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One of the famous Old Testament stories of standing for principle in the face of opposition is that of Daniel and his three Hebrew companions in the land of Babylon. In spite of being separated from their parents and friends, these young men remained true to the teachings they had been given and refused to defile themselves by partaking of the wine and other rich foods offered them by the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar, preferring instead the simple grains, or pulse, they had been accustomed to eating in their native land. 

 

Many modern-day parallels exist in the experiences of the FLDS children taken into custody by the state of Texas. Just as we honor today the memory of earlier Biblical stalwarts, future generations will rehearse the faithfulness of these latter-day Israelites during their captivity.

 

In this article I have used the written accounts sent to me by mothers and children involved in the YFZ raid. I know that many additional stories remain to be told, particularly those of the young men. I look forward to receiving these also.

 

 After the mothers were separated from the children at the Pavilion, the older children took on the role of protectors and hugged and comforted the younger ones when they cried for their mothers. On the day that the children were separated from each other and spread throughout the state, the older children gathered the little ones together and surrounded them according to age with the oldest boys and girls locking arms around the perimeter. The group then sang two hymns: “We Ever Pray for Thee” and “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.” CPS workers had to physically pull the screaming children apart to load them onto the buses.

 

Throughout their experiences the children showed a fierce loyalty towards each other. One 16-year-old girl reported that when CPS was separating the siblings, she was not willing to part from her sisters. A worker told her, “You be obedient!” She replied, “I don’t have to in a circumstance like this.” The worker said, “Your parents would want you to be obedient.” She insisted, “My parents would want me to stay with my sisters.”

 

One of the fundamental teachings of the FLDS religion is that we receive our greatest pleasure in life not from selfish indulgence but from blessing others. Children are taught to view chores as privileges, not as drudgery. One of the Mental-Health workers who assisted the mothers and children shortly after the YFZ raid reported that the children “wanted to be busy and asked to rake, sweep, or wash windows.”

 

Ironically, following the teaching of staying busy and blessing others got some of the girls in trouble at the Presbyterian Home in Amarillo, where they would be placed on a time-out chair for 30 minutes for helping each other with their jobs. Girls would assist each other by vacuuming the hall or getting shoes for other girls so that they could go outside. The staff insisted that they were trying to teach the girls individualism. The girls replied, “We love to bless and serve. That’s part of our religion, and you can’t take that away from us.” They responded to their punishment by saying, “Thank you for the prayer time.” 

 

The FLDS teach their children to eat natural, unprocessed foods and to avoid sugar and white flour. One mother wrote as follows:

 

“The children asked the staff at the Methodist Children’s Home to please give them wheat-flour bread to eat. A few meals later, the children were told that the bread was made with wheat flour. My daughter suspected that it was half wheat half white because it was so much lighter than the bread we had at home. The children asked the staff to please not use sugar in the bread, but they continued using sugar and making toast with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top….The children were so hungry that they decided to eat just a little of it.”

 

Having been taught that their bodies are sacred and are not to be exposed to the gaze of others, the children resisted efforts to have them undress for medical examinations or to shower and bathe together. They enjoyed swimming and having water fights but insisted on engaging in these activities fully clothed.

 

One mother related her daughters’ responses to questioning and examination as follows:

 

 “My daughter, age 6, reported that when she was being interviewed, she was asked questions about what was under her dress, and she would answer them by saying, ‘It’s none of your business.’

 

“When her older sister, age 7, was being questioned, she would answer them by saying, ‘You don’t need to know.’ 

 

“Some of the children were taken in a van to see the doctor. When it was my older daughter’s turn to go back, the doctor said to her, ‘Okay, we need to look at you.’ She resisted, at which the doctor replied, ‘If I had my granddaughter here, she would let me do this.’ My daughter said, ‘Well, I’m not going to let you.’ She was asked if she would let them take her into the bathroom to look at her. She asked them what they were looking for, and they told her that they were looking for any skin diseases. She told them she already knew that she didn’t have any but that she would go into the bathroom herself and look, then come back and tell them. 

 

The FLDS teachings on modesty are reflected in dress and appearance. Several mothers and children documented attempts made by their caretakers to persuade or to coerce the children to abandon their religious teachings in this regard. One mother wrote as follows:

 

“One staff member asked them why they couldn’t pierce the children’s ears, and they said, ‘No, you cannot pierce our ears.’ She asked, ‘Why not, all it does is feel like this,’ and she pinched their hand. The children wouldn’t let them, so they just walked away.”

 

One of the FLDS girls at High Sky Children’s Ranch wrote this account:

 

“On one occasion, one of the girls’ sleeves was up a little bit, and one of the staff saw her underwear. The staff member went over and touched it and said, ‘Oh, do you guys wear that? I am sorry. That is why you are so hot. Why don’t you just take it off? We will get you some earrings and makeup,’ naming all this stuff they would get us so that we would just come out and be like the world. Our reply was ‘NO way, we will not do that. That is not right.’ They would tell us how ‘the world isn’t so bad. Maybe your Heavenly Father gave you this experience so you could see that we aren’t so bad.’ Our reply would be, ‘We will live as we are taught and you guys can live how you want. We don’t want to change your religion, and we do not want you to try and change ours.’ We knew they were trying to get us to come out and be like the world, but we could feel the contrast and knew what was right. We prayed Heavenly Father to help us stand firm to what we had been taught and through whatever test He would allow us to go through.”

 

A 15-year-old girl wrote of the efforts to change the dress of the younger children:

 

“At the San Antonio Children’s Center, they dressed the little children in shorts and short sleeves and immodest clothing that they were not used to. When my little brothers came home, they told Mother and me how they didn’t like to wear short sleeves but the people there said they had to.

 

“One day I was helping my 3-year-old brother put on a long-sleeved shirt. He had a great big smile and said, ‘Trish, those bad guys made me into a gentile, but now I just turned back into [myself].’ Even the smallest children love to live their religion, and they know what is right.”

 

A mother wrote the following anecdotes:

 

“My 7-year-old daughter reported to me that one of the staff members at the Methodist Children’s Home came up to the girls and said, ‘We’re bringing you some new dresses.’ The girls asked her what they looked like. She said, ‘They’re about down to here,’ pointing at her leg, ‘and they have lace on them.’ The girls asked if they had long sleeves, and the staff member said, ‘No, it’s summer time, and it is hard to find them like that.’ The girls then said, ‘We’re not going to wear them then.’

 

“A little while later, my daughter’s 6-year-old friend came up where the other girls were and showed them some clothes in her hand. She wanted to know what to do because she was told to put them on. One of the girls said, ‘Rip them up and put them in the trash can.’ So she walked over to the closet and threw them in, saying, ‘I will!’ The staff asked my daughter if the girls wanted to wear those clothes, and she said, ‘No. We don’t want to wear those clothes because they don’t have long sleeves.’ The staff members did not press them anymore but just told them that they could wear them if they wanted to. Needless to say, none of those clothes were ever worn.”

 

There was a definite effort made to remove religious teachings and music from the lives of the children, especially any pictures, books, or music pertaining to Warren Jeffs; however, many mothers and children reported that they even had the Book of Mormon taken from them. Part of the program seemed to be to distract the children with frivolous entertainment. One mother wrote:

 

“A 16-year-old girl who stayed at High Sky Girls’ Ranch reported that one of the staff members was trying to get the girls to watch some cartoons. The staff member said, ‘You girls will love these cartoons.’ One of the girls responded, ‘You know what our parents will think.’ The staff member said, speaking of the cartoons, ‘They’re not bad. They’re just funny, like you girls.’ The girls stood true and never watched any cartoons regardless of the persuasions of the staff members.”

 

The following incidents show the determination of even the young children to preserve religious study and prayer as a vital part of their lives:

 

“My 7-year-old daughter told me that when we first gave her a Book of Mormon at the Methodist Children’s Home in Waco, she wanted to read it at night before going to bed. She asked the staff if she could do so, but they said, ‘No, you can’t read it tonight. It is too late.’ She said, ‘My father and mother told me to read it each night.’ They said, ‘No. You can’t read it tonight. You can only read it tomorrow if you take it to the arts and crafts room.’ After a few minutes my daughter asked if she could use the bathroom, and a staff member said, ‘Only if you don’t take your Book of Mormon with you.’

 

“She finally went to bed without reading but did her reading in her bedroom first thing the next morning before it was time to go to the arts and crafts room. She read it first thing because they told her that if she took it with her to the arts and crafts room she could only read her book and not participate in the activities with the other children. She was determined to do what it took to get her reading in because she knew that was what her father and mother wanted her to do.

 

“For a short time the staff allowed the children to say a prayer on the food before eating it. The staff members would go out for two minutes to allow the children to say a blessing; then they would come back in. After a time they decided to take this privilege away from the children and insisted on saying the prayer themselves. My daughter asked them, ‘Can we say our own prayer?’ A staff member answered, ‘Well, there are 25 children in here and we can’t just go out and leave you alone.’

 

“The children would not let the staff hear their prayer, and the staff wouldn’t go out, so it ended up that a staff member would say the mealtime prayer. The girls reported that the prayer would be somewhat as follows, ‘Dear God, bless this food. Bless these children while they are here with us. Bless them to come back to their mothers. Amen.’ Some of the children, after the prayer, would ask the staff, ‘Well then, can you bring us back to our mothers?’ They would simply answer, ‘Only CPS can do that.’

 

“One 16-year-old girl reported that they tried to take Uncle Warren out of the children’s lives. They informed the girls at her shelter that they would have to remove anything that had to do with Warren Jeffs. She told them, ‘If you take Uncle Warren out of our lives, you will have to take us out too. His teachings are engraved into us, and we are for him.’ There were two attorneys present at the time, and they insisted that it was wrong to take a biological father out of a girl’s life, noting that there were daughters of Warren Jeffs there. The staff told the girls to at least not sing about him at their visits, but they did anyway and were never stopped.”

 

A young lady at High Sky Children’s Ranch wrote of the burning conviction that sustained these children through their trials:

 

“Many would ask us, ‘How do you know that your religion is true and that your Prophet is the Prophet?’ We would simply answer, ‘By the sweet feeling we feel when we think of him.’ It just reminded me of the training of our Prophet where he said that in the day of testing many would come and ask us, ‘How do you know that this work is true?’ or ‘How do you know that there is a God?’ We must have a testimony of who God is and who His servant on earth is, or even the very elect could be deceived. I know Heavenly Father can help us stand true to the end.”

 

At the time of the YFZ raid and shortly thereafter, state authorities as well as many members of the public held to the mistaken notion that women and children were being “rescued” from a lifestyle that they did not want to be a part of. The courageous stand of the children in the face of almost continual pressure to compromise clearly shows the depth of their conversion. They have earned a cherished place in the hearts of the faithful for generations to come.