Finding true freedom after Ruby Ridge

There are inspiring speakers and there are inspiring speakers with an incredible personal story to tell. Sara Weaver belongs to the latter group.

Surviving the 11-day siege by federal agents at Ruby Ridge, near Naples, Idaho, in 1992, which left her younger brother Samuel and her mother Vicki dead and her father Randy in prison, was more than most people could expect to bear. But finding a way to forgive the federal agents turned out to be the answer to her anger and feeling of emptiness.

The mountain

The Weaver family moved to their remote cabin in 1983 when Sara was seven. Randy and Vicki had strong fundamentalist religious beliefs that were apocalyptic and “fear-based,” Sara told a group at the Women’s Connection meeting in Columbia Falls on Jan. 16.

The children were home-schooled and grew up picking huckleberries, fishing and hunting in a place where their parents believed they might survive the end times. Randy was also a “separatist” who believed the races should not mix, and it was his alleged connections with extremist groups that led to a federal investigation that soon got out of hand and led to the siege.

Samuel, 14, “my best friend, my sidekick,” was shot and killed by a U.S. Marshal, Sara said. The next day, Vicki was shot and killed while holding her infant daughter. Sara was next to her and felt her mother’s blood hit her in the face. Randy and a family friend, Kevin Harris, were shot and injured. The family soon learned from the radio what was happening and hunkered down.

“I pretty much thought they were out for revenge,” she recalled, no longer believing Samuel’s death was an accident. “I thought, if you’re going to kill anymore of us, you’re going to have to kill me, too.”

In her new book, Sara recalls a surreal conversation as they left the cabin at the end of the siege. A federal agent approached her and said, “Sara, we need to know where the booby traps and land mines are.”

“I shook my head in utter disbelief,” she wrote, “that they weren’t smart enough to figure out that booby traps and land mines don’t work well with dogs, kids and chickens.”

A new world

Sara, 16, Rachel, 10, and Elisheba, 16 months, were taken by their grandparents back to Iowa where they ended up living with an aunt and uncle. Sara was protective of her younger sisters, and for a while Elisheba called Sara “Mama.”

After so many years living in a strict fundamentalist and secluded home, moving into the mainstream world was a struggle for Sara. The flight to Iowa was her first trip on a plane. She saw her first escalator at a shopping mall. She had trouble finding real cotton skirts to wear.

Entering high school in a suburb of Des Moines, Sara found school work relatively easy but fitting in was more difficult. Her uncle was a musician who had worked with the Beach Boys, and they shared a love for 80s music. But Sara gave up on God, faith and religion, and for 10 years she “lived in darkness, afraid to laugh or be happy.”

“I wanted to know why this oddball thing happen to me,” she said. “It drove me crazy. Why didn’t I die up there? It would be so much easier than having to live through all this garbage.”

Randy was released from jail just before Sara’s graduation. He had been found guilty of only one charge — failure to appear — and Sara was glad she never had to testify. He moved to Iowa and took Rachel and Elisheba to live with him. Sara stayed behind to finish high school.

Not long after graduation, the federal government settled with the Weaver family. Randy got $100,000, and each daughter got $1 million, with 20 percent going to the attorneys. Kevin Harris, who had killed Bill Degan, a decorated U.S. Marshal at the beginning of the siege, was given $380,000. Sara said the settlement “left a bitter taste in my mouth.”

“They had slaughtered our family and were essentially saying they did no wrong,” she wrote.

But Sara was “horrified” when she learned that Timothy McVeigh had bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City as revenge for Ruby Ridge and the deaths at Waco, Texas.

“Don’t take a life in my name and think you’re doing good,” she said.

True freedom

Randy wanted the family to move back West again, so “we pulled out a road atlas and picked the biggest little town in northwestern Montana, which happened to be Kalispell,” Sara wrote. Randy still lives in Kalispell, where he helps raise his grandchildren and has completely given up the apocalyptic religious beliefs he once shared with his wife.

In Montana, Sara found herself with a beautiful home and a son, but she wasn’t happy and her first marriage was in trouble. Sara credits her best friend from her days in Idaho, Maria Cook, for helping her find Christ and forgiveness. Finding a way to forgive the federal agents who killed her mother and brother allowed her to finally find “true freedom.”

“Ruby Ridge affected so many people,” she said, “and I want them to know it’s going to be OK and there’s hope.”

Sara and her second husband, Marc Balter, now live in Marion. She said she’s never asked for or received apologies from the federal agents involved at Ruby Ridge. She expects some of them feel horrible about what happened but feels they need to find forgiveness from God.

“Forgiveness is a choice,” she told the group in Columbia Falls. She said she wasn’t sure if it can be done without Christ, but the idea that forgiveness is a choice gives her the strength to stand up to returning feelings of anger about Ruby Ridge.

“We’re all broken human beings,” she said, noting that Vietnam veterans she’s met feel they’ll never be forgiven for what they did in war. “God doesn’t care if you’re the victim or the perpetrator — he loves everyone.”

Sara and Randy published a book on their lives in 1998 called “The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge.” Her new book, “From Ruby Ridge to Freedom, The Sara Weaver Story,” was published by Overboard Ministries in 2012. For more information, visit her Web site www.rubyridgetofreedom.com.