Emily’s Story
The following account includes descriptions of sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, health struggles, and coercive control.
I am writing this because I believe stories like mine are easier to dismiss when they do not fit the common picture people have in their minds.
When people hear the words abuse, grooming, or spiritual manipulation, they often picture a man in authority. That does happen. But it is not the only way abuse happens. Women can abuse power, too. Women can groom. Women can use spiritual language, emotional dependence, physical affection, and the appearance of “mentorship” to cross lines that should never be crossed.
This is my story from my perspective. I am not writing this to speculate about motives or to build a dramatic narrative out of feelings alone. I am writing about what happened to me, what I experienced, and the facts that made me realize this was not just “close friendship,” “discipleship,” or “accountability.”
It was abuse.
My family started attending CFC Madrid in 2010. By 2022, I was deeply involved; I graduated from Christian Fellowship Academy, received prophetic presbytery, and became a member, all within the same year. Although my parents stopped attending the church, leaving CFC did not feel simple to me.
In October 2022, my parents moved to another state. I was eighteen, still living with my parents, and much of my life and identity were tied to the church. Suddenly, I had no obvious place to live. Melody Maurer, a thirty-year-old woman from CFC, suggested that I move in with her.
At first, it felt safe and normal. I had my own room. I had privacy. We were not inseparable. We spent time together, but it did not feel consuming. There was space. There was freedom. At that point, I viewed the relationship as mentorship and support during a difficult season.
Over time, that changed.
Melody at Camilla Sinclair Smith’s baby shower, 2014.
By February 2023, she convinced me to move to Norwood with another girl around my age. With only two bedrooms in our apartment, Melody and I began sharing a bedroom and a bed. Looking back, that was one of the first major shifts and grooming flags.
What started as me having my own space turned into a living situation where the boundaries were blurred. The explanation for it did not feel like a clear, healthy decision between two adults. It felt like something I was gradually moved into through manipulation, pressure, and circumstances being framed in a way that made it difficult to say no.
The physical affection also changed.
Melody’s greetings became more sexual and more touchy over time. Physical touch became expected. It was not just occasional affection; it became part of the relationship in a way that made me feel like I had to participate, even when I was uncomfortable. For example, she would force me to kiss her on the lips every time we saw each other and to cuddle with her at night, and it became a pattern that grew increasingly more physical than I ever wanted it to be. There was an obvious sense that she needed and wanted something from me physically and emotionally, and that I was supposed to meet that need.
That is one of the grooming flags I see clearly now: the relationship became dependent, intense, and inseparable.
She was “always there” for me when I needed support, but that support came with an unspoken expectation that I would also be there for her, even when what she wanted crossed my boundaries. The closeness became a tool. The comfort she gave me made it harder to recognize the control. If I was uncomfortable, I felt guilty. If I pulled away, it felt like I was hurting her. If I questioned something she was doing or teaching me, it was spiritualized or turned back on me.
For example, if I came home tired from work and did not want to go for a bike ride with her, she framed it as evidence that I was holding unforgiveness toward her. If I did not want to be responsible for planning meals for both of us, she called me selfish and accused me of having a bad attitude. If I did not wear the outfits she suggested, exactly as she wanted, I was accused of being unable to accept help or criticism.
In August 2023, my parents officially announced their divorce. Their decision was difficult, but necessary for them. However, the way people within CFC responded made me feel like I was being treated as an orphan who needed to be managed, rather than as an adult capable of processing a hard family situation.
Around that same time, I started spending time with a guy who interested me. He was not a Christian, and he was not part of CFC. The reaction to my relationship became another major warning sign.
I was not allowed to simply have a relationship and process it like a normal adult. There was drama around him from the beginning. CFC leaders warned me about being involved with him in any way. Keila Levendusky repeatedly told me, “We should just get him saved first.” Melody did not allow me to be alone with him, even in public. My relationship with him became treated like a spiritual threat, and eventually, evidence that something was wrong with me.
In October 2023, our other roommate left the apartment. That same month, Melody started sexually abusing me.
I do not want to go into graphic detail here. What I will say is that this was not confusion, normal friendship, or a misunderstanding. It was molestation. It happened while we were sharing a bed. It happened while I was sleeping. It happened in the middle of a relationship where she had spiritual, emotional, and practical power over me. It happened during a season when I was already vulnerable from family upheaval, health issues, and isolation.
The morning after the first time she molested me, Melody met me in the kitchen and said she had received a dream or vision from God telling her to intercede for me. She claimed that Satan was tempting me, specifically through a dream with lesbian sexual temptation, and reassured me that God still saw and loved me.
I knew that her explanation was false. I have never struggled with my sexuality, and I understood the difference between a dream and what had physically happened to me. Only now do I understand that this was a full gaslighting and manipulation technique that she used often.
In November 2023, Melody found out that I had been seeing the guy that I liked. We had officially been dating for about four weeks, and I had not told her.
After Melody found out, she framed it as a personal betrayal and compared it to the story of Jesus and Judas, saying that her own friend had betrayed her. The next day, she washed my feet while crying and read the Bible passage about Jesus confronting Judas.
That moment stayed with me because it showed how spiritualized the control had become. My relationship was not treated like a normal adult choice or even a broken trust issue. It was turned into a religious scene where she positioned herself as Jesus, and I was positioned as Judas, making my relationship feel like a betrayal of her and putting guilt on me.
But the fact that I hid my relationship does not explain or excuse what was being done to me. Instead of anyone looking honestly at why I felt I had to hide him, my secrecy was used as proof that I was the problem. It became evidence that I was rebellious, untrustworthy, and in need of accountability. Melody made me break up with him.
That season was one of the lowest points of my life.
I was being sexually abused. I was dealing with serious health issues, including cystinosis, kidney infections and stones, hair loss, and early signs of endometriosis.
Everything in my life felt heavy, and instead of receiving clear protection, the story kept being framed as my own spiritual problem.
Melody and Emily, December 2023.
In December 2023, Melody suggested that we involve CFC leadership in our situation. She initiated the meeting and chose leaders who could be trusted to interpret sexual abuse as consensual sin: Jamie Sinclair, Daniel Paladin, and Brietta Paladin. Those three leaders weren’t the only people who knew something was wrong; Jamie Sinclair decided that he needed to inform Ben Levendusky so that Ben could keep me under close surveillance for “accountability.” Melody also informed Alan Daniels, as he had been spiritually mentoring her on gifts of the prophetic, deliverance, and spiritual warfare.
I did not initially want to disclose this to church leaders. I wanted to tell my family and a few close, trusted friends. During the meeting, I spoke very little, but I did clearly say that I didn’t consent to Melody’s abuse. Jamie responded that it didn’t matter if I wasn’t directly participating, and that Mel and I were called to do ministry together, and that Satan was attacking us both. Daniel, Brietta, and Jamie explicitly told me that I couldn’t record the meeting and that I shouldn’t tell my family because my parents were not in the “right place” with church leadership.
Melody did not tell them the full story, of course. Instead, she described the abuse as though she were simply waking up and finding that it was “happening,” rather than taking responsibility for something she was intentionally doing.
During the meeting, I suggested that moving into separate rooms could resolve the issue. Melody and the leaders in the room immediately rejected this idea. Brietta Paladin told me that I shouldn’t move out of Melody's bed because “Christians are supposed to face things head-on, not go around them.”
The CFC leaders’ response was a complete failure. No one expressed their sympathy, there was no "sorry," no one asked how to support me, helped me get to safety, or took meaningful steps to expose the abuse and hold the person responsible accountable.
Instead of treating it as criminal sexual contact and abuse of power, it was spiritualized. The CFC leaders pinned the abuse back on me and said that I had a “demon or sin that was tempting Melody.” That is something I still struggle to put words to.
Melody and I disclosed that I had been sexually abused, and CFC leaders focused on what was wrong with me.
Because of the CFC leaders’ response, the sexual abuse continued. Melody became meaner and more controlling than ever.
Melody stalked me; she followed me to work to make sure I got there, and lurked a few buildings away when work ended to make sure I went straight home. She constantly messaged me and called me often, demanding an immediate response. She would throw away food I had made and planned to take into work for lunch. She stole my clothes from my closet because she didn’t like or approve of them, and threw them away. She threw away my skin care and shampoos because she didn’t approve of the chemicals that were in them.
Melody would text other people at CFC, especially group chats with the Sinclair women, about my personal business; she shared my family problems, health issues, etc., without my permission. She told my siblings, friends, and CFC members about my relationship and my supposed betrayal towards her. She gave me the silent treatment for days at a time and told me I couldn’t go do things with friends or family because I couldn’t be trusted.
By then, the relationship was not just unhealthy. It was high-control. My body, my relationships, my spirituality, my health, and my choices were all being treated like they belonged to someone else to manage.
My health was also used against me.
Melody repeatedly called Alan Daniels to our home without my permission, even when I was struggling and wanted privacy. Alan would pace around our living room speaking in fake tongues, lay his hands on me, prophesy over me, and tell me what sin he believed I needed to remove from my life to be healed. He prophesied that I was guilty of things even when I had never committed those sins.
That is not medical care. That is not protection. That is spiritual pressure placed on someone who was already sick, scared, and vulnerable.
It also taught me to see my own body as evidence against me. If I were sick, there must be sin in my life. If I were not healed, there must be something hidden. If I were struggling, there must be something spiritually wrong with me. My physical pain became another way to search me, shame me, and control me.
By April 2024, I was close to moving out. Two weeks before I left, I slept in another bedroom. For the first time since October 2023, I was not taken advantage of in my sleep
When I left Melody’s house, the Levenduskys invited me to live with them.
That invitation was not freedom. It was another form of control.
Living with Ben and Keila Levendusky was falsely presented as help, accountability, and protection. In reality, it was another high-control environment. Keila monitored me even more than Melody. I was expected to tell her about every interaction I had with my ex-boyfriend. I was expected to report where I was and when. They forced me to share my location with them at all times. If I were away for a couple of hours, even with family, I would get texts asking, “When are you coming home?”
My desire to talk to my ex-boyfriend was used against me. The fact that I hid things from them and sneaked around was used to prove I was a sinful person who needed accountability. No one seemed willing to ask why a grown adult felt she had to sneak around just to have normal conversations and relationships.
By August 2024, I moved into my own apartment. I finally did not live with Melody. I did not live with the Levenduskys. I did not live under someone else’s version of accountability.
The first few months were still hard. Leaving control does not mean everything instantly feels easy. It was scary. It was lonely at times.
But eventually I realized something: people like that only have the power you give them.
When I was living under their roof, depending on their approval, explaining every move, and accepting their spiritual labels over my life, they had power. Once I was out, that power started to break.
I am not writing this to make people feel sorry for me. I am writing this because I want people to understand that abuse does not always look the way you expect it to look.
Sometimes it looks like “mentorship.”
Sometimes it looks like “spiritual accountability”.
Sometimes it looks like a woman who is “just affectionate.”
Sometimes it looks like a house offered as a safe place.
Sometimes it looks like prayer, prophecy, tongues, and laying on of hands.
Sometimes it looks like leaders who turn sexual abuse into a spiritual accusation against the person who was harmed.
I was told, directly and indirectly, that the problem was me. My sin. My secrecy. My relationship. My body. My health. My temptation. My lack of accountability.
But the problem was abuse. And the CFC leaders who covered up the abuse.
The problem was a woman using closeness, physical touch, spiritual authority, emotional dependence, and housing to cross boundaries and control me.
The problem was leadership being told about molestation and responding as though I was the danger.
The problem was that people chose a spiritual narrative because it was easier than facing the physical reality of what happened.
I am not who they said I was. I am not a demonized temptation. I am not a failed accountability project. I am not responsible for someone else abusing me.
There are many other stories, dynamics, and forms of abuse I’ve experienced through CFC that I want to share.
I am an adult woman who was harmed, controlled, spiritually manipulated, and sexually abused. I am also someone who got out.
Since leaving, my health issues have improved drastically, and I could not be happier to no longer be in that place and to be part of CFC and their control.
If my story resonates with you at all, just know that you can get out. You can seek health, and you can speak out!
