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Hephzibah House Journal
Susan Grotte's journal from her experience as a student at Hephzibah House, told in short-story form.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Former Hephzibah House Students Continue to Raise Abuse Awareness
By Danni Moss
Copyright protected, all rights reserved
Copyright protected, all rights reserved
[Originally posted 10/18/2008]
Former Hephzibah House students continued to raise awareness of their allegations of abuse at the home for troubled teens in Winona Lake, IN, on Friday, Oct. 17. Using the medium of the internet, about 80 former students have reconnected and shared their stories. Many are attempting to speak out and stop the school from continuing practices former students feel are both physically and mentally abusive.
To aid in that goal, a task force of former students and concerned citizens has been formed. Presently, institutions such as Hephzibah House are not under any type of governmental regulation and have no accountability for their actions. They are virtually free to do as they wish as long as they can spin a convincing tale to parents and church supporters. Those who are ignorant of the mechanics and mind-games of abuse are unable to see through the machinations of master manipulators who have been doing this for decades, and the publicity spin sounds perfect if you don’t know better. However, once you have seen the inside of the system, you can see the buzz words for what they are and it is very obvious.
For example, there is one incident in this story which should make every reader of the article a believer. I will quote the article directly.
It’s a story Gabriella Fleury says she knows all too well. She says the treatment she endured made her feel violated.
“A man came in, he was never introduced us. We weren’t put in a gown and given a proper exam. We were in dresses. Our dresses were forced up and we had to undergo a physical, invasive vaginal exam right there at the facility,” she recalled.This is a school full of teenaged girls. This is not a medical facility. There are no doctors or nurses present. In the incident mentioned, there is no medical exam taking place in the context. This is just a moment when a man walks into a room (where, obviously a girl and another staff member are present during some sort of interview), and the girl is forced to have a vaginal exam, apparently without adequate explanation. This is at the very least a physically abusive incident because it takes place outside any medical context, and I would say that for a teenager who is a virgin it is a sexually abusive one! There is no context under which this incident is acceptable, period. It is absolutely abusive.
Perhaps you want to think it is an isolated incident; ill-advised. And maybe the director of the school would say that they have thought better of such a practice and would never do such a thing now. Here is a greater truth. The attitude and heart that would allow such treatment of the girls is a heart of disrespect. It is a heart that thinks of these girls as worthless things that need to be beaten into shape because they are disgusting trash.
If you read more about how these girls were treated, this is, in fact, the attitude with which they were treated across the board. The setting of the entire institution was one of dehumanization and humiliation, extreme and frequent punishment, with reward for complete and absolute compliance, and sacrifice of all personality and humanity. If you can still find the founder’s writings about parenting and his attitude toward the formation of children’s character (once people began to find it online he removed it; I wish I had copied it when I first found and read it) you will find that is his attitude toward children in general. This is not a man I would trust to raise a dog, much less have the molding of my troubled teenager. In fact, he might be arrested for treating a dog the way he treats children. The ASPCA would certainly be picketing at his doorstep.
In case readers cannot tell, on this issue I am by no means unbiased. I know without a single doubt this institution is abusive. I wish these former students all success and hope they never give up as long as there is a single girl in residence at Hephzibah House.
NOTE:
From the siblings of Danni Moss:
On June 13, 2010, following a prolonged battle with cancer, Danni departed this life and stepped into the presence of the Lord.
Obviously, this creates a significant question as to the future of this blog. We are enormously proud of Danni and the work to which she had dedicated herself and we definitely want to preserve the wisdom God gave her to impart to others through her exceptional writing. In addition, due to Danni’s tireless efforts, this blog is now a reference resource for many others both online and off.
In light of that, we have made the decision to keep her blog online as long as possible. However, as there will be no one present to moderate comments or respond to emails, we will be disabling those functions. We WILL allow comments on THIS post for a period of time for those who might want to leave remembrances. We are archiving those for Danni’s children so they will understand the extent of her ministry.
She will be greatly missed…
Monday, October 6, 2008
SCHOOL'S PRISON-LIKE CONDITIONS UNCOVERED
Post-Tribune (IN) - January 3, 1993
Author: The Associated Press
A hearing is planned this week in a child custody dispute that has uncovered prison-like conditions at a conservative Baptist school for girls in Winona Lake, an attorney said.
An Orange County, N.Y., father began fighting to gain custody of his 15- year-old daughter after she was placed in an unaccredited Northeast Indiana school by her mother, who lives in Tennessee.
The teen, whose name is Sarah, has told both her father and his attorney that girls at Hephzibah House are given only a protein drink for dinner if they fail to memorize their Bible verses.
The girls' letters and telephone calls are monitored. Trips to the restroom and showers are supervised, and there are alarms on the doors and windows to keep the students inside, the girl claims.
"I don't know what they're doing to these kids," said Anthony LaBella, a Middletown, N.Y., attorney representing the father. "They have no teachers. They're not allowed to talk in school. The school is not a school."
The school's founder, the Rev. Ron Williams, did not return a phone call Thursday from The Associated Press.
The school's attorney, Paul Refior of Warsaw, was out of town Thursday, his secretary said.
The last names of Sarah and her parents, Lucius and Mary, are not being used because the girl was sexually abused by a stepfather, who is in prison in Tennessee.
LaBella learned Wednesday night that Sarah had been removed from the school, apparently after returning from a court-ordered six-hour visit with her father on Tuesday. She was sighted in Tennessee on Wednesday morning, LaBella said.
"They drove this kid all night long from Indiana back down to Tennessee," he said. "I'm really concerned as to what kind of shape this kid is in."
Sarah's mother brought her to Hephzibah House in February after the teen- ager was expelled from a Christian school in Tennessee, the attorney said.
Lucius, a 60-year-old Teamster who describes himself as a born-again Baptist, is seeking custody of Sarah and her younger brother. An older sister is a married adult.
In a visit with Sarah on Tuesday, LaBella said he learned some "pretty scary stuff" about Hephzibah House , which was founded in Kosciusko County 20 years ago and is funded by independent Baptist churches.
"The kid was a 'zombiac,' " he said. "There's parts of her that reminded me of my 8-year-old daughter, and she's a 15-year-old, not an 8-year- old."
Sarah's education at Hephzibah House involved no interaction with teachers or use of scientific equipment, the attorney said. Alarms are in place "not to keep people from coming in; it's to keep them from going out," LaBella said.
The powdered protein drink mix is served not only to girls who don't memorize their weekly Scripture verses, but also to teens who are sick, to deter them from faking illness, he said.
In an interview recently with The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Sarah said that once she had lived on the drink mix two or three days.
"It's gross. I gagged on it once and threw up," she said.
Lucius has asked a judge in Goshen, N.Y., to grant him permanent custody of Sarah and her brother.
Next Thursday, school officials and Sarah's mother have been summoned to Kosciusko Superior Court for a hearing on the father's request for temporary custody.
LaBella said he hopes to learn more about why Sarah was placed in Hephzibah House , and whether it was in her best interests.
"I need certain information for the long-term benefit of that child. I'm very interested to know what happened at Hephzibah House and how it might impact long term on that youngster," LaBella said.
Memo: THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
COURTS
Author: The Associated Press
A hearing is planned this week in a child custody dispute that has uncovered prison-like conditions at a conservative Baptist school for girls in Winona Lake, an attorney said.
An Orange County, N.Y., father began fighting to gain custody of his 15- year-old daughter after she was placed in an unaccredited Northeast Indiana school by her mother, who lives in Tennessee.
The teen, whose name is Sarah, has told both her father and his attorney that girls at Hephzibah House are given only a protein drink for dinner if they fail to memorize their Bible verses.
The girls' letters and telephone calls are monitored. Trips to the restroom and showers are supervised, and there are alarms on the doors and windows to keep the students inside, the girl claims.
"I don't know what they're doing to these kids," said Anthony LaBella, a Middletown, N.Y., attorney representing the father. "They have no teachers. They're not allowed to talk in school. The school is not a school."
The school's founder, the Rev. Ron Williams, did not return a phone call Thursday from The Associated Press.
The school's attorney, Paul Refior of Warsaw, was out of town Thursday, his secretary said.
The last names of Sarah and her parents, Lucius and Mary, are not being used because the girl was sexually abused by a stepfather, who is in prison in Tennessee.
LaBella learned Wednesday night that Sarah had been removed from the school, apparently after returning from a court-ordered six-hour visit with her father on Tuesday. She was sighted in Tennessee on Wednesday morning, LaBella said.
"They drove this kid all night long from Indiana back down to Tennessee," he said. "I'm really concerned as to what kind of shape this kid is in."
Sarah's mother brought her to Hephzibah House in February after the teen- ager was expelled from a Christian school in Tennessee, the attorney said.
Lucius, a 60-year-old Teamster who describes himself as a born-again Baptist, is seeking custody of Sarah and her younger brother. An older sister is a married adult.
In a visit with Sarah on Tuesday, LaBella said he learned some "pretty scary stuff" about Hephzibah House , which was founded in Kosciusko County 20 years ago and is funded by independent Baptist churches.
"The kid was a 'zombiac,' " he said. "There's parts of her that reminded me of my 8-year-old daughter, and she's a 15-year-old, not an 8-year- old."
Sarah's education at Hephzibah House involved no interaction with teachers or use of scientific equipment, the attorney said. Alarms are in place "not to keep people from coming in; it's to keep them from going out," LaBella said.
The powdered protein drink mix is served not only to girls who don't memorize their weekly Scripture verses, but also to teens who are sick, to deter them from faking illness, he said.
In an interview recently with The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Sarah said that once she had lived on the drink mix two or three days.
"It's gross. I gagged on it once and threw up," she said.
Lucius has asked a judge in Goshen, N.Y., to grant him permanent custody of Sarah and her brother.
Next Thursday, school officials and Sarah's mother have been summoned to Kosciusko Superior Court for a hearing on the father's request for temporary custody.
LaBella said he hopes to learn more about why Sarah was placed in Hephzibah House , and whether it was in her best interests.
"I need certain information for the long-term benefit of that child. I'm very interested to know what happened at Hephzibah House and how it might impact long term on that youngster," LaBella said.
Memo: THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
COURTS
SARAH CUSTODY CASE MOVED OUT OF STATE
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 8, 1993
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
A Kosciusko Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that he has no jurisdiction in a child-custody case involving a former resident of a Winona Lake boarding school now that the girl has left the state.
The school's director still has some explaining to do, though.
Attorneys representing the girl's father intend to question Hephzibah House founder Ron Williams next week about everything from the school's curriculum to charges that students are put on a liquid diet for failing to memorize Bible verses.
The answers to those questions - to be presented at a Jan. 29 custody hearing in Orange County, N.Y. - will help determine whether 15-year-old Sarah will live with her father in New York or her mother in Tennessee.
They also may aid a state welfare investigator, who is reported to be making inquiries about Hephzibah House after a News-Sentinel interview with Sarah last week.
State law prohibits the Division of Family and Children - formerly known as the welfare department - from revealing whether it is investigating Hephzibah House , a religious boarding school for troubled teen-age girls.
Nonetheless, a welfare investigator was seen in Warsaw yesterday in the company of an Indiana State Police trooper.
Tim Elliott, state supervisor of Child Protective Services, could not confirm the sighting. "All I can tell you," Elliott said, "was that he was not in Indianapolis."
Sarah - whom The News-Sentinel is not identifying by her last name because she was sexually abused by her stepfather - was sent to Hephzibah House in February by her mother.
Last week, during a court-ordered visitation with her father, Sarah said school officials punish girls who don't memorize their weekly Bible verses by giving them a "protein drink" instead of dinner.
She also said she had missed six months' of menstrual periods during her 10-month stay at Hephzibah House - a common complaint of women who have lived at the home.
Sarah's mother, alerted that a hearing had been set in Kosciusko County to discuss awarding temporary custody to Sarah's father, picked Sarah up that night and drove her back to Tennessee.
Neither Sarah nor her parents - nor Williams - were at yesterday's hearing. There wasn't much point in discussing a child-custody case in Indiana when neither the parents nor the child they're arguing over live in this state.
Judge Robert Burner took about 30 seconds to rule that he no longer had jurisdiction in the case.
Burner can order Williams to cooperate with the father's attorneys as they prepare their case for the New York hearing, however.
Warsaw attorney Paul Refior, representing Hephzibah House , declined to comment when contacted last night at his office.
But the father's attorney, Anthony "Toots" LaBella, said he has been told that Hephzibah House will provide him with an informational videotape.
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
A Kosciusko Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that he has no jurisdiction in a child-custody case involving a former resident of a Winona Lake boarding school now that the girl has left the state.
The school's director still has some explaining to do, though.
Attorneys representing the girl's father intend to question Hephzibah House founder Ron Williams next week about everything from the school's curriculum to charges that students are put on a liquid diet for failing to memorize Bible verses.
The answers to those questions - to be presented at a Jan. 29 custody hearing in Orange County, N.Y. - will help determine whether 15-year-old Sarah will live with her father in New York or her mother in Tennessee.
They also may aid a state welfare investigator, who is reported to be making inquiries about Hephzibah House after a News-Sentinel interview with Sarah last week.
State law prohibits the Division of Family and Children - formerly known as the welfare department - from revealing whether it is investigating Hephzibah House , a religious boarding school for troubled teen-age girls.
Nonetheless, a welfare investigator was seen in Warsaw yesterday in the company of an Indiana State Police trooper.
Tim Elliott, state supervisor of Child Protective Services, could not confirm the sighting. "All I can tell you," Elliott said, "was that he was not in Indianapolis."
Sarah - whom The News-Sentinel is not identifying by her last name because she was sexually abused by her stepfather - was sent to Hephzibah House in February by her mother.
Last week, during a court-ordered visitation with her father, Sarah said school officials punish girls who don't memorize their weekly Bible verses by giving them a "protein drink" instead of dinner.
She also said she had missed six months' of menstrual periods during her 10-month stay at Hephzibah House - a common complaint of women who have lived at the home.
Sarah's mother, alerted that a hearing had been set in Kosciusko County to discuss awarding temporary custody to Sarah's father, picked Sarah up that night and drove her back to Tennessee.
Neither Sarah nor her parents - nor Williams - were at yesterday's hearing. There wasn't much point in discussing a child-custody case in Indiana when neither the parents nor the child they're arguing over live in this state.
Judge Robert Burner took about 30 seconds to rule that he no longer had jurisdiction in the case.
Burner can order Williams to cooperate with the father's attorneys as they prepare their case for the New York hearing, however.
Warsaw attorney Paul Refior, representing Hephzibah House , declined to comment when contacted last night at his office.
But the father's attorney, Anthony "Toots" LaBella, said he has been told that Hephzibah House will provide him with an informational videotape.
PREACHING TO YOUTH
Post-Tribune (IN) - October 18, 1997
Author: Suzanne Eovaldi, Correspondent
"Kids, listen, there's no such thing as a perfect parent on the planet Earth," Pastor Ronald E. Williams told the Emmanuel Baptist Church Sunday school class at a recent service in South Haven.
"All parents make mistakes; all parents fail, but they want you to turn out right," Williams said.
The dynamic speaker captured the attention of the audience of children and as he spoke of traditional family values that really do serve children best.
Williams, director of Hephzibah House , a boarding school for girls, in Winona Lake, near Warsaw, told church youth that "God expects you to obey imperfect people all of your life."
The love and sincere care he holds for young people came across that beautiful warm October Sunday as he used humor, and timely examples to emphasize the strength of soul he wants his young listeners to have.
"Kids, you have a soul that will never die," Williams told the youth.
He described a typical scenario in many American homes that involves a mother having to plead until she loses her voice trying to get her children to clean up their messy rooms.
Children should help out willingly at home with chores.
"It'll build character in your soul," he said.
Williams used humor and his vibrant speaking style to convey to children they should get up from in front of the TV set and say, "Yes, sir, I'll be glad to do it," when a father asks to have the garbage taken out.
He said sassing and back talk to adult authority figures only hurt that moral conscience children need to grow up into successful adulthood.
"Show your initiative, do a job, get the soap suds flying," Williams added.
He was invited to speak at the Emmanuel Baptist Church by Pastor John Allen, a young minister who is doing what he can to lead the youth of his church in the right direction.
Allen even has a session planned for teenagers on "Talking Trash," in hopes of improving their communication skills.
Hephzibah House is a boarding school for troubled girls that receives students from all over the country.
Its director, Williams, recently celebrated 25 years of helping turn around the lives of young women sent to the home by worried parents.
The home provides structure and Biblical love, discipline and encouragement for the girls whose parents feel they've gotten out of control.
"A child can come from a good home, but has fallen in with wrong friends," Williams added. Or Godly love and real values may never be brought up in other homes he said.
For Dennis Slack and his daughter Cindy Slack, a Chesterton High School sophomore, the home and family Sunday was wonderful. They liked the speech by Pastor Williams and both enjoy the ministry of Pastor Allen's Emmanual Baptist Church.
After the service, Cindy said, "I thought it was great."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Hephzibah House is located at 508 School Street, Winona Lake, Ind. 46590.
Director Pastor Ronald E. Williams may be reached at 269-2376.
You may purchase a 28 minute color video of Hephzibah House for $10 plus $3 shipping and handling by writing the above address. THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
Author: Suzanne Eovaldi, Correspondent
"Kids, listen, there's no such thing as a perfect parent on the planet Earth," Pastor Ronald E. Williams told the Emmanuel Baptist Church Sunday school class at a recent service in South Haven.
"All parents make mistakes; all parents fail, but they want you to turn out right," Williams said.
The dynamic speaker captured the attention of the audience of children and as he spoke of traditional family values that really do serve children best.
Williams, director of Hephzibah House , a boarding school for girls, in Winona Lake, near Warsaw, told church youth that "God expects you to obey imperfect people all of your life."
The love and sincere care he holds for young people came across that beautiful warm October Sunday as he used humor, and timely examples to emphasize the strength of soul he wants his young listeners to have.
"Kids, you have a soul that will never die," Williams told the youth.
He described a typical scenario in many American homes that involves a mother having to plead until she loses her voice trying to get her children to clean up their messy rooms.
Children should help out willingly at home with chores.
"It'll build character in your soul," he said.
Williams used humor and his vibrant speaking style to convey to children they should get up from in front of the TV set and say, "Yes, sir, I'll be glad to do it," when a father asks to have the garbage taken out.
He said sassing and back talk to adult authority figures only hurt that moral conscience children need to grow up into successful adulthood.
"Show your initiative, do a job, get the soap suds flying," Williams added.
He was invited to speak at the Emmanuel Baptist Church by Pastor John Allen, a young minister who is doing what he can to lead the youth of his church in the right direction.
Allen even has a session planned for teenagers on "Talking Trash," in hopes of improving their communication skills.
Hephzibah House is a boarding school for troubled girls that receives students from all over the country.
Its director, Williams, recently celebrated 25 years of helping turn around the lives of young women sent to the home by worried parents.
The home provides structure and Biblical love, discipline and encouragement for the girls whose parents feel they've gotten out of control.
"A child can come from a good home, but has fallen in with wrong friends," Williams added. Or Godly love and real values may never be brought up in other homes he said.
For Dennis Slack and his daughter Cindy Slack, a Chesterton High School sophomore, the home and family Sunday was wonderful. They liked the speech by Pastor Williams and both enjoy the ministry of Pastor Allen's Emmanual Baptist Church.
After the service, Cindy said, "I thought it was great."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Hephzibah House is located at 508 School Street, Winona Lake, Ind. 46590.
Director Pastor Ronald E. Williams may be reached at 269-2376.
You may purchase a 28 minute color video of Hephzibah House for $10 plus $3 shipping and handling by writing the above address. THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
MARCH TRIAL SET IN SARAH CUSTODY DISPUTE CASE
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 30, 1993
Author: FROM STAFF, WIRE REPORTS
A March 25 trial date has been set in an interstate custody case involving a 15-year-old girl who formerly attended the fundamentalist Christian school, Hephzibah House , in Winona Lake.
Court papers filed this week in Orange County, N.Y., Family Court show the girl's mother, Mary, accused the father, a 60-year-old Teamsters union truck driver, Lucius, of immoral behavior and abandoning his children.
Judge Andrew P. Bivona yesterday set the March 25 trial date, and delayed making a decision on a request to have the case moved back to Tennessee, where the mother and daughter have lived most of the time since they moved from Orange County in 1987.
If Bivona rules he has jurisdiction over the case, he will decide which parent is better fit to raise the child.
The father has asked the court to grant him custody of Sarah and her 12- year-old brother since he learned the girl had been sexually abused by her stepfather and was placed in the school by her mother.
The stepfather has pleaded guilty and is serving a prison sentence.
The girl is a former student at Hephzibah House , which provides firm guidance and "correction" for rebellious girls with disciplinary problems. It has an enrollment of about 20 girls ages 12 to 16.
The mother removed the girl from the school late last month after her father won the right to visit her at school.
The father has compared the school to a concentration camp.
In court papers, the mother says her ex-husband knew about Hephzibah House 's practices early last year and agreed not to interfere.
In recently filed court papers, the mother argues that the father had no contact with the children from 1987 to 1992, and gave up summer visitation rights in exchange for not having to make child-support payments. The papers said he only became involved with his children's lives when his eldest daughter tracked him down through the Social Security Administration in February 1992. Last week, Sarah's father said he lost the energy to visit his children because his wife repeatedly resisted and because of the distance.
The mother's attorney is Melvyn Leffler of Newburgh, N.Y.
Lucius' attorney, Anthony "Toots" LaBella, said last night that the Tennessee judge who earlier this month denied emergency temporary custody to Lucius has refused to sign an order granting the New York court jurisdiction.
''I'm somewhat concerned," LaBella said, noting that a jurisdictional dispute between the courts could tie up the case for months.
''For Sarah's sake, this issue needs to be resolved." Because Sarah was a victim of abuse, The News-Sentinel is not using her last name.
Author: FROM STAFF, WIRE REPORTS
A March 25 trial date has been set in an interstate custody case involving a 15-year-old girl who formerly attended the fundamentalist Christian school, Hephzibah House , in Winona Lake.
Court papers filed this week in Orange County, N.Y., Family Court show the girl's mother, Mary, accused the father, a 60-year-old Teamsters union truck driver, Lucius, of immoral behavior and abandoning his children.
Judge Andrew P. Bivona yesterday set the March 25 trial date, and delayed making a decision on a request to have the case moved back to Tennessee, where the mother and daughter have lived most of the time since they moved from Orange County in 1987.
If Bivona rules he has jurisdiction over the case, he will decide which parent is better fit to raise the child.
The father has asked the court to grant him custody of Sarah and her 12- year-old brother since he learned the girl had been sexually abused by her stepfather and was placed in the school by her mother.
The stepfather has pleaded guilty and is serving a prison sentence.
The girl is a former student at Hephzibah House , which provides firm guidance and "correction" for rebellious girls with disciplinary problems. It has an enrollment of about 20 girls ages 12 to 16.
The mother removed the girl from the school late last month after her father won the right to visit her at school.
The father has compared the school to a concentration camp.
In court papers, the mother says her ex-husband knew about Hephzibah House 's practices early last year and agreed not to interfere.
In recently filed court papers, the mother argues that the father had no contact with the children from 1987 to 1992, and gave up summer visitation rights in exchange for not having to make child-support payments. The papers said he only became involved with his children's lives when his eldest daughter tracked him down through the Social Security Administration in February 1992. Last week, Sarah's father said he lost the energy to visit his children because his wife repeatedly resisted and because of the distance.
The mother's attorney is Melvyn Leffler of Newburgh, N.Y.
Lucius' attorney, Anthony "Toots" LaBella, said last night that the Tennessee judge who earlier this month denied emergency temporary custody to Lucius has refused to sign an order granting the New York court jurisdiction.
''I'm somewhat concerned," LaBella said, noting that a jurisdictional dispute between the courts could tie up the case for months.
''For Sarah's sake, this issue needs to be resolved." Because Sarah was a victim of abuse, The News-Sentinel is not using her last name.
JUDGE DISMISSES CHILD CUSTODY CASE
Post-Tribune (IN) - January 10, 1993
Author: The Associated Press
A judge, claiming he has no jurisdiction, has thrown out a child custody case involving a teen who alleged harsh treatment at a Winona Lake boarding school.
Kosciusko Superior Court Judge Robert Burner threw out the case Thursday, a week after the girl's mother removed her from Hephzibah House , a religious school for troubled teen-age girls, and took her home to Tennessee.
The child's father, who lives in Orange County, N.Y., had sought an injunction granting him temporary custody after a court-ordered visit with his 15-year-old daughter last week.
The girl, whose first name is Sarah, told her father that boarders are put on liquid protein diets if they fail to memorize Bible verses.
The names of the principles in the case were not made public because the child had been molested by a stepfather, who is in a Tennessee prison.
A custody hearing is scheduled Jan. 29 in New York in the case. The father's attorney, Anthony LaBella, said Hephzibah House has agreed to provide him with an informational videotape to be used in that hearing.
The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne reported Friday that state welfare investigators visited the school this week. State law prohibits officials from confirming such investigations.
Memo: THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
Author: The Associated Press
A judge, claiming he has no jurisdiction, has thrown out a child custody case involving a teen who alleged harsh treatment at a Winona Lake boarding school.
Kosciusko Superior Court Judge Robert Burner threw out the case Thursday, a week after the girl's mother removed her from Hephzibah House , a religious school for troubled teen-age girls, and took her home to Tennessee.
The child's father, who lives in Orange County, N.Y., had sought an injunction granting him temporary custody after a court-ordered visit with his 15-year-old daughter last week.
The girl, whose first name is Sarah, told her father that boarders are put on liquid protein diets if they fail to memorize Bible verses.
The names of the principles in the case were not made public because the child had been molested by a stepfather, who is in a Tennessee prison.
A custody hearing is scheduled Jan. 29 in New York in the case. The father's attorney, Anthony LaBella, said Hephzibah House has agreed to provide him with an informational videotape to be used in that hearing.
The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne reported Friday that state welfare investigators visited the school this week. State law prohibits officials from confirming such investigations.
Memo: THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
GIRLS SCHOOL MAY FACE STATE PROBE
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 1, 1993
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
A girls boarding school in Kosciusko County may be investigated by state welfare officials, based on information turned up this week in a News-Sentinel interview with a student at the school.
On Tuesday, during a court-ordered visit with her father, a 15-year-old Hephzibah House resident said school officials yank the solid-food privileges of students who fail to memorize their weekly allotment of Bible verses.
The girl, Sarah, also said she had missed six months' worth of menstrual periods during her 10-month stay at Hephzibah House - a common complaint of women who have spent time at the home.
A state welfare official, informed yesterday of the girl's comments, said he planned to check with a physician to determine whether the situation warranted investigation.
''For us to become involved, we would have to have cause to believe that a child was in a situation that could seriously endanger his or her well- being," Tim Elliott, supervisor of the state's Child Protective Services Section, a branch of the Division of Family and Children, said yesterday.
Elliott is not permitted to reveal what information he may have collected on Hephzibah House in the past. But he was obviously familiar with the home.
If his discussion with a physician leads him to believe an investigation is in order, Elliott said, "we could have somebody up there within 48 hours."
Hephzibah House , on the outskirts of Winona Lake near Warsaw, was founded in 1971 by the Rev. Ron Williams.
Williams has referred all questions about Hephzibah House to Warsaw attorney Paul Refior, who was out of town yesterday.
In its literature, Hephzibah House is described as a boarding school for "troubled" teen-age girls.
House rules prohibit phone calls and visitors unless a staff member is on the line or in the room.
Mail is screened. Staff members accompany the girls at all times, even to the bathroom. Doors and windows are equipped with alarms to prevent escape attempts.
The "troubled" teens - many of whom come from independent Baptist churches as far away as Alaska - are typically enrolled for 15-month periods. They are told not to contact each other after they leave.
During Tuesday's court-ordered visitation, Sarah - whose father, Lucius, is trying to win custody of her - said Hephzibah House discourages alumni reunions because "two can get into more trouble than one."
Nonetheless, an alumni network of sorts has developed during the past few years. Its most-active members don't exactly have fond memories of their alma mater.
The most vocal of these women, a Cleveland resident named Karen Glover, in a 1991 letter to Kosciusko County authorities, complained of brutal paddlings, isolation from other residents and menstrual problems.
Now in her late 20s, Glover says she is sexually dysfunctional - a problem she attributes to psychological abuse suffered during the two years she spent at Hephzibah House in the early '80s.
''I was completely brainwashed," she told The News-Sentinel in an interview last year.
In 1985, after the Times-Union of Warsaw published an article critical of Hephzibah House , Glover wrote in to defend the home. As the years passed, though, her loyalty turned to scorn.
''I want to take Ron Williams down," she told The News-Sentinel last year. "I want to sit across from him in a courtroom and tell the world what a scum he is."
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
A girls boarding school in Kosciusko County may be investigated by state welfare officials, based on information turned up this week in a News-Sentinel interview with a student at the school.
On Tuesday, during a court-ordered visit with her father, a 15-year-old Hephzibah House resident said school officials yank the solid-food privileges of students who fail to memorize their weekly allotment of Bible verses.
The girl, Sarah, also said she had missed six months' worth of menstrual periods during her 10-month stay at Hephzibah House - a common complaint of women who have spent time at the home.
A state welfare official, informed yesterday of the girl's comments, said he planned to check with a physician to determine whether the situation warranted investigation.
''For us to become involved, we would have to have cause to believe that a child was in a situation that could seriously endanger his or her well- being," Tim Elliott, supervisor of the state's Child Protective Services Section, a branch of the Division of Family and Children, said yesterday.
Elliott is not permitted to reveal what information he may have collected on Hephzibah House in the past. But he was obviously familiar with the home.
If his discussion with a physician leads him to believe an investigation is in order, Elliott said, "we could have somebody up there within 48 hours."
Hephzibah House , on the outskirts of Winona Lake near Warsaw, was founded in 1971 by the Rev. Ron Williams.
Williams has referred all questions about Hephzibah House to Warsaw attorney Paul Refior, who was out of town yesterday.
In its literature, Hephzibah House is described as a boarding school for "troubled" teen-age girls.
House rules prohibit phone calls and visitors unless a staff member is on the line or in the room.
Mail is screened. Staff members accompany the girls at all times, even to the bathroom. Doors and windows are equipped with alarms to prevent escape attempts.
The "troubled" teens - many of whom come from independent Baptist churches as far away as Alaska - are typically enrolled for 15-month periods. They are told not to contact each other after they leave.
During Tuesday's court-ordered visitation, Sarah - whose father, Lucius, is trying to win custody of her - said Hephzibah House discourages alumni reunions because "two can get into more trouble than one."
Nonetheless, an alumni network of sorts has developed during the past few years. Its most-active members don't exactly have fond memories of their alma mater.
The most vocal of these women, a Cleveland resident named Karen Glover, in a 1991 letter to Kosciusko County authorities, complained of brutal paddlings, isolation from other residents and menstrual problems.
Now in her late 20s, Glover says she is sexually dysfunctional - a problem she attributes to psychological abuse suffered during the two years she spent at Hephzibah House in the early '80s.
''I was completely brainwashed," she told The News-Sentinel in an interview last year.
In 1985, after the Times-Union of Warsaw published an article critical of Hephzibah House , Glover wrote in to defend the home. As the years passed, though, her loyalty turned to scorn.
''I want to take Ron Williams down," she told The News-Sentinel last year. "I want to sit across from him in a courtroom and tell the world what a scum he is."
Ex-students rip, praise Winona Lake girls' home
By Julie Creek
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - September 23, 1992
Some former residents of a Winona Lake church-operated boarding school
for troubled teens say its strict discipline included spankings they
describe as frequent and violent. But at least two more-recent
residents praised Hephzibah House for turning their lives around, and
pastors from around the Midwest say the school has done wonders for
young girls in their congregations who had turned to alcohol and drugs. Five women who lived at Hephzibah House in the early 1980s described
their stay as lonely, frightening and emotionally and physically
painful. ``We got paddled at night,'' said Christine, a woman who
arrived at Hephzibah House in late 1980 and asked that her last name not
be used. ``We had our robes and nightgowns on. Someone would hold your
legs, and somebody else would hold your head. It hurt something awful,
and it left bruises. Some girls got paddled every night, and they had
really bad bruises.'' The Rev. Ronald E. Williams, founder and
president of the Hephzibah House , acknowledges that girls are spanked,
but said the spankings do not cause injury and that other forms of
``correction'' are used first. ``For severe things, such as violence or
outright disobedience, yes, we use the rod,'' Williams said. ``We
correct because we want this child back in the right. We correct for
positive goals, not for vengeance. ``The rod of correction isn't our
only form of correction,'' he said. ``They're corrected verbally. The
rod is reserved for really big problems. If you don't step in, there's
going to be anarchy.'' Williams said there have been no substantial
changes in the discipline administered at the house since the early
1980s. Recent residents of the house could not be identified and,
therefore, could not be contacted. But one recent resident _ interviewed
after her father, a friend of the Williams, learned an article was being
prepared and called a reporter _ spoke highly of the care provided. ``I
didn't like it at the beginning, but after I got my life right with the
Lord, I was determined to get my world right,'' said LaDawn Davis, 19,
of Middletown, Ill. ``I was in a big snowball heading downhill, going as
fast as I could. And I really believe I would have been dead by now if
it weren't for that place.'' The school was incorporated in 1972 and
granted not-for-profit status by the state. The school is associated
with the Believer's Baptist Church, of which Williams is president.
According to the articles of incorporation filed with the Indiana
secretary of state's office, the school's purpose is: ``To lead souls to
a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and to defeat the power of Satin
(sic) in the lives of those he has oppressed. ``To provide shelter and
necessities of living as may be required in the process of
rehabilitation and evangelism of those persons seeking the aid and
assistance of the corporation.'' Hephzibah houses 20 to 22 girls ages
12 to 16 at any one time, Williams said. Girls are referred to the
house by parents. They pay $1,000 in advance and $9 per day, Williams
said. In 1991, the school received $302,383 in donations, an increase
from the $154,409 received in 1990, according to documents on file with
the Indiana secretary of state's office. More than 90 percent of
Hephzibah's income is from donations, with the remainder from interest
on investments, the documents show. The property and equipment is valued
at $335,000. A brochure describing the house lists its strict rules. In
addition to some that might be expected _ no smoking, drinking or
cursing, requirements to participate in work duties, a strict dress code
_ the rules also state: All incoming and outgoing mail is censored.
Only one telephone call is permitted per month, with a 10-minute
limit. Staff members monitor all calls. Trips to the bathroom are
banned between 9:15 p.m. and midnight. In addition, the brochure discusses the church's doctrine and states that girls will be taught ``in a
militant fundamentalist position.'' Williams makes no apologizes for
the strict limits. ``We try to limit the scope of our ministry to
families who have similar fundamental philosophies . . . so that we're
all headed in the same direction,'' he said. He said the girls that
come to the home have severe problems _ such as drug abuse, abortion,
promiscuity or involvement in the occult _ making structure necessary.
That structure can be hard on the teens because many come from
undisciplined backgrounds, he said. ``We have had complaints in the
past from the more slothful girls about picking green beans. Some of the
girls are allergic to work. They think manual labor is a Hispanic man. .
. . (The work) is nothing I wouldn't have my own children do.'' The
limited calls is part of the structure, Williams said. ``We're not
trying to keep children from their parents, but that's the reality of
our schedule.'' On Aug. 25, 1980, five days before her 16th birthday,
Karen Glover's parents woke her in the middle of the night and drove her
from a Cleveland suburb to Winona Lake. Glover said her parents found
out about Hephzibah House from the pastor of the fundamentalist church
they attended. ``The way my parents raised me, I wasn't allowed to cry
when I was hit,'' she said. ``So when they paddled me at Hephzibah
House, I stood very still and didn't cry. They took this as a sign of
rebellion. They finally told me that. They said: `Why don't you cry?
It's very rebellious that you don't cry.' And from then on, I cried.''
But the school had an effect, Glover said. ``When one other girl ran
away, I ran after her and caught her I was so brainwashed.'' she said.
``They turned me into something exactly like them, and it took me years
to get over it.'' Though they were given healthy food to eat, Glover
said she lost 78 pounds during the first eight months she lived at
Hephzibah House, which she attributed to stress and hard physical work.
And she said she never had a menstrual period during her stay. She
graduated in July 1982 and returned to her parents' home in Cleveland.
``My parents took me home and told me I needed to loosen up,'' she
recalled. ``They didn't like me the way I was. I was too straight and
narrow. I wouldn't watch TV or wear makeup. I thought my parents were
wicked. Two months later, they shipped me off to college.'' After a
semester at a Christian College in Florida, she enrolled at Bob Jones
University in Greenville, South Carolina, but dropped out after three
semesters. She said she then began to re-evaluate her experience at
Hephzibah House. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Glover worked in
several bars and ended up with a serious drug problem. She said she has
overcome the drug problem, is working, and beginning to repair her
troubled relationship with her family. ``If Hephzibah House taught me
anything, it taught me that you can't impose your way of living on
somebody else,'' she said. ``The pain that's inflicted can't ever be
made up.'' During their stays at Hephzibah House during the early and
mid-1980s, four women interviewed say, they were held down by staff
members and hit on the buttocks with wooden paddles for ``bad
attitudes'' or for minor infractions of the school's strict rules, such
as not having their hair curled properly. The four say they suffered
painful bruises from the paddlings. At least five women said their
regular menstrual periods mysteriously ceased when they arrived at
Hephzibah, and resumed only when they left. And one, Karen Glover, said
she tried repeatedly to persuade Kosciusko County officials to
investigate allegations. Williams said paddling prompted an
investigation in the early 1980s, and that the case was turned over to
the prosecutor's office. No action was taken, he said. Kosciusko County
Sheriff Alan Rovenstine said his department looked into Hephzibah House
along with officials from the Indiana Department of Public Welfare in
the early 1980s, but there was not sufficient evidence to file any
charges. He said his department has received no complaints about the
house in the last few years. Peggy Shively, director of the Kosciusko
County Welfare Department, declined to say whether complaints have been
lodged against Hephzibah House because such complaints are confidential
by law. In the early 1980s, state welfare officials visited the school
after a former student complained to police about the paddling, Williams
said. But when the officials arrived to interview Williams and current
students, the only questions asked centered on menstruation. ``The man
asked us, `Do you think a woman's menstrual period is sinful?' ''
Williams recalled. ``It was ridiculous.'' The man also asked whether
the girls were given green pills to stop their cycles, Williams said.
``It was ludicrous. Of course, we don't.'' ``The state seized upon this
and said it constituted neglect. It was turned over to the county
prosecutor, but nothing ever happened,'' he said. Hephzibah House
attorney Paul Refior said he knows of no injuries suffered by any
girls. ``I do know Pastor Williams and the staff love the girls and
want the very best,'' he said. ``Even when they're engaged in any kind
of discipline, they're doing it with the purpose of having the child
benefit from the discipline.'' Williams said: ``We have a policy of not
going beyond certain limits in our correction to prevent any abuse,''
said Williams. ``We will only give a child seven swats maximum to
prevent any kind of damage. There could well be some discoloration of
the skin. One of my own children has very sensitive skin, and you might
see a discoloration as a result, but none of the girls have been
abused.'' Some area ministers praise the work of Hephzibah House.
The Rev. Jim McKinnies, pastor of the Willis Baptist Church in Willis,
Mich., said Hephzibah House may have saved the lives of two teenagers in
his congregation. He said he heard about Hephzibah House from a pastor
friend, and invited Williams to talk to his congregation about the
school. Now he is a member of the school's advisory board. ``If it
hadn't been for that ministry, I don't know what would have happened,''
he said. ``They were having rebellious problems against their parents
and school. They were involved in immorality. One of them said to me a
short while ago that she might have been dead if she hadn't gone to
Hephzibah House.'' He said one girl is still there, and another is
attending college. ``I am aware that paddling is used,'' McKinnies
said. ``But, it is done, I know for a fact, in a very loving and caring
manner. None of my girls came back with any information about anyone
being beaten until they bleed. There's never been any abuse involved.
There always are two staff members there and they're hit on the
buttocks.'' The Rev. Herb Hutchinson, pastor of the Temple Baptist
Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., said he also referred a troubled girl to
Hephzibah House in the early 1980s. ``We had a girl a number of years
ago from our church who went down to Hephzibah House,'' he said. ``She
didn't complete the course, but she's in my church now. She's married.
She's doing great now.'' Tracee Peterson Sloan, 23, of Lake
Station, Ind., wouldn't trade the 2 {1/2} years she spent at Hephzibah
for anything. ``I think my life is better for going there,'' she said.
``I went there intending not to change, but I was loved there. They
worked with me. Of course, I got disciplined, but if I hadn't gone
there, I never would have amounted to anything. I probably would have
become a whore.'' An expert on child abuse argues that programs
like the one at Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for their
graduates. Richmond Calvin, a professor in the division of education at
Indiana University-South Bend, said some of the alleged practices at
Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for students years from now.
Forbidding contact with families for a long as 90 days is dangerous
because it cuts children off from their families, which can scar a child
for years afterward, he said. ``There's no empirical evidence to
substantiate that paddling changes a person's behavior,'' he said.
``What it can do in most cases is make the child smarter about avoiding
certain behavior. But that's only temporary. Those kids are probably
worse off years later.'' ``Structure itself does not constitute abuse,
but when you take away a person's individualism and self-esteem it can
create problems later in life,'' he said. ``And religion shouldn't be
antagonistic. Your religious freedom doesn't allow you to abuse kids.''
(This article was reported by Staff Writers Julie Creek, Suzanne
McBride, Debra Noell and Pat Randle.)
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - September 23, 1992
Some former residents of a Winona Lake church-operated boarding school
for troubled teens say its strict discipline included spankings they
describe as frequent and violent. But at least two more-recent
residents praised Hephzibah House for turning their lives around, and
pastors from around the Midwest say the school has done wonders for
young girls in their congregations who had turned to alcohol and drugs. Five women who lived at Hephzibah House in the early 1980s described
their stay as lonely, frightening and emotionally and physically
painful. ``We got paddled at night,'' said Christine, a woman who
arrived at Hephzibah House in late 1980 and asked that her last name not
be used. ``We had our robes and nightgowns on. Someone would hold your
legs, and somebody else would hold your head. It hurt something awful,
and it left bruises. Some girls got paddled every night, and they had
really bad bruises.'' The Rev. Ronald E. Williams, founder and
president of the Hephzibah House , acknowledges that girls are spanked,
but said the spankings do not cause injury and that other forms of
``correction'' are used first. ``For severe things, such as violence or
outright disobedience, yes, we use the rod,'' Williams said. ``We
correct because we want this child back in the right. We correct for
positive goals, not for vengeance. ``The rod of correction isn't our
only form of correction,'' he said. ``They're corrected verbally. The
rod is reserved for really big problems. If you don't step in, there's
going to be anarchy.'' Williams said there have been no substantial
changes in the discipline administered at the house since the early
1980s. Recent residents of the house could not be identified and,
therefore, could not be contacted. But one recent resident _ interviewed
after her father, a friend of the Williams, learned an article was being
prepared and called a reporter _ spoke highly of the care provided. ``I
didn't like it at the beginning, but after I got my life right with the
Lord, I was determined to get my world right,'' said LaDawn Davis, 19,
of Middletown, Ill. ``I was in a big snowball heading downhill, going as
fast as I could. And I really believe I would have been dead by now if
it weren't for that place.'' The school was incorporated in 1972 and
granted not-for-profit status by the state. The school is associated
with the Believer's Baptist Church, of which Williams is president.
According to the articles of incorporation filed with the Indiana
secretary of state's office, the school's purpose is: ``To lead souls to
a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and to defeat the power of Satin
(sic) in the lives of those he has oppressed. ``To provide shelter and
necessities of living as may be required in the process of
rehabilitation and evangelism of those persons seeking the aid and
assistance of the corporation.'' Hephzibah houses 20 to 22 girls ages
12 to 16 at any one time, Williams said. Girls are referred to the
house by parents. They pay $1,000 in advance and $9 per day, Williams
said. In 1991, the school received $302,383 in donations, an increase
from the $154,409 received in 1990, according to documents on file with
the Indiana secretary of state's office. More than 90 percent of
Hephzibah's income is from donations, with the remainder from interest
on investments, the documents show. The property and equipment is valued
at $335,000. A brochure describing the house lists its strict rules. In
addition to some that might be expected _ no smoking, drinking or
cursing, requirements to participate in work duties, a strict dress code
_ the rules also state: All incoming and outgoing mail is censored.
Only one telephone call is permitted per month, with a 10-minute
limit. Staff members monitor all calls. Trips to the bathroom are
banned between 9:15 p.m. and midnight. In addition, the brochure discusses the church's doctrine and states that girls will be taught ``in a
militant fundamentalist position.'' Williams makes no apologizes for
the strict limits. ``We try to limit the scope of our ministry to
families who have similar fundamental philosophies . . . so that we're
all headed in the same direction,'' he said. He said the girls that
come to the home have severe problems _ such as drug abuse, abortion,
promiscuity or involvement in the occult _ making structure necessary.
That structure can be hard on the teens because many come from
undisciplined backgrounds, he said. ``We have had complaints in the
past from the more slothful girls about picking green beans. Some of the
girls are allergic to work. They think manual labor is a Hispanic man. .
. . (The work) is nothing I wouldn't have my own children do.'' The
limited calls is part of the structure, Williams said. ``We're not
trying to keep children from their parents, but that's the reality of
our schedule.'' On Aug. 25, 1980, five days before her 16th birthday,
Karen Glover's parents woke her in the middle of the night and drove her
from a Cleveland suburb to Winona Lake. Glover said her parents found
out about Hephzibah House from the pastor of the fundamentalist church
they attended. ``The way my parents raised me, I wasn't allowed to cry
when I was hit,'' she said. ``So when they paddled me at Hephzibah
House, I stood very still and didn't cry. They took this as a sign of
rebellion. They finally told me that. They said: `Why don't you cry?
It's very rebellious that you don't cry.' And from then on, I cried.''
But the school had an effect, Glover said. ``When one other girl ran
away, I ran after her and caught her I was so brainwashed.'' she said.
``They turned me into something exactly like them, and it took me years
to get over it.'' Though they were given healthy food to eat, Glover
said she lost 78 pounds during the first eight months she lived at
Hephzibah House, which she attributed to stress and hard physical work.
And she said she never had a menstrual period during her stay. She
graduated in July 1982 and returned to her parents' home in Cleveland.
``My parents took me home and told me I needed to loosen up,'' she
recalled. ``They didn't like me the way I was. I was too straight and
narrow. I wouldn't watch TV or wear makeup. I thought my parents were
wicked. Two months later, they shipped me off to college.'' After a
semester at a Christian College in Florida, she enrolled at Bob Jones
University in Greenville, South Carolina, but dropped out after three
semesters. She said she then began to re-evaluate her experience at
Hephzibah House. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Glover worked in
several bars and ended up with a serious drug problem. She said she has
overcome the drug problem, is working, and beginning to repair her
troubled relationship with her family. ``If Hephzibah House taught me
anything, it taught me that you can't impose your way of living on
somebody else,'' she said. ``The pain that's inflicted can't ever be
made up.'' During their stays at Hephzibah House during the early and
mid-1980s, four women interviewed say, they were held down by staff
members and hit on the buttocks with wooden paddles for ``bad
attitudes'' or for minor infractions of the school's strict rules, such
as not having their hair curled properly. The four say they suffered
painful bruises from the paddlings. At least five women said their
regular menstrual periods mysteriously ceased when they arrived at
Hephzibah, and resumed only when they left. And one, Karen Glover, said
she tried repeatedly to persuade Kosciusko County officials to
investigate allegations. Williams said paddling prompted an
investigation in the early 1980s, and that the case was turned over to
the prosecutor's office. No action was taken, he said. Kosciusko County
Sheriff Alan Rovenstine said his department looked into Hephzibah House
along with officials from the Indiana Department of Public Welfare in
the early 1980s, but there was not sufficient evidence to file any
charges. He said his department has received no complaints about the
house in the last few years. Peggy Shively, director of the Kosciusko
County Welfare Department, declined to say whether complaints have been
lodged against Hephzibah House because such complaints are confidential
by law. In the early 1980s, state welfare officials visited the school
after a former student complained to police about the paddling, Williams
said. But when the officials arrived to interview Williams and current
students, the only questions asked centered on menstruation. ``The man
asked us, `Do you think a woman's menstrual period is sinful?' ''
Williams recalled. ``It was ridiculous.'' The man also asked whether
the girls were given green pills to stop their cycles, Williams said.
``It was ludicrous. Of course, we don't.'' ``The state seized upon this
and said it constituted neglect. It was turned over to the county
prosecutor, but nothing ever happened,'' he said. Hephzibah House
attorney Paul Refior said he knows of no injuries suffered by any
girls. ``I do know Pastor Williams and the staff love the girls and
want the very best,'' he said. ``Even when they're engaged in any kind
of discipline, they're doing it with the purpose of having the child
benefit from the discipline.'' Williams said: ``We have a policy of not
going beyond certain limits in our correction to prevent any abuse,''
said Williams. ``We will only give a child seven swats maximum to
prevent any kind of damage. There could well be some discoloration of
the skin. One of my own children has very sensitive skin, and you might
see a discoloration as a result, but none of the girls have been
abused.'' Some area ministers praise the work of Hephzibah House.
The Rev. Jim McKinnies, pastor of the Willis Baptist Church in Willis,
Mich., said Hephzibah House may have saved the lives of two teenagers in
his congregation. He said he heard about Hephzibah House from a pastor
friend, and invited Williams to talk to his congregation about the
school. Now he is a member of the school's advisory board. ``If it
hadn't been for that ministry, I don't know what would have happened,''
he said. ``They were having rebellious problems against their parents
and school. They were involved in immorality. One of them said to me a
short while ago that she might have been dead if she hadn't gone to
Hephzibah House.'' He said one girl is still there, and another is
attending college. ``I am aware that paddling is used,'' McKinnies
said. ``But, it is done, I know for a fact, in a very loving and caring
manner. None of my girls came back with any information about anyone
being beaten until they bleed. There's never been any abuse involved.
There always are two staff members there and they're hit on the
buttocks.'' The Rev. Herb Hutchinson, pastor of the Temple Baptist
Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., said he also referred a troubled girl to
Hephzibah House in the early 1980s. ``We had a girl a number of years
ago from our church who went down to Hephzibah House,'' he said. ``She
didn't complete the course, but she's in my church now. She's married.
She's doing great now.'' Tracee Peterson Sloan, 23, of Lake
Station, Ind., wouldn't trade the 2 {1/2} years she spent at Hephzibah
for anything. ``I think my life is better for going there,'' she said.
``I went there intending not to change, but I was loved there. They
worked with me. Of course, I got disciplined, but if I hadn't gone
there, I never would have amounted to anything. I probably would have
become a whore.'' An expert on child abuse argues that programs
like the one at Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for their
graduates. Richmond Calvin, a professor in the division of education at
Indiana University-South Bend, said some of the alleged practices at
Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for students years from now.
Forbidding contact with families for a long as 90 days is dangerous
because it cuts children off from their families, which can scar a child
for years afterward, he said. ``There's no empirical evidence to
substantiate that paddling changes a person's behavior,'' he said.
``What it can do in most cases is make the child smarter about avoiding
certain behavior. But that's only temporary. Those kids are probably
worse off years later.'' ``Structure itself does not constitute abuse,
but when you take away a person's individualism and self-esteem it can
create problems later in life,'' he said. ``And religion shouldn't be
antagonistic. Your religious freedom doesn't allow you to abuse kids.''
(This article was reported by Staff Writers Julie Creek, Suzanne
McBride, Debra Noell and Pat Randle.)
Discipline at Winona Lake school draws praise, attack 1991
The Journal-Gazette back Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - September 23, 1992
Some former residents of a Winona Lake church-operated boarding school
for troubled teens say its strict discipline included spankings they
describe as frequent and violent. But at least two more-recent
residents praised Hephzibah House for turning their lives around, and
area pastors say the school has done wonders for young girls in their
congregations who had turned to alcohol and drugs. Five women who lived
at Hephzibah House in the early 1980s described their stay as lonely,
frightening and emotionally and physically painful. ``We got paddled at
night,'' said Christine, a woman who arrived at Hephzibah House in late
1980 and asked that her last name not be used. ``We had our robes and
nightgowns on. Someone would hold your legs, and somebody else would
hold your head. It hurt something awful, and it left bruises. Some girls
got paddled every night, and they had really bad bruises.'' The Rev.
Ronald E. Williams, founder and president of the Hephzibah House ,
acknowledged that girls are spanked, but said the spankings do not cause
injury and that other forms of ``correction'' are used first. ``For
severe things, such as violence or outright disobedience, yes, we use
the rod,'' Williams said. ``We correct because we want this child back
in the right. We correct for positive goals, not for vengeance. ``The
rod of correction isn't our only form of correction,'' he said.
``They're corrected verbally. The rod is reserved for really big
problems. If you don't step in, there's going to be anarchy.'' Williams
said there have been no substantial changes in the discipline
administered at the house since the early 1980s. Recent residents of
the house could not be identified and, therefore, could not be
contacted. But one recent resident _ interviewed after her father, a
friend of Williams, learned an article was being prepared and called a
reporter _ spoke highly of the care provided. ``I didn't like it at the
beginning, but after I got my life right with the Lord, I was determined
to get my world right,'' said LaDawn Davis, 19, of Middletown, Ill. ``I
was in a big snowball heading downhill, going as fast as I could. And I
really believe I would have been dead by now if it weren't for that
place.'' The school was incorporated in 1972 and granted not-for-profit
status by the state. The school is associated with the Believer's
Baptist Church, of which Williams is president. According to the
articles of incorporation filed with the Indiana secretary of state's
office, the school's purpose is: ``To lead souls to a saving knowledge
of Jesus Christ and to defeat the power of Satin (sic) in the lives of
those he has oppressed. ``To provide shelter and necessities of living
as may be required in the process of rehabilitation and evangelism of
those persons seeking the aid and assistance of the corporation.''
Hephzibah houses 20 to 22 girls ages 12 to 16 at any one time, Williams
said. Girls are referred to the house by parents. They pay $1,000 in
advance and $9 per day, Williams said. In the fiscal year ending June
30, 1991, the school received $302,383 in donations, an increase from
the $154,409 received in 1990, according to documents on file with the
Indiana secretary of state's office. More than 90 percent of Hephzibah's
income is from donations, with the remainder from interest on
investments, the documents show. The property and equipment is valued at
$335,000. A brochure describing the house lists its strict rules. In
addition to some that might be expected _ no smoking, drinking or
cursing, requirements to participate in work duties, a strict dress code
_ the rules also state: All incoming and outgoing mail is censored.
Only one telephone call is permitted per month, with a 10-minute
limit. Staff members monitor all calls. Trips to the bathroom are
banned between 9:15 p.m. and midnight. In addition, the brochure
discusses the church's doctrine and states that girls will be taught
``in a militant fundamentalist position.'' Williams makes no apologizes
for the strict limits. ``We try to limit the scope of our ministry to
families who have similar fundamental philosophies . . . so that we're
all headed in the same direction,'' he said. He said the girls that
come to the home have severe problems _ such as drug abuse, abortion,
promiscuity or involvement in the occult _ making structure necessary.
That structure can be hard on the teens because many come from
undisciplined backgrounds, he said. ``We have had complaints in the
past from the more slothful girls about picking green beans. Some of the
girls are allergic to work. They think manual labor is a Hispanic man. .
. . (The work) is nothing I wouldn't have my own children do.'' The
limited calls is part of the structure, Williams said. ``We're not
trying to keep children from their parents, but that's the reality of
our schedule.'' On Aug. 25, 1980, five days before her 16th birthday,
Karen Glover's parents woke her in the middle of the night and drove her
from a Cleveland suburb to Winona Lake. Glover said her parents found
out about Hephzibah House from the pastor of the fundamentalist church
they attended. ``The way my parents raised me, I wasn't allowed to cry
when I was hit,'' she said. ``So when they paddled me at Hephzibah
House , I stood very still and didn't cry. They took this as a sign of
rebellion. They finally told me that. They said: `Why don't you cry?
It's very rebellious that you don't cry.' And from then on, I cried.''
But the school had an effect, Glover said. ``When one other girl ran
away, I ran after her and caught her I was so brainwashed.'' she said.
``They turned me into something exactly like them, and it took me years
to get over it.'' Though they were given healthy food to eat, Glover
said she lost 78 pounds during the first eight months she lived at
Hephzibah House , which she attributed to stress and hard physical work.
And she said she never had a menstrual period during her stay. She
graduated in July 1982 and returned to her parents' home in Cleveland.
``My parents took me home and told me I needed to loosen up,'' she
recalled. ``They didn't like me the way I was. I was too straight and
narrow. I wouldn't watch TV or wear makeup. I thought my parents were
wicked. Two months later, they shipped me off to college.'' After a
semester at a Christian College in Florida, she enrolled at Bob Jones
University in Greenville, S.C., but dropped out after three semesters.
She said she then began to re-evaluate her experience at Hephzibah
House . After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Glover worked in several bars
and ended up with a serious drug problem. She said she has overcome the
drug problem, is working, and beginning to repair her troubled
relationship with her family. ``If Hephzibah House taught me anything,
it taught me that you can't impose your way of living on somebody
else,'' she said. ``The pain that's inflicted can't ever be made up.''
During their stays at Hephzibah House during the early and mid-1980s,
four women interviewed say, they were held down by staff members and hit
on the buttocks with wooden paddles for ``bad attitudes'' or for minor
infractions of the school's strict rules, such as not having their hair
curled properly. The four say they suffered painful bruises from the
paddlings. At least five women said their regular menstrual periods
mysteriously ceased when they arrived at Hephzibah, and resumed only
when they left. And one, Glover, said she tried repeatedly to persuade
Kosciusko County officials to investigate allegations. Williams said
paddling prompted an investigation in the early 1980s, and that the case
was turned over to the prosecutor's office. No action was taken, he
said. Kosciusko County Sheriff Alan Rovenstine said his department
looked into Hephzibah House along with officials from the Indiana
Department of Public Welfare in the early 1980s, but there was not
sufficient evidence to file any charges. He said his department has
received no complaints about the house in the last few years. Peggy
Shively, director of the Kosciusko County Welfare Department, declined
to say whether complaints have been lodged against Hephzibah House
because such complaints are confidential by law. In the early 1980s,
state welfare officials visited the school after a former student
complained to police about the paddling, Williams said. But when the
officials arrived to interview Williams and current students, the only
questions asked centered on menstruation. ``The man asked us, `Do you
think a woman's menstrual period is sinful?' '' Williams recalled. ``It
was ridiculous.'' The man also asked whether the girls were given green
pills to stop their cycles, Williams said. ``It was ludicrous. Of
course, we don't.'' ``The state seized upon this and said it
constituted neglect. It was turned over to the county prosecutor, but
nothing ever happened,'' he said. Hephzibah House attorney Paul Refior
said he knows of no injuries suffered by any girls. ``I do know Pastor
Williams and the staff love the girls and want the very best,'' he said.
``Even when they're engaged in any kind of discipline, they're doing it
with the purpose of having the child benefit from the discipline.''
Williams said: ``We have a policy of not going beyond certain limits in
our correction to prevent any abuse. We will only give a child seven
swats maximum to prevent any kind of damage. There could well be some
discoloration of the skin. One of my own children has very sensitive
skin, and you might see a discoloration as a result, but none of the
girls have been abused.'' Some area ministers praise the work of
Hephzibah House . The Rev. Jim McKinnies, pastor of the Willis Baptist
Church in Willis, Mich., said Hephzibah House may have saved the lives
of two teen-agers in his congregation. He said he heard about Hephzibah
House from a pastor friend, and invited Williams to talk to his
congregation. Now he is a member of the school's advisory board. ``If
it hadn't been for that ministry, I don't know what would have
happened,'' he said. ``They were having rebellious problems against
their parents and school. They were involved in immorality. One of them
said to me a short while ago that she might have been dead if she hadn't
gone to Hephzibah House .'' He said one girl is still there, and another
is attending college. ``I am aware that paddling is used,'' McKinnies
said. ``But, it is done, I know for a fact, in a very loving and caring
manner. None of my girls came back with any information about anyone
being beaten until they bleed. There's never been any abuse involved.
There always are two staff members there and they're hit on the
buttocks.'' The Rev. Herb Hutchinson, pastor of the Temple Baptist
Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., said he also referred a troubled girl to
Hephzibah House in the early 1980s. ``We had a girl a number of years
ago from our church who went down to Hephzibah House ,'' he said. ``She
didn't complete the course, but she's in my church now. She's married.
She's doing great now.'' Tracee Peterson Sloan, 23, of Lake Station,
Ind., wouldn't trade the 2 {1/2} years she spent at Hephzibah for
anything. ``I think my life is better for going there,'' she said. ``I
went there intending not to change, but I was loved there. They worked
with me. Of course, I got disciplined, but if I hadn't gone there, I
never would have amounted to anything. I probably would have become a
whore.'' An expert on child abuse argues that programs like the one at
Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for their graduates. Richmond
Calvin, a professor in the division of education at Indiana
University-South Bend, said some of the alleged practices at Hephzibah
may create tremendous problems for students years from now. Forbidding
contact with families for as long as 90 days is dangerous because it
cuts children off from their families, which can scar a child for years
afterward, he said. ``There's no empirical evidence to substantiate
that paddling changes a person's behavior,'' he said. ``What it can do
in most cases is make the child smarter about avoiding certain behavior.
But that's only temporary. Those kids are probably worse off years
later.'' ``Structure itself does not constitute abuse, but when you
take away a person's individualism and self-esteem it can create
problems later in life,'' he said. ``And religion shouldn't be
antagonistic. Your religious freedom doesn't allow you to abuse kids.''
(This article was reported by Staff Writers Julie Creek, Suzanne
McBride, Debra Noell and Pat Randle.)
Some former residents of a Winona Lake church-operated boarding school
for troubled teens say its strict discipline included spankings they
describe as frequent and violent. But at least two more-recent
residents praised Hephzibah House for turning their lives around, and
area pastors say the school has done wonders for young girls in their
congregations who had turned to alcohol and drugs. Five women who lived
at Hephzibah House in the early 1980s described their stay as lonely,
frightening and emotionally and physically painful. ``We got paddled at
night,'' said Christine, a woman who arrived at Hephzibah House in late
1980 and asked that her last name not be used. ``We had our robes and
nightgowns on. Someone would hold your legs, and somebody else would
hold your head. It hurt something awful, and it left bruises. Some girls
got paddled every night, and they had really bad bruises.'' The Rev.
Ronald E. Williams, founder and president of the Hephzibah House ,
acknowledged that girls are spanked, but said the spankings do not cause
injury and that other forms of ``correction'' are used first. ``For
severe things, such as violence or outright disobedience, yes, we use
the rod,'' Williams said. ``We correct because we want this child back
in the right. We correct for positive goals, not for vengeance. ``The
rod of correction isn't our only form of correction,'' he said.
``They're corrected verbally. The rod is reserved for really big
problems. If you don't step in, there's going to be anarchy.'' Williams
said there have been no substantial changes in the discipline
administered at the house since the early 1980s. Recent residents of
the house could not be identified and, therefore, could not be
contacted. But one recent resident _ interviewed after her father, a
friend of Williams, learned an article was being prepared and called a
reporter _ spoke highly of the care provided. ``I didn't like it at the
beginning, but after I got my life right with the Lord, I was determined
to get my world right,'' said LaDawn Davis, 19, of Middletown, Ill. ``I
was in a big snowball heading downhill, going as fast as I could. And I
really believe I would have been dead by now if it weren't for that
place.'' The school was incorporated in 1972 and granted not-for-profit
status by the state. The school is associated with the Believer's
Baptist Church, of which Williams is president. According to the
articles of incorporation filed with the Indiana secretary of state's
office, the school's purpose is: ``To lead souls to a saving knowledge
of Jesus Christ and to defeat the power of Satin (sic) in the lives of
those he has oppressed. ``To provide shelter and necessities of living
as may be required in the process of rehabilitation and evangelism of
those persons seeking the aid and assistance of the corporation.''
Hephzibah houses 20 to 22 girls ages 12 to 16 at any one time, Williams
said. Girls are referred to the house by parents. They pay $1,000 in
advance and $9 per day, Williams said. In the fiscal year ending June
30, 1991, the school received $302,383 in donations, an increase from
the $154,409 received in 1990, according to documents on file with the
Indiana secretary of state's office. More than 90 percent of Hephzibah's
income is from donations, with the remainder from interest on
investments, the documents show. The property and equipment is valued at
$335,000. A brochure describing the house lists its strict rules. In
addition to some that might be expected _ no smoking, drinking or
cursing, requirements to participate in work duties, a strict dress code
_ the rules also state: All incoming and outgoing mail is censored.
Only one telephone call is permitted per month, with a 10-minute
limit. Staff members monitor all calls. Trips to the bathroom are
banned between 9:15 p.m. and midnight. In addition, the brochure
discusses the church's doctrine and states that girls will be taught
``in a militant fundamentalist position.'' Williams makes no apologizes
for the strict limits. ``We try to limit the scope of our ministry to
families who have similar fundamental philosophies . . . so that we're
all headed in the same direction,'' he said. He said the girls that
come to the home have severe problems _ such as drug abuse, abortion,
promiscuity or involvement in the occult _ making structure necessary.
That structure can be hard on the teens because many come from
undisciplined backgrounds, he said. ``We have had complaints in the
past from the more slothful girls about picking green beans. Some of the
girls are allergic to work. They think manual labor is a Hispanic man. .
. . (The work) is nothing I wouldn't have my own children do.'' The
limited calls is part of the structure, Williams said. ``We're not
trying to keep children from their parents, but that's the reality of
our schedule.'' On Aug. 25, 1980, five days before her 16th birthday,
Karen Glover's parents woke her in the middle of the night and drove her
from a Cleveland suburb to Winona Lake. Glover said her parents found
out about Hephzibah House from the pastor of the fundamentalist church
they attended. ``The way my parents raised me, I wasn't allowed to cry
when I was hit,'' she said. ``So when they paddled me at Hephzibah
House , I stood very still and didn't cry. They took this as a sign of
rebellion. They finally told me that. They said: `Why don't you cry?
It's very rebellious that you don't cry.' And from then on, I cried.''
But the school had an effect, Glover said. ``When one other girl ran
away, I ran after her and caught her I was so brainwashed.'' she said.
``They turned me into something exactly like them, and it took me years
to get over it.'' Though they were given healthy food to eat, Glover
said she lost 78 pounds during the first eight months she lived at
Hephzibah House , which she attributed to stress and hard physical work.
And she said she never had a menstrual period during her stay. She
graduated in July 1982 and returned to her parents' home in Cleveland.
``My parents took me home and told me I needed to loosen up,'' she
recalled. ``They didn't like me the way I was. I was too straight and
narrow. I wouldn't watch TV or wear makeup. I thought my parents were
wicked. Two months later, they shipped me off to college.'' After a
semester at a Christian College in Florida, she enrolled at Bob Jones
University in Greenville, S.C., but dropped out after three semesters.
She said she then began to re-evaluate her experience at Hephzibah
House . After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Glover worked in several bars
and ended up with a serious drug problem. She said she has overcome the
drug problem, is working, and beginning to repair her troubled
relationship with her family. ``If Hephzibah House taught me anything,
it taught me that you can't impose your way of living on somebody
else,'' she said. ``The pain that's inflicted can't ever be made up.''
During their stays at Hephzibah House during the early and mid-1980s,
four women interviewed say, they were held down by staff members and hit
on the buttocks with wooden paddles for ``bad attitudes'' or for minor
infractions of the school's strict rules, such as not having their hair
curled properly. The four say they suffered painful bruises from the
paddlings. At least five women said their regular menstrual periods
mysteriously ceased when they arrived at Hephzibah, and resumed only
when they left. And one, Glover, said she tried repeatedly to persuade
Kosciusko County officials to investigate allegations. Williams said
paddling prompted an investigation in the early 1980s, and that the case
was turned over to the prosecutor's office. No action was taken, he
said. Kosciusko County Sheriff Alan Rovenstine said his department
looked into Hephzibah House along with officials from the Indiana
Department of Public Welfare in the early 1980s, but there was not
sufficient evidence to file any charges. He said his department has
received no complaints about the house in the last few years. Peggy
Shively, director of the Kosciusko County Welfare Department, declined
to say whether complaints have been lodged against Hephzibah House
because such complaints are confidential by law. In the early 1980s,
state welfare officials visited the school after a former student
complained to police about the paddling, Williams said. But when the
officials arrived to interview Williams and current students, the only
questions asked centered on menstruation. ``The man asked us, `Do you
think a woman's menstrual period is sinful?' '' Williams recalled. ``It
was ridiculous.'' The man also asked whether the girls were given green
pills to stop their cycles, Williams said. ``It was ludicrous. Of
course, we don't.'' ``The state seized upon this and said it
constituted neglect. It was turned over to the county prosecutor, but
nothing ever happened,'' he said. Hephzibah House attorney Paul Refior
said he knows of no injuries suffered by any girls. ``I do know Pastor
Williams and the staff love the girls and want the very best,'' he said.
``Even when they're engaged in any kind of discipline, they're doing it
with the purpose of having the child benefit from the discipline.''
Williams said: ``We have a policy of not going beyond certain limits in
our correction to prevent any abuse. We will only give a child seven
swats maximum to prevent any kind of damage. There could well be some
discoloration of the skin. One of my own children has very sensitive
skin, and you might see a discoloration as a result, but none of the
girls have been abused.'' Some area ministers praise the work of
Hephzibah House . The Rev. Jim McKinnies, pastor of the Willis Baptist
Church in Willis, Mich., said Hephzibah House may have saved the lives
of two teen-agers in his congregation. He said he heard about Hephzibah
House from a pastor friend, and invited Williams to talk to his
congregation. Now he is a member of the school's advisory board. ``If
it hadn't been for that ministry, I don't know what would have
happened,'' he said. ``They were having rebellious problems against
their parents and school. They were involved in immorality. One of them
said to me a short while ago that she might have been dead if she hadn't
gone to Hephzibah House .'' He said one girl is still there, and another
is attending college. ``I am aware that paddling is used,'' McKinnies
said. ``But, it is done, I know for a fact, in a very loving and caring
manner. None of my girls came back with any information about anyone
being beaten until they bleed. There's never been any abuse involved.
There always are two staff members there and they're hit on the
buttocks.'' The Rev. Herb Hutchinson, pastor of the Temple Baptist
Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., said he also referred a troubled girl to
Hephzibah House in the early 1980s. ``We had a girl a number of years
ago from our church who went down to Hephzibah House ,'' he said. ``She
didn't complete the course, but she's in my church now. She's married.
She's doing great now.'' Tracee Peterson Sloan, 23, of Lake Station,
Ind., wouldn't trade the 2 {1/2} years she spent at Hephzibah for
anything. ``I think my life is better for going there,'' she said. ``I
went there intending not to change, but I was loved there. They worked
with me. Of course, I got disciplined, but if I hadn't gone there, I
never would have amounted to anything. I probably would have become a
whore.'' An expert on child abuse argues that programs like the one at
Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for their graduates. Richmond
Calvin, a professor in the division of education at Indiana
University-South Bend, said some of the alleged practices at Hephzibah
may create tremendous problems for students years from now. Forbidding
contact with families for as long as 90 days is dangerous because it
cuts children off from their families, which can scar a child for years
afterward, he said. ``There's no empirical evidence to substantiate
that paddling changes a person's behavior,'' he said. ``What it can do
in most cases is make the child smarter about avoiding certain behavior.
But that's only temporary. Those kids are probably worse off years
later.'' ``Structure itself does not constitute abuse, but when you
take away a person's individualism and self-esteem it can create
problems later in life,'' he said. ``And religion shouldn't be
antagonistic. Your religious freedom doesn't allow you to abuse kids.''
(This article was reported by Staff Writers Julie Creek, Suzanne
McBride, Debra Noell and Pat Randle.)
BY JULIE CREEK STAFF WRITER #1
A judge in Erin, Tenn., refused to rule Monday on a father's request for temporary custody of a former Winona Lake boarding school student.
Houston County, Tenn., Circuit Judge Allen Wallace ordered the child to remain in her mother's custody until a Jan. 29 custody hearing in Goshen, N.Y.
The 15-year-old girl was removed from Hephzibah House two weeks ago and returned to her mother's home in Tennessee.
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 13, 1993
The girl's mother placed her in Hephzibah House, a fundamentalist Christian boarding school for troubled girls, last February.
Last month, the girl's father sued in Kosciusko Superior Court after Hephzibah House officials denied him a visit with his daughter as allowed under his New York divorce decree, according to court records.
Kosciusko County Superior Court Judge Robert Burner ordered Hephzibah House to allow a visit, and a visit took place.
However, last week Burner said he had no authority to rule on the father's request for temporary custody because the mother took the child back to Tennessee, and out of the Indiana court jurisdiction.
Houston County, Tenn., Circuit Judge Allen Wallace ordered the child to remain in her mother's custody until a Jan. 29 custody hearing in Goshen, N.Y.
The 15-year-old girl was removed from Hephzibah House two weeks ago and returned to her mother's home in Tennessee.
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 13, 1993
The girl's mother placed her in Hephzibah House, a fundamentalist Christian boarding school for troubled girls, last February.
Last month, the girl's father sued in Kosciusko Superior Court after Hephzibah House officials denied him a visit with his daughter as allowed under his New York divorce decree, according to court records.
Kosciusko County Superior Court Judge Robert Burner ordered Hephzibah House to allow a visit, and a visit took place.
However, last week Burner said he had no authority to rule on the father's request for temporary custody because the mother took the child back to Tennessee, and out of the Indiana court jurisdiction.
A SECTION
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 5, 1993
BY JULIE CREEK STAFF WRITER
WINONA LAKE
Private religious schools such as Hephzibah House in Winona Lake are under no obligation to meet Indiana laws governing health and education, state officials said Monday.
The lack of regulation has generated considerable disagreement between those who advocate more state control and those who argue that any state control over private schools violates the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state.
The only government agencies that appear to have any regulatory control over such schools are the state fire marshal's office, which inspects such facilities to ensure they meet fire codes, and the Indiana Division of Family and Children, which would review such schools only if there are complaints that children are being mistreated.
An official with the Indiana Division of Family and Children said the agency may investigate reports that girls at Hephzibah House in Winona Lake are denied solid food as punishment. {
Hephzibah House, a fundamentalist Christian boarding school for troubled girls, is at the center of a custody battle between a New York man and his former wife, who placed the couple's daughter at Hephzibah House last February.
In a suit filed in Kosciusko Superior Court, the father said school officials denied him visits with his daughter in violation of his New York divorce decree. A Kosciusko County judge sided with the father last week and ordered a visit. The family is due back in court Thursday for a hearing on the father's suit for temporary custody of the girl.
The father, who had to obtain a court order before Hephzibah House officials would allow him to meet with his daughter, has questioned some of the conditions and rules at the home.
The lack of government jurisdiction over private schools makes it easy to abuse the spirit of the law, and impossible to ensure that children receive an adequate education, according to advocates of more state control.
``What we really need is a definition of the term: `school,''' said Tracy Dust, executive director of
the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. ``If we could get that defined, we could deal with some of these matters. We've seen some very serious problems. From time to time, there have been schools spring up that were really nothing more than a place of work for youngsters.''
Dust said several bills have been introduced in the Indiana General Assembly over the past 15 years to regulate private and home schools, but all have been defeated by a strong coalition of private and home school parents, who argue that regulation of private schools violates the Constitution.
``Private schools must have the freedom to hire their own teachers and choose their own textbooks,'' said Eric Miller, an attorney and executive director of Citizens Concerned for the Constitution. ``Schools should be measured by the outcome, what the child has learned, not whether the parents have doctorates and master's degrees. Our elected officials have
generally agreed that private and home schools have the right to exist free from government control of their internal operations.''
The Division of Family and Children will decide whether to investigate Hephzibah House after consulting with a physician and dietitian to determine whether conditions described by the girl
involved in the current custody action are harmful, said department spokesman Rich Schneider.
{{NOTE} bit repetitive but ... That agency is virtually the only agency in Indiana with any jurisdiction over the operation of private schools such as Hephzibah House
The girl involved in the custody action was quoted in The News- Sentinel as telling her father that girls at the school are denied solid food as punishment. She also said she had stopped having menstrual periods, and that other girls complained of missed periods, too.
Her account of the strict disciplinary rules and conditions at the home was similar to accounts given by former residents at the home described in an article in The Journal-Gazette a year ago.
Under Indiana law, accreditation by the Department of Education is voluntary, spokesman Joe DiLaura said. The law requires only that schools notify the state of their existence and that the state keep a list of the schools.
There are 736 private schools in Indiana, DiLaura said, about 296 of which are either accredited or seeking accreditation from the state. Those schools educate about 67,600 students.
The remaining 440 schools, which educate about 30,000 Indiana children, are unaccredited.
The Indiana State Board of Health enforces regulations on physical facilities, food service, sewage and refuse disposal for public and accredited private schools, said public information officer Mary Ann McKinney. But private, unaccredited religious schools are exempt from all regulations.
BY JULIE CREEK STAFF WRITER
WINONA LAKE
Private religious schools such as Hephzibah House in Winona Lake are under no obligation to meet Indiana laws governing health and education, state officials said Monday.
The lack of regulation has generated considerable disagreement between those who advocate more state control and those who argue that any state control over private schools violates the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state.
The only government agencies that appear to have any regulatory control over such schools are the state fire marshal's office, which inspects such facilities to ensure they meet fire codes, and the Indiana Division of Family and Children, which would review such schools only if there are complaints that children are being mistreated.
An official with the Indiana Division of Family and Children said the agency may investigate reports that girls at Hephzibah House in Winona Lake are denied solid food as punishment. {
Hephzibah House, a fundamentalist Christian boarding school for troubled girls, is at the center of a custody battle between a New York man and his former wife, who placed the couple's daughter at Hephzibah House last February.
In a suit filed in Kosciusko Superior Court, the father said school officials denied him visits with his daughter in violation of his New York divorce decree. A Kosciusko County judge sided with the father last week and ordered a visit. The family is due back in court Thursday for a hearing on the father's suit for temporary custody of the girl.
The father, who had to obtain a court order before Hephzibah House officials would allow him to meet with his daughter, has questioned some of the conditions and rules at the home.
The lack of government jurisdiction over private schools makes it easy to abuse the spirit of the law, and impossible to ensure that children receive an adequate education, according to advocates of more state control.
``What we really need is a definition of the term: `school,''' said Tracy Dust, executive director of
the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. ``If we could get that defined, we could deal with some of these matters. We've seen some very serious problems. From time to time, there have been schools spring up that were really nothing more than a place of work for youngsters.''
Dust said several bills have been introduced in the Indiana General Assembly over the past 15 years to regulate private and home schools, but all have been defeated by a strong coalition of private and home school parents, who argue that regulation of private schools violates the Constitution.
``Private schools must have the freedom to hire their own teachers and choose their own textbooks,'' said Eric Miller, an attorney and executive director of Citizens Concerned for the Constitution. ``Schools should be measured by the outcome, what the child has learned, not whether the parents have doctorates and master's degrees. Our elected officials have
generally agreed that private and home schools have the right to exist free from government control of their internal operations.''
The Division of Family and Children will decide whether to investigate Hephzibah House after consulting with a physician and dietitian to determine whether conditions described by the girl
involved in the current custody action are harmful, said department spokesman Rich Schneider.
{{NOTE} bit repetitive but ... That agency is virtually the only agency in Indiana with any jurisdiction over the operation of private schools such as Hephzibah House
The girl involved in the custody action was quoted in The News- Sentinel as telling her father that girls at the school are denied solid food as punishment. She also said she had stopped having menstrual periods, and that other girls complained of missed periods, too.
Her account of the strict disciplinary rules and conditions at the home was similar to accounts given by former residents at the home described in an article in The Journal-Gazette a year ago.
Under Indiana law, accreditation by the Department of Education is voluntary, spokesman Joe DiLaura said. The law requires only that schools notify the state of their existence and that the state keep a list of the schools.
There are 736 private schools in Indiana, DiLaura said, about 296 of which are either accredited or seeking accreditation from the state. Those schools educate about 67,600 students.
The remaining 440 schools, which educate about 30,000 Indiana children, are unaccredited.
The Indiana State Board of Health enforces regulations on physical facilities, food service, sewage and refuse disposal for public and accredited private schools, said public information officer Mary Ann McKinney. But private, unaccredited religious schools are exempt from all regulations.
SARAH LEAVES SCHOOL, IS SEEN IN TENNESSEE HER FATHER WILL TRY TO GET TEMPORARY CUSTODY NEXT WEEK.
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 1, 1993
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
On Tuesday, a 60-year-old Teamster named Lucius flew all the way from New York to Northeast Indiana because he was worried that his daughter, a student at a Kosciusko County boarding school, might be in danger.
She's since left the school. Lucius has received word that she's been spotted in Tennessee, where her mother - Lucius' ex-wife - lives.
It was Lucius' ex-wife, Mary, who sent their 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, to Hephzibah House in February.
Lucius didn't hear about it until a couple of weeks afterward. He'd lost touch with his three children after Mary remarried and moved to Tennessee in 1987.
Lucius and Mary had already been through four years of court-refereed visitation hassles by then. She asked him to leave the kids alone in Tennessee, so she and her second husband could make a "nice Christian home" for them.
Lucius agreed, figuring he would catch up with the kids when they were a little older.
Five years later - last February - Lucius got a letter from his oldest daughter, Heather.
She told him that that "nice Christian man" who'd married their mother was in prison for sexually molesting her and her sister. (The News-Sentinel is not using the family's last names because of its policy of not identifying victims of sex crimes.)
Heather, 18, had since become pregnant by her boyfriend and was planning to get married.
And Sarah - who'd recently been kicked out of her Christian school because she mistakenly feared she was pregnant - had been sent to Hephzibah House , a strict Christian boarding school recommended by the family's pastor.
Lucius wanted to call Sarah at Hephzibah House , but he was told he couldn't without a staff member and Sarah's mother listening in.
He couldn't visit her alone, either. When he called requesting information on Hephzibah House , he was told he would have to get the information from his ex-wife.
Eventually, he got a copy of the house rules, along with a 1985 Warsaw newspaper article that criticized Hephzibah House 's behavior-modification techniques.
He was furious when he learned that staff members paddled the girls for seemingly innocuous infractions. He was even more furious when Mary said she didn't disapprove of the practice.
''Spare the rod, spoil the child," she told him when he called her.
Sarah wasn't allowed to leave Hephzibah House to attend Heather's wedding in August. According to the house rules, she wouldn't be able to go home for Christmas, either.
Hephzibah House founder Ron Williams, who also runs Believers Baptist Church, preaches that Christmas is a pagan holiday, and he forbids the girls to observe it. Christmas cards and gifts are returned before the girls ever see them.
By mid-December - Sarah's 10th month at Hephzibah House - Lucius had hired an attorney to help him get custody of Sarah and her younger brother, still living with Mary in Tennessee.
On Tuesday, Lucius flew to Indiana for a court-ordered visitation with the daughter he hadn't seen in more than five years.
Their reunion was frustrating. Sarah clung to her father during the six hours they spent together. But she was ambivalent about going to live with him and his second wife in New York.
Lucius had drunk nearly 30 cups of coffee by the time they took Sarah back to Hephzibah House on Tuesday night. His emphysema had been bothering him all day, but the emotional stress was even worse.
The plan was to come back Thursday for a hearing in Kosciusko Superior Court, at which time he hoped to be awarded temporary custody of Sarah. He hopes to win permanent custody at a second hearing Jan. 29 in New York.
Lucius was changing planes in Pittsburgh on Wednesday when he heard that Sarah was back in Tennessee.
His attorney, a child-custody specialist named Anthony "Toots" LaBella, assured him that he would still get Sarah.
Mary and Sarah would have to show up in Kosciusko Superior Court next week, or they would be found in contempt of court. LaBella was compiling what he believed was a strong case against Mary for sending her daughter to a boarding school that LaBella believes is not only educationally and socially deficient but downright cruel.
Mary, contacted twice yesterday, hung up the phone both times.
Lucius hasn't tried to contact her. He wouldn't be surprised if Mary doesn't show up in court next week. He expects she will try to hide Sarah somewhere.
''Boy, this is really getting to be a big ballgame," he said. "I just want to get her home."
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
On Tuesday, a 60-year-old Teamster named Lucius flew all the way from New York to Northeast Indiana because he was worried that his daughter, a student at a Kosciusko County boarding school, might be in danger.
She's since left the school. Lucius has received word that she's been spotted in Tennessee, where her mother - Lucius' ex-wife - lives.
It was Lucius' ex-wife, Mary, who sent their 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, to Hephzibah House in February.
Lucius didn't hear about it until a couple of weeks afterward. He'd lost touch with his three children after Mary remarried and moved to Tennessee in 1987.
Lucius and Mary had already been through four years of court-refereed visitation hassles by then. She asked him to leave the kids alone in Tennessee, so she and her second husband could make a "nice Christian home" for them.
Lucius agreed, figuring he would catch up with the kids when they were a little older.
Five years later - last February - Lucius got a letter from his oldest daughter, Heather.
She told him that that "nice Christian man" who'd married their mother was in prison for sexually molesting her and her sister. (The News-Sentinel is not using the family's last names because of its policy of not identifying victims of sex crimes.)
Heather, 18, had since become pregnant by her boyfriend and was planning to get married.
And Sarah - who'd recently been kicked out of her Christian school because she mistakenly feared she was pregnant - had been sent to Hephzibah House , a strict Christian boarding school recommended by the family's pastor.
Lucius wanted to call Sarah at Hephzibah House , but he was told he couldn't without a staff member and Sarah's mother listening in.
He couldn't visit her alone, either. When he called requesting information on Hephzibah House , he was told he would have to get the information from his ex-wife.
Eventually, he got a copy of the house rules, along with a 1985 Warsaw newspaper article that criticized Hephzibah House 's behavior-modification techniques.
He was furious when he learned that staff members paddled the girls for seemingly innocuous infractions. He was even more furious when Mary said she didn't disapprove of the practice.
''Spare the rod, spoil the child," she told him when he called her.
Sarah wasn't allowed to leave Hephzibah House to attend Heather's wedding in August. According to the house rules, she wouldn't be able to go home for Christmas, either.
Hephzibah House founder Ron Williams, who also runs Believers Baptist Church, preaches that Christmas is a pagan holiday, and he forbids the girls to observe it. Christmas cards and gifts are returned before the girls ever see them.
By mid-December - Sarah's 10th month at Hephzibah House - Lucius had hired an attorney to help him get custody of Sarah and her younger brother, still living with Mary in Tennessee.
On Tuesday, Lucius flew to Indiana for a court-ordered visitation with the daughter he hadn't seen in more than five years.
Their reunion was frustrating. Sarah clung to her father during the six hours they spent together. But she was ambivalent about going to live with him and his second wife in New York.
Lucius had drunk nearly 30 cups of coffee by the time they took Sarah back to Hephzibah House on Tuesday night. His emphysema had been bothering him all day, but the emotional stress was even worse.
The plan was to come back Thursday for a hearing in Kosciusko Superior Court, at which time he hoped to be awarded temporary custody of Sarah. He hopes to win permanent custody at a second hearing Jan. 29 in New York.
Lucius was changing planes in Pittsburgh on Wednesday when he heard that Sarah was back in Tennessee.
His attorney, a child-custody specialist named Anthony "Toots" LaBella, assured him that he would still get Sarah.
Mary and Sarah would have to show up in Kosciusko Superior Court next week, or they would be found in contempt of court. LaBella was compiling what he believed was a strong case against Mary for sending her daughter to a boarding school that LaBella believes is not only educationally and socially deficient but downright cruel.
Mary, contacted twice yesterday, hung up the phone both times.
Lucius hasn't tried to contact her. He wouldn't be surprised if Mary doesn't show up in court next week. He expects she will try to hide Sarah somewhere.
''Boy, this is really getting to be a big ballgame," he said. "I just want to get her home."
THIS IS SARAH'S STORY.
SARAH'S STORY ''SO MUCH WILL BE DIFFERENT WHEN I GO HOME," THE TEEN-AGER FROM TENNESSEE WROTE FROM A CHRISTIAN BOARDING SCHOOL IN INDIANA. "I WONDER WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE?" WHEN SARAH'S MOTHER FOUND OUT THAT HER 15-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER HAD HAD SEX WITH A BOY, SHE DROVE SARAH 400 MILES FROM THEIR HOME IN TENNESSEE TO HEPHZIBAH HOUSE , A CHRISTIAN BOARDING SCHOOL IN WINONA LAKE, IND. NOW, NEARLY A YEAR LATER, SARAH IS BACK IN TENNESSEE. HER FORMER BOYFRIEND ISN'T ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO HER. HER PARENTS ARE FIGHTING OVER HER. HER FATHER, DENIED TEMPORARY CUSTODY AT AN EMERGENCY HEARING LAST WEEK IN TENNESSEE, HOPES TO CONVINCE A NEW YORK JUDGE THAT SENDING SARAH TO HEPHZIBAH HOUSE CONSTITUTES NEGLIGENT, AND PERHAPS EVEN ABUSIVE, PARENTAL BEHAVIOR. THIS IS SARAH'S STORY.
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 23, 1993
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
James had heard Sarah was back in Tennessee Ridge.
Everybody at church was talking about it. James didn't go up there much anymore, but he'd heard the news.
Sarah's daddy from New York had gone to see her at that Christian school in Indiana, and now he was trying to take her away from her mama. There had been a write-up in the Clarksville paper about it. They hadn't mentioned her name. But everybody who went to the Tennessee Ridge Baptist Church knew who they were talking about.
James Westerman, 18, had heard something about a custody hearing at the county courthouse here in Erin, where he was living with his mother.
But he didn't expect to see Sarah there that day.
James was sitting in the front row of the courtroom with a couple of friends, waiting to see what the judge had to say about them ripping off the Ridgetop Market in August.
A bunch of people from the church walked in ahead of Sarah. She was wearing a pretty blue dress, with that pale blonde hair tucked up in a French braid. She didn't look up. He couldn't tell whether she'd seen him.
There was no point in trying to speak to her. The folks from the church had her surrounded.
He knew what they were thinking:
See, Sarah? We tried to tell you James was no good. Now you can see for yourself.
James and Sarah had been Sunday school sweethearts.
They met at the Baptist church in the summer of '91. James, 17 then, was a high school dropout who smoked pot and drank.He'd started going to church with his cousin Danny, hoping to straighten out.
James noticed Sarah right away. She was pretty and nice. He could tell she liked him, too.
He had long hair then, and an earring. He wore Harley-Davidson T-shirts and scruffy jeans. But Sarah didn't care. She liked him for who he was, not what he looked like.
James had never had a girlfriend who cared about him the way Sarah did. She was the one who helped him stop drinking. It wasn't until she left that he started again.
Sarah had problems of her own, he knew. Her stepfather, Frank, was in prison for molesting her and her sister. Frank had been a real churchgoer, apparently. Sarah never talked about it, though, so James didn't ask.
Sarah's mom, whom the kids at church called Miss Mary, didn't like James. She didn't want them to go anywhere unchaperoned. If they went for a walk, they couldn't go any farther than the neighbor's. Miss Mary wouldn't even let Sarah ride the church bus to go soul-winning on Saturdays - if James was going.
Sarah would get mad at her mother. She just wanted to be like other kids, go to dances and listen to rock music and hang out at the A&W. Sometimes when Miss Mary left the house, Sarah would call James, and he'd come over. That was about the only time they could be alone.
They talked about running off and getting married. Sarah was too young, of course - 14 at the time. But they liked to imagine what it would be like.
Around Christmas, Sarah told James she thought she was pregnant.
They were scared. James wanted to wait, just to make sure she was right. But Sarah couldn't live with the guilt. She wanted to tell her mom.
James drove Sarah down to the Bi-Rite grocery store, and she called Miss Mary on the pay phone. Miss Mary told them to stay right there. She was coming to get Sarah. James was to follow them back to the house.
What an awful night that was. Miss Mary called the preacher and James' mom. Preacher Bryan said Sarah couldn't go to the school at Tennessee Ridge Baptist Church anymore, that she'd be a bad influence. She wasn't to see James. They didn't say what was going to become of the baby.
James went to church a few more times after that, but they wouldn't let him near Sarah. She couldn't even turn around in her pew and glance at him without Miss Mary scolding her.
Sarah called James in tears whenever Miss Mary left the house. But she didn't leave often, since she worked at home as a seamstress and baby sitter. They never could talk for more than a few minutes.
Not long after that, James heard Sarah was gone.
He never did hear anything about the baby.
Sarah held the envelope in her hands, staring at the name written above the return address.
''Well, don't just sit there," the other girls said. "Open it!"
Sarah hadn't heard from her father in five years. She hadn't even known where he was. A year or two earlier, some friends offered to help her find him, but they didn't get very far.
Lucius' letter explained that Sarah's sister, Heather, had tracked him down with the help of the Social Security Administration. Heather had told him that Sarah was at Hephzibah House .
Sarah figured she had some explaining to do. It sounded as if her father had phoned Hephzibah House and spoken with Pastor Ron Williams, who runs both the school and Believers Baptist Church.
''I don't know what Mom and Pastor Williams told you, but I've been sent here because of Mom's religious beliefs," Sarah wrote in her first letter to her father, dated March 7. "Or so I've been told."
It had been almost a month since Sarah had arrived at Hephzibah House . She still couldn't believe she was here.
Her mother had warned her that she might send her to some kind of reform school, after they discovered she wasn't really pregnant. Sarah never dreamed she was serious.
She thought they were going to dinner when she got in the car that day in early February. Next thing she knew, she was in Indiana.
This school was unlike any place she'd ever imagined. There were alarms on the windows and doors. Disrespectful girls got paddled. Sarah had been too scared to even think about getting in trouble. She just wanted to go home.
That was a long way off, though. Pastor Williams believed that it took 15 months to convert wayward girls into godly young women. Sarah had 14 months to go.
Sarah had lost touch with her father shortly after she had moved from Middletown, N.Y., to Tennessee Ridge, Tenn., with her mother, stepfather, sister and brother in 1987.
The move angered her father, who had remained in New York with his new wife and stepchildren. Eventually, though, her parents struck an informal truce: Her father wouldn't bother her mother about visitation rights, and she wouldn't bother him about child support.
Now that Lucius knew where she was, Sarah hoped he could arrange to call or visit her at Hephzibah House .
As the weeks passed, though, that seemed less likely to happen.
Pastor Williams told Sarah the school had to be cautious when dealing with "broken homes." They could set up a three-way conference call between her father, her mother and Sarah - provided, of course, that one of the live-in staff members monitored the call.
Lucius didn't like that idea. He didn't want to come all the way to Indiana just to have a supervised visit, either. So for now, Sarah would have to get to know him through the mail.
It was hard to know what to write. Five years was a long time. She had so many questions. How old was he now? When was his birthday? What did he do for a living?
There was a lot to fill him in on, too.
Lucius knew that Sarah's stepfather had molested her and Heather. He was worried that Sarah blamed herself for what Frank had done.
The counselors whom the judge had recommended the girls talk to had been concerned about that, too. Sarah had hated those sessions. She didn't like it when people tried to probe her thoughts like that.
She assured her father that she didn't feel guilty. It had taken her a while, but she had forgiven her stepfather. God would judge Frank.
Sarah wanted to reminisce with her father about her childhood. It was so long ago, she could hardly remember Middletown.
She also wanted to talk with him about God.
''You told me when I was a little girl that you were saved," she wrote. "Are you really? Did you ever come to a place where you realized you were a sinner, on your way to a hot hell without hope?"
Lucius never answered her questions as completely as she hoped. He was too preoccupied with quizzing her about Hephzibah House .
Her mother told her Lucius had been calling Heather at work, asking similar questions.
Well, what could Sarah tell him, with the staff ladies reading her letters before they were mailed?
Of course she was homesick. That was to be expected. She was, after all, the only person here with a Tennessee drawl. The others were always teasing her about that.
There were 11 other girls with Sarah at Hephzibah House . Judging from the number of beds in the basement dormitory, there was space for nearly 30 girls - too many, as far as Sarah was concerned. But then, she was being reminded constantly that what she wanted wasn't necessarily what was best.
The educational system here was similar to the one at Sarah's old school in Tennessee Ridge. Both used standardized Christian education packets that allow students to work at their own pace. The transfer had put Sarah behind, though. She would have to work hard all summer if she wanted to be studying at a 10th-grade level by fall.
There were also ovens to scrub, church buses to hose down, potatoes to chop. One day, the girls helped butcher three deer, which Sarah enjoyed because it reminded her of hunting down in Tennessee. She had never been hunting herself, but she'd always wanted to try it. Only the Williams family, which lived above them at the school, and the four-woman staff got to eat the venison. Health regulations prohibited the girls from eating the meat.
Mondays were Sarah's worst days, because she had to do the laundry. It was always hard to get it all done.
''I wish I could tell you everything I know about this place," she wrote in a letter to her father postmarked April 24. "But I'd probably leave something out."
Sarah wasn't allowed to discuss her past life with the other girls at Hephzibah House . Pictures or mementos from boyfriends were forbidden. All those Bible lessons and discussions about morality, though, made it hard to avoid thinking about the past.
As the weeks went by, Sarah began to feel increasingly guilty about the days when she sneaked cigarettes and fooled around with boys. In retrospect, it seemed like each boyfriend had gotten her into worse trouble than the one before.
Sarah apologized to her mother over the phone for being so rebellious. And she told her father that coming to Hephzibah House may have been the best thing that could have happened to her.
''I'm gonna be frank with ya, Dad," she wrote in July. "I am considered a slut at home by many people. I'm sorry to say that I was one."
That same month, Sarah's mother wrote to tell her that Heather was pregnant. Sarah was shocked to hear that her older sister was planning to marry the baby's father.
Couldn't they see that Heather was too young to get married? She was just 18. And her boyfriend wasn't even a Christian, as far as Sarah knew.
The wedding was scheduled for Aug. 22. Sarah was glad to hear that her father would be there. Her mother had always told the girls that she would help them find Lucius before they got married, so he could give them away at their weddings.
Well, that dream was coming true, at least for Heather. Sarah was the one who would be absent.
She had been upset when the staff ladies told her she couldn't go. She ached to show her father the Tennessee countryside.
She wondered whether he would see Kentucky Lake. What would he think of the tidy brick home they'd remodeled with the church youth leader's help?
Sarah was so proud of that house. A real home. Nothing like that one-room cabin they'd lived in before Frank went to prison.
''Maybe next time, I can be your tour guide," Sarah wrote to Lucius.
In the meantime, she savored the few things at Hephzibah House that reminded her even slightly of home: Picking corn in the country air. Sitting around a campfire during a belated Labor Day celebration.
School had officially started at Hephzibah House in September. Sarah wasn't nearly as interested in square roots and ancient world history, though, as she was in the coming election.
Sarah didn't have access to newspapers or television. But she heard plenty about politics from Pastor Williams.
She was beginning to fear that the end of the world was coming soon - especially if Bill Clinton and Al Gore won the election.
''Al Gore is an evil man, even if he is from Tennessee," Sarah wrote her father in late October.
''I don't know how you feel on issues, but I'll gladly tell you how I feel. Abortion is murder! Alternative lifestyles are sick and sinful, and frankly, those fags and dykes who get AIDS deserve it, in my opinion."
The Sunday after Clinton won the election, Sarah went forward at Williams' church to repent for her sins.
''I wasn't really saved," she explained in a letter she wrote to Lucius dated Nov. 15. "I thought everyone surely believed me. But I knew I wasn't. I was filthy within."
It had been nearly a year since that awful night when Sarah told her mother she thought she was pregnant.
In just a few months, she would be going back to Tennessee.
''So much will be different when I go home," Sarah wrote in mid-December, not realizing that would be her last letter to Lucius from Hephzibah House .
''I wonder what it will be like?"
Am I the devil because I have long hair?"
Sarah rolled her eyes at her father's ponytailed attorney, Anthony LaBella. This wasn't the kind of father-daughter reunion she had anticipated.
She had been drying dishes when she got the news. Pastor Williams had taken her upstairs to see the sheriff's deputy and look over the court order.
A six-hour visit, the order said, followed by a series of hearings that would force her parents to settle this Hephzibah House question once and for all.
If Sarah's father had his way, she would soon go back to Middletown with him. It would be up to the judge to decide.
Sarah had been happy to see her father at the lawyer's office. She squeezed his hand all the way back to the Holiday Inn.
She was relieved when her father took her to his room so they could be alone. Lucius' attorney and private investigator made her nervous.
Later that afternoon, though, Sarah found herself sitting across a table from the two men at a nearby restaurant. Her father sat hunched beside her, softly moaning. He had forgotten to bring his emphysema medicine, and his lungs were throbbing.
Sarah looked at the attorney, who had demanded that she call him "Toots." She thought his question about the devil and long hair was stupid.
''No," she said. Then she quickly added: "You know what the Bible says about men who have long hair? That it's a shame."
Sarah cited a Bible verse that she thought might back her up on that one. She warned him that she wasn't sure if she had it right, though.
The men questioned her for more than an hour. They asked about her schoolwork, meals, bathroom privileges.
Sarah couldn't resist telling them about the time a staff lady startled them by demonstrating the alarms on the windows, or about the gross "protein drink" they got instead of meals if they didn't get their weekly Bible verses memorized.
She didn't say anything when the lawyer asked her about Frank, though. By the time he started quizzing her about her menstrual cycle - he seemed very interested when she confessed that she had missed six months of periods while at Hephzibah House - she decided she'd had enough.
Sarah excused herself to go to the ladies' room. When she came back, the men were ready to leave.
Pastor Williams was waiting outside when Sarah got back to Hephzibah House that night.
The meeting with her father was considered an "unapproved visit" - a violation of school policy. Sarah would have to leave.
That night, a little more than 10 months since she arrived at Hephzibah House , Sarah got three more visitors: her mother, sister and brother-in-law, come to drive her back to Tennessee.
James didn't know whether Sarah loved him anymore.
He still cared about her. He hoped the judge would let her stay in Tennessee. Not that it would make much difference. He'd given up any hope of them getting back together.
James' case was the first one to be heard that afternoon.
He hated to tell the judge that he couldn't remember most of what happened that night at the Ridgetop Market, but it was true. He'd been awfully drunk.
The judge looked at James and his friend sternly. He told them he hoped they understood the seriousness of what they'd done.
James wondered whether the judge was going to send him to prison.
He got two years of probation instead.
James was grateful. He intended to get a job and a high school diploma. He wasn't going to drink anymore, that was for sure.
He couldn't help looking at Sarah as he walked back to his seat.
Their eyes met, just for a moment.
It looked to him like she'd been crying.
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 23, 1993
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
James had heard Sarah was back in Tennessee Ridge.
Everybody at church was talking about it. James didn't go up there much anymore, but he'd heard the news.
Sarah's daddy from New York had gone to see her at that Christian school in Indiana, and now he was trying to take her away from her mama. There had been a write-up in the Clarksville paper about it. They hadn't mentioned her name. But everybody who went to the Tennessee Ridge Baptist Church knew who they were talking about.
James Westerman, 18, had heard something about a custody hearing at the county courthouse here in Erin, where he was living with his mother.
But he didn't expect to see Sarah there that day.
James was sitting in the front row of the courtroom with a couple of friends, waiting to see what the judge had to say about them ripping off the Ridgetop Market in August.
A bunch of people from the church walked in ahead of Sarah. She was wearing a pretty blue dress, with that pale blonde hair tucked up in a French braid. She didn't look up. He couldn't tell whether she'd seen him.
There was no point in trying to speak to her. The folks from the church had her surrounded.
He knew what they were thinking:
See, Sarah? We tried to tell you James was no good. Now you can see for yourself.
James and Sarah had been Sunday school sweethearts.
They met at the Baptist church in the summer of '91. James, 17 then, was a high school dropout who smoked pot and drank.He'd started going to church with his cousin Danny, hoping to straighten out.
James noticed Sarah right away. She was pretty and nice. He could tell she liked him, too.
He had long hair then, and an earring. He wore Harley-Davidson T-shirts and scruffy jeans. But Sarah didn't care. She liked him for who he was, not what he looked like.
James had never had a girlfriend who cared about him the way Sarah did. She was the one who helped him stop drinking. It wasn't until she left that he started again.
Sarah had problems of her own, he knew. Her stepfather, Frank, was in prison for molesting her and her sister. Frank had been a real churchgoer, apparently. Sarah never talked about it, though, so James didn't ask.
Sarah's mom, whom the kids at church called Miss Mary, didn't like James. She didn't want them to go anywhere unchaperoned. If they went for a walk, they couldn't go any farther than the neighbor's. Miss Mary wouldn't even let Sarah ride the church bus to go soul-winning on Saturdays - if James was going.
Sarah would get mad at her mother. She just wanted to be like other kids, go to dances and listen to rock music and hang out at the A&W. Sometimes when Miss Mary left the house, Sarah would call James, and he'd come over. That was about the only time they could be alone.
They talked about running off and getting married. Sarah was too young, of course - 14 at the time. But they liked to imagine what it would be like.
Around Christmas, Sarah told James she thought she was pregnant.
They were scared. James wanted to wait, just to make sure she was right. But Sarah couldn't live with the guilt. She wanted to tell her mom.
James drove Sarah down to the Bi-Rite grocery store, and she called Miss Mary on the pay phone. Miss Mary told them to stay right there. She was coming to get Sarah. James was to follow them back to the house.
What an awful night that was. Miss Mary called the preacher and James' mom. Preacher Bryan said Sarah couldn't go to the school at Tennessee Ridge Baptist Church anymore, that she'd be a bad influence. She wasn't to see James. They didn't say what was going to become of the baby.
James went to church a few more times after that, but they wouldn't let him near Sarah. She couldn't even turn around in her pew and glance at him without Miss Mary scolding her.
Sarah called James in tears whenever Miss Mary left the house. But she didn't leave often, since she worked at home as a seamstress and baby sitter. They never could talk for more than a few minutes.
Not long after that, James heard Sarah was gone.
He never did hear anything about the baby.
Sarah held the envelope in her hands, staring at the name written above the return address.
''Well, don't just sit there," the other girls said. "Open it!"
Sarah hadn't heard from her father in five years. She hadn't even known where he was. A year or two earlier, some friends offered to help her find him, but they didn't get very far.
Lucius' letter explained that Sarah's sister, Heather, had tracked him down with the help of the Social Security Administration. Heather had told him that Sarah was at Hephzibah House .
Sarah figured she had some explaining to do. It sounded as if her father had phoned Hephzibah House and spoken with Pastor Ron Williams, who runs both the school and Believers Baptist Church.
''I don't know what Mom and Pastor Williams told you, but I've been sent here because of Mom's religious beliefs," Sarah wrote in her first letter to her father, dated March 7. "Or so I've been told."
It had been almost a month since Sarah had arrived at Hephzibah House . She still couldn't believe she was here.
Her mother had warned her that she might send her to some kind of reform school, after they discovered she wasn't really pregnant. Sarah never dreamed she was serious.
She thought they were going to dinner when she got in the car that day in early February. Next thing she knew, she was in Indiana.
This school was unlike any place she'd ever imagined. There were alarms on the windows and doors. Disrespectful girls got paddled. Sarah had been too scared to even think about getting in trouble. She just wanted to go home.
That was a long way off, though. Pastor Williams believed that it took 15 months to convert wayward girls into godly young women. Sarah had 14 months to go.
Sarah had lost touch with her father shortly after she had moved from Middletown, N.Y., to Tennessee Ridge, Tenn., with her mother, stepfather, sister and brother in 1987.
The move angered her father, who had remained in New York with his new wife and stepchildren. Eventually, though, her parents struck an informal truce: Her father wouldn't bother her mother about visitation rights, and she wouldn't bother him about child support.
Now that Lucius knew where she was, Sarah hoped he could arrange to call or visit her at Hephzibah House .
As the weeks passed, though, that seemed less likely to happen.
Pastor Williams told Sarah the school had to be cautious when dealing with "broken homes." They could set up a three-way conference call between her father, her mother and Sarah - provided, of course, that one of the live-in staff members monitored the call.
Lucius didn't like that idea. He didn't want to come all the way to Indiana just to have a supervised visit, either. So for now, Sarah would have to get to know him through the mail.
It was hard to know what to write. Five years was a long time. She had so many questions. How old was he now? When was his birthday? What did he do for a living?
There was a lot to fill him in on, too.
Lucius knew that Sarah's stepfather had molested her and Heather. He was worried that Sarah blamed herself for what Frank had done.
The counselors whom the judge had recommended the girls talk to had been concerned about that, too. Sarah had hated those sessions. She didn't like it when people tried to probe her thoughts like that.
She assured her father that she didn't feel guilty. It had taken her a while, but she had forgiven her stepfather. God would judge Frank.
Sarah wanted to reminisce with her father about her childhood. It was so long ago, she could hardly remember Middletown.
She also wanted to talk with him about God.
''You told me when I was a little girl that you were saved," she wrote. "Are you really? Did you ever come to a place where you realized you were a sinner, on your way to a hot hell without hope?"
Lucius never answered her questions as completely as she hoped. He was too preoccupied with quizzing her about Hephzibah House .
Her mother told her Lucius had been calling Heather at work, asking similar questions.
Well, what could Sarah tell him, with the staff ladies reading her letters before they were mailed?
Of course she was homesick. That was to be expected. She was, after all, the only person here with a Tennessee drawl. The others were always teasing her about that.
There were 11 other girls with Sarah at Hephzibah House . Judging from the number of beds in the basement dormitory, there was space for nearly 30 girls - too many, as far as Sarah was concerned. But then, she was being reminded constantly that what she wanted wasn't necessarily what was best.
The educational system here was similar to the one at Sarah's old school in Tennessee Ridge. Both used standardized Christian education packets that allow students to work at their own pace. The transfer had put Sarah behind, though. She would have to work hard all summer if she wanted to be studying at a 10th-grade level by fall.
There were also ovens to scrub, church buses to hose down, potatoes to chop. One day, the girls helped butcher three deer, which Sarah enjoyed because it reminded her of hunting down in Tennessee. She had never been hunting herself, but she'd always wanted to try it. Only the Williams family, which lived above them at the school, and the four-woman staff got to eat the venison. Health regulations prohibited the girls from eating the meat.
Mondays were Sarah's worst days, because she had to do the laundry. It was always hard to get it all done.
''I wish I could tell you everything I know about this place," she wrote in a letter to her father postmarked April 24. "But I'd probably leave something out."
Sarah wasn't allowed to discuss her past life with the other girls at Hephzibah House . Pictures or mementos from boyfriends were forbidden. All those Bible lessons and discussions about morality, though, made it hard to avoid thinking about the past.
As the weeks went by, Sarah began to feel increasingly guilty about the days when she sneaked cigarettes and fooled around with boys. In retrospect, it seemed like each boyfriend had gotten her into worse trouble than the one before.
Sarah apologized to her mother over the phone for being so rebellious. And she told her father that coming to Hephzibah House may have been the best thing that could have happened to her.
''I'm gonna be frank with ya, Dad," she wrote in July. "I am considered a slut at home by many people. I'm sorry to say that I was one."
That same month, Sarah's mother wrote to tell her that Heather was pregnant. Sarah was shocked to hear that her older sister was planning to marry the baby's father.
Couldn't they see that Heather was too young to get married? She was just 18. And her boyfriend wasn't even a Christian, as far as Sarah knew.
The wedding was scheduled for Aug. 22. Sarah was glad to hear that her father would be there. Her mother had always told the girls that she would help them find Lucius before they got married, so he could give them away at their weddings.
Well, that dream was coming true, at least for Heather. Sarah was the one who would be absent.
She had been upset when the staff ladies told her she couldn't go. She ached to show her father the Tennessee countryside.
She wondered whether he would see Kentucky Lake. What would he think of the tidy brick home they'd remodeled with the church youth leader's help?
Sarah was so proud of that house. A real home. Nothing like that one-room cabin they'd lived in before Frank went to prison.
''Maybe next time, I can be your tour guide," Sarah wrote to Lucius.
In the meantime, she savored the few things at Hephzibah House that reminded her even slightly of home: Picking corn in the country air. Sitting around a campfire during a belated Labor Day celebration.
School had officially started at Hephzibah House in September. Sarah wasn't nearly as interested in square roots and ancient world history, though, as she was in the coming election.
Sarah didn't have access to newspapers or television. But she heard plenty about politics from Pastor Williams.
She was beginning to fear that the end of the world was coming soon - especially if Bill Clinton and Al Gore won the election.
''Al Gore is an evil man, even if he is from Tennessee," Sarah wrote her father in late October.
''I don't know how you feel on issues, but I'll gladly tell you how I feel. Abortion is murder! Alternative lifestyles are sick and sinful, and frankly, those fags and dykes who get AIDS deserve it, in my opinion."
The Sunday after Clinton won the election, Sarah went forward at Williams' church to repent for her sins.
''I wasn't really saved," she explained in a letter she wrote to Lucius dated Nov. 15. "I thought everyone surely believed me. But I knew I wasn't. I was filthy within."
It had been nearly a year since that awful night when Sarah told her mother she thought she was pregnant.
In just a few months, she would be going back to Tennessee.
''So much will be different when I go home," Sarah wrote in mid-December, not realizing that would be her last letter to Lucius from Hephzibah House .
''I wonder what it will be like?"
Am I the devil because I have long hair?"
Sarah rolled her eyes at her father's ponytailed attorney, Anthony LaBella. This wasn't the kind of father-daughter reunion she had anticipated.
She had been drying dishes when she got the news. Pastor Williams had taken her upstairs to see the sheriff's deputy and look over the court order.
A six-hour visit, the order said, followed by a series of hearings that would force her parents to settle this Hephzibah House question once and for all.
If Sarah's father had his way, she would soon go back to Middletown with him. It would be up to the judge to decide.
Sarah had been happy to see her father at the lawyer's office. She squeezed his hand all the way back to the Holiday Inn.
She was relieved when her father took her to his room so they could be alone. Lucius' attorney and private investigator made her nervous.
Later that afternoon, though, Sarah found herself sitting across a table from the two men at a nearby restaurant. Her father sat hunched beside her, softly moaning. He had forgotten to bring his emphysema medicine, and his lungs were throbbing.
Sarah looked at the attorney, who had demanded that she call him "Toots." She thought his question about the devil and long hair was stupid.
''No," she said. Then she quickly added: "You know what the Bible says about men who have long hair? That it's a shame."
Sarah cited a Bible verse that she thought might back her up on that one. She warned him that she wasn't sure if she had it right, though.
The men questioned her for more than an hour. They asked about her schoolwork, meals, bathroom privileges.
Sarah couldn't resist telling them about the time a staff lady startled them by demonstrating the alarms on the windows, or about the gross "protein drink" they got instead of meals if they didn't get their weekly Bible verses memorized.
She didn't say anything when the lawyer asked her about Frank, though. By the time he started quizzing her about her menstrual cycle - he seemed very interested when she confessed that she had missed six months of periods while at Hephzibah House - she decided she'd had enough.
Sarah excused herself to go to the ladies' room. When she came back, the men were ready to leave.
Pastor Williams was waiting outside when Sarah got back to Hephzibah House that night.
The meeting with her father was considered an "unapproved visit" - a violation of school policy. Sarah would have to leave.
That night, a little more than 10 months since she arrived at Hephzibah House , Sarah got three more visitors: her mother, sister and brother-in-law, come to drive her back to Tennessee.
James didn't know whether Sarah loved him anymore.
He still cared about her. He hoped the judge would let her stay in Tennessee. Not that it would make much difference. He'd given up any hope of them getting back together.
James' case was the first one to be heard that afternoon.
He hated to tell the judge that he couldn't remember most of what happened that night at the Ridgetop Market, but it was true. He'd been awfully drunk.
The judge looked at James and his friend sternly. He told them he hoped they understood the seriousness of what they'd done.
James wondered whether the judge was going to send him to prison.
He got two years of probation instead.
James was grateful. He intended to get a job and a high school diploma. He wasn't going to drink anymore, that was for sure.
He couldn't help looking at Sarah as he walked back to his seat.
Their eyes met, just for a moment.
It looked to him like she'd been crying.
Report about Hephzibah wrong, misguided
Report about Hephzibah wrong, misguided
I want to respond to your recent articles regarding Hephzibah House . I am deeply saddened by these slanted reports and accusations. I have personally visited Hephzibah House in recent months and found nothing to indicate any irresponsibility on the part of the ministry or its staff.
To the contrary, I have been deeply impressed by the love, dedication, and self-sacrificing of those involved in this program. These reports are simply inconsistent with the facts about this worth- [ufjlogo] Letters[mc] while ministry. Not only have I viewed the program in operation, I have interviewed a young lady going through the program. I have seen and heard the girls laugh and enjoy themselves when they didn't know I was there. There were no indications, or reports, of complaints in any way.
The Hephzibah House was recommended to me by a family whose teen-age daughter was drastically, miraculously helped by the ministry.
After personally visiting myself, observing the girls, etc., I have recommended it to others and will continue to do so.
I am praying for Pastor Williams and the Hephzibah House . This kind of biased attacks and journalistic sensationalism could have a negative effect on a positive program.THOMAS SMITH
St. Clair, Mo.
Hephzibah is faultless ministry
I am writing in response to your recent article concerning the Hephzibah House ministry in Winona Lake.
For several years, I have been acquainted with this ministry and have served on the advisory board for a year.
I have found Brother Ron Williams and his staff to be honorable, devoted and compassionate workers, dedicated to helping troubled girls get their lives in perspective in both the spiritual and practical realms.
If this report had been less one-sided and biased, you would have been able to find dozens of girls who, after going through the Hephzibah program, would testify how thankful they are for the guidance and love they received there and how they were able to pull their lives together. They would also tell of experiencing spiritual growth as they surrendered their rebellion and gave way for God's will in their lives. I have personally heard many such testimonies.
The specific charges lodged against the ministry I will leave for Brother Williams and his attorney to answer. But having visited there more than once and observing discipline and the daily administration, I have found them blameless.
It is interesting to me that Sarah has expressed no desire to leave (according to the articles) and has not felt unduly ``punished'' or ``abused.''
I would encourage the citizens of your community to keep an open mind until all the evidence has been presented.PASTOR HOWARD MACE
Independence, Iowa
Hephzibah doing important work
As a Baptist pastor and a friend of the Hephzibah House Ministries for over 10 years, I am concerned about the allegations that have been brought against Pastor Williams and the ministry.
Hephzibah House was established for the purpose of helping troubled young girls who are not able to control their lives in the society in which they live. The Hephzibah House ministry has only one purpose, and that is to salvage the lives of those young girls who come to the ministry.
I strongly protest this irresponsible journalism, which is biased against an organization that is desperately trying to help those who have sought its help. I feel that it is unfair to the American people to print half-truths and allegations that cast doubt on the conduct and purposes of such a self-sacrificing and much needed ministry.
JIM MCKINNIES
Willis, Mich.
Contact at Hephzibah always wholesome
The past 12 years have given me many opportunities to have contact with Dr. Ron Williams and the ministry of Hephzibah House .
It has been my pleasure to serve on his advisory board for these many years. --* It has been my pleasure to speak at the church and home a number of times for either a day or a week at a time.
It has been my pleasure to stop in when passing through the Winona Lake area. Dr. Williams has spoken in our church and visited in our home on numerous occasions too, both by invitation and unannounced.
There has never been any attitude or action on Dr. Williams' part that has made me question his moral integrity or personal character. He is a very kind and gracious man who is very concerned with the needs of teen-agers who are having serious problems - most often in their homes, schools or churches.
We have had a couple of girls from both our church ministries in the Hephzibah House program, and it has done a lot to help them learn how to turn their lives around. They wrote to me each week while in the program telling of their activities and lessons. They have talked to me after coming home from the program. There has never been any complaint about unusual treatment while they were students there.
The program at Hephzibah House is voluntary. The ministry is supported with private funds. Parents who do not want their child under the rules and regulations of the school can simply remove them.
It hurts me to see Dr. Williams, his family, and his staff suffer due to a few disgruntled students who rejected the help offered to them.REV. MARTIN L. MASITTO
Rochester
All of these were sections from Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 18, 1993
I want to respond to your recent articles regarding Hephzibah House . I am deeply saddened by these slanted reports and accusations. I have personally visited Hephzibah House in recent months and found nothing to indicate any irresponsibility on the part of the ministry or its staff.
To the contrary, I have been deeply impressed by the love, dedication, and self-sacrificing of those involved in this program. These reports are simply inconsistent with the facts about this worth- [ufjlogo] Letters[mc] while ministry. Not only have I viewed the program in operation, I have interviewed a young lady going through the program. I have seen and heard the girls laugh and enjoy themselves when they didn't know I was there. There were no indications, or reports, of complaints in any way.
The Hephzibah House was recommended to me by a family whose teen-age daughter was drastically, miraculously helped by the ministry.
After personally visiting myself, observing the girls, etc., I have recommended it to others and will continue to do so.
I am praying for Pastor Williams and the Hephzibah House . This kind of biased attacks and journalistic sensationalism could have a negative effect on a positive program.THOMAS SMITH
St. Clair, Mo.
Hephzibah is faultless ministry
I am writing in response to your recent article concerning the Hephzibah House ministry in Winona Lake.
For several years, I have been acquainted with this ministry and have served on the advisory board for a year.
I have found Brother Ron Williams and his staff to be honorable, devoted and compassionate workers, dedicated to helping troubled girls get their lives in perspective in both the spiritual and practical realms.
If this report had been less one-sided and biased, you would have been able to find dozens of girls who, after going through the Hephzibah program, would testify how thankful they are for the guidance and love they received there and how they were able to pull their lives together. They would also tell of experiencing spiritual growth as they surrendered their rebellion and gave way for God's will in their lives. I have personally heard many such testimonies.
The specific charges lodged against the ministry I will leave for Brother Williams and his attorney to answer. But having visited there more than once and observing discipline and the daily administration, I have found them blameless.
It is interesting to me that Sarah has expressed no desire to leave (according to the articles) and has not felt unduly ``punished'' or ``abused.''
I would encourage the citizens of your community to keep an open mind until all the evidence has been presented.PASTOR HOWARD MACE
Independence, Iowa
Hephzibah doing important work
As a Baptist pastor and a friend of the Hephzibah House Ministries for over 10 years, I am concerned about the allegations that have been brought against Pastor Williams and the ministry.
Hephzibah House was established for the purpose of helping troubled young girls who are not able to control their lives in the society in which they live. The Hephzibah House ministry has only one purpose, and that is to salvage the lives of those young girls who come to the ministry.
I strongly protest this irresponsible journalism, which is biased against an organization that is desperately trying to help those who have sought its help. I feel that it is unfair to the American people to print half-truths and allegations that cast doubt on the conduct and purposes of such a self-sacrificing and much needed ministry.
JIM MCKINNIES
Willis, Mich.
Contact at Hephzibah always wholesome
The past 12 years have given me many opportunities to have contact with Dr. Ron Williams and the ministry of Hephzibah House .
It has been my pleasure to serve on his advisory board for these many years. --* It has been my pleasure to speak at the church and home a number of times for either a day or a week at a time.
It has been my pleasure to stop in when passing through the Winona Lake area. Dr. Williams has spoken in our church and visited in our home on numerous occasions too, both by invitation and unannounced.
There has never been any attitude or action on Dr. Williams' part that has made me question his moral integrity or personal character. He is a very kind and gracious man who is very concerned with the needs of teen-agers who are having serious problems - most often in their homes, schools or churches.
We have had a couple of girls from both our church ministries in the Hephzibah House program, and it has done a lot to help them learn how to turn their lives around. They wrote to me each week while in the program telling of their activities and lessons. They have talked to me after coming home from the program. There has never been any complaint about unusual treatment while they were students there.
The program at Hephzibah House is voluntary. The ministry is supported with private funds. Parents who do not want their child under the rules and regulations of the school can simply remove them.
It hurts me to see Dr. Williams, his family, and his staff suffer due to a few disgruntled students who rejected the help offered to them.REV. MARTIN L. MASITTO
Rochester
All of these were sections from Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 18, 1993
N-S WINS 6 AWARDS, J-G 1 IN JOURNALISM CONTEST
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - October 25, 1993
Author: FROM STAFF REPORTS
First-place awards in feature writing, feature series and deadline sports reporting were among the six awards won by The News-Sentinel Saturday in the Associated Press Managing Editors contest.
Competing in Division 1 for newspapers with circulations of more than 50,000, Tanya Isch Caylor won first place in feature writing for "Fed By The Spirit."
The story was about the ministry of Jerry and Sandy Thorn Clark.
Tanya Isch Caylor and Bob Caylor won first place in features series for " Hephzibah House ." The stories were about allegations of physical and emotional abuse at a Baptist school for girls in Winona Lake.
Blake Sebring, Steve Warden and Monica Denney won first place in deadline sports reporting for "SWEEP Komets Take Turner Cup."
Also, Kevin Leininger won third place in editorial writing for "Legislature Can Help Prevent 'Bad' Verdicts," "Cancer Patients Victimized By Disease And By Politics," and "Don't Make Excuses For Failure To Teach Essentials"
Cindy Jones-Hulfachor won third place for best use of graphics for "The Federal Deficit"
And The News-Sentinel won second place for best Page One make-up for three of its editions, July 15, 1992, Jan. 18 and May 22.
Also, the Journal-Gazette won a second-place award for best feature series. John Ketzenberger, Pat Randle, Jay Margolis, Brian Howey, Sue Daniels, Glenn Hall and Rob Ziegler won for "A Decade Without Harvester."
Author: FROM STAFF REPORTS
First-place awards in feature writing, feature series and deadline sports reporting were among the six awards won by The News-Sentinel Saturday in the Associated Press Managing Editors contest.
Competing in Division 1 for newspapers with circulations of more than 50,000, Tanya Isch Caylor won first place in feature writing for "Fed By The Spirit."
The story was about the ministry of Jerry and Sandy Thorn Clark.
Tanya Isch Caylor and Bob Caylor won first place in features series for " Hephzibah House ." The stories were about allegations of physical and emotional abuse at a Baptist school for girls in Winona Lake.
Blake Sebring, Steve Warden and Monica Denney won first place in deadline sports reporting for "SWEEP Komets Take Turner Cup."
Also, Kevin Leininger won third place in editorial writing for "Legislature Can Help Prevent 'Bad' Verdicts," "Cancer Patients Victimized By Disease And By Politics," and "Don't Make Excuses For Failure To Teach Essentials"
Cindy Jones-Hulfachor won third place for best use of graphics for "The Federal Deficit"
And The News-Sentinel won second place for best Page One make-up for three of its editions, July 15, 1992, Jan. 18 and May 22.
Also, the Journal-Gazette won a second-place award for best feature series. John Ketzenberger, Pat Randle, Jay Margolis, Brian Howey, Sue Daniels, Glenn Hall and Rob Ziegler won for "A Decade Without Harvester."
HEPHZIBAH IS HOUSE OF UNHOLY TREATMENT OF WOMEN
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 23, 1993
Author: CHRIS LEDBETTER FEATURE EDITOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
"A woman must never be free of subjugation." - The Hindu Code of Manu, V
"Here is my daughter; she is a virgin; I will give her to you. Possess her, do what you please with her, but do not commit such an infamy against this man." - Judges 19:24
''It is our purpose to receive troubled girls . . . in order to teach them character, obedience, and a right response to authority in order that they might receive Christ . . . and return to their home and family as a responsive and obedient daughter."
- Hephzibah House rules
The world's religions have not always been kind to women. Though much has changed, some religious rituals persist in keeping a system of oppression in place. Consider the twin terrors of physical circumcision that occurs in parts of Africa and psychological circumcision practiced in Winona Lake, Ind.
With her latest novel, Alice Walker writes about the African ritual. In "Possessing the Secret of Joy," she describes the brutal rite of female circumcision. This ancient religious practice originates from parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In the procedure, girls' clitorises are cut and their vulvas mutilated and sewn shut, leaving only a tiny hole for blood and urine to flow through.
Girls' genitals are mangled so they will be pure and feel no sexual desires. Tribal cultures believe that if a girl is not circumcised between birth and 11 years, she will be promiscuous.
It would be easy to classify this as a barbaric foreign ritual were it not for the fact that refugees are bringing the tradition to the United States and Europe.
And is this ritual so different from other misogynic acts done in the name of religion? Historically, girls and women have been defined as evil, and persecuted. They have been tortured, burned and raped. Their feet have been bound; their faces scarred. They have been labeled mad and institutionalized. They have been imprisoned.
It happens yet. In today's Summit, you'll read "Sarah's story," the tale of how a Tennessee teen came to live at a Winona Lake school for girls.
At this independent Bible boarding school, girls' rights are abolished. They are not allowed to go to the bathroom alone. Someone listens in on their phone conversations and reads the mail they receive and send. They aren't allowed to watch TV, listen to secular music, or go to movies.
An alarm system is rigged so that girls can't get out. Those who don't memorize their Bible verses are punished by getting a protein drink instead of solid food for dinner. Some are paddled. Many complain their menstrual periods stop while they live at Hephzibah House .
How is it that girls attend such a school? Families send their "troubled" or "incorrigible" girls to the boarding school.
Sarah, who was sexually abused by her stepfather, was sent to Hephzibah House because she thought she might be pregnant by her boyfriend.
She and the other girls who live at this enclave are hostages, their physical and mental freedoms taken away. They are relentlessly hammered to be meek and docile, and to seek repentance.
Of course, there are long-lasting repercussions for them. At least one Hephzibah House alumna reported to authorities that she is sexually dysfunctional as a result of the psychological abuse she suffered during her two years there in the '80s.
She suffers from psychological circumcision.
In both cultural contexts, in the Africa of Walker's story and the Winona Lake of ours, a girl's sexuality and independence are so feared that her body or her spirit are mutilated to curtail her freedom.
In "Possessing the Secret of Joy," Walker wonders: "Was woman herself not the tree of life? And was she not crucified? Not in some age no one even remembers, but right now, daily, in many lands on earth."
Author: CHRIS LEDBETTER FEATURE EDITOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
"A woman must never be free of subjugation." - The Hindu Code of Manu, V
"Here is my daughter; she is a virgin; I will give her to you. Possess her, do what you please with her, but do not commit such an infamy against this man." - Judges 19:24
''It is our purpose to receive troubled girls . . . in order to teach them character, obedience, and a right response to authority in order that they might receive Christ . . . and return to their home and family as a responsive and obedient daughter."
- Hephzibah House rules
The world's religions have not always been kind to women. Though much has changed, some religious rituals persist in keeping a system of oppression in place. Consider the twin terrors of physical circumcision that occurs in parts of Africa and psychological circumcision practiced in Winona Lake, Ind.
With her latest novel, Alice Walker writes about the African ritual. In "Possessing the Secret of Joy," she describes the brutal rite of female circumcision. This ancient religious practice originates from parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In the procedure, girls' clitorises are cut and their vulvas mutilated and sewn shut, leaving only a tiny hole for blood and urine to flow through.
Girls' genitals are mangled so they will be pure and feel no sexual desires. Tribal cultures believe that if a girl is not circumcised between birth and 11 years, she will be promiscuous.
It would be easy to classify this as a barbaric foreign ritual were it not for the fact that refugees are bringing the tradition to the United States and Europe.
And is this ritual so different from other misogynic acts done in the name of religion? Historically, girls and women have been defined as evil, and persecuted. They have been tortured, burned and raped. Their feet have been bound; their faces scarred. They have been labeled mad and institutionalized. They have been imprisoned.
It happens yet. In today's Summit, you'll read "Sarah's story," the tale of how a Tennessee teen came to live at a Winona Lake school for girls.
At this independent Bible boarding school, girls' rights are abolished. They are not allowed to go to the bathroom alone. Someone listens in on their phone conversations and reads the mail they receive and send. They aren't allowed to watch TV, listen to secular music, or go to movies.
An alarm system is rigged so that girls can't get out. Those who don't memorize their Bible verses are punished by getting a protein drink instead of solid food for dinner. Some are paddled. Many complain their menstrual periods stop while they live at Hephzibah House .
How is it that girls attend such a school? Families send their "troubled" or "incorrigible" girls to the boarding school.
Sarah, who was sexually abused by her stepfather, was sent to Hephzibah House because she thought she might be pregnant by her boyfriend.
She and the other girls who live at this enclave are hostages, their physical and mental freedoms taken away. They are relentlessly hammered to be meek and docile, and to seek repentance.
Of course, there are long-lasting repercussions for them. At least one Hephzibah House alumna reported to authorities that she is sexually dysfunctional as a result of the psychological abuse she suffered during her two years there in the '80s.
She suffers from psychological circumcision.
In both cultural contexts, in the Africa of Walker's story and the Winona Lake of ours, a girl's sexuality and independence are so feared that her body or her spirit are mutilated to curtail her freedom.
In "Possessing the Secret of Joy," Walker wonders: "Was woman herself not the tree of life? And was she not crucified? Not in some age no one even remembers, but right now, daily, in many lands on earth."
FATHER FEARS FOR DAUGHTER
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - December 30, 1992
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR AND BOB CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
If 15-year-old Sarah doesn't memorize her Bible verses, she loses her solid-food privileges and lives on a protein drink. The people who run her life read all her letters before she sends them out and screen all her mail before she gets to read it. She's allowed one 10-minute phone call a month. Her doors and windows are rigged to an alarm that will sound if she tries to get out.
She's not in prison. She goes to school in Winona Lake.
Her father wants to take her away. She's not interested in leaving. She says she likes living at Hephzibah House.
Two weeks ago, a 60-year-old Teamster named Lucius hired an attorney in Middletown, N.Y., to free his daughter from a Northeast Indiana religious school so strict it sounded like a jail.
From what Lucius had heard, some women who were once students at Hephzibah House have complained about fierce, ritualized beatings delivered in a special "paddling room."
They say their menstrual periods ceased at the school. Girls who ran away were returned by local police officers.
Unusual as this school is, it's not widely known - even in Kosciusko County, where it has existed for 20 years.
Hephzibah House isn't accredited. It doesn't have to be. In Indiana, private schools are regulated only if they request it.
Hephzibah House , named for a modest biblical woman, draws its students - and its funding - from independent Baptist churches as far away as Alaska.
Some girls are troubled. Some are merely troublesome.
Lucius' daughter Sarah was both.
Lucius got a divorce from Sarah's mother, Mary, in Middletown, N.Y., in 1983.
Mary won custody of Sarah and the couple's two other children. She later remarried, and five years ago, after years of court-refereed hassles over visitation rights, she and her new husband moved the children to Tennessee.
Lucius lost track of the kids after that.
Then last February, he got a letter from his oldest daughter, Heather. She told him their stepfather was now in prison for sexually abusing her and Sarah. She told him their mother had sent Sarah to Hephzibah House .
Because Sarah is a victim of sexual abuse, The News-Sentinel is not printing the family's last names.
Lucius is a Christian. He's a Baptist, in fact. But nothing from the day he was born again in 1954 to the times he helped out with the Billy Graham crusades in the '60s prepared him for these Hephzibah House Baptists.
The staff at Hephzibah House wouldn't let him talk to Sarah on the phone unless one of them monitored the call.
Nor would they send him information on the house.
When he read about the paddlings - in an article published in a Warsaw newspaper in the mid-'80s - Lucius decided it was time to act. He wanted Sarah out.
Lucius hired Anthony "Toots" LaBella, a slick-talking, ponytailed child- custody lawyer, on Dec. 18.
After days of researching custody laws in three states - New York, Indiana and Tennessee - LaBella came to Indiana this weekend.
On Monday he got a court order allowing six hours of unsupervised visitation for Lucius and Sarah, beginning at 2 p.m. yesterday.
Next week, Sarah's mother and the Rev. Ron Williams, founder of Hephzibah House , have been summoned to Kosciusko Superior Court for a hearing that could give Lucius temporary custody. Mary reportedly was to arrive in Winona Lake today.
By the end of the month, when the arena shifts to a courtroom in Goshen, N.Y., Lucius hopes Sarah and her younger brother will be moving in with him and his second wife in New York. Heather has married.
LaBella was encouraged by what appeared to be initial success. But he and his private investigator, Larry Chambers, weren't counting on Hephzibah House to comply with the court order.
Yesterday, after discussing every possible contingency for hours, those two and Lucius waited out the final few minutes before the 2 p.m. showdown in a parking lot a mile or two from Hephzibah House .
Lucius had arrived at Fort Wayne International Airport a little before noon, and had been in Warsaw less than an hour.
He'd downed 25 cups of coffee since he woke at 3:30 a.m. He clutched the umbrella on his lap as he wondered whether, after more than five years, he would finally get to see Sarah.
On the plane, he'd read a book on cult deprogramming.
''Man, that's enough to scare the sugar out of anybody," he said. "But at least I know what to expect if she starts acting screwy on me."
LaBella checked his watch. Ten minutes 'til 2.
''All right," he said. "Let's do it."
Chambers gunned their rental car. Barely two minutes passed before they entered the long, gravel lane to Hephzibah House , an expanded version of a 1960s-looking suburban tract house.
They didn't have to ring the bell. By the time they got to the sidewalk, one of Williams' sons opened the door and came out holding a piece of paper.
''Sarah's over at Paul Refior's office, that attorney we told you about," he said. He handed LaBella the address and directions.
LaBella and Chambers pondered this development on their way through town.
''Now, why is this child at the attorney's office?" LaBella asked.
''Could be the runaround," muttered Chambers.
In the back seat, Lucius tried to reassure himself.
''(Toots) knows what he's doing," Lucius whispered. "He's got everything under control."
At Refior's office, the receptionist greeted them with a smile.
LaBella didn't smile back. He glared out the picture window toward the lake at the end of the street.
''These people are a little too happy for my taste," he muttered.
A couple of minutes later, a door opened and a pale blond girl in a skirt and plain black shoes joined them in the lobby.
''Hello," she said politely.
Lucius gave her a hug.
''I just had to come get you, Honey," he said.
LaBella and Chambers hustled them out the door. Through the open door of an inner office, Williams watched them go, arms folded across his chest.
Back at the hotel, Lucius took his daughter up to his hotel room so they could be alone for a while. LaBella shook his head.
''She's like a blank slate," he said. "It's like she's 9 years old."
He and Chambers killed time in their room, chatting and snacking on bananas, doughnuts, corn chips and Diet Rite.
Lucius and Sarah emerged a little after 4, and invited LaBella and Chambers to a local restaurant.
Labella fired his opening round of questions before the waitress had finished pouring the coffee.
''Is there a calendar in that place? What day is today?"
Sarah answered slowly but correctly, tacking a "sir" on the end of each sentence.
''Why are you 'sirrin' ' me?" LaBella asked, as if offended. "I haven't been 'sirred' since I was in uniform. Call me Toots. Everybody calls me Toots. Even my kids call me Toots."
She smiled. But she couldn't stop herself from responding with another "Yes, sir."
Sarah ordered a scoop of orange sherbet, which she stirred around her dish as she pondered each question.
LaBella and Chambers ordered burgers.
Lucius didn't order anything. He'd left his emphysema medication back at the hotel, and his lungs were hurting him so much he could hardly talk, much less eat.
He listened as his daughter described a "school" where staff members escort girls to the bathroom, ban Christmas celebrations and prohibit talk about their lives before Hephzibah House .
At this school, Sarah said, alarms on doors and windows are designed to keep people in, not out.
Paddlings occur, she said, although not often. It had never happened to her, and only once to someone else in the 10 months she's been there. As far as she knows, anyway. The girls don't really question each other about that, she explained.
''It would probably hurt their feelings."
''What's the best part about being at Hephzibah House ?" Chambers asked.
''That we get to learn about God."
And the worst?
Sarah looked at her sherbet dish. Her dessert had melted.
''I don't know, really."
Sarah had been drying dishes Monday afternoon when Pastor Williams summoned her upstairs to talk to the deputy sheriff who had brought over the court papers. Williams had showed her the papers, but she only glanced at them. She figured Williams would take care of it, she told LaBella.
Sarah had been clinging to her father all afternoon, planting little kisses on his cheek and holding his hand when they walked. Yet she seemed ambivalent about leaving Hephzibah House to go live with Lucius.
If he'd showed up 10 months ago, she probably wouldn't have hesitated. It wasn't her idea to come to Indiana last February. She hadn't even known that was their destination. Her mother told her they were going out to dinner. Ten hours later, she was at Hephzibah House .
She hadn't been going to school at the time. The Christian school she'd been attending had kicked her out a month or two earlier, after they found out she thought she was pregnant.
She wasn't. But the fact that she was messing around with boys obviously troubled her mother.
Sarah didn't like Hephzibah House at first. She got used to it, though. After all, Pastor Williams' religious beliefs weren't that much different from what she'd been used to in Tennessee.
Sarah hadn't seen a movie or watched television since her parents' divorce almost 10 years ago, so that was nothing new. She can watch educational and Christian videos, though. Like the one about the martyr who was burned at the stake.
''He died singing," Sarah said.
She said she wasn't particularly troubled by staff members' assertions that true Bible-believing Christians ought to marry whomever their parents recommend.
''It's not like you don't have a say in it," she said.
Sarah told LaBella she now believes that if it weren't for Hephzibah House , she would be dead, pregnant or in jail.
He decided it was time to try a different approach.
''Am I the devil because I have long hair?" he asked.
''No. But you know what the Bible says about that? It's a shame for men to have long hair."
She was loosening up a bit. LaBella told her about his kids and how he got his nickname, from a monk at his high school who warned that he'd turn out like a local tavern owner named Toots.
She admitted that she missed her family. And she tweaked her Italian- American inquisitors with a joke about how the name Tony came from the days when Italian immigrants stamped TONY - short for "to New York" - on their children's foreheads.
It had been half an hour or so since she'd called anybody "sir." As the restaurant began to fill up with dinner customers, Sarah found herself telling the men about the one thing at Hephzibah House she could find nothing good to say about: the "protein drink."
She described a powdered drink mix that was stirred into a glass and drunk in place of a meal. Those girls who didn't memorize their weekly Scripture verses, she said, were punished with a supper of protein drink, which they were served at each meal until they passed the Scripture recital.
It was also served to girls who were sick, as a deterrent to those tempted to fake an illness. Sarah said she had once spent two to three days on a protein drink diet.
''It's supposed to be vanilla, but it doesn't taste like that," she said. "It's gross. I gagged on it once and threw up."
LaBella changed the subject.
''Speaking of 'monthlies,' " he said, referring to their monthly (as well as weekly) Scripture-memorization requirements, "what about your other 'monthlies'? I'm not trying to embarrass you here. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
During telephone interviews with former Hephzibah residents, Chambers had discovered an apparent pattern in the women's menstrual cycles. Many women had a period the first week they were at Hephzibah House , followed by months of no periods at all.
Both men listened carefully to Sarah's response. "I got my period when I first came to Hephzibah House ," she said. "Then I didn't have one for about six months."
She excused herself to go to the restroom before they could question her further. LaBella was eager to hear more. But Lucius needed his medicine, so they decided to return to the hotel instead.
It was 6 p.m., two hours until they had to take Sarah back. Lucius took Sarah back to his room so they could have more time alone. In their room next door, LaBella and Chambers analyzed what they'd just heard.
''I believe her," Chambers said. "I don't think she's lying. I think she's omitting."
LaBella ticked off the things that troubled him most.
''Food deprivation," he said, referring to those liquid-protein dinners. "Now that really rocks my socks."
That menstrual cycle problem, that might be serious. They'd need to consult a gynecologist.
Sarah had been unclear on the frequency or severity of the paddlings. But LaBella didn't think anybody ought to be whacking teen-age girls' rear ends.
He wasn't satisfied with the schoolwork Sarah had described, either. "Who ever heard of biology without a microscope?"
The thing that troubled both men most, though, was the way Sarah seemed to shift back and forth from a shy, naive schoolgirl to a mischievous, calculating teen-ager during the interview.
The school social worker they'd asked to evaluate Sarah's letters to Lucius from Hephzibah House had noted similar shifts in her penmanship - a sign she might be under severe stress.
Looking for an easier question to resolve, LaBella picked up the hotel Bible and looked up the verse Sarah had cited when he'd asked her about his ponytail. It took him a while to locate 2 Corinthians 11:8.
''For the man is not of the woman," he read. "The woman is of the man."
Chambers offered his interpretion: "That means Adam didn't come from Eve," he said soberly. "Eve came from Adam."
LaBella snorted.
''Thank you, Pastor Larry."
It was getting late. LaBella knocked on Lucius' door.
Inside, Sarah was sitting on the bed, a black Teamsters cap on her head. She was reading some Hephzibah House material Lucius had given her. Newspaper articles quoting Hephzibah alumni, whose complaints ranged from paddlings for leaving unpicked green beans in the garden to sexual dysfunction that persisted nearly a decade after the time at the facility.
''I don't agree with some of this," she said. Missed beans warranted sentence-writing penalties, not paddlings. "And as for my period . . . every time I've had it, it's been the same as any other time."
She told Hephzibah staff about the missed periods, and was told it was probably due to stress.
''Teen-agers have irregular periods anyway," she said.
They walked out to the car. It had been a grueling six hours for Lucius. But he wasn't ready to give Sarah back.
Fifteen minutes later, Chambers pulled into the Hephzibah driveway. Williams was waiting outside the house. He didn't want to comment on the day's events when contacted by phone a few hours earlier.
Williams had referred questions to his attorney, Refior, who was out all last evening. He introduced himself to Lucius, but they didn't have much to say to each other.
Sarah hugged her dad goodbye.
''I love you," she said, kissing him on the cheek.
She hadn't kept the Teamsters cap or the gold necklace with the initial "S" he'd given her. There was no use, she said. They wouldn't let her keep it.
Next week Lucius appears in Kosciusko Superior Court to try to win temporary custody of his daughter.
Back at the hotel, he tried to make sense out what had been a frustrating yet rewarding visit.
Her answers had come too easily, he thought.
''I think she's been coached," he said. "I think she wants to be with me, but she doesn't know how to say that. She wanted to see me, though. She really did want to see me.
''I think the kid loves me. She really does."
RULES OF THE HOUSE
A brochure produced by Hephzibah House may describe the life there best: " Hephzibah House is not a prison or a detention center, though its rigid policies procedures may lead one to that conclusion. Strict rules are necessary when young women capable of foolish and possibly dangerous actions are being helped to restructure their lives."
Some of the more than 100 rules, regulations and requirements:
* Any food left on a girl's plate will be saved and fed to her at the next meal until she has finished it.
* Women visitors who show up NOT wearing skirts or dresses are asked "politely" to leave the premises. "Dresses and skirts of modest length encourage the Hephzibah student, so please wear them when visiting," the brochure states. * In order to better assist parents in purchasing clothing, Hephzibah recommends clothes from "Modest Appeal," a catalog that can be ordered from Kentucky. If parents are uncertain about whether shoes are modest enough, they're encouraged to circle a potential purchase in a catalog and send to Hephzibah House for approval.
* The only jewelry allowed are small "post" earrings and watches - "provided it was not given by a boyfriend, etc."
* Worldly practices such as TV viewing, attendance at commercial movie theaters, dancing, mixed swimming, gambling and other games of chance, and listening to unbiblical music such as rock, country-western, blues, jazz, or so-called gospel-rock would be taught as wrong for a Christian."
Caption: MAP; PHOTO (4)
Map shows the location of Winona Lake in Kosciusko County.
Anthony "Toots" LaBella, left, and investigator Larry Chambers are working to help a father win custody of his daughter. Color Photos By Argil Shock Of The News-Sentinel
An unidentified staff member, in blue jacket, from Hephzibah House appeared outside the house to speak to Sarah's father. He informed LaBella and Chambers that the girl was to be picked up at the house's laywer's office. Color Photo
After picking up his daughter, Lucius escorts her into a motel for a private meeting. He had not seen Sarah in more than five years. His lawyer also attended the meeting, which involved asking questions about how Sarah is doing. Photos By Argil Shock Of The News-Sentinel
At Hephzibah House , where alarm systems are meant to keep girls in, not intruders out, the staff monitors mail and telephone calls closely.
Memo: See microfilm for map explained in caption at end of story.
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR AND BOB CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
If 15-year-old Sarah doesn't memorize her Bible verses, she loses her solid-food privileges and lives on a protein drink. The people who run her life read all her letters before she sends them out and screen all her mail before she gets to read it. She's allowed one 10-minute phone call a month. Her doors and windows are rigged to an alarm that will sound if she tries to get out.
She's not in prison. She goes to school in Winona Lake.
Her father wants to take her away. She's not interested in leaving. She says she likes living at Hephzibah House.
Two weeks ago, a 60-year-old Teamster named Lucius hired an attorney in Middletown, N.Y., to free his daughter from a Northeast Indiana religious school so strict it sounded like a jail.
From what Lucius had heard, some women who were once students at Hephzibah House have complained about fierce, ritualized beatings delivered in a special "paddling room."
They say their menstrual periods ceased at the school. Girls who ran away were returned by local police officers.
Unusual as this school is, it's not widely known - even in Kosciusko County, where it has existed for 20 years.
Hephzibah House isn't accredited. It doesn't have to be. In Indiana, private schools are regulated only if they request it.
Hephzibah House , named for a modest biblical woman, draws its students - and its funding - from independent Baptist churches as far away as Alaska.
Some girls are troubled. Some are merely troublesome.
Lucius' daughter Sarah was both.
Lucius got a divorce from Sarah's mother, Mary, in Middletown, N.Y., in 1983.
Mary won custody of Sarah and the couple's two other children. She later remarried, and five years ago, after years of court-refereed hassles over visitation rights, she and her new husband moved the children to Tennessee.
Lucius lost track of the kids after that.
Then last February, he got a letter from his oldest daughter, Heather. She told him their stepfather was now in prison for sexually abusing her and Sarah. She told him their mother had sent Sarah to Hephzibah House .
Because Sarah is a victim of sexual abuse, The News-Sentinel is not printing the family's last names.
Lucius is a Christian. He's a Baptist, in fact. But nothing from the day he was born again in 1954 to the times he helped out with the Billy Graham crusades in the '60s prepared him for these Hephzibah House Baptists.
The staff at Hephzibah House wouldn't let him talk to Sarah on the phone unless one of them monitored the call.
Nor would they send him information on the house.
When he read about the paddlings - in an article published in a Warsaw newspaper in the mid-'80s - Lucius decided it was time to act. He wanted Sarah out.
Lucius hired Anthony "Toots" LaBella, a slick-talking, ponytailed child- custody lawyer, on Dec. 18.
After days of researching custody laws in three states - New York, Indiana and Tennessee - LaBella came to Indiana this weekend.
On Monday he got a court order allowing six hours of unsupervised visitation for Lucius and Sarah, beginning at 2 p.m. yesterday.
Next week, Sarah's mother and the Rev. Ron Williams, founder of Hephzibah House , have been summoned to Kosciusko Superior Court for a hearing that could give Lucius temporary custody. Mary reportedly was to arrive in Winona Lake today.
By the end of the month, when the arena shifts to a courtroom in Goshen, N.Y., Lucius hopes Sarah and her younger brother will be moving in with him and his second wife in New York. Heather has married.
LaBella was encouraged by what appeared to be initial success. But he and his private investigator, Larry Chambers, weren't counting on Hephzibah House to comply with the court order.
Yesterday, after discussing every possible contingency for hours, those two and Lucius waited out the final few minutes before the 2 p.m. showdown in a parking lot a mile or two from Hephzibah House .
Lucius had arrived at Fort Wayne International Airport a little before noon, and had been in Warsaw less than an hour.
He'd downed 25 cups of coffee since he woke at 3:30 a.m. He clutched the umbrella on his lap as he wondered whether, after more than five years, he would finally get to see Sarah.
On the plane, he'd read a book on cult deprogramming.
''Man, that's enough to scare the sugar out of anybody," he said. "But at least I know what to expect if she starts acting screwy on me."
LaBella checked his watch. Ten minutes 'til 2.
''All right," he said. "Let's do it."
Chambers gunned their rental car. Barely two minutes passed before they entered the long, gravel lane to Hephzibah House , an expanded version of a 1960s-looking suburban tract house.
They didn't have to ring the bell. By the time they got to the sidewalk, one of Williams' sons opened the door and came out holding a piece of paper.
''Sarah's over at Paul Refior's office, that attorney we told you about," he said. He handed LaBella the address and directions.
LaBella and Chambers pondered this development on their way through town.
''Now, why is this child at the attorney's office?" LaBella asked.
''Could be the runaround," muttered Chambers.
In the back seat, Lucius tried to reassure himself.
''(Toots) knows what he's doing," Lucius whispered. "He's got everything under control."
At Refior's office, the receptionist greeted them with a smile.
LaBella didn't smile back. He glared out the picture window toward the lake at the end of the street.
''These people are a little too happy for my taste," he muttered.
A couple of minutes later, a door opened and a pale blond girl in a skirt and plain black shoes joined them in the lobby.
''Hello," she said politely.
Lucius gave her a hug.
''I just had to come get you, Honey," he said.
LaBella and Chambers hustled them out the door. Through the open door of an inner office, Williams watched them go, arms folded across his chest.
Back at the hotel, Lucius took his daughter up to his hotel room so they could be alone for a while. LaBella shook his head.
''She's like a blank slate," he said. "It's like she's 9 years old."
He and Chambers killed time in their room, chatting and snacking on bananas, doughnuts, corn chips and Diet Rite.
Lucius and Sarah emerged a little after 4, and invited LaBella and Chambers to a local restaurant.
Labella fired his opening round of questions before the waitress had finished pouring the coffee.
''Is there a calendar in that place? What day is today?"
Sarah answered slowly but correctly, tacking a "sir" on the end of each sentence.
''Why are you 'sirrin' ' me?" LaBella asked, as if offended. "I haven't been 'sirred' since I was in uniform. Call me Toots. Everybody calls me Toots. Even my kids call me Toots."
She smiled. But she couldn't stop herself from responding with another "Yes, sir."
Sarah ordered a scoop of orange sherbet, which she stirred around her dish as she pondered each question.
LaBella and Chambers ordered burgers.
Lucius didn't order anything. He'd left his emphysema medication back at the hotel, and his lungs were hurting him so much he could hardly talk, much less eat.
He listened as his daughter described a "school" where staff members escort girls to the bathroom, ban Christmas celebrations and prohibit talk about their lives before Hephzibah House .
At this school, Sarah said, alarms on doors and windows are designed to keep people in, not out.
Paddlings occur, she said, although not often. It had never happened to her, and only once to someone else in the 10 months she's been there. As far as she knows, anyway. The girls don't really question each other about that, she explained.
''It would probably hurt their feelings."
''What's the best part about being at Hephzibah House ?" Chambers asked.
''That we get to learn about God."
And the worst?
Sarah looked at her sherbet dish. Her dessert had melted.
''I don't know, really."
Sarah had been drying dishes Monday afternoon when Pastor Williams summoned her upstairs to talk to the deputy sheriff who had brought over the court papers. Williams had showed her the papers, but she only glanced at them. She figured Williams would take care of it, she told LaBella.
Sarah had been clinging to her father all afternoon, planting little kisses on his cheek and holding his hand when they walked. Yet she seemed ambivalent about leaving Hephzibah House to go live with Lucius.
If he'd showed up 10 months ago, she probably wouldn't have hesitated. It wasn't her idea to come to Indiana last February. She hadn't even known that was their destination. Her mother told her they were going out to dinner. Ten hours later, she was at Hephzibah House .
She hadn't been going to school at the time. The Christian school she'd been attending had kicked her out a month or two earlier, after they found out she thought she was pregnant.
She wasn't. But the fact that she was messing around with boys obviously troubled her mother.
Sarah didn't like Hephzibah House at first. She got used to it, though. After all, Pastor Williams' religious beliefs weren't that much different from what she'd been used to in Tennessee.
Sarah hadn't seen a movie or watched television since her parents' divorce almost 10 years ago, so that was nothing new. She can watch educational and Christian videos, though. Like the one about the martyr who was burned at the stake.
''He died singing," Sarah said.
She said she wasn't particularly troubled by staff members' assertions that true Bible-believing Christians ought to marry whomever their parents recommend.
''It's not like you don't have a say in it," she said.
Sarah told LaBella she now believes that if it weren't for Hephzibah House , she would be dead, pregnant or in jail.
He decided it was time to try a different approach.
''Am I the devil because I have long hair?" he asked.
''No. But you know what the Bible says about that? It's a shame for men to have long hair."
She was loosening up a bit. LaBella told her about his kids and how he got his nickname, from a monk at his high school who warned that he'd turn out like a local tavern owner named Toots.
She admitted that she missed her family. And she tweaked her Italian- American inquisitors with a joke about how the name Tony came from the days when Italian immigrants stamped TONY - short for "to New York" - on their children's foreheads.
It had been half an hour or so since she'd called anybody "sir." As the restaurant began to fill up with dinner customers, Sarah found herself telling the men about the one thing at Hephzibah House she could find nothing good to say about: the "protein drink."
She described a powdered drink mix that was stirred into a glass and drunk in place of a meal. Those girls who didn't memorize their weekly Scripture verses, she said, were punished with a supper of protein drink, which they were served at each meal until they passed the Scripture recital.
It was also served to girls who were sick, as a deterrent to those tempted to fake an illness. Sarah said she had once spent two to three days on a protein drink diet.
''It's supposed to be vanilla, but it doesn't taste like that," she said. "It's gross. I gagged on it once and threw up."
LaBella changed the subject.
''Speaking of 'monthlies,' " he said, referring to their monthly (as well as weekly) Scripture-memorization requirements, "what about your other 'monthlies'? I'm not trying to embarrass you here. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
During telephone interviews with former Hephzibah residents, Chambers had discovered an apparent pattern in the women's menstrual cycles. Many women had a period the first week they were at Hephzibah House , followed by months of no periods at all.
Both men listened carefully to Sarah's response. "I got my period when I first came to Hephzibah House ," she said. "Then I didn't have one for about six months."
She excused herself to go to the restroom before they could question her further. LaBella was eager to hear more. But Lucius needed his medicine, so they decided to return to the hotel instead.
It was 6 p.m., two hours until they had to take Sarah back. Lucius took Sarah back to his room so they could have more time alone. In their room next door, LaBella and Chambers analyzed what they'd just heard.
''I believe her," Chambers said. "I don't think she's lying. I think she's omitting."
LaBella ticked off the things that troubled him most.
''Food deprivation," he said, referring to those liquid-protein dinners. "Now that really rocks my socks."
That menstrual cycle problem, that might be serious. They'd need to consult a gynecologist.
Sarah had been unclear on the frequency or severity of the paddlings. But LaBella didn't think anybody ought to be whacking teen-age girls' rear ends.
He wasn't satisfied with the schoolwork Sarah had described, either. "Who ever heard of biology without a microscope?"
The thing that troubled both men most, though, was the way Sarah seemed to shift back and forth from a shy, naive schoolgirl to a mischievous, calculating teen-ager during the interview.
The school social worker they'd asked to evaluate Sarah's letters to Lucius from Hephzibah House had noted similar shifts in her penmanship - a sign she might be under severe stress.
Looking for an easier question to resolve, LaBella picked up the hotel Bible and looked up the verse Sarah had cited when he'd asked her about his ponytail. It took him a while to locate 2 Corinthians 11:8.
''For the man is not of the woman," he read. "The woman is of the man."
Chambers offered his interpretion: "That means Adam didn't come from Eve," he said soberly. "Eve came from Adam."
LaBella snorted.
''Thank you, Pastor Larry."
It was getting late. LaBella knocked on Lucius' door.
Inside, Sarah was sitting on the bed, a black Teamsters cap on her head. She was reading some Hephzibah House material Lucius had given her. Newspaper articles quoting Hephzibah alumni, whose complaints ranged from paddlings for leaving unpicked green beans in the garden to sexual dysfunction that persisted nearly a decade after the time at the facility.
''I don't agree with some of this," she said. Missed beans warranted sentence-writing penalties, not paddlings. "And as for my period . . . every time I've had it, it's been the same as any other time."
She told Hephzibah staff about the missed periods, and was told it was probably due to stress.
''Teen-agers have irregular periods anyway," she said.
They walked out to the car. It had been a grueling six hours for Lucius. But he wasn't ready to give Sarah back.
Fifteen minutes later, Chambers pulled into the Hephzibah driveway. Williams was waiting outside the house. He didn't want to comment on the day's events when contacted by phone a few hours earlier.
Williams had referred questions to his attorney, Refior, who was out all last evening. He introduced himself to Lucius, but they didn't have much to say to each other.
Sarah hugged her dad goodbye.
''I love you," she said, kissing him on the cheek.
She hadn't kept the Teamsters cap or the gold necklace with the initial "S" he'd given her. There was no use, she said. They wouldn't let her keep it.
Next week Lucius appears in Kosciusko Superior Court to try to win temporary custody of his daughter.
Back at the hotel, he tried to make sense out what had been a frustrating yet rewarding visit.
Her answers had come too easily, he thought.
''I think she's been coached," he said. "I think she wants to be with me, but she doesn't know how to say that. She wanted to see me, though. She really did want to see me.
''I think the kid loves me. She really does."
RULES OF THE HOUSE
A brochure produced by Hephzibah House may describe the life there best: " Hephzibah House is not a prison or a detention center, though its rigid policies procedures may lead one to that conclusion. Strict rules are necessary when young women capable of foolish and possibly dangerous actions are being helped to restructure their lives."
Some of the more than 100 rules, regulations and requirements:
* Any food left on a girl's plate will be saved and fed to her at the next meal until she has finished it.
* Women visitors who show up NOT wearing skirts or dresses are asked "politely" to leave the premises. "Dresses and skirts of modest length encourage the Hephzibah student, so please wear them when visiting," the brochure states. * In order to better assist parents in purchasing clothing, Hephzibah recommends clothes from "Modest Appeal," a catalog that can be ordered from Kentucky. If parents are uncertain about whether shoes are modest enough, they're encouraged to circle a potential purchase in a catalog and send to Hephzibah House for approval.
* The only jewelry allowed are small "post" earrings and watches - "provided it was not given by a boyfriend, etc."
* Worldly practices such as TV viewing, attendance at commercial movie theaters, dancing, mixed swimming, gambling and other games of chance, and listening to unbiblical music such as rock, country-western, blues, jazz, or so-called gospel-rock would be taught as wrong for a Christian."
Caption: MAP; PHOTO (4)
Map shows the location of Winona Lake in Kosciusko County.
Anthony "Toots" LaBella, left, and investigator Larry Chambers are working to help a father win custody of his daughter. Color Photos By Argil Shock Of The News-Sentinel
An unidentified staff member, in blue jacket, from Hephzibah House appeared outside the house to speak to Sarah's father. He informed LaBella and Chambers that the girl was to be picked up at the house's laywer's office. Color Photo
After picking up his daughter, Lucius escorts her into a motel for a private meeting. He had not seen Sarah in more than five years. His lawyer also attended the meeting, which involved asking questions about how Sarah is doing. Photos By Argil Shock Of The News-Sentinel
At Hephzibah House , where alarm systems are meant to keep girls in, not intruders out, the staff monitors mail and telephone calls closely.
Memo: See microfilm for map explained in caption at end of story.