Free Jesus Freaks by Don Lattin

did get paddled and it did hurt. But it was always fair. We knew we deserved it. He talked to us about it. But it was never anywhere but on the bottom. He didn’t whip us. He wasn’t beating us.He was a great father. My father is one of the best men I have ever met.” 11
    Karen enrolled at the University of Arizona after her family moved to Tucson, but she dropped out after a year to work as a legal secretary and help her struggling parents pay their bills. “Karen was their first child. She had always been good to them,” Rosemary recalled. “They loved her. They loved all of us, but she was the first. She had always been there for them. My younger sister and I were the goofballs. Karen wasn’t. She had always been the best of the three of us.”
    Karen agreed. “I was taught by my parents and church that it was displeasing to the Lord to smoke, drink, dance, wear make-up, jewelry or have short hair, attend movies or even watch TV . We didn’t have a TV until I was sixteen, and we listened to radio seldom,” she said. “To me, obeying my parents was obeying the Lord…unlike my sister, two years younger, who was very rebellious.” 12
    Karen was very idealistic and very religious. Rosemary remembers her walking back and forth under the trees in their large backyard every morning, reading her Bible. She took her Bible to her job at the law firm. This was the late sixties, a time when few young people did that kind of thing. “Karen had never held hands with a man until she met The Family,” Rosemary said. “She would maybe bring someone from the church and we’d sit and eat. She went out with other couples, but she hadn’t even held hands with a guy. She felt it was not the right thing to do.”
    According to Rosemary, Karen’s dream was to minister to all the teenagers she saw hanging out on the street in Tucson. She had gone from church to church to find someone willing to sponsor her in that ministry, but no one seemed interested. Then, one day in January 1969, she met the Teens for Christ at an evangelical convention in Phoenix. Two of Berg’s children, Faithy and Hosea, were singing at the assembly and telling local preachers how to reach counterculture converts. After the meeting, Karen ran into Faithy Berg in the ladies room.
    â€œHi,” Karen said. “I’m really interested, I really appreciated your talk!”
    â€œThanks,” Faithy replied. “”Where are you from?”
    â€œTucson.”
    â€œOh, we’re going to be in Tucson in a week, why don’t you come?” 13
    They talked for a few minutes. Faithy handed Karen a card with the address for the upcoming Tucson meeting. They were only going to be there one night, but here was Karen’s big chance for her dream vocation. She went to the meeting and ran off to southern California with her new friends the next day.
    On the day she left, Karen showed up at her family’s Tucson home with—of all people—Jane Berg, the woman she would soon replace as David Berg’s primary wife. “I vividly remember watching my mom and dad cry,” Rosemary said. “Karen came in along with Jane, who was talking to my mom and dad to distract them when Karen went in and got her things. She just walked out and said she was going off with them.” 14
    Karen Zerby and Jane Berg jumped into a van and sped off—driving straight to Huntington Beach. They were just a couple miles away from the Zerby’s home in Tucson when Jane turned to Karen and asked, “Honey, what job have you been doing?”
    â€œWell, I’ve been a secretary,” Karen replied, “but I’m glad I’m done with that now.”
    â€œOh, we need secretaries,” Jane said. “Maybe you could help out!”
    Karen began having second thoughts about running away with the Jesus people.
    â€œI was already so sad I was leaving home,”