This Mexican persecuted by La Luz del Mundo obtained asylum in the United States and wants to help others to leave the church

LOS ANGELES, California.- Judith Hernández, a 46-year-old Mexican, feels that it is time to go out and tell everything that she did not dare to say when she was a member of La Luz del Mundo. He was born in La Hermosa Provincia, in Jalisco, Guadalajara, bastion of the church and grew up in a family that has belonged to La Luz del Mundo for more than 60 years. He was a member of the choir and finance committee, organized sales of roses and food, and did not miss a single month with his tithes and special offerings to the church.

He considered his apostle, Naasón Joaquín García, as “the purest human being on earth” until mid-2019, when the religious leader was arrested in Los Angeles, California, currently charged with

.

The spiritual leader has pleaded not guilty to all charges and the trial is scheduled to begin on May 9, 2022.

[

Reading Naasón's court case in July 2019, Hernández recalled an episode of abuse that occurred in her teens when

. 

Judith Hernández with a friend from La Luz del Mundo church, during a baptism ceremony in Washington DC, on July 14, 2019.

When she made her doubts public, threatening messages and calls began to arrive to silence her: “I was so afraid that I couldn't leave the house.

My sisters were the ones who attacked me the hardest, ”he says.

I was so scared that I couldn't leave the house "

Judith Hernandez

With the help of an attorney, she gathered enough evidence to build an asylum case and won it on April 16, 2021. She is the first person known to have received

after having been threatened by members of this Christian church. 

His lawyer, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, assures that, as evidence, he sent conversations in text messages and emails between members of La Luz del Mundo and Hernández, and publications on social networks where anonymous profiles speak against his defended in a threatening tone. 

"We are waiting for you in Mexico", "We know you don't even have papers"

were some of those messages.

Naasón Joaquín García, at a hearing to review his bond in the Superior Court of Los Angeles, on July 15, 2019. Al Seib / AP

Since obtaining asylum, Hernández affirms that he is directing his efforts to create the necessary infrastructure to help other members of La Luz del Mundo to leave, if they wish: “We know that

but they have nowhere to go ”. 

Noticias Telemundo Investiga has contacted two ministers and seven active members of La Luz del Mundo who have expressed their desire to leave the church and also their fear of doing so for fear of reprisals. 

We contacted the press office of La Luz del Mundo to obtain their position on the allegations of Judith Hernández, collected in this interview, but there has been no response. 

*** 

-What happened in La Luz del Mundo after the arrest of Naasón Joaquín García, in June 2019?

-For me it was something very difficult, something very strong.

Honestly, I thought someone very powerful wanted to harm him.

When I saw the news, I felt that it was a plot against us.

We had always been indoctrinated that if an enemy came out speaking ill of our apostle, it was the devil who wanted to break the church, and I took it that way.

I was contacted from Berea, which is the church's communications team, to participate in a campaign to help clear Naason's name.

That is why

with the

# yosoyunodelos5millones, in reference to the five million faithful [according to church calculations] of La Luz del Mundo.

We all said that there was someone very powerful who wanted to hurt us and we were not going to allow it.

Letter written by Judith Hernández to support the defense of Naasón Joaquín García after his arrest in June 2019 on charges of sexual abuse.

Naasón's lawyers office asked me to write a letter giving my testimony that I had never seen anything bad, any criminal conduct by Naasón.

And so I did: I wrote that all the values ​​that I had, all my reputation as a professional, everything I had, what I was worth as a woman, in all aspects of my life, I owed to Naasón.

I wrote that letter with my heart because I wanted to contribute in some way to the defense of Naasón, for me it was a great blessing to do so.

-Is your family close to Naasón Joaquín's family?

-I grew up in a normal family within the church.

We were bank members, we do not belong to one of the renowned families, close to power.

But my life within the church changed in 2006, when

, the then servant of God, was moved to Cisero, Illinois, because her husband was put in charge of that community.

I lived in Chicago and over time I became very close friends with Betsy, that's what they call her in the family.

She took my confidence and I felt that it was a great blessing to be able to serve a person who came from the direct lineage of the apostle Samuel Joaquin.

I was his unconditional support.

I bought her things, accompanied her to run her errands, took her from one place to another, I felt very blessed to be at Betsy's service.

-So, at what point do you lose faith in the church and in Naasón?

-For me, The Light of the World was my life.

I supported all the activities of the church.

In July 2019 we went to Washington DC because there would be mass church baptisms.

It was a way of showing the world that the accusations against our leader were a lie and that, on the contrary, there were more people joining our faith.

Judith Hernández in a postcard from the # yosoyunodelos5millones campaign to support Naasón Joaquín García after his arrest in June 2019. Cedida / Archivo Familiar

When we were returning from that meeting, back to Chicago, it was learned that Naasón had been denied bail.

The church ministers told us that we should not check social networks, or watch the news, or read any of the court documents because

.

At that moment, my heart told me that something was wrong.

Since I was little I was indoctrinated to think that we owed everything to the apostle, first to Samuel and then to Naasón, and that they mean everything to us.

They always taught me that if I was a professional woman, I owed it to the apostle,

, if there was food on my table, I owed it to the apostle.

Part of my salary, of the fruits of my work, I contributed to the church in tithes and offerings, so I felt with the power to review what was really happening with Naasón.

[The Light of the World raises millions of dollars from its faithful.

What do they do with the money?]

So I

.

I saw details about what the agents had found on Naasón's electronic devices, photos and videos of sexual acts with minors, and at that moment I realized that I had been lied to all my life.

At that moment I realized that I had been lied to all my life "

Judith HERNANDEZ

Naasón was not an apostle, nor was he honorable, nor was he the person we were taught.

I understood that the Joaquín family are a family that wants to profit from our faith, they promised us a salvation, a life after this life, and everything was a lie.

Naasón Joaquín García turned out to be a charlatan.

My faith fell apart, I realized that

.

That is why I feel that the duty of former members of the church is to expose the truth about The Light of the World, the church cannot continue to deceive its followers.

Judith Hernández (right) with Betsabé Joaquín, sister of Naasón Joaquín García, in Seattle, Washington.

February 23, 2019. Transferred / Family file

-At that time you were very close to Bathsheba Joaquín, what did she say to you?

-They were very concerned about the issue of bail, they wanted to see Naasón outside the prison.

First, the judge denied him the bail and then he put it at 50 million dollars, so the church was looking for a way to pay that 10 percent of the bail, five million, so that Naasón could leave.

In those days when my faith was broken,

.

They were calling on members who had business and good income to raise the five million dollars.

Betsy told me that they could not use the resources of the church to pay the bond because that would reveal the economic power they had.

That is why it was easier to make a collection among the members of the church, to show that we had a very great faith. 

Parishioners raise their hands during the celebration of the Holy Supper in the central temple of Guadalajara.

August 14, 2019. Carlos Jasso / AP

Betsy told me clearly: "We have the money, but we cannot pay it like that in one go, we are looking for people like you who have how to show the government where that money is coming from, you are going to make a loan to Naasón as a friend", practically what he was asking me to do was launder money, but no, I couldn't do it and I didn't.

-How were the days after you lost your faith in La Luz del Mundo?

-For me it was an existential shock to understand that I had been deceived all my life.

And I thought about the tsunami that would come in my family because I knew that,

and I was going to lose them.

I had to process it for a few days, I was very sad, but I had two options: keep crying or get up and expose what I felt to the world.

When I read the court documents on Naason's case, my brain changed the chip overnight.

It's like a blindfold has been removed.

In a week my heart changed, I went from love to disappointment, I no longer believed in anything the church said.

-Did you remember at that moment what happened to you when you were a teenager?

-Yes, I was sexually assaulted by a person from the top of the church.

He was a man from a very important family within the organization that was at the direct service of the apostle at that time, Samuel Joaquín Flores.

I was 14 years old, and I never spoke about it.

I was sexually assaulted by a person from the top of the church "

Judith Hernandez

I was always afraid to tell my family because I knew they would not believe me.

At La Luz del Mundo church if something bad happens to you, your parents will be the first to tell you “shut up”.

And if you speak it, the whole community is going to come against you.

Women pray inside the central temple of La Luz del Mundo in Guadalajara on the day their top leader Naasón Joaquín García was arrested on June 4, 2019. Refugio Ruiz / AP

But now I think it is time to speak out in public because I am sure that, like me, there are many girls who have been abused.

I have even known that some of my friends that I grew up with in the Beautiful Province, who were also raped, sexually assaulted, touched, by different pedophiles within the church.

 -Have you ever witnessed or heard of any sexual abuse of a minor when you lived in the Beautiful Province?

-Not really.

But I do remember that for Samuel Joaquín children were very important, the festivities of Children's Day were very special for him.

As at that time the congregation was not as large as it is now, the children who lived in the Beautiful Province had “the great blessing” of sharing close to him.

[Private dances, massages and baths for the apostle: the secrets of 'Los Incondicionales' from La Luz del Mundo]

For example, I remember that when I was between four and five years old, Samuel Joaquín once sent our caregivers to take us to a large house that he had where there was a swimming pool.

Inside we were between 25 to 30 girls, we were all 4 to 10 years old.

Now I start to think about

.

They taught us that this was a blessing, but now it doesn't seem normal to me in an older man, an apostle, who was supposedly pure and holy.  

-What did you do when you stopped believing what the church members said?

Did you take any kind of action?

-Yes, I started to say everything I thought about La Luz del Mundo through a Facebook profile;

it was an important part of my sanitation to do this.

However, I felt that this was not the time to talk to my family.

I spent nine months pretending that I still believed in Naasón, and I continued with the same activities within the church because I did not want to lose my brothers and my mother.

I lasted nine months pretending that I still believed in Naasón "

Judith Hernandez

As Naasón attended the court, the council of bishops and the spokesmen of La Luz del Mundo insisted that the information from the prosecutors was false and the banking brothers believed them, that made us "former LLDMs" very indignant, I could not bear such baseness and decided to act.

In March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, is the moment when I decide to tell my family that I had lost faith in La Luz del Mundo.

.

A few weeks after the ministers of my church were notified that I had retired, an event occurred that raised many doubts about La Luz del Mundo.

An ICE operative came to my office saying that they would do an investigation to verify that all the people who worked there were with their legal documents.

It was very strange because it was a full pandemic and we were all working from home.

I am the owner of the company and I felt that it was an attack by the church against me, because I had my work permit expired since 2018 and very few people knew about it, including the ministers of the church.

Judith Hernández in her Chicago, Illinois office, where an ICE operation arrived in March 2020. Family Credit / File

-How did you resolve the situation of your legal documents?

-I moved fast and got a lawyer. At that time I was receiving many threats, the members of the church persecuted me, and they bullied me. They exposed my photo in all the Facebook groups dedicated to defending La Luz del Mundo. They spoke

and I was going to pay for it. I was so scared that I couldn't get out of the house. My sisters were the ones who attacked me the hardest.

At that point, The Light of the World had stolen my life, my money from everything I had contributed for so many years, and even my family, so I was not going to allow my future to be stolen from me.

With the help of the lawyer,

on me.

For the US government, I showed sufficient evidence of having been persecuted and threatened by members of La Luz del Mundo and that is why this country granted me political asylum.

[One of the defendants in the La Luz del Mundo church sex trafficking case pleads guilty]

-What do you think would have happened to you when you were deported to Mexico?

-One of the factors that contributed to my obtaining my asylum is that there are members who have faced La Luz del Mundo who have disappeared or have been attacked.

The first was

for reporting sexual abuse to Samuel Joaquín Flores.

This is precisely the fear of brothers who no longer believe in the church, but are afraid to go out.

-Do you have contact with members of La Luz del Mundo who have already lost their faith, but are still in the church?

-When I won political asylum, I entered all the social media groups such as Facebook and Reddit of the former members with my real name, because before she called me Joana Fernández.

There we present our experiences and many people have contacted me directly to tell me about the fear they feel of officially leaving the church.

They are people who

, including their families, because they will see them as enemies.

When you're a member of the church, you don't accept people who don't profess the same faith into your social circle, that's how they indoctrinated us all.

Aerial shot of the central temple of the La Luz del Mundo church, in the Hermosa Provincia neighborhood of Guadalajara, Jalisco.

June 9, 2019. Ulises Ruiz / AFP via Getty Images

-How do you plan to help other members to leave La Luz del Mundo? 

-I felt the moral responsibility as a former member to help people who have been in the same situation as mine, who feel trapped and do not know how to get out of La Luz del Mundo.

It is a problem that has been growing since the arrest of Naasón Joaquín.

I am working on this project, called

, with other former members of the church.

We want to offer different types of

, depending on the need that each one has.

We will help victims of sexual abuse to relocate and receive psychological therapy.

[Noticias Telemundo Podcast: The Secrets of La Luz del Mundo]

We know that there are many banking brothers and ministers who no longer want to be in the church but have nowhere to go, nor do they have money, so we want to tell them to come to us because we are going to help them.

pro-bono

who will help them process their political asylum in the United States.

I want to make a call to all the members of La Luz del Mundo who want to leave this sect, to contact us, everything will remain anonymous, we will not air their names because we know the consequences that may occur if this happens.

- What is the name of the foundation?

-The idea of ​​calling it the

is because this man was the first brave man to denounce Naasón Joaquín's father, Samuel Joaquín Flores, who was the apostle at that time, for sexual abuse.

Moisés

.

We can say that he is the first survivor of The Light of the World and to honor his name is that we call our foundation that way.

If you have suffered threats, religious persecution or want to share your experience in La Luz del Mundo, you can communicate confidentially with the author of this report through the email juan.cooper@nbcuni.com