Former Jehovah's Witness Cover Child Is Furious Over the Blood Change

I'm one of the kids on that infamous Awake magazine cover, the one a woman posted to the XJW subreddit on October 4th. Her post picked up more than 700 upvotes and more than 100 replies within about a day. It's the cover from the May 22, 1994 Awake, part of the "Youths Who Put God First" series, with two articles inside: "He Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth" and "Youths Who Have Power Beyond What Is Normal." I've covered the stories of the kids who died in that series before, so I won't go through them again here. What matters this time is something a lot of Witnesses and ex-Witnesses get wrong about that cover: not every kid on it died. And one of the survivors just said so herself.

A Common Assumption That Isn't True

It's widely believed that every child shown on that Awake cover died for refusing a blood transfusion. The woman who posted on Reddit corrected that directly:

"People asked and thought we were all dead. No, only the three kids most up front are dead, plus one inside."

In her thread, three different people said they had always assumed every kid on the cover was dead. Someone else said they grew up with one of the other kids pictured — a boy who was never sick and never needed a blood transfusion, and who is alive today. Between them, the Awake articles actually name five kids. Three died. Two didn't.

How the Magazine Created the Confusion

The misunderstanding isn't a mystery — the magazine itself reads that way. The table of contents sets the tone:

"In former times, thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it."

The second article, on page 14, reinforces it. When it covers the death of Lisa Kosack, it says she "joined the ranks of many other youthful witnesses of Jehovah who put God first" — tying her death straight back to the cover's headline, as if putting God first and dying were the same thing.

Readers absorbed that message. In the "From Our Readers" section of the December 8, 1994 Awake, one person wrote in:

"I was really struck by the indomitable firmness of all the youths mentioned. After reading the articles, I cried a lot and thanked Jehovah that he gave them the strength to face such difficulties down to their death."

"All the youths mentioned," "down to their death" — except two of them hadn't died, and the articles themselves say so. The Awake never ran a correction.

Who She Was Before the Photo

If she wasn't dying, why was she on the cover? She was born into the religion, became the youngest regular pioneer in her district — a role that required a minimum of 90 hours a month of door-to-door preaching, though she says she put in far more — and was baptized at 13. At 14 she went to pioneer school, the youngest one there. She gave talks at conventions and volunteered constantly.

"I was always volunteering for every last convention. I just poured myself out."

Asked in the thread how she got picked for the cover, she said it came down to being the youngest Witness who put in the most time in the preaching work.

"I thought it was for betterment, not encouraging death."

The Abuse Behind the Picture

She also explained why she was pushing herself so hard. She says she was assaulted by a Jehovah's Witness at age 9. She told her mother, who went to the police — to her credit — and the family moved away. But she says the congregation tried to cover the matter up on what she calls "some file." At home, things weren't much easier.

"My mom seemed more pissed at me at some point. So I thought throwing myself into this religion I was born into would make people love me."

A nine-year-old deciding that the surest path to safety and love was to become the best Jehovah's Witness possible is a tragic pattern, and a common one.

What the "File" Actually Was

Her reference to a "file" lines up with real internal Watchtower correspondence. A letter to elders dated July 1, 1989, marked confidential, instructs:

"When elders receive reports of physical or sexual abuse of a child, they should contact the society's legal department immediately."

The next line does say victims need to be protected from further danger, but the letter then directs elders to an Awake article that tells parents to confront the accused and comfort the child — not once does it instruct anyone to call the police or report the abuse to authorities. The only call elders are told to make is to Watchtower's legal department.

A later letter to elders, dated July 20, 1998 and also marked confidential, adds that anything placed in a congregation's confidential file about someone accused of child molestation — proven or not — should be marked "do not destroy" and kept indefinitely. The 1989 letter also warns elders to be careful what they say out loud:

"Improper use of the tongue by an elder can result in serious legal problems for the individual, the congregation, and even the society."

Whether that letter was written to protect children or to protect the organization is a fair question to ask.

Praised on the Cover, Unprotected at Home

By her account, what happened to her at age 9 went into a confidential file — and a few years later, her face went on the cover of a magazine presenting her as a model youth for other Witnesses to imitate. She was valuable enough to be held up as an example, but not valuable enough to be protected. And being the model kid never got her what she was actually chasing.

"But the more I did, the more hatred I got from adults."

"All these adults knew and nobody stepped up to say anything except for one woman."

Fifteen years later, that one woman — a sister in the congregation — apologized for how she'd treated her. A childhood friend also kept apologizing to her over the years, until she finally asked why. The friend told her: "You know, you were just so sweet and I'm so sorry for the things that happened to you." That was the moment it clicked for her.

"I realized right then I was being abused in that religion."

A Fear That Never Left

The cover itself left its own mark.

"This is where my fear of death came from."

She kept her copy of that Awake all these years. Asked why, she said it was so she'd know she hadn't imagined it — she'd look at it every few years and wonder what happened to the others. She wasn't the only one affected this way. Someone else in the thread said they noticed the kids who "went super hard" got attention and love, and that wanting the same thing helped push them toward getting baptized too. The magazine itself documented that effect. Another reader letter in the same December 8, 1994 "From Our Readers" section, from someone in Germany, read:

"Dying doesn't scare me, but the thought of disregarding Jehovah's laws does."

The Policy Change That Reopened Everything

The irony is that on September 18 of this year, Governing Body Update number six quietly made what was previously forbidden a matter of personal choice: the four major components of blood — red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets — are now left to each Witness's own conscience. Two of those components, red cells and platelets, are specifically what one of the kids from the "Youths Who Put God First" series, Lenae Martinez, refused before she died. She was praised at the time for refusing them. Today, she could have accepted them and remained in good standing.

For the woman who posted on Reddit, the timing was brutal.

"The shock of seeing the recent rule changes on taking blood only to see my face on the cover again almost made me faint."

Since the policy update, that same 1994 cover has been circulating again across the ex-Witness community and in media coverage of the blood ban's effective end. Looking at it now, she says she understands something she didn't before:

"I hate that it's back with the very message I came to understand. They allowed their kids to die."

"Nor Is an Apology Needed"

That raised the obvious question a lot of people have been asking since the blood policy changed: where's the apology? The governing body answered that question before anyone asked it. In the talk "How Does the Light Get Brighter?" from the 2023 annual meeting, Governing Body member Jeffrey Winder told Jehovah's Witnesses they don't need to apologize for anything:

"So this is what we know from the scriptures and from our own experience as well, about how the light gets brighter in modern times. It comes about by means of the Holy Spirit through his channel of the faithful and discreet slave. He reveals it gradually and at a time that it is needed. Well, knowing this, then we are not embarrassed about adjustments that are made, nor is an apology needed for not getting it exactly right previously. We understand this is how Jehovah operates. He reveals matters gradually when it is needed. And also, the governing body is neither inspired nor infallible, and so it can err in doctrinal matters or in organizational direction. The brothers do the best they can with what they have and what they understand at the time, but are happy if Jehovah sees fit to clarify matters."

That stance hasn't softened. At this year's annual meeting, the message was much the same:

"And then you make a decision based on that careful, prayerful review. A process like that would certainly please Jehovah because you're taking it seriously and you're doing what you can to make a good decision before him. And that also applies to decisions that we've made in the past. Jehovah remembers and loves those decisions that were made to please him."

In other words, it doesn't matter that the governing body got it wrong, and it doesn't matter that the Bible says nothing at all about blood transfusions or the four major components. What matters is that you made God happy by obeying a decision he supposedly loved — even though it's now acknowledged to have been a mistake.

The Reddit poster's reaction to all of this was pointed:

"I am so angry that they're not apologizing, not even showing a little bit of remorse for children dying, just like my mom didn't before she dropped dead."

A Familiar Silence From Families, Too

The lack of apology isn't limited to the organization. Witness parents routinely cut off children who leave the religion, no matter how good their reasons for leaving are. My own wife, Beth, is living that right now — she hasn't spoken to her parents in nine years, because she left.

Where She Is Now

The woman behind the Reddit post has been out of the religion for almost 20 years. She said therapy actually made things worse for her; what helped was searching for the truth on her own.

"I am so grateful to be free."

"I didn't have to spend 20 of those 30 years fearing death, missing out on so much just to get no apology."

Her closing word on the whole thing was simple: "I won't let them win."

She grew up on a magazine cover that told the world she might die for her faith, spent decades carrying the fear that photo created, and got out — only to watch the organization quietly reverse the very policy some of the other kids on that cover died for, without a word of regret for any of it.