The year was 2019 and it felt like nearly a lifetime had passed since I completed that summer internship in Winona Lake. Leah Remini’s influence in bringing awareness to abuse within religious cults was expanding right alongside the Me Too movement. And I was in contact with multiple television producers to discuss my Hephzibah House experience.
However, even further back, in 2012, only months before I set sail for Arizona, I was asked to write a descriptive letter introducing myself as an IFB pastor’s daughter. The letter was to be addressed to the IFB pastors who supported Ron Williams and his reform school. I did so and two days later, Susan Grotte, former student (inmate) and leading activist, posted it on her blog.
Letter To The IFB Supporting Churches
Summer Internship ~ Hephzibah House
After completing the various phone interviews with the producers, I arrogantly concluded they were just looking for candidates who could participate in the making of trauma porn (at least as that term was originally defined). I understand now, however, that emotional rawness and transparency are profoundly valid change agents. And I truly believe that to everything there is a season.
Back then, though, I was in the season of bypassing or taking the shortcut.
I still told them about the horrors of the place and we even talked about how my father sent my cousin as well as one of my siblings to fundamentalist reform schools, one of which, was a Lester Roloff home for girls. Naturally, they tried to get me to emotionally describe how it all made me feel.
Instead, I shared my Pollyanna perspective.
I spoke of how well my past IFB life, including my Hephzibah House experience, had served my future self. They, however, were selling the need for change through an emotionally sensational story filled with shame, secrecy, extremism and hidden religious abuse rather than one filled with stoicism and the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” alchemy. Yes, I get it now.
Dr. Phil Show ~ Hephzibah House
Living in Sin ~ A&E Documentary
TO: Any Woman Without Dependent Children
FROM: Pastor Ronald E. Williams, Director of Hephzibah House
Susan Grotte, who is featured in the videos above, dedicated her life to leading a group of women whom were all either former students or staff and all of whom wanted to close the doors of Hephzibah House. She was relentless in her pursuit of justice and it is she who deserves honor and respect for her leadership and persistence. Hephzibah House is finally permanently closed.