My sister in law has been shunned by the family since she DA'd herself at the age of 18 and moved out of the house. I always insisted that my wife keep in contact with her and made sure she knew she had a soft place to land,with us, should she need it. Even at the risk of it getting us in hot water with the Pioneer,Elder,Bethelite family members there was no way we were going to let her disappear into the wild blue yonder on her own. The sister is in her 40's now and we too are out of the Org and the family realizes we have been in contact with her all these years. They have softened a bit and are somewhat ashamed about having gone this far with all this nonsense. Her behavior in this matter has been exemplary over the years. For some time though,she had been visited by the residual left over mind trips that former witnesses go throgh.
I'm in San Diego this week where she lives and told her about Beth Sarim, which for me was one of the straws that broke the camels back. She was very blown away by this bit of information...especially since she lives about 3miles from there. We hopped in my car and drove over there an I took a few photos of the place. I googled Beth Sarim on my ipad and we sat outside the mansion viewing old photos and deeds etc. We both agreed it was a strange thing to be sitting in front of a mansion that was once deeded to certain Bible characters and was once owned by the guy who led the religion that our parents centered their whole lives around without knowing any of this kind of history. She has her College degree and is quite successful in life in terms of being happy and well adjusted but I think she took a big step forward today in terms of her own personal growth.