They read Leviticus and what some other people wrote and believe that God has been condemning us, forgetting that God did not dictate the Bible word for word. These are the thoughts of humans and there are many examples of how they misinterpreted what God wanted of them and times when other people manipulated them.
I was the administrator of Christian Education for a church and there were a lot of times when the students were getting confused by what they were reading. I told them whenever they were, they needed to read what God said and read the 10 Commandments. The first part is about our relationship with God. This section is the first because it is the most important relationship we will ever have in our lives. The second part is about loving each other, how to treat other people because all of the "thou shall not" involves other people and our relationships with them.
When you read the Red letters of the New Testament, the words Christ spoke, you see the continuance of that letter. Christ told us how to treat others with love, compassion, mercy, a forgiving heart and with tolerance. Whatever else in the Bible that is confusing, we need to look at how it fits in with what we know God had to say. Most of the time, the laws of man do not fit in with the message from God. If we believe that God does in fact love us, then we know what people like Jim Jones have to say are false and have the strength inside of us to walk away from them. The followers of Jones were good people but they were taken away from the love of God by a man who wanted to act as if he was God. I believe there is a special place in hell for people like him and all the others who do not preach what God said.