"No talent" and "too fat" to be a Christian - this is what a former Gloriavale member says leaders told her.
Rebekah Kempf was giving evidence at the Employment Court case in Christchurch, where current members deny the work is not forced.
"I was not given a choice," former Gloriavale member Sharon Ready said.
When Ready signed Gloriavale's declaration of commitment she said she "was just obeying my husband".
Ready said she was also obeying the Christain community's leaders.
"I was following blindly in obedience it was not something I embraced willingly."
A mutual feeling among fellow Gloriavale leavers giving evidence on Wednesday in court, where a group of women are arguing they were employees and not volunteers.
"I was born into the Gloriavale community on July 16, 1996," Kempf said.
Kempf left when she was 18, following 12 years of work, including making bread at 3am.
But the job that bore the most impact was working in the freezers late at night after everyone had gone home.
"To me, life in Gloriavale was lifting 20kg crates above my head on a stool, on a wet slippery floor, on my own for hours on end in freezing temperatures. That's happened," Kempf said.
"You can't make it sound any worse or any better than what it was."
She said the work injured her back.
"From a young child, I was told I had no talent and set to serve God and that I was fat," Kempf said. "I was told a number of times that I couldn't have been a Christian if I was fat because it proved that I wasn't disciplining myself and I wasn't denying myself and taking up my cross."
Kempf said work was always the answer.
Former member Hannah Harrison said the same thing but she said she was slow - so was disciplined.
"I used to have a supervisor who would smack me with a wooden spoon because she thought I was lazy," she said.
Women worked in the kitchen and Rosanna Overcomer said that's also where sexual abuse happened.
"It was mostly bum grabbing by the leaders and even just walking past and undoing your dress," she said.
But Overcomer said when a fellow resident made a false accusation about her own actions, she said she was called a "whore" and accused of "wanting a single man for myself".
She said the leader told her she had no right to answer him.
