I was in an abusive marriage. I was wanting to leave, but I didn’t believe I could. Although I hadn’t told anyone, he sensed it. As I look back, it’s as though he was watching, looking for his next victim. 

 

I was the one who reached out to my pastor for counseling, after he had previously offered. When he initially offered I was confused as to why he was offering. No one knew my marriage problems. It was after DCF was called by a counseling office to do a well check on us because my husband walked out of a counseling very angry. The counselor had concerns because we had mentioned in counseling to a domestic violence call that was made to the Police Department a year earlier, and she was concerned that we might be in danger.

 

He began texting me, calling me, and showing up at my house out of “concern.” He said he cared and wanted what was best for me. Little did I know that he had no regard for me. He only needed to fill his idolatry of the flesh. I was his next victim.

 

I trusted him. After all, he was a man of God. A representative of the almighty. If he wasn’t safe to talk to, then no one was. I shared with him things that I still haven’t confided in other people. He appeared to be compassionate and supportive. Little did I know then that his words weren’t true. They were the device he used to break down my barriers to fulfill his lustful needs. His mode became an attack on my soul. He was a wolf in shepherds clothing waiting to devour his next victim, because I wasn't his first.

 

I didn’t know that he had been forced to resign from two churches in other states, and fired from one here in Florida before being hired at Seed of Abraham Fellowship and torahclass.com. It wasn’t until later that I learned about what he had done to a woman from Boston on a missions trip in 1999. He told me later about it and that his wife had never forgiven him. I had no way of knowing. But he knew. So did his wife. He even told me that she was a Godly woman for keeping his secrets. But by keeping his secrets, she allowed him to hurt others. She was not an innocent party. The churches hurt others by hiding the truth as well. 

 

He took advantage of everything I told him. He would dig deeper, find out more, and use it to manipulate me. Then, little by little, he would sow seeds of mistrust in me about others. He would convince me that others were talking about me. I would go to him and ask him why people would gossip about me at the church if they were believers and he would say that he didn’t know, but I had to be careful who I trusted. He would console me. I began to believe he was the only person I could truly trust. I would later find out from others that he was the source of some of the gossip. He was the one going to them.

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At some point, and I don’t know when, my mind began to believe everything on a surface level, but deep down it was like a cancer eating away at my soul. My doctor recently called it cognitive dissonance.  

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He would give me glances at the fellowship. Some admiring, and some desiring. It was difficult and confusing. Part of me wanted to be wanted by someone. The other part of me wanted him to stop. I would start to pull away, and he would tell me he loved me and he needed me, and that I was his reward for following God. He would come on stronger. Gary said that he couldn’t live without me. He didn’t want to be forced back into his box all alone. That we were alike, and that one else would understand. 

 

I couldn’t tell anyone. I almost did, but every time I tried what he said to me would play through my head, and I would clam up. He told me if people found out about us it would destroy him and everything he did for God. That all of his work for God would amount to nothing and it would cause great harm. He said it would destroy the fellowship, and hurt all of our friends. He knew that I had a difficult time trusting Christian woman because of how judgmental they could be and he would confirm to me that they would judge me more than some of them already did. These were the ideas he would tell me, until the point I would parrot them back to him, because I believed him, and for reassurance. But I cried and told him many times that I didn’t want to hurt anyone. He said we just had to be careful, and make sure no one found out, because they wouldn’t understand, and that God put us together.

 

Gary was right about the church. But he had seen it before hadn’t he? He knew that they would throw me out and that he would be allowed to move on quietly, as he’s done before with other situations. I’m sure he thought I would be quiet to save embarrassment. But I didn’t. God wouldn’t let me.

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It had started so innocently. I just wanted counseling. He would eventually start showing up at my house randomly, or he would be “just driving through the neighborhood” and stop by to make sure we were ok. He would offer to help me fix things, or ask me to work alongside him on projects. All along he was grooming me. He was a predator, and this was not his first hunt. 

 

Over time life became more entangled with Gary. He ensured that his family would include me in things because he said even if he couldn’t touch me in front of them, he just wanted me near. He said even surrounded by family, he felt alone without me there. He would ask me to be his helper at the Love Israel conferences in Orlando, FL because his wife always took off to hang out with the women even though she said she only went to help her husband. He even wanted me on the board of his ministry because I would actually help him, and  even told me that his wife and daughter would come to board meetings, but never follow through on anything they said they were going to do. He had been waiting years for his wife to write a curriculum on the five love languages. How telling should that have been for me? 

 

Gary would tell me how much I pleased him, and how much of a help I was to him. I believed him when he said his emotional core wasn’t strong and that his wife’s constant rejection wounded him greatly. That he didn’t feel loved or wanted. With what I know now, I can see why she would reject him. He said that she would be affectionate in public for show and that at home she was cold as ice, and that even his best friend had questioned him on it. 

 

I was weak. Vulnerable. Unsure of the world I was living in and the people around me. A life time of pain and abuse caused by men had left me untrusting of anyone. He used this to his advantage. He was the first man I ever completely trusted, and it took years for him to break down the fortress I had built to protect myself. He was a man of God! Surely he wouldn’t hurt me. The one time I fully trusted someone. A violation so deep I wonder if I will ever be able to recover and trust again.

 

After some time, I left my husband. I don’t blame Gary for this at all. My husband was a mean and angry man. A conspiracy theorist who would belittle and berate me. A man who would tell me I was not a good Christian, or a good wife, and that I knew nothing. A man who would fly of the handle if I disagreed with him or his conspiracies. He had a puffed up ego and couldn’t handle being told he was wrong. My husband would talk to people like an authority of knowledge on everything. Many times he was wrong. I would have left him anyway. It was only a matter of time. I had many friends ask me how I could stay, but again, I was afraid I couldn’t biblically, and my altruistic nature believed anyone could change. He didn’t.

 

While I was going through my divorce, Gary would discuss the men in the bible who had multiple wives and the bible giving directions for how to have more than one wife. I asked him if that was possible. He said he believed so and that I should research it. He even guided me where to look. So I did. He asked me to send him that I found, so I wrote my notes and shared them with him. He said that was exactly what he found. When I would question him about it not seeming right, he would explain that people couldn't understand God's ways, and that's why there are so many problems with it. He always had an answer, and he had a doctorate in theology, I didn't.   I even shared with him a legal argument that I had made in one of my law classes when I was in college, and he was able to take that to prove it was ok.

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It wasn’t long after my divorce that Gary and I made a commitment to each other. He said that a marriage commitment was between a couple and God only, and that a church wedding wasn’t necessary. Besides, he was an ordained minister. I believed it was a life long commitment. He began to change after that.

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Sometimes, when Gary would get into an argument with his wife, he would take it out on me with being cold and he said that this is what I signed up for. I would do what I could to not upset him anymore than she already had. If he got upset with me he would say I was treating him just like she did, and that’s what would make him shut down. He asked if that’s what I wanted, which of course it wasn’t so I would just get quiet. Then he would usually want to make love which put him in better mood. I was his wife and I was supposed to be a helpmeet and help him destress wasn’t I? That was the same thing my ex husband would use. Sex was a marital right and I had no right to deny him. My brain would get so confused.

 

 

He said over and over that I pleased him very much. That I brought joy to his life he wouldn’t have without me. I found myself working harder and harder because I wanted to please him even more. I wanted to make him happy, because he said he wasn’t happy at home, or at work because I was the only one that truly understood him. He would tell me I was worth it because he didn’t want a life without me. He said one time that he thought about walking away from his life. Away from his wife, the fellowship, all of it, and then I came along. He said his marriage to me saved his marriage to her.

 

I battled a tumor in 2019. He was there to hold me when I was scared or crying. I discussed everything with him, even deciding a course of treatment. I drafted documents leaving all decisions to him if something happened to me. After the first two years of manipulation and abuse, plus one year of grooming, I believe that he was the only one I could trust.Including my daughter. We even got a joint bank account together.

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In the spring of 2020, Gary's daughter came to me and offered for my daughter and I to move in with her family, and for me to sell my house. I later found out that Gary was the one who suggested it to her. He said they were originally thinking of my roommate but that he told her he thought I would be a better fit, he convinced his daughter to have us move in instead. I felt trapped. Like the walls were closing in on me.

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Shortly affter, I had a breakdown. Everyone thought it had to do with my ex, which was part of it, but it was mostly regarding the situation with Gary.  Since I had previously drafted documents, Gary was my health care proxy and he handled everything. He spoke with the Dr.’s and counsleors. He manipulated the narrative.

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They all started talking about moving to Michigan. Gary said he wanted me there. He wanted me to go up with his daughter and son in law so that it wouldn’t look suspicious. At the same time my daughter in who lived in Michigan's marriage was falling apart. I thought that meant I was supposed to go, and I went.

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When I got to Michigan, I had a terrible migraine. It lasted days. I couldn't even sit up or stand. I couldn't eat. I was sleeping on an air mattress in a closet. I was weak and dehydrated. The night before Gary flew back to Florida, he quietly came into the room. He took advantage of me knowing I was in no condition to stop him. What could I do? I was very weak at that point, and I was in another state in his families house with my daughter asleep upstairs. It wasn't the first time he had done something like this. He left the next day and after he left his daughter took me to an urgent care and they gave me an IV and medications.

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Needless to say, it didn’t work out in Michigan. His daughter began giving me the silent treatment shortly after getting there. She would be in the same room as me and not speak to me even if I spoke to her for almost 3 weeks. I told Gary and a couple of close friends in Florida what was going on in Michigan. I was even more alone. At this point I was very dependent on Gary, and he was still Florida. 

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My friends told me to come back home. My old bosses told me to come back. I did. I stayed for a week in a hotel in Grand Rapids and made plans to go back to Florida with the help and support of my friends and bosses. They have been a great support to me.

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When I got back to Florida, I told him I was sorry. He said it was O.K. and that we would work it out, but he was yet again lying and manipulating. He later said that I did mess up by not staying, and made it difficult. We discussed buying a camper for me to live in, so I bought the camper, and then he lived in it with his wife Tina on church property.

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Abruptly he stopped talking to me. I didn’t know why. He had spoken to me moments before leaving to go to am “therapist” appointment with his wife. (I use the term therapist here loosely, since this therapist has her doctorate in philosophy and not in psychology. She is only barley grandfather claused in.)He had told me how much he loved me, and couldn’t wait to see me that afternoon to help move Doc, and then all of a sudden, nothing. They then showed up and Gary didn’t speak a word to me, he didn’t even look at me. I helped move his son's stuff with them.

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Thursday came, still no response. Only Tina responded from his phone, so I went out to the new fellowship to find out what was going.

 

When I arrived there, Gary wouldn’t come out of the camper and Tina came out. She acted like nothing was going on, but they were obviously moving, and she said they were moving out of the camper and in with their son because she wanted running water. I knew they were running. I asked her why they were hiding it from me. She wouldn’t answer and said she wasn’t going to talk to me when I was like that and when in the camper, and locked the door. I waited outside for a while to see if she was going to come back out, or if Gary would, but they didn’t. So I left. After everything, he cowardly hid in the camper and sent his wife out, then they both hid. I had a key. I could have walked in, but I waited.

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I then went to my friends house and while I was there I got a phone call from a Dr. Saffrone Emerson asking me if I was ok and doing a well check, which I thought was highly inappropriate, unprofessional, and a possible violation of the HIPPA Act. She would know that legal protocol would have dictated calling the sheriff’s dept., and sending them to do a wellness check. So…she was full of crap. I had no idea who she was or why she was calling me. She said she was Tina’s psychologist and that Tina had given her my number. She told me I needed to respect Tina’s boundaries and I asked what boundaries? I don’t know what’s going on and they have my camper and I need to know what’s going on with it. She said I needed to give them space to process things. I asked “process what?” I ask her if she was even a Christian and when she said “yes,” I said “then you should know Matthew 18. She got rude and nasty and hung up on me. I had her on speaker phone and neither my friend or I could believe it.

 

After the phone call, I went to Torahville and picked up my belongings with my friends. I had already lost things that are still, to this day, in Michigan. My friend and a handful of my co- workers came to help me. I had been paying $400 a month for space in the Torahville studio to store what belongings I had left and to set up my t-shirt stuff, since Gary was struggling to pay the rent. He had entered into an agreement to sublet part of it to the realtor to make Essential oils with THC because according to Gary, the realtor couldn’t rent in his name because of the conflict of interest it would create by him being the listing agent. Gary said the realtor stiffed him.

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After we got my belongings, We went to Chili’s even though I told them I wasn’t hungry and I got a phone call from friends in New Hampshire who called to check on me. They are the ones who informed me that Gary confessed to Tina at Dr. Saffrones office that we had been together. The therapist had called them on Wednesday to inform them that Gary and I had an affair. Last time Gary had spoke to me, he had told me I was a wonderful wife, and how good I was to him, but now, I was an affair. He said that it only happened a couple of times over a year and a half.

 

Most of what he was saying wasn’t true. Most of what he has continued to say isn’t true, or it is a misrepresented half truth.

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All of a sudden it was like my entire world shattered. I had this beautiful impressionistic painting, painted on a very thin sheet of glass, and someone tapped it. Everything I though I could see was gone. A million shards of glass at my feet with nothing more than painted dots that now added up to nothing. The illusion of what it once was was gone, and I could no longer see what I had once painted in my mind.

 

I confessed everything to two women. One of them said that she and her husband would help me through it. Gary had told me I could never tell her because her father was a pastor who had hurt many woman, and that she would never speak to me again. She didn’t hate me like Gary and I thought she would. I was advised to give Gary the opportunity to come forward, and I did. I didn’t attend the baby shower I had planned for my former roommate, out of respect for them and to not cause contention. Gary and Tina attended as if nothing was going on, and Gary hadn’t come forward. Sunday came, again Gary and Tina attended church as if nothing was going on. I know Gary wouldn’t have said anything, and Gary would not have resigned, if a call from them telling him to call Tom Bradford was not made. I contacted two elders. I confessed to them. Although a board member from Seed of Abraham later stated that I had not confessed, that Gary did, and had not followed Matthew 18, I had. The board is not the elders, I confessed to the chief elder, and  the minister of Evangelism. The same board member said I shouldn’t speak about it to anyone, but it is my testimony, and I will speak the truth.

 

Seed of Abraham waited a month after Gary’s resignation to announce why, allowing people to believe it was because he was moving to Michigan, and when they finally did, they were constitutionally vague and ask for prayer for Gary and Tina, and their family. Their failure to mention prayer for other parties involved created the idea that I was to blame. Everyone knew that I worked alongside Gary on everything. Seed of Abraham continues to minister to them. I am sure no announcement would have been made at all if I had gone away quietly. Because I didn’t, they made an announcement. After I confessed, they lied and said Gary did. Tom Bradford made an announcement that didn’t even show an ounce of compassion for my daughter or I. Feel free to listen to it here:

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​Because Gary was still at Seed of Abraham and his family was being ministered to, rumors were going around. I looked like I am the only guilty party. I look like I went after Tina’s husband. I never did. I l feel like I’ve been rejected by Seed of Abraham Fellowship. The fact that very few people from that fellowship ever reached out to me or even spoke to me again confirmed that feeling.

 

After a month, I called one of the ministers and told him exactly what I thought. It was after that call that they made the announcement. He has listened when I’ve called, and on one occasion even called to check on me, as a friend, not the church. But then, Tom Bradford later made an edict that no one could have contact or minister to me to my daughter. Only a couple of other people have even spoken to me.  As a whole nothing. I have no fellowship. I was kicked out and ostracized. It has greatly opened my eyes to many truths.

 

In the announcement Tom Bradford stated that Gary’s employment would terminate after the completion of the new building construction. That was already the plan. Nothing changed. He still working at Seed of Abraham, and Tom Bradford could continue to cut costs and corners by having Gary cap gas lines in the kitchen without a licensed gas plumber, and run electrical wiring without a hiring having to pay the construction company who was hired more money. (Gary told people that he was a master plumber, but according to a background check he was only a journeyman plumber in Massachusetts, and never licensed in Florida) He still attended church and was ministered to on a daily bases. I was told that even Dr. Bob Lehton, a board member began seeing him weekly. 

 

You might ask yourself at this point, what about me? Or my daughter ? Nothing. In fact they ostracized my daughter, the only innocent one. She lost all of her friends at the church. Which is huge when your a homeschooler and that is your social outlet. Both of us have severe anxiety and neither of us have an interest in making new friends. How do I tell her to try again when I myself can’t?

 

They even kept Gary up on the website for months after, even though they were able to completely remove another minister within 24 hours of termination. Maybe because Gary's son is the tech guy at the church? Or was to protect the international online presence? Tom Bradford gave me a nice scarlet letter. I feel like the leadership deliberately threw it all onto me in an effort to protect their image. It’s like to them, Image before God.

 

As for Gary Lambert, He has moved to Lachine, Michigan. He’s moved onto the Fellowship Farm with his daughters, and their husbands to start a commune. It appears that they have collectively started the Fellowship farm LLC, in Michigan, under his daughter Ariel Beevers name, and it is believed that the money Gary had in the accounts for his 501(c)(3) Torahville4Kidz, was moved to their new veterans ministry, The Fellowship Farm. He may have taken down Torahville4kidz.org but he is still in ministry with his family outside of Alpena, Michigan in Lachine. I don’t believe he ever had any intention of actually doing Torahville4kidz, Inc. Over the course of 4 years, I donated over $20,000, and many other people donated thousands of dollars, but not one video was ever produced. Will this new ministry “The Fellowship Farm”  that he’s involved in actually help veterans? He has recently started another children's and production ministry by the name of Zacchaeus Productions in Lachine, MI. I've learned that Satan isn't creative. He uses the same pattern over and over. So does Gary.

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UPDATE: Gary has started a church, putting him yet again in another pastoral position.  As far as I can tell, he usually moves, and waits about two years between starting ministries. This allows time for people to believe his humble facade in a new area and to allow things to quiet down from the old church or ministry hoping people will move on and forget. God hasn't called me to forget because I don't want anyone else to ever feel that deep level of pain. I'm like a watchman in the wall. Please note that "guest speakers" on his site may not actually know that he has posted them their. I have seen him do this before to give himself the appearance of connections and credibility, even though it isn't true.

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Gary also tells people that he is a Master Plumber, but I don't know if that's true either, according to professional licensing in Massachusetts, he was only a Journeyman Plumber. No record of being a master plumber has been found.

 

Torahville wasn’t Gary’s first ministry attempt. It was called Kidsville when he was at the Nazarene church in Louden, New Hampshire before he was forced to resign. He attempted to continue it at The Nazarene church he was the youth minister at in Rockledge, FL before he was fired. He then changed the name to Torahville, when he changed to Hebrew Roots because the Nazarene church had finally pulled all of his credentials as a pastor and asked him not to return to the church. He had another ministry idea before that when he was a pastor in Nashville, before having to leave there. 

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As for his wife Tina, I believe she knew the entire time. Things that she would randomly say to me during the 3 1/2 years Gary abused me suggested it, and it wasn't her first time dealing with Gary's abuse of woman. She turned a blind eye because of the years of abuse that she herself has endured. Although she has attempted to vilify me to other members of the church by saying I destroyed the studio (which I didn't do) as well as others, please remember she is also a victim of Gary. If you think of Tina, please pray for her. Pray that her eyes are opened and that she has the strength to do what she needs to do. She doesn't know how to stand up for herself, and stand up against what Gary does to her and others. Also pray for her children and her grandchildren. 

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It feels like I have been villainized throughout this. I don’t believe it is intentional, at least I hope not. I wish there was accountability. What happened to me was NOT o.k., and knowing that it has happened before to other women, I can’t sit quietly and let another woman go through the pain, I am going through. I know my part in it, and this isn’t to diminish my part, but I honestly and truly believed him, and I believed in him. Now, I don’t even know who he is. All I know is that he is a man who preys on the weak. I know that he is charismatic and easily able to convince others of his lies.

 

I also believed in the church leadership, but I’ve learned that all the preaching, and all the sermons they gave, had no value because when it came down to crunch time, they didn’t follow it. They didn’t use biblical principles to address it, and in fact instead of coming alongside and ministering to my daughter and I, they threw us out and rejected us. They never spoke to us or used Matthew 18. They would do well to read Ezekial 34. 

 

They threw the first stone. 

 

I know now, why most women in my situation don’t speak up, and some even blame God. Because the church usually shuns them, like they did me, and ministers to the man. They cover up sin to protect their reputations rather than to protect the kingdom of God. The church believes the perpetrator and never listens to the voice of the victim crying. My heart breaks for them. Yet I knew I needed to speak up anyway. After living in darkness for so many years I needed to bring the darkness into the light. The lies and deceptions needed to be exposed to root it out and for the fellowship and families to heal. 

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My abuse spanned over the course of four and a half years with Gary. A year of grooming and another three and a half years.  Now it's  over a year of abuse at the hands of the leadership staff and ministry team at Seed of Abraham. Yes, what the church has done in response is abuse too. 

 

Many times I have asked God why do I have to stand up? Why do I have to be the one of the ones to exposed the root of corruption? 

 

    If not me, then who? If not now, then when?

 

I’ve spent years asking what my purpose is, what I’m supposed to do with my life. Well, my purpose is to serve God and to make him known to others. I’m supposed to reach out to others. Those people who are alone and hurting, rejected by the church. The church that was supposed to be safe.

 

But, it isn’t safe though, is it? 

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To read the rejected letter I wrote to the church back in February 2021 click the link below:

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