The reposting of “that” post
Mirrored from The Adventures of Holly.
I know promised you last year that this post would be back once I finished university, so here it is.
Some of you might remember this original post and the uproar that surrounded it at the time, but for those of you who are recent readers, I STRONGLY suggest you look at these two posts before you read the account below, so it won’t be out of context:
- So what happened?
- An audition and a book
Went to Gloriavale yesterday and it was honestly one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. Lake Haupiri, where the community is situated, is a 3 hour drive from Christchurch, so although I spent 6 hours in the car, it was definitely worth it.
When we arrived, the leader, Hopeful Christian, met us near the entrance and showed us around their dairy farm, where really little kids were learning how to milk cows. Although I’d heard lots of stories about him from the media, my lecturer and my friend who visited the community last year, he was nothing like I expected. I expected him to be really tall, have a huge beard and look like an Amish guy, but he didn’t. He was only slightly taller than I am, clean shaven and about 80 years old. He knew our lecturer from previous trips, and so was pretty friendly.
After he’d shown us the dairy farm, which he was obviously very proud of, we got back into our cars and followed him up to the residential area of the community. There he showed us more of what they do for a living, which is a lot! They export moss (in hanging planters) to America, own their own small airline and manufacture pet food! All of these companies are run by the members of the community as part of their daily life.
We also visited their indoor swimming pool, where some little girls were playing. HC told us that one of the girls was his seven-year-old daughter. We were all slightly baffled by this, since he’s rather old to have such a young child, but then he explained that he’s been married three times (I believe the first two wives are now deceased) and his current wife is only in her thirties!
Then he took us to see the hostels where the people live, and sat with us there for a couple of hours answering questions and talking about Gloriavale’s beliefs and way of life. He said that when a couple marries, which is typically in their late teens/early 20s, they are prepared to have all the children God will give them, because “birth control is the twin brother of abortion”. As a result of this philosophy, many families have upward of ten children, often with an enormous gap between the oldest and youngest. An entire family sleeps in one room (of varying sizes) with their parents, until children marry and start families of their own.
When one class member asked him what would happen if a couple discovered they were infertile and unable to have children, he said that the community would be prepared to pay for IVF treatment, and, if that was unsuccessful, another pregnant woman would allow the infertile couple to adopt her baby, and raise it as if it wee biologically theirs. Being adopted myself, I wish I had thought to ask how often this occurs, and whether the children are ever told that the couple who raise them are not their biological parents.
After our question and answer session we went in to have dinner with the whole community. Their dining room is amazing. They don’t watch TV or use the internet for entertainment here, and most people learn a musical instrument as as part of their education, so there are a lot of extremely skilled performers, musicians and artists at Gloriavale, which I found very impressive. In some ways I wish I could have talked to them about this instead of their faith!
Although the majority of the acts in the show they out on for us were religious songs, there was one act I thought was absolutely hysterical. It started off with a pair of men singing, and then the curtains opened to a river scene, onto which some fake flamingos and a mini steam boat (with a person walking along inside it) appeared. Then a piece of the stage tilted downwards to become a ramp, which allowed the boat, along with three enormous dancing alligators, to come down right towards the audience! I tried to take photos of this, but the stage lighting changed so frequently that I couldn’t work out which camera setting to use, and by the time I’d decided a video would be best, the act had finished!
After this, HC announced to the group that there were visitors here, and they all applauded for us. He then held an open forum, where we could use the microphone to ask questions of anybody in the community, and they could do the same of us. He got one young married couple to stand up and talk about their relationship. They looked extremely young so I took the opportunity to ask how old they were. The husband was 19 and the wife was 22. I was very surprised! They didn’t look anywhere near that old, and nor did they sound it when they spoke!
After he’d established that nobody else in our group had any questions, HC decided to tell us their thoughts on evolution. This consisted of a total mockery of what he understood to be our beliefs! Apparently we believe that jelly can turn into things by going “‘poof! out of nowhere!”. The rest of the community thought this was absolutely brilliant, and were hysterical with laughter! At first I was offended by this, after all, we hadn’t come to Gloriavale to make fun of people to to dissuade them from their beliefs (The class we are taking is about collective behaviour, NOT theology!), and nor did we appreciate being made fun of ourselves, but then I realised that things going “poof out of nowhere” sounds an awful lot more like a description of Creationism as opposed to Evolution so far as I’m concerned!
Then came the really interesting part. Talking individually to the community members. As soon as we were invited to do this, another young woman and I were immediately swamped by about a dozen other girls our age! Although the majority of them were friendly, and although their mentality was “I am right and you are wrong and it is my responsibility to testify and tell you this”, they were at least able to have a two-way conversation, as opposed to an argument, there was one girl whose attitude and manner absolutely rubbed me the wrong way. As I said to a friend on IM earlier today; “She looked 14, was 20 and treated me as I were 7″.
An example of her attitude was what happened when she asked us how many children we were planning to have. I said that as I was not married yet, I did not know. This seemed to be an acceptable answer, since, unsurprisingly, the community disapproves of pre-marital sex and childbearing! However, the other woman in our group, who was a bit older than me, said that she had some medical condition that meant she knew she wasn’t going to be able to conceive naturally, and doubted she would be able to afford IVF. At this point, most people would have taken the hint and discreetly changed the subject, but not this girl. The general gist of her response was that this was an advantage of living At Gloriavale, as the community would be able to provide you with all the medical treatment you would need in order to become pregnant. Although that may very well be true, the manner in which she said it came across as extremely mean-spirited and boastful!
Disgusted as I was, in her defense, it may be that only a few women there have ever actually had IVF, and have all been lucky enough to conceived as a result, so it may be that this young woman’s perspective is slightly skewed. She may not realise that fertility treatment is not always successful to begin with.
The funniest thing I heard all night was a exchange between a young man from Gloriavale and Sally*, one of the older students in our class. I wish I was as clever as this.:
Man: How many children do you have?
Sally: Three, they’re all [in their late teens and early 20s]
Man: So you’ve obviously used birth control.
Sally: Yes, of course we have.
Man: So how do you feel about having murdered your children?
Sally: *without missing a beat* Are you telling me you’ve never masturbated?
Man: Of course I have.
Me: *astounded to hear that, but continuing listening, struggling not to laugh, as I have spotted where Sally is headed*
Sally: So how do you feel about having murdered your children?
Man: *looks momentarily confused, then turns around and started talking to another class member about something totally different*
Although I did ask a lot of questions, I can think of so many more I wish I’d asked! I guess that always happens though, hindsight is a brilliant thing!
We left the community just after 9pm, but not before HC had given us each 5 evangelical DVDs, a booklet about Gloriavale and why we all ought to join, and a loaf of bread. o.O
Certainly a once in a lifetime experience, that’s for sure!
EDIT (2.1.2010): Upon doing some Google Blog Searching, I discovered another student’s account of his visit to Gloriavale. I don’t know this man, he wasn’t in my class, but I think his comments are still very interesting. I wonder whether they ever tried to intimidate HIM into backing down.
EDIT (17.4.2010): Gloriavale now have their own website up and running. Click here to visit it and read about them in their own words.