Steve Daniel married Betty in 1973. They were both 24, and the reasons they hadn’t married before, Steve later said, was that God knew the other one was waiting for them. Steve had a good job, stability, and marrying Betty made him feel that his life was complete. Oh, sure, he knew that the future would have challenges and difficulties, but he felt that the bond that he and Betty had would see them through any possible issues that might arise.
Steve’d grown up in San Francisco with his mother. His father had a farm in Texas, and Steve spent every other summer growing up with is dad, working on the farm. He didn’t like having to leave what he knew behind every other year. That disconnect that came from being uprooted from the familiar, the “known” and secure, made Steve vow that when he became a father, he would make sure that such a feeling of insecurity and feeling isolated and separated from a sense of stability wouldn’t happen to his kids.
Betty and Steve had three kids, all boys, between them. When Steve would come home from his work in the water department, the boys would run to meet him and tell them all about their daily adventures. And, to his credit, Steve would make time to spend some quality one-on-one time with each of them. Betty had dinner ready and the house clean every day, and Steve thought life couldn’t get much better.
Later, Steve would say that change usually happens gradually in life. He was referring to how an outside influence began to creep into their lives, specifically Betty’s life. It began with Steve’s older brother, Charles. You see, Charles had a checkered past, and he was trying to change his life for the better. And Charles had found a Christian group that was specializing in giving people second and third chances in life. Soon, Steve’s family began going with Charles as he attended meetings of this group.
Now, Steve had never really been a church-going man, but he loved that Betty and the boys were getting involved in a group that seemed to have such a positive impact on the community. The church actively pursued local charitable works like a food pantry and a homeless shelter and a free kindergarten for low-income families. It was, as Steve said, they type of place that he always thought church should be but rarely ever was. And Steve saw how happy Betty and the boys were when they’d come back from church filled with stories of helping other people. Going there seemed like the right thing to do, the right choice, the best choice.
Through the other members of his family like Charles, most of the people in Steve’s circle were going to the church at this point. It was then that Betty came home from church one day and excitedly told Steve about a opportunity the church was offering to do some work on a temporary overseas mission. Now, when I was involved in church work, I took several of these short trips such as a week in Costa Rica helping to build a church building. I get it.
And Steve, despite his misgivings, thought that if Betty was so excited about going on this trip, then it must be the right choice. She said that the boys were excited about it, too. That’s when Steve balked. He didn’t want his boys going overseas, he said. Perhaps it was the memory of his summers in Texas, being separated from his family as a youth, that made him not want his kids to leave the US. But Betty’s excitement–and the fact that other family members were going as well–finally convinced him to allow the four of them to make the trip. He agreed under the stipulation that she would call, write, and stay in contact so that the boys could feel the connectedness he didn’t feel when he was their ages.
And so, Steve Daniel took his family to San Francisco Airport, hugged them goodbye, and never saw them again. Ever since, Steve has questioned the choice he made when he put them on a jet bound for Guyana and the compound built by Betty’s minister, a man named Jim Jones.
The Rest of the Story 