American Teacher Shares Abuse of "Pastor" Jared Cox

Hello and thank you for your bold address to Jared’s international spiritual and emotional abuse. I’ve needed to share my story. It’s taken me time to heal and find the strength to write it again.

I am an American teacher who worked in Managua. One of my roommates invited me to then Harvest Church and I fell in love with the community and more specifically, one of its members. I jumped through all the hoops of new member training, tithing, attending church at least 4x a week for different events, and being lead in small group. Soon I developed a relationship with that member and learned he desperately wanted his title of deacon restored, as Jared had taken it from him and after he confessed he fell into sin with a woman years earlier. As we dated, he eventually proposed and I accepted. Everyone seemed happy until Jared and one of his pastors got very personal with me. One day during our premarital counseling they locked me in a church office with them and were yelling at me to repent. They said it was because I moved too much as a child and it would make me a bad wife. I had to yell out in prayer multiple times. I did it over and over again crying as they blocked the door for at least 30 minutes. It was terrifying. My fiancé stood in support with them. I wish I had left then, but I figured I had finally done enough to let them see I was committed to God, the church, and to my fiancé. After we planned, put down deposits on venues, cakes, and more, Jared called my fiancé only 9 days before our wedding requesting an urgent meeting with just me. I agreed out of fear. When he and I were alone in his office, he drew a fence on the board, saying women needed boundaries like children on a playground to stay safe. He said God told him mine was to discontinue all communication with my family who were already thousands of miles away from me in the U.S. I agreed to him, only acting because I was alone and didn’t know what he would do. He sent me an email with this demand which I still have from 2014. It was that either I dismissed my family forever, or I could not marry my fiancé. I was crushed when my fiancé agreed, saying there were things the church knew about him that could ruin his reputation and work, which was that he had sex outside of marriage once. His livelihood was in Jared’s hands. I had to agree. Having no reputation to uphold myself, and fearing greatly for my safety, I did not agree. I stood up to him in person at church because I knew there were no biblical grounds for his personal demand that I never speak with my family again and follow his orders. I told him he was not God and had no right to separate marriages, to threaten peoples’ livelihoods and shame them for their past forgiven sins, that God’s grace was stronger than his desire to control others. I left everything after that because I had no choice. I was excommunicated and members who I knew as friends would turn their heads away as I walked by on the street. He told them I was allied with the devil, and the wild part is people listened, not because they believed, but because they didn’t want to be next and lose their support network or good standing with God. Strangely enough all of the gifts from the registry on our wedding went missing and someone told me Jared took them for his own personal use. Please know this man has separated families and prevented marriages. He has used God’s and members’ money and personal items for his own lavish lifestyle. He uses fear to control good people who want to obey God. They do not deserve to be manipulated by him. He should have no position of authority in a church.