well tonight we take you inside a secretive Korean church that has recruited new Australian members
in shopping centers and in university campuses for the first time former members of the Church
in Canberra describe being initiated into a group they say recruits women as spiritual
brides for its leader a man who's currently serving time for rape in South Korea the group
says they have nothing to hide and that it's just like any other religious group they say
their leader is not a messiah and at the church is not a cult but some allege that
once inside members are given a much different picture the feeds jolt hoser speaks to two young
Australian women about their experiences inside Providence working through all those painful
emotions yeah at times I felt suicidal at times I felt completely just like yeah road kill I
guess just you know run over used by someone else for their own purposes and I just cast
aside I guess I was hiding my involvement with the group from people because I was afraid of
their judgement because I knew what it would look like to people outside the group [Music]
it's important to realize what a modern-day cop looks like it looks like a dance event it looks
like a soccer match it looks like a classroom it looks like normal life but behind the scenes
it isn't but you don't see that behind the scenes until it's too late much later if
you look at all their events and all their propaganda and material through the lens of
a serial rapist it all makes sense I didn't think I was joining anything they said that
they were doing a Christian art show and so they email me some pictures and it looked wonderful
looked awesome so I said I'd meet up with them and chat with them about maybe participating
I just got such a good feeling for her she seemed so friendly and they're really nice and I didn't
think anything bad could really happen from it one of the girls suggested that maybe I could do Bible
studies with them and I remember her saying that it didn't necessarily have to be really religious
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the other first one we're seeing is a sacrifice like my mother yeah it's truly because of
something of sacrifice that we can rise to levels that we could never have even imagined the main
beliefs of the group basically that Joan is the new Messiah and that from the new testament the
level of history's being raised to something that they called the complete testament they said that
we're in the position of brides towards God and we're also in the position of brides towards junga
leader because he represents God it was difficult to think of him as a messiah especially seeing
as he's just so far removed from my life he's on another continent he's like this 65 year old man
you're doing it I took it on the leader was first introduced to me right at the end of my
first year of Bible studies at them I'd never seen him in person so I didn't have anything
in my own experience to go by to reassure me that he was a trustworthy person I was just
completely believing what other people had told me they told us that he was in prison because
he was being persecuted and falsely accused so some of the things that were given to me
in the group included this double photo frame so there's Jesus and then there's the leader of the
group John and we prayed to images like this the next item is a necklace that all the evergreens
were given so the people who were supposed to dedicate their lives to John only and not get
married and that was me we were explained that there three pearls and just the way that they're
placed is meant to signify a vagina so why do you think that because Jang is woman obsessed and
his sex-obsessed yeah and I guess he just he wanted his women to be wearing symbolism that
fit him we were encouraged to write letters to the leader I would often write to him about how
difficult things were for me at home or the tension and conflict that was happening in my
family he might not have even ever seen one of my letters Sarah Australia nice to meet you I
know that it's hard but go to church don't let your parents know about it though to Sarah I
read your letter and saw the photo of the beach it made me feel warm treat the Lord like he is next
to you Sarah are you well the holy son has given the gospel to Australia and he has preached the
gospel through me in this room I feel like I'm in your warm bosom and your embrace of love my
head leader was telling you to write to him like he was my husband or like he was my lover and he
would write back in the same way he asked me to send a photo of myself you know to him and we're
in coach to being a bikini or you know a lot of makeup on really pretty some of the letters were
quite intimate so he'd say things like women are much more beautiful when they're naked and he said
my white skin arouses him he asked me to visit him in Korea so I visited him in prison there we
got a 15 minute visit with him he knew me by name from when I stepped in the room so he'd obviously
seen my photos and he said to me through letters that like he would sturckow photos on the wall of
his cell at the end he just blew kisses and left these girls are kind of primed to think they're
about to make the Messiah and this is the most wonderful opportunity and that he's innocent and
it's so unfair that he's in jail you know he was persecuted just like Jesus was so we have
this bizarre situation where a sewer rapist is brought young attractive women threw him in jail
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when I first heard about them in Australia I was you know it was quite a shock because I
encountered them on this mountain in the middle of South Korea it was just so far
removed from my experience growing up in Australia they seemed like galaxies apart
I think this picture is quite indicative of the cult in general lots of beautiful women in the
foreground it's a concert event very entertaining lots of fun for newcomers they see a picture of
Jesus and it feels like a safe Church I read a news report that said several years ago it
was estimated there about a hundred and forty thousand members in Korea but it is hard to get
a grip on numbers because it is a very secretive group sometimes we just teach Bible studies but
other times we do it in a more subtle way so we go out and find models and teach a modeling group
the leader wants to target young beautiful women because he wants to have as many beautiful women
believing that they're in love with him and believing that they give every part
of themselves to him I don't really know you know what he thinks will happen when he comes
out of prison but I know he'll have a very big following of beautiful women if I was here today
trying to recruit people I probably be looking for a tall girl most likely Caucasian so often
we were told not to recruit anybody with other ethnicities I might say something like oh you're
so tall have you been doing modeling before because you think you could be on the catwalk
I'd be honest but it was for a purpose it wasn't just a compliment for no reason so one time that
I was questioned about being a religious group I basically just had to fly that deny it because
I didn't know what to do if I'd admitted that I was I was at times encouraged to go out and
evangelize with other members of the group but I didn't really feel comfortable doing this and
going out and meeting people wasn't exactly conducive to sort of hiding that aspect of my
life away and keeping it to myself in the group I didn't have that much to do with Sara's mainly
because she wasn't living with us I only saw her occasionally and what I was allowed to say to her
was heavily monitored and I was instructed on specific things to say to her when we met
[Music] we were encouraged to you know have prayer times pray in tears have cold showers fast any
suffering to get closer to him was considered noble but I just pray that you'll be with me and
that you guide my spirit to meet the right people and find your brides in a cult the end justifies
the means we believe that everything we were doing was right we believe that we were trying to save
people's lives and people's spirits and some things that you're doing it justified because
it's God's will I did believe that I was doing the right thing when I was trying to evangelize girls
we do not choose to answer this question
we do not agree to comply with this fishing for information members fund their own travel denied
we're dealing with a group that is unethical that is saying that it's okay to lie to your
parents it is okay to lie to those outside the truth the truth because our truth is higher
I think the biggest misconception that people would have about corpses
of it just some crazy people that get into them it's incredibly confusing
when your family member becomes involved in one of these groups
I was a bit concerned because she was spending all more time with the group I was told that
Satan uses parents to get people out of the group so you know don't communicate with them as much as
you can help it there wasn't any option to leave because you know the way that you're brainwashed
to believe reality is is that you know everything will be horrific after you leave and not only will
you go to hell but you'll have a horrible life on earth I thought you know even though it's hard now
nothing can be compared to the agony of of leaving I just had no idea no way of knowing at all what
this group was going to do no way I initially receive emails from the parents of Elizabeth
that was about I guess two years ago now they're worried worried about her involvement and for me
that's I mean that's a scary situation because there's a lot at stake I just saw her becoming
more and more unwell in that second six months in the house I had had an eating disorder previously
and I recovered really well from that but when I joined the group and as I got more involved we
were all so stressed because there was just such an incredible amount of not just daily pressure
on us but it just the psychological pressure was intense we had to arrange for her to go to
hospital and that was a blessing in disguise when I came out of my time in hospital I was
kind of forced to stay with my mother for a couple of weeks and she managed to fly in an
exit counseling from the u.s. to come and speak to me and I know how I would be if I believed
something is truth and someone wants to come and tell me no you don't have truth at all it's a scam
you don't just go in and and start to tell them that my sister came into my room in the morning
while I was still in bed and told me that there were these people who are coming to talk to me
to give me some information about cult groups and it was just the last thing I wanted to hear ra's
met her first and talked about groups in general which has kind of a non-threatening way to bring
up the subject and luckily and just Sara's credit she sat there and took that in I couldn't really
deny the things that they were saying I couldn't really deny that there were bad things happening
in this group and it kind of got to a point where I realized and I still remember like hearing this
thought in my head is that I don't want to be in Providence anymore it was incredibly painful
to sort of realize that what I'd been sacrificing everything for for the past almost two years was a
lie the only way that I could describe it was rape even though it wasn't physical it was mental and
it was emotional and it was spiritual rape I felt violated there is a lot of recovering to do and
this is you know it can take months it can take years for some people who've been in a long time
I lost most of my friends I didn't have anything I wasn't in a degree I wasn't going anywhere and
I felt like I'd wasted so much time in a lie I've just had so much freedom since I left the group
I've just been so much happier and so much more relaxed being able to you know go see a movie
with friends being able to go out and have a drink and not have to make excuses about why
I can't has just been really amazing I really think about a lot of Therme members it's just
so sad that their lives are taken away from them not just what they're doing but just their free
will they all had individual hopes and dreams but they've had to forgive every single one of
them up just to participate in this this cult and this lie now the Fed contacted Providence
more than three weeks before airing this program numerous requests to interview a spokesperson in
Australia and South Korea were refused a full list of written responses to our questions from
Providence can be found on our website specific allegations put to the group were denied the
feed would like to thank Liz and Sarah for having the courage to share their stories
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