"Name of Cult Group or Church: Fountain of Life International Church
Where: If multiple locations, just tell us about the location you're referring to. 1055 E Hearns St, Phoenix, AZ
Leader(s):xxxx xxxx
Please describe the cult activity: Are their specific complaints you'd like to tell us about? YES
My son is in this so called church. He is a group leader in the young men and women's group. I asked about this group and as he was explaining he was very arrogant, which he wasn't before this church, and he let me know in so many words that he exerts pressure on group members. I stopped him there and said, you are exerting pressure on people in a church group? He answered saying that, well he joined voluntarily. So we had a conversation about that. When I stop him about something I feel is not right, he changes the words he uses to something more accepting to someone; but the actions are still same. They keep him so busy with church business that between work and church, he is always tired. But he still protects the church. He was taught there to take some gray area in scripture and take one extreme view and act as if its fact. Also there, they have women pastors, which is not even close to being biblical. It is a pentecostal church, so you probably know about those. Its under the umbrella of the Assemblies of God churches. He is almost always with someone from that church and has continuous church functions and giving them 10%. There is much I can complain about this apostate church. They got him a new family, he calls this xxxx (who was in jail before) his spiritual father,(new father), the pastor got him a woman to be his wife, they have isolated him while making him reject me, his real father, and reject his friends, other family is not really in his life much, they don't know him like I do. I was the only one who went to his college graduation even. His behavior and personality has changed drastically, shockingly. He is constantly working for the church with not much time for his things he was doing before, his interests changed, he even told me to throw all his stuff away at home.(shocking). He is in a constant grind from work and church. xxxxx recruited him into it little by little. xxxx doesn't respond to logic or common sense, no analytical thinking. He was always so smart, xxxx made straight As all of his life.
Are you aware of any human rights violations, emotional/physical abuse, illegal activity?
Please be as detailed as you can.
Involvement with group: If yes, please explain.
1)
My son, xxxx II was in college in Western Washington University from 2012 to 2016. My son and I had the best father, son relationship ever and I trusted totally. There, he met who I now believe was a cult recruiter for this church. His name is xxxxx who is 12 years older than xxxx. He began to get xxxx interested in learning Bible scripture. Then xxxx began attending a church with him and was baptized. xxxxx, then moved to Phoenix as xxxx stayed 2 more years in Washington. They stayed in touch, but I didn't know that they would be on the phone sometimes for 5 hours, xxxx then girlfriend told me later. She also told me that xxxxx would call often when they were together; first to ask xxxx to do little things on computer or phone that he could have done himself. Then the things he called xxxx for began to be bigger and more time consuming things that, she said began to seriously interrupt their time together. xxxxx was continuously doing his recruiting on my son. After a year out of college, xxxx was planning to come home where I live in xxxx NV. We had made plans to do many things and I was excited that he was coming. Just before coming home, xxxx told me that he was considering going to Phoenix to live for a while, where he could record his music, as he was a song writer and performer, and xxxxx was going to be his manager and get him into a recording studio. Then he had a dream about him and me working in my garage on our project car, an old firebird. I thought, great. When xxxx told Freddy about the dream, xxxxx convinced xxxx that it meant that he was supposed to come to Phoenix to live. I wasn't happy about that, but xxxx was really serious about going there and to record his music. So he went there. xxxx signed a lease for a house there and xxxxx and his family moved in. xxxx babysits and picks up the kid from school sometimes and Freddy uses his car. xxxxx is just using my son and is controlling him. He came to see me often since, but in March, he came with a girl who he said he wanted to marry. I had only seen a picture of her a month earlier, but had not heard much about. He had a girlfriend in Washington, who he tried to keep a long distance relationship with, but that ended a few months after moving to Phoenix. She told me later that one of their problems was that she didn't understand xxxx relationship with xxxxx (he was older than xxxx and had a wife and three kids.) I felt the same way too. So soon after he broke up with the girl in Washington, he was introduced to this other girl by the Pastor and xxxx and she became co-group leaders together and even worked outside of church preparing lesson plans for the group. He brought this new girl to meet me. I was appalled by her behavior, not engaging in conversation with me or asking me anything. She had her hands all over xxxx, but he didn't to her. They seemed awkward together and at one point started to dance when some music played, but they looked completely stupid and they couldn't get together on the song to dance and they stopped trying. I didn't see them as a couple at all. She brought up disgusting things during dinner and she had a philosophy of not going to doctors or taking medicine; which to me is a cult thing. When xxxx and she were sitting on the couch here, she put her leg in between xxxx legs and just sat like that in front of me. I was shocked at that. We were shocked at that. I believe this means that there is something sexual going on, but he says there isn't. I had a lady friend with me who has known xxxx since he was 14, and she thought the same as me about them. They didn't even look right together. Later, on the phone xxxx and I had an argument about her and he said some mean things to me which shocked me, because we had never had argument before, xxxx respected me and loved me so much and always took up for me if anyone said anything negative. I met his other girlfriend and we got along very well. I think now that they came to offend and she is with him maybe just to watch him; because now I think he only is with people from church. So he is always being watched, and I really began to think , CULT!!! And I began to research cults etc. As the months pass there are still no music recording and every time I ask about it, xxxx says he is writing songs. I told him he should already have them on a CD; they could be saving souls. His music is all worship songs. He told me for the last few months now that the reason he hasn't recorded any songs yet is that , Jesus told the disciples to wait for the holy spirit before going out to preach the word. I keep telling him there is no connection to that and why he is not recording his songs. Now, all his decisions are based on a sign from God, a dream interpretation or confirmation in scripture. Its all too much. He came to visit in March and that's when I talked to him a lot and found that he is a completely different person. He doesn't care about seeing his friends here or his cousin. Doesn't care about anything at the house, like the project car, watching family videos that we always did. So many things were changed about him. Even some mannerisms and his eyes. At one point he did say that he would stay here and live. He called his boss and quit his job, called xxxxx and told him he wouldn't be back. I cried with happiness and he did too. Then he called xxxxx, the girlfriend, to break up with her. Then he was in the bedroom talking to her and he was crying. He couldn't be heard from the living room. I went in to see him; he was crying so hard and his hair all messed up and he waved me away and went into the bathroom and closed the door and kept talking for a while. He looked as if he was in some great torment. not just shedding a tear over breaking up with a girl he knew only a few months. He was with the other girl for over a year but he didn't cry when they broke up. This was like she had some kind of thing over him and was threatening him with it. I kept asking him why was he crying like that so hard. I even asked if she had something on him that she's controlling him with and threatening him with, but he said no. He said he cried just because they were breaking up and then he decided to go back and be with her. I was devastated. Later he said again that he would stay and then changed his mind again. He did that at least 3 maybe 4 times. At one point I took his phone and kept it for a couple of days and he was more dossal and he said he would stay again and asked for his phone back so I gave it to him then he changed his mind again. It became a something sick he was doing and I didn't understand it. I took his phone again but this time he jumped on me to get it back, I went to the ground and he wrestled it out of my hands and pulled it so hard that it injured my thumb and I had to have x rays and physical therapy. But he acted as if nothing happened. I'm sure this xxxx told him to do whatever he has to, to keep his phone so he or they or whoever could keep contact. Then I felt like I was afraid of my own son and I asked myself, what is he capable of doing to me if he would do this? He had never even been in a fight in his entire life, but now he is violent, arrogant , lying, deceiving, not showing a bit of caring or love for me. Its like he is incapable of compassion. His eyes were always big and wide open and now it seems like his eyes are half shut all the time. He was more Christian before he started learning scripture with xxxxx than he is now. Whatever he doing there, it has nothing to do with Christianity. Then he went back. I wish I knew of some group that could help me get him back and put him back the way he was. I know this will take time, but that's what I have. I'm not stopping to save my boy out of this evil that I feel he is in. He has since never asked me how I am or how my thumb is; this is strange, and once I said that to him, and he said, yes I have, I said it many times. No not even once since he went back. He is deeper in it not than ever and I don't know what to do anymore. He is always tired when I call or Skype with him.
2) How did you/they get involved? How were you/they directly recruited?
3) Are there other family members involved? Only me and my best friend.
4) Has their been a disconnection of relationship(s) with family, old friends? They are trying to break completely my relationship with my son, and he has really turned on me as if I am nothing. He often says to me when we talk that I cut him off and he can't talk to me; trying to find a reason to stop our conversation.
5) What are the circumstances currently? He wants to marry this xxxxx girl but he knows that I don't want him to. He told me that its up to me if I want to be a part of their lives. I can't stand her. He only wants xxxxx and his family and xxxxx in his life and I feel like I'm losing him. This church is International too and can send him anywhere; he has talked about starting a church.
Impact from group: Please describe how you believe to have been harmed and/or wronged by this group. Be as detailed as possible, and send any supporting evidence via the email below.
Is there anything else that we should know or you would like to tell us: Please tell us anything else you think we should know. I made a police report of the assault and battery that he committed against me (his father) to get his phone back. My glasses cut my head and broke, I had a carpet burn on one knee, and my thumb was injured, the ligaments were pulled and the joint was spranged. Then he acted as if nothing happened. Now there is a warrant on him. He works in a xxxx in Phoenix, assistant manager, and I'm sure he will get fired if and when they find out. I got a call from the city attorney's office telling me that the warrant is approved by the court and will send xxxx a notification in a couple of days; so I called him and told him that he has a warrant on him now and they will let him know. He didn't believe me. But he said, Whatever happens, it will work out, because I didn't do anything wrong. He didn't panic at all and he didn't even blink when I told him. I asked him if he already knew, because he didn't even react to it. I think he and xxxxx already talked about it. He even said that could get it expunged if he needed to. I didn't know that he knew what that was. I told him if he would quit his job before he gets fired, we can work all this out and it would be nothing to it and in the end and then you can go back to work and with no fired from your job on your record. He said he was not going to quit and he will deal with whatever happens and that God will resolve it all for him. I texted him once and told him I was going to make a complaint against him, and he responded by texting me that if I did, he would be my enemy. I texted that we will never be enemies and that I loved him so much. I said all I do is out of love for him, he knows that I'm so worried for him that I would do about anything to get him out of that church and away from xxxxx. He told me that he knows I'm worried for him but he says not to worry. After I told him that he has a warrant on him now on Skype, we both said I love you; and at bedtime that same evening he texted me, I love dad, goodnight. I texted back the same thing. Today we did not communicate. But its ok.He is has a lot to think about. I just don't know where all this is going or what will be the ending. HELP! I thank God I found your website.
If you have additional files, links, etc. that you'd like us to be aware of, please send them to the email address below."
The FACT Team
