The UnBoxing Project: Gissel’s story

Gissel dyed her hair red for the first time during the week after she left home. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh

In July 2014, Ashley came over to my apartment to visit one Saturday morning.

While we were talking, Ashley got a text message from Gissel, one of her friends from the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs (now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church), that she’d left six months before.

“Hey, can you come pick me up? My dad kinda went crazy and kicked me out. I don’t have anywhere to go… can I stay with you?”

Gissel was on her lunch break at work, so Ashley and I drove over to meet her and help her get her belongings out of her father’s house.

On the way to her dad’s house, Gissel explained she already planned on going to live with her grandmother in Texas.

The night before, she’d stayed out with her boyfriend and a group of other friends until past midnight. She discovered her dad had locked her out when she tried to come home, even though he’d never enforced the curfew he set for her older brother and his girlfriend.

Gissel kept asking why it was different for her as a girl, why she was being punished.

One of Gissel’s younger sisters let her in the house so she could get her suitcases already packed for her move. We put them in the trunk and drove to where Racquel and Ashley were living so Gissel could stay with them temporarily.

The rest of her siblings watched us from the window, huddled together.

Ashley told Racquel what had happened and that Gissel would be staying over for the rest of the week until she flew out of town. Gissel went back to work for the day, and we picked her up that evening.

She was quiet. Reality set in.

Silent tears slipped down her cheeks. There was no home to go back to now.

We hugged her, asked her if she was ok or needed to talk. Told her it was ok to be sad, ok to cry.

Later that night, she sat next to Ashley on the couch while we watched anime and the first Pirates of the Carribean movie. Watching television isn’t allowed in most United Pentecostal churches like the one she grew up in.

Ashley helped her dye her hair that week, another thing that the church deemed sinful.

Gissel started wearing a crucifix that her dad gave her. Her dad told her if she was going to leave the church and wear jewelry now, she might as well wear that. It was a religious guilt trip, since their church doctrine forbade wearing jewelry, and typically Pentecostal churches do not agree with Catholic doctrine.

After Gissel left for Texas, we kept in touch.

I asked her last fall how she was doing and if she would like to share her story.

Now she is free to live outside the cage of Christian fundamentalism and legalism.

I thought once Racquel and Ashley and the others that we’d moved out were free that everything would start to go back to normal. That our little network wouldn’t need to keep helping people.

But Gissell reminded me that so many more are out there, waiting.

Gissel studied social work at community college and works in a healthcare center in Texas. She also cohosts a YouTube channel called Gen and Gigi. 

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The UnBoxing Project: Being an angel with a shotgun
The UnBoxing Project: The trouble with freeing people
Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?
The UnBoxing Project: Racquel’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Defecting from a cult
The UnBoxing Project: Ashley’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Cynthia Jeub’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Options, not ultimatums
The UnBoxing Project: Gissel’s story
The UnBoxing Project: Homeschool, the perfect hiding place
The UnBoxing Project: Self-care during activism
The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Cynthia’s thoughts)
The UnBoxing Project: How you can help (Eleanor’s thoughts)
The UnBoxing Project: Surviving and thriving on the outside