 My name is Christina Gatewood and I'm originally from Kansas and been in the Pennsylvania area for 16 years now. My family is a little bit discombobulated. At the age two and a half my parents got a divorce. My father actually got custody of us, which was very rare back then for a man to get custody of two small children. But since my mother had an affair and did not own a house and she was working at the time but she didn't have the house. So for the first five six years of my life it was kind of just messed up. Like my father worked really hard being a single dad and trying to be a mother and a father to both my brother and I. He did his best and then at the age of six he actually got remarried to his third wife. I thought this is gonna be a wonderful thing but actually she was physically and mentally abusive to my brother and I. She was not the ideal picture perfect mother figure that I thought we were going to be getting. We lived with her and she had three step children, well two step children and one real son with her previous husband and they were a little older and they we saw them occasionally during the summer. They stayed in Tennessee but we would go visit. But this one daughter, which was her stepdaughter, came to live with us and she actually had a child when I was 10 out of wedlock and she went into a depression and so I had to help raise him. I actually didn't hear about God and how that church bus came around to pick me up. This church bus came and would pick me up and take my brother and I to church. But it was a holy roller church and actually it was quite scary and intimidating for a little child like me because they would slay in the spirits and speak in tongues. To me no different from my mother who struggles with mental illness and so it was really hard to decipher what exactly was happening and I couldn't go home and talk to my family about this because well my dad didn't want to hear about it. We both continued going until I was 10 and then my nephew came and I had to stay home and take care of him. But it was at the age of five when they gave a sermon about heaven and hell in a Sunday school class and I learned about heaven and they made heaven sound so beautiful and then they talked about hell and hell was pretty scary and then they looked at me and said well you're going to hell because you're not saved. And so it was bright then and there that I made a commitment with God and that was the seed that was planted for my conscience of right and wrong and it really helped carry me throughout the rest of my life. When I was 10 it was just my brother and I, my dad and his third wife and her stepdaughter and the son. I became his mama and helped raise him for the first two years of his life and then after that my dad was losing the house to foreclosure and so we were going to have to sell the house and I was going to start junior high and I decided since I was going to have to move that I wanted to move and live with my mother and my two families were extreme opposites like my father was poor, my mother was rich. Both my parents were depressed, my father lived very dirty, my mother had like a white glove, literally she'd take a white glove and check to see if we could clean, like keep the house clean. Two extremes and it was very very hard to live like that and my mother is deaf and she struggles with mental illness. My father had a very bad porn issue and he actually made porn videos, low grade porn videos and just totally opposite worlds like I didn't really want to be in either world like I would wake up crying at the one parents house when I realized I was at that parents house and then I'd be there and then want to be at the other house just because the mental and physical abuse at my dad's and the mental abuse I received with my mother with her mental illness it was just extremely hard. Yeah school is what saved me actually. My dad's I wasn't popular in elementary but then when I went to junior high I actually started making friends and I did every single sport possible just to get out of my house. I did know that I had teachers that I enjoyed like they became my security and I would often babysit for the teachers and I had a lot of special teachers that reached out and helped me. Otherwise I would have I was pretty suicidal towards my senior year when things were getting really really bad. At one point my mother's mental illness was so bad she tried to kill herself in front of me. I remember I had this I went to the kitchen and I took a butcher knife and I remember placing it on my wrist and I was about to like I kept going over I was trying to decide which way to use the knife so that I wouldn't be able to be stitched back up. So I was placing the knife over my wrist and I kept making it rudder and rudder and then all of a sudden someone was pounding at the door and it was a front door that we never used and someone just kept pounding and pounding and pounding and pounding and so I'm holding this knife contemplating and the pounding wouldn't stop so I put the knife down and I went to the door and no one was there and I truly feel like that was God. I see that throughout my life definitely I even when I was getting like abused and just everything I have seen God and one of my things is to try to play the good out of something negative like always trying to find the positive out of a negative no matter what. Even today so the woman who used to abuse me like hit me up upside the head or slapped me in the face or just whatever she may have done I purposely tried to go back home and see those people because Jesus loves them and I am called to love them no matter what and it actually helps but it's been a long journey actually to get there. After high school I actually it kind of got worse because I was getting kicked out of my house because my mother was getting married to her third husband at the time and told me I was in the way and so I needed to find a place to live and so that kind of made me a little bit depressed. I found a place to live my teachers once again came through and helped me find a place and helped me get a car and I in school I work like I was I had to work my senior year just to pay for things because my mother's mental illness those last four years of high school were really bad with her so I was working to provide for myself in school and after high school I got offered a job at a preschool that I was in teachers aid at so I worked there full-time and went to college actually community college full-time in the evenings and so that's what I did after high school for the first couple of years my friends my teacher friends always were trying to get me to go to church and I was like making excuses like so many excuses one of them was I didn't have a Bible cover I just never really wanted to be I wanted to go to church but I wanted to make sure I fully commit myself to church but I still struggled with right and wrong throughout school like that just and it seems like it got even stronger pretty much every time I wanted to do something like my friends would go out drinking and I'm just like well why can't I just be like them like one time I even tried I drank a whole bunch of alcohol and it was the first time and my friends were like is this the first time you ever drank and I was like yeah and they didn't believe me because I didn't get drunk but I believe that that was God's hand too because no matter what it just it didn't work for me I actually was the designated driver a lot for my friends so that's how I was able to still have friends even though I didn't see what they did it was after I got into a car wreck it was when I decided to get serious about life I realized that I am not in control of my own life I was going 55 and this other lady was going 55 and she ran this huge stop sign she was on her cell phone and she ran it and I like t-boned her and then we both went off to the side of the road her car went this way and here I was and I was with two other people and I only put my seatbelt on that night because I assumed they had their seatbelt on here they didn't even have theirs on but anyways the seat belt is what helped save me in this wreck I ended up being the worst one in my car wreck like I had severe head trauma and contusions and I was picking glass out of my head for over a year and suffered with migraines for a long time but that night it was amazing how my car just went perfectly over to the edge of the road one of my teacher friends actually happened to be going on that highway coming my direction and she pulled over and asked me if others are right and she ended up going to the hospital with me and staying the night at my house because it couldn't stay alone and my cousin was the ambulance driver like it was just amazing how God worked that night and I even like so we said a prayer that night in that car but that was the moment I decided that this is it I'm surrendering my all to God like I am not in control of my life it's very obvious and so that was my commitment that I was surrendering my all I went to a southern gospel concert and they did an altar call and that's when I committed my life to God and then not long after that so there was like two choices for me growing up as to what I wanted to do with my life I always wanted to get away from my situation my brother did it by going into the Navy and I I wanted to do something it was either be a nanny or I don't know I just couldn't really justify going off-tour that just never looked appealing to me I was at my dad's visiting over spring break so I was off from my job and I was online filling out nanny applications and there was this all these applications asked you have mental illness in your family do you have drug abuse do you have like anything negative I had to say yes to and I that's really was discouraging me and then I finally found an application through all American nannies that didn't ask me all those questions and I was like yes so I filled it out and sent it off and by the time I got back to my apartment I had a phone call like I was receiving phone calls from this agency of people who wanted to fly me out for interviews so I ended up saying yes to a place in Maryland there was a family that had a bedroom that was their closet in my bedroom was larger than my own bedroom so I was really excited about this and they had three boys which I kind of wanted girls but they had three boys and one special needs needs boy which is what I wanted like I love working with special needs I went there met them they took me out to an expensive dinner I was like I don't have this money and it was a really nice interview and everything and they wanted to hire me right then and there but since I was in college and I had a full-time job and I was living on my own I said well I have to go back and give the notice so they gave their say they said that they could only give me a three weeks notice but I was able to finish up my finals and tell my job and my landlord was extremely nice so I did that and I was gonna fly out but then right before it's gonna fly out like I packed up my apartment did everything finalized it all I get this phone call from the mother or no the father and he said well I'm sorry but I really want you but my wife really wants her mother so we're kind of fighting so we'll need to wait and take some time and I just did not get this good filling and okay so I called the agency and I was like what do you have on me for this job they're like we have you on as hired and flying out so then I was really really discouraged cuz they gave up everything and about that time I was going to church and I was looking forward to getting baptized at a Grace Assembly Church I enjoyed it I love the church and I was gonna get baptized but then anyway so this happened with the job and they weren't too impressed either with me just leaving so soon after I just became this Christian I waited a while and then I got a couple more phone calls and then I got this one for st. Thomas Pennsylvania I was like oh okay this woman has a seven-year-old son and she's about to have another baby which is gonna be a girl and I was like oh this sounds really really nice and they're like we'll just fly you out and then if you don't like it you can come back I was like this is even better my stuff's all packed why not so they flew me out and I just never left so I was living with them and about two weeks in she goes into early labor and has this baby early she comes out weighing five pounds and over the time she was in the hospital we actually hired cleaning girls and the cleaning girls that we hired happened to be Riverbrother and Girls like I said we live in anything about God it was pretty much zero besides my penicostal experience and let alone playing people I had no clue what the head covering was nothing these two Riverbrother and Girls we just hit it off I think a week the first week they worked there and then the next week they invited me to a sleepover I was like well this is really nice like I am I was so lonely because first off she went to the hospital so soon once I got here the mother did and then I was really wanting some good friends and so I went with them and I actually became really really good friends with them but they were the first plain people I ever met and then I don't know maybe about a month later I met a woman from St. Thomas and she was at the library and she commented on my children and I was like wait these aren't my children I'm not quite old enough to have children here she asked me where I was from and like I'm from Kansas but you know I'm really kind of homesick enough I don't find a good church I'm gonna go back home because church is pretty important and she's like oh I have a church for you I go you do and she's like yeah like well it has to be small because I don't want a big church like no it's really small and then I was at the St. Thomas library so our church is across the street from it and so she pointed out and she goes you're feel free to come on Sunday and whatever so I'm like okay sure I went home and I was telling the people as a nanny for and they weren't too impressed that I was gonna maybe go but they are like okay so I went to that church and when I pulled in the parking lot I'm just like everybody has something on their head I'm sitting there thinking my dress is not like their dress I'm like oh no Lord you're gonna have to help me like this is just so not me and anyone that knows me totally understands that that's not me that's not my personality to go so much strange and to do different things and so anyways I said that prayer and I went in and I just kept going I remember the youth girls approached me and I was like oh yeah nice to meet you but I'm still really shy and yeah it definitely took a while before I warmed up but I actually continued going I the family I was a nanny for was not impressed they were trying to they worried a lot about me because here I am this girl from Kansas out here all alone and they felt very very responsible yeah I started just going there and actually eventually I became good friends with the youth there I was really really happy that I met people like me for so long like when I was younger I didn't wear jewelry I was wearing dresses all the time which I pretty much did in Kansas occasionally I didn't but I knew that we're supposed to be set apart like I knew that when I was at Kansas and I I felt like just dressing modestly like I pretty much always dress modestly because of my past so like especially with my dad and his whole thing with porn like that's part of the reason why I didn't watch TV like you just I didn't want to be near that I always wanted to go towards the light I just always wanted better but living with the funks they didn't force me to put the cape dress on it didn't force me to cover my head they let me make that decision and I saw actually the beauty and modesty way before I saw the head covering like the head covering just totally set me apart is what I felt like so I was wearing a cape dress for about a year like it took me a long time to make my changes and I wanted to know why I was doing what I was doing what I would do to is bounce questions off my Mennonite friends and off my Grace assembly friends so when it came to the head covering I was like well you know muslims cover their heads the Jewish people cover theirs the nuns and I go even pinnacostals like the the very first church I went to they would wear a little lacy thing head covering and so my friend knew this and so I was talking to her I'm like well what do you think about the head covering and she said that well we should probably all have one on our head and I was like oh and when she said that it just made me think yeah I really should then I mean it's in the Bible clear as day in 1 Corinthians 11 but then after I put on the head covering it was yeah really hard for my family and their eyes my mother went off the deep end of being too like she you know struggled and then here I am I'm the religious one and they could see I took my time about it and yeah after 16 years I haven't lost it yet so it was a blessing and a huge relief to meet people my own age who I thought we have I mean we have a lot in common and so that's what really drew me at first to the Mennonite was just people that were good honestly trying to do what's right and so I started hanging out with them a lot and I actually had a really good strong group of friends who I could ask questions about they weren't scared to it to kind of talk about things with me and yeah and they would support it by the Bible and so my friends like were a huge straw for me after that nanny job I actually moved in with one of my friends and her family and I told myself it was only going to be for just a year because I was so used to being on my own and everything well that year turned out to be like way longer I think it might have been seven years and then from there I went to faith builders the guys mills area and stayed there for six years and then I came back here and it's 16 years now okay my dad was probably my biggest supporter and he actually passed away so he was my biggest supporter he always said he was happy as long as I was happy but he never like we never could talk spiritually my mother she was a hit or a miss it's sort of dependent on how she was doing mental wise in my church family in Kansas the great like the grace assembly church they were the ones that basically had the hardest time with me sent me letters and said I was joining a cult and I was under law and it was really hard I lost a lot of people actually and especially my own family like I still kept in contact with them but we weren't near as close like I mean we were never close close but it it does definitely took them about 15 to 16 years to see that I'm still the same person like over time it probably wasn't that long but it took a good 10 years for them to realize that I am still the same person I just look different so it was just kind of it was really hard in the beginning okay so when I went to the guys mills area I was a student I was a viasser for the first year and then two years I was a student and then after that I stayed in the area and taught school and hence why it was six years but during that time I was teaching school well when I was my last year as a student my father had lung cancer and he was struggling pretty bad he belt died several times and it was extremely hard to finish that last year but anyways he ended up dying not long after I was finished with faith builders that first year of teaching basically he died and then I started teaching school and then I lost like four other close family members so Vivian the family I live with her mother died they were just key people that you would talk to like on a daily basis and like I was always calling trying to get Vivian well I couldn't get her so Catherine would answer the phone and so Catherine and I would just spend an hour talking on the phone and I put also I helped care for her as she was getting older so Catherine was one of them and then it was my nephew who killed himself and then it was my father of lung cancer then it was Miss Day who it was my teacher like mother figure and she's the one that helped me with my apartment she's the one that helped me with my car and we'd continue talking throughout my life like I always stayed in contact with her and then it was my great grandma and then not long after that it was actually an uncle but I just mainly say the five main key figures all passed away within a year so it was extremely rough and I would literally go to school like drive myself to the school I taught at but on my way I'd be crying and then I'd compose myself teach school and then I'd cry all the way back home and I was alone like guys mills those winters get pretty rough you're just alone and so I had all this time alone and that's when I just really struggled like like I said like I wasn't sure exactly what is life about what I really want like do I want to continue this path or what is there if I don't continue this path and it was most definitely I want to do what's right I I love the idea of having hope and knowing that there's a purpose and there's something better than all this breaking the cycle which is extremely hard but I do believe that life is all about a choice we don't always choose the right choices and as you can tell when you choose the wrong choices then you're gonna struggle but as you continue to struggle and go to the right direction it's definitely and so it was a part of that time that I really like wrestled with life and was trying to decide what's really important about life what do I want from it what do I want to do and that's when I realized that church is my number one priority like serving God I want to be near a family I want to be sold out and so I was like so do I do it here I definitely I could but I wanted to come back to my area where I first started which was this area it was a lot harder to keep walls like when I first came I wouldn't let anyone touch me like I have this huge wall and bubble around me and my poor friends I'm not sure they knew exactly what to do with me because you know we're just more the type of people just might get someone a hug or whatever well that sure wasn't happening with me and yeah just learning to let go and break those walls definitely and it's definitely not all roses but it's anything is so much better than like you don't realize how much when you're in the victim mode that those people are actually controlling you for example of people I wouldn't let them touch me well that's all because I was abused but then just letting that go they're not hovering over me with those negative thoughts anymore like I don't have them anymore and that breaks control and you're able to break the cycle