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Escaping a fundamentalist church: one woman’s story

It takes an incredible amount of strength to run away from a religious group that has cut your connection to the outside world.  Lauren Zumpe was a teenager when she found that strength.

Lauren has shared what it was like to leave the Geelong Revival Centre (GRC) after years of being cut off from the outside world.

Teenagers who grew up in the GRC lived a sheltered life under the strict watch of senior members.

You can hear about the fundamentalist church and Lauren’s story in the new LiSTNR podcast, Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder.

When Lauren told her parents she didn’t want to go to church anymore, Pastor Noel Hollins, former leader of the GRC, visited her family home.

“I said, there is nothing in there that you can read, and you can preach to me that’s going to change my mind. I said, this is a decision I have made, and I’m sticking with it.” 

“He looked at me and said, ‘well, you can’t live here. You know that, right?’  I was speechless in that moment.”

Lauren said Hollins told her, “You don’t get to have the best of both worlds. You can’t live in sin and expect your family to have you living here while they’re pure.”

“I looked at my dad, and I said, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’, but he said he agreed. And I looked at my mum, and she was crying, and she had her head hung in shame. And that’s the only emotion I can name it. It was shame in that moment.” 

Lauren’s parents told her she could take whatever fit in a small backpack; her Dad dropped her off at a friend’s house and left.

Lauren is now in her early 20s, living in Brisbane with three kids. She says adjusting to the outside world has been a learning curve.

“I was never taught about safe sex, and I was certainly not taught about contraception. My grandparents, who aren’t involved in the cult, had to teach me at 19 about contraception and safe sex and condoms.”  

“I was terrified to have a son. I remember I cried when I found out I was having a boy. I cried because I don’t know the male anatomy because I was never allowed to learn it.”   

The interviews in this series were recorded during Pastor Noel Hollins’ leadership of the Geelong Revival Centre. During production, Pastor Hollins died. The experiences and allegations raised do not relate to the current leadership of the GRC.