Biography

Spiritual and related biography - Part 1.

• 1961. Birth. Northland, New Zealand. I was born into a farming family of Mum, Dad, and four other children - seven in total. I was the youngest by far. My next brother up was 7-and-a-half years old. It was fairly normal that families used to go to church every Sunday in the 1960s. My mother was the drive behind this. Apparently, my father had even taught Sunday School during the 1950s. I couldn't understand "the communion" - it seemed like everybody was pretending that the wine was blood and the bread was flesh - but I enjoyed the Sunday School lessons where we could colour pictures in and listen to our teacher telling us nice Bible stories. I liked the singing.
• Age 3. My mother cut a banana on the diagonal and showed me the cross of Jesus inside. I couldn't see "the cross" but I nodded "yes" anyway, to her pleasure. It just looked like a banana to me. It felt like my mother was trying to sell me this idea. I was confused why she felt compelled to tell me that bananas have the cross of Jesus inside. It was strange.
• Age 4. I had a memory of seeing a windmill. I asked my mother if we'd seen a windmill before, but she said "No". In my young mind I thought, "You might not have seen a windmill, but I have". In that moment, I knew something weird was going on. Why did I have memory of seeing a windmill (in detail), and yet my mother never had? 
• Age 4. My mother had a serious converstion with me one day about how I "was the child she had prayed for". She didn't explain to me at the time that she'd had lots of miscarriages before she finally carried me. She told me how happy she was that i'd come along and that I was a miracle baby. That felt very nice, and I felt wanted. Then my mother also explained how the child she had prayed for was going to save her marriage. That didn't feel so good somehow. Internally, I just shrugged my shoulders. "Meh..."  I felt no commitment to the task at hand. My violent father was much, much bigger than me.
• Age 6. At our school, we had a junior toilet block with small toilets, low basins and a mirror all along behind the basins where we (the little people) could see ourselves. One day, I used the toilet, came out, washed my hands and looked up into the mirror. "Something" in my eye caught my attention. Through a connection made between my physical eye and my internal "third eye", I recognised my Eternal Being sitting in behind my eyes, in that instant! I was really surprised to see her sitting there!  😯  In my mind, the thought flashed "Oh! There you are." I had just seen my Eternal Self. It was like a part of me always knew that this other part existed - and here "she" was, making "herself" known. I carried on washing the bubbles off my hands and I ran outside to play with my friends again. As an adult, I realised that what had happened to me in that few seconds is that very thing which yogis spend a whole lifetime seeking for. In that moment, I was awakened!
• Age 8.  I decided there was no God. My parents' marriage had split up. I had been unable to complete the apparent "condition" of being born. "God" didn't seem to be able to hold up his end of the bargain either. That sucked a bit. I took it with stoicism and cynicism. I don't think my mother realised how cynical her 8-year-old child already was. There were no fairy-tale endings for me. We had to go and live with my Mum's mum. It was nice. It was clean and quiet and safe. My mother spent a long time in bed. I wasn't allowed to go into her bedroom, not for many months. She was recovering from a brutal marriage and a full 1960s hysterectomy. Many raw bright pink scars had been gashed across my mother's stomach, put there by one particular known butcher at our provincial NZ hospital. She was a mess. My grandmother became my mother. I went to Sunday School for a few months on the days my mother was well enough, and then I refused. My grandparents didn't go to church. The "shine" had gone off the whole "God" idea. By age 8, I was an atheist.
• Age 9. My mother told me stories about how she died on the opeating table when she had her operations. She told me about being down a big black pit, and then a golden hand reached down and pulled her out of the pit. My mother believed it was Jesus. I felt happy for her. I could see the light in her eyes as she was telling me these stories. That was good. It gave her something to live for and have hope in. She needed it.
• Age 11. My mother and I moved out of my grandmother's house in the small rural town I had so happily lived in for three years. The last few months had been unhappy for my mother, as the man next door had been pressuring her for sex. It was the last thing she wanted or needed. She decided to pull the plug on small town life, and we went to live with my elder sister and her navy husband in Devonport, Auckland. My elder sister (aged 21) had a fascination with the strange noises in the two bedroomed flat we all shared. A navy chaplain was brought in. I never saw him, but after that, my sister, brother-in-law and mother decided they wanted to talk to the dead. That's when the seances began.
• Age 12. In an attempt to get myself removed from that household, I told my eldest sister (aged 24) what was going on. She was horrified. She tried to make it possible for me to come and live with her, but her attempts were thwarted. I remained a part of my second sister's household and the seances continued... It only got worse. Now that I was a year older, "they" (my so-called family) forced me to become a part of their circle as well. Scary shit happened. These "familiar spirits" kept entering the bodies of my family members and spoke through them in different sounding voices with different accents (eg: Scottish). The family member would be in a trance state when these spirits entered. The family member couldn't remember anything that had happened while they were in a trance. They had given over their body completely. I felt it was really dangerous. They (the spirits) were giving us really bad advice, and they got us to do some really stupid things... Such as evacutate the house in the middle of the night because there was a tsunami supposedly coming. We drove for hours, stood outside freezing in the cold Autumn air looking up at the constellations for signs, booked in at a hotel, was told to move on from there (by the spirits) and drove again until the dawn... and then we found a motel to stay at.  Hellish. There was allegedly a "spiritual war" happening and my family members needed to go into battle. They all went into the motel bedroom and shut the door. I wasn't allowed to go in there. They were in there for hours. I was put in charge of my 8-month-old baby nephew. I was alone. I was made to look after a baby, and I didn't know how to do that. I was terrified. It was late afternoon before we went home again. I was terrified. Constantly now... terrified. During that year is when I began to disassociate. Somebody at school had fortuitously started to call me "Pippi Longstocking" in the previous year, because I did look like Pippi Longstocking. It had caught on, all over the school (except in my class). Everywhere else at school, I was "Pip" or "Pippi". I was really grateful for that, because the following year, I couldn't be "Bronwyn" all the time. I didn't like what she was being forced to participate in. I didn't like the way she was being treated. It was too frightening to be "Bronwyn" - the little girl who had to sit and watch God-only-knows-what entities, talk through the mouths of her family members. At least I could escape "her" when I went to school. I was one of those children who "really liked school". There was a reason for that. All the rest of the time, I was just terrified.
• Age 12. Four house moves in quick succession that year. My sister had kicked my mother and myself out half way through the year. There were no anchors to cling to. I was harassed at my new schools, being the newbee. A final move. Waikato NZ. The girl next door used to go to youth group at the Baptist church. It sounded like fun. I needed some friends in this new town. I didn't like being around my mother (funny that). All trust was gone. I asked Mum if I could go to the youth group too. She felt suspicious because she didn't know what a "Baptist" church was all about. She considered them a "cult". Irony. Reluctantly, she said, "Yes". After that, I think I got rides to church on Sunday with an old lady the pastor arranged to pick me up. Mum kept going to her Anglican church most days. She was very poorly so used to go to her church to have communion.
• Age 12. One of the other children at the youth group told the pastor about the seances. I must have told someone. I was reluctant to talk to him about it... It felt like a betrayal of my mother's little secret. I knew she'd get into trouble if I told. He arranged an appointment to pop in and see my Mum on a day that I was at school.
• Age 12. It was after dinner at the end of a spring day, in around October (southern hemisphere). Lots of men started coming into our sparsely furnished house. We were very poor. I guess Mum must have told me they were coming over... I didn't expect so many. There were about eight of them  😓 The pastor was there too. He introduced them and said they were "deacons" of the Baptist church. They had all come to pray for us. They were big farming men (by and large). They filled up our little living room. I told Mum I had to go to the toilet, then I locked the door. Eventually, Mum came and knocked on the door. I still refused to come out. After a while, I thought i'd better be "good" and not create a stir, so I came out and went into the lounge. My mother came in behind me. I was smaller than her. She put her hands on both sides of my head, as if to direct me. She'd never done that before in my life. Both of her hands were as hot as fire. I screamed. Her hot hands terrified me. Suddenly all the big men were around me, speaking in tongues and casting the Devil out of me, many with their hands up in the air, and rebuking the devil. I think they probably expected a "bit more action". Nothing happened. I just stood there quiet while they continued. I really wanted to tell them I only screamed because my Mum's hands were burning my head. I had wanted her to let my head go. I never got the opportunity. I was never asked for my opinion, or what was happening for me. I guess the big farming men knew best. I think they prayed for my Mum too... My mother didn't scream. Apparently, she didn't have any demons. The big farmers left my house, smiling, congratulating each other and "The Lord" as they departed. I think the pastor visited my Mum again. Perhaps he eventually found the demons that danced at the back of her eyes... I don't know. Perhaps he just found the deep pain. Mum started going to the Baptist church with me. We both went together. Things got peaceful.
• Age 12. My maternal grandfather was dying. Mum wanted to spend the last couple of weeks with him up north. The pastor and his wife agreed to have me come and stay with them while she went away. One night after dinner, in the kitchen, the pastor said to me that he would like to marry me when I got older. I was shocked... horrified... especially since his wife was standing right next to him. He said it again, with a big grin on his face. I could only look back at him in shock. His wife said uncomfortably and with a giggle, "Stop it David..." She explained that he could marry me to my husband when I got older, since he was a minister. I inwardly sighed with relief, but still didn't much like the trick he'd played on me. I wasn't much for humour as a 12 year old. My brain wasn't wired for joy... only to be on guard.
• Age 13. I went up the front of the church one Sunday night service near the beginning of 1974, and gave my heart to the Lord.  A few weeks later, my mum did also.
• Age 14. I got full-immersion water baptised. That's what they do in a Baptist church... They open up the big pool in the front, and you got baptised in the warm water in front of everybody while they sang songs of worship. It was really neat, actually. It felt very special. I was very happy - probably radiant really. At last I had a nice family - other church members and other kids in the youth group. I was safe and they talked a lot about love. I really liked it... and I really enjoyed the singing. The lost, forgotten, terrified and neglected little lamb had found a home. I was going to be ok.

I'm adding this baptism here as it's very close to the experience I had as a young 14 year old girl in 1975 at the Baptist Church in Matamata, New Zealand. Many people reading this blog won't have been to a full-immersion baptisimal service... That's when you really get dunked under and you can leave everything from your "old life" behind. This is how our church baptised people as well... And believe me, I wanted to leave everything behind. This is a really great video... very moving.

Crystal's Baptism

Published on Nov 12, 2015

On November 8, 2015 Crystal M Villela made the decision to give her life to Christ and life according to his word and being Baptized by Minister Kevin A Canales in the one and only powerful name of Jesus Christ as declared in Acts 2:38.

Come back later for "Part 2".