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[Music] Rosie Overcomer welcome to my podcast just throwing her phone to Theo who's
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sitting on the sofa how are you I'm good thanks um thanks for having me Don oh
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thank you so much for coming over um by by the way um you you're wearing jeans
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and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up they are very sexy elbows I did roll my sleeves down yeah
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can you can you I I I just I might be tempted oh dear um anyone that's uh listening to this or watching this that
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hasn't seen um uh what's it called finding Utopia escaping escaping Utopia
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um they'll have no idea what we're talking about but yeah the elbows get a
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mention they do they do hey it's so good to have you here today um one thing I
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wanted to know is um why don't you have the glory of Al accent did you have you know CU there's
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like a sort of voice yes there is that that new zealanders I think associate with people from Gloria val did you did
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you did you speak like that when you left and it's worn off or no um I would have definitely spoken like
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that when I left um I think there's a whole lot of reasons why you have the accent and I guess you're living in an
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isolated Community you only hear the people that you're listening to um there's not a lot of outside influence
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so um you pick up your own accent much like any small town or other isolated area would and then when you leave then
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you take on unknowingly like I didn't intend to change my accent when I left
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but would have been maybe a year after we left that I went back in at one point and one of my sisters said to me you've
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got an accent and that's when I kind of realized that they actually had an accent um and I think there's some other
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reasons for that too like um they really encourage women to have a sweet and almost childlike voice um so people that
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speak like that are encouraged um there's a bit of and then also I think there's quite a drone in their accent
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and that I really believe is because they don't have any individual personality and they're kind of
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repeating what they hear um and so it's almost a robotic kind of um accent that
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they've picked up yeah yeah so you've how old are you now what are you 37 37
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and it's like the 11 year just over the 11 year anniversary so the first 26 years of your life um you were in glory
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ofil or a variation of that beforehand um how has your faith changed since leaving are you are you still religious
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I am but I just backtrack a little bit I'm actually 38 I just remembered I've just had a birthday so
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I'm 38 so I was actually I was 27 when I left yes right that's a forgivable lie
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I'll tell you what I I have to my mom used to do that I'll be like how do you
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not know how old you are and now I'm I'm 51 and us to to count the years yeah I'm
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the same yeah yes so Al so so you still you're still religious um yes I am I'd
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say I'm a Christian now and what I was in glor of Val was religious and I um
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hopeful and glor of Val were my God yeah so different but um I am a Christian now
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yeah and and you're in Oakland at the moment um doing legal stuff connected with Gloria ofil what what are you doing
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can you talk about that or um I can just say that the authorities are listening now and so we've done some work around
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that and now that's in their hands and I hope that they do what they can with it
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um but that's really all I can say about it yeah that's cool why um yeah I mean it's it's really good
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that you're you're doing that um I think it takes a lot of courage and a lot of
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lot of Bravery um why didn't you just like turn you back on the whole thing and think I've
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got out you know yeah put the door on this you box it up and just move on with the rest of my life like draw a line in
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the sand do you know what I mean that would have been the easier thing to do I think oh totally it would definitely be
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easy to just walk away um I think the main reason I haven't done that is because um my family are still there a
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lot of my family my friends and I guess I understand what kind of regime they're
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living under and that they have no idea about um choice or consent or freedom and I can't just walk away in good
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conscience and leave them there to suffer as I suffered um and with the amount of abuse in that within that
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environment um and how many children there are and uh I care about them I love them and so
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I will keep going well good on yeah I think that's really commendable because
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yeah for anyone like I suppose a generation older than you that made the choice to be in there um that's fine and
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that's one thing but then there's people like you who were born in there didn't
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have a say in the matter which is a different kid of fish all together oh it totally is um but even some of those
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people who joined in the early days like they joined something that they thought
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it was and they've been coerced and and manipulated to you know to live and believe what it is now but if it if it
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had started how it is now they would never have joined um and so I think it's
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important to note that those people themselves even have been manipulated to believe something that they wouldn't
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have yeah do you I mean you you agreed to come on the podcast today which I'm
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so so thankful for by the way we connected on Instagram it's like the most unglory ofil way of connecting ever
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um do you do you get sick of talking about it or are you just are you just that passionate about doing what's right
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that you just want to keep the conversation going as much as you can uh probably a bit of both I definitely can
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get sick of it um but I don't actually think I'd probably call it sick of it
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you just get tired and you can get exhausted and especially if you feel like the people that can do something
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aren't listening um but I I do feel passionate about helping them um supporting them in whatever way I can
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and so I'll keep going for that reason so I guess yeah the passion drives that
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but yeah I've definitely um been exhausted and over it before and thought you know maybe I should just
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walk away but um it comes down to it just they mean too much to me and I can't yeah just leave them and you know
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there's so many of us that have left that are all doing our own part and trying in our own way to
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make a difference in their lives and if we all just walked away um that'd go
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back to how abusive they've been for 50 years and that's just not okay and it
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can't happen and I mean we're a small country there's 600 people which is you
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know it's a big part of our small country um and we can't just forget about them yeah that's one thing I got
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from um watching the that that amazing three part series escaping Utopia on TV andz plus um just the sense of um I
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don't know know the sense of like fairness or um the moral compass that you and Elijah your amazing husband and
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baby daddy have it's like I'm actually getting emotional yeah thinking about it
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um yeah just the the sense of like what's right even when you're in there
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and now carrying on yeah 11 years after you've left with um the work you're
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doing now um about that show like when it's been out like maybe a month now 5 weeks or
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something I'm not sure when that came out who yeah who who did you watch it with what was evening like that day like
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so we had watched it um quite a bit earlier than everyone else oh you got like an advance yeah we did but um
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actually the night the first episode came out I was in ockland at the time with Theo and my sister pear um you Theo
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by the way another one of the stars of the documentary she has the for me I think the line of the series uh do you
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want to come over and say on mik come over here make sure the camera can see you
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what is it the line about the cheese I know how to make cheese but I don't know who Taylor Swift is that's
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the line we'll have to get you back for your own episode at some point I love that
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line so much oh so yeah you're watching with Theo and PE yeah so we watched it
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with Theo and PE that first episode and um it's quite funny because so we were
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uh J to be on breakfast show the next morning um and I could not sit still I actually was ironing clothes cuz I
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needed something to do and when there was the way shot of me um in the laundry pear my sister was sitting on the bead
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and she films me she Sayes nothing's changed um but yeah it was I guess it it's nerve-wracking putting yourself out
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there and realizing that you are now in the public eye in a big way um but also the purpose behind it is what keep me
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yeah grounded and going I actually haven't watched the other two episodes since our first viewing um I see you
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watched CU you're your your main part I think is an episode two is that the episode you watched or oh know so we
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I've watched it all okay yeah I have watched it all I'm in in every episode
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um the first episode is kind of introducing a lot of different um people and there's a lot of Pilgrim in Boz and
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then the second episode is more Elijah and I and then the third episode is where Theo and I went to India um but
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yeah I have watched the whole thing just when it came out to the New Zealand Public I only watched the first episode
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again with Theo and P yeah but is is it emotional when you when you watch it or like you know how how does it how does
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it feel or do you manage to sort of separate that no no it's emotional I I just go straight back into it um and I
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feel a lot like I'm back in there and I think what does it to me too is that
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it's still a reality for so many people and I know my nieces and my neews in
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that and so it still is so real to me and I know what they're going through so
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I I do struggle to separate myself from that um yeah so it's emotional and it's
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hard yeah so so when you leave after um spending the first 26 years of your life
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in there what what do you leave with um what did we leave with we left with um some of our clothes and you know
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towels and bedding and um and our photos really that was all yeah um the day we left we packed up what we had and then
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um one of the leaders came in and he went through all our bags and pulled out our Glory Veil clothes so that didn't
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really leave us with anything um yeah not a lot don't leave with a lot you you've got one dress as a souvenir out
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during he didn't find that one when he went through our bags so why why why did
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why did you want to keep that as a souvenir why did you um well I didn't originally think I was keeping it as a
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souvenir like the reason we packed it is because that's all we had um and but
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I've just kept it because it is a big part of my life um 27 years um of my life and I can't just um pretend it
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didn't exist cuz it did and that and to me too that would be doing what gloral
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does to people when they leave um they burn photos um edit you out of videos never speak your name and act as if you
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didn't exist and that's just um it's cutting off something that is is actually real so I
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can't do that yeah yeah it is um it's so cruel and callous eh very cruel yeah
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yeah it's do you think that's done by Design to just remove any temptation of
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leaving it's like if you leave that's it you yeah absolutely it's it's done for
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that reason and also to make sure there's no connection with your family so say when my brother left there's no
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opportunity for connection with them CU there's no um way to get hold of them
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and they've so um they're completely wiped from your life so that they can't influence back
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in and then you know influence you to leave so yeah which is funny CU it's the
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most it's the most unchristian thing imaginable yes yeah you know just the irony of it so there was there was a TV
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documentary series um actually it's still the episodes of it still up on the
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glory OFA website this would have been um I suppose about the time you either left or were thinking about leaving do
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you know the series I'm talking about a bunch of episodes and it was sort like
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felt like it was like propaganda in a way for yeah I know ex the series you're
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talking about does that how does that make you feel does that make you feel sort of angry it feels like I remember
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watching it at the time and I was doing a doing a radio show at the time on a station called The Edge and we we sort
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of I don't know I I suppose we sort of bought into the glory of Al hype and Dove love was very famous at the time um
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what's Dove love doing is she still in there Dove love is still in glor val definitely was was she aware of her
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level of fame or no not really probably not really I think she knew to some extent but no I don't think she would
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ever understand unless she was out here at the time yeah hul Fame so so so how how did that series make you feel like
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does it does it does it make you blood boil now are you angry sort of like um paints paints a very idelic you know
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pleas pretty picture about what Glory of is yeah it was it was pretty hard for me
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to watch that at the time I was in there when they filmed most of it and had left
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by the time it came out um and a lot of that filming is does have my sister and who wedding as part of that documentary
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as well um that came out after we left and I guess while they were filming it was a very uh tumultuous confusing time
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for me and Elijah as well in there um he had been kicked out um while they were doing the filming and it it actually
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directly related to a lot of what they were trying to show um and so it felt like a personal a personal hurt when I
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watched it and they were showing oh you know this is this um beautiful amazing self-sufficient community and um behind
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the scenes while they're filming that very thing they were trying to destroy
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my marriage and um my husband yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll get to that because um your husband Elijah I mean um
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yeah I suppose this is one amazing thing for you that's come out of Glory of like
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you met this guy and he just seems like just the best straightup dude imaginable
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um and I I just can't imagine um yeah the courage that it took for him to confront the leaders because it sounds
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yeah it sounds like a very intimidating environment to to question anything so for him to do that and then the
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aftermath that happened yeah we we'll get to that shortly but um just on Glory
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of for a second so so when you're in there um you you legit have no idea like
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who Taylor Swift is and no no idea I think we had I definitely didn't know who Taylor Swift was I had heard of
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Britney Spears um so there's some funny way stories they disconnect all the radios
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out of the cars but um I guess people people and boys that had access to some things would go
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and rehook them back up um and wire them in and that sort of thing and listen to
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the radio so and then record songs on little cassette tapes and then we had like a little black market of cassette
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tapes yeah cassette tapes but we're only talking like 10 years ago we're kind of behind the rest of the
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world does does it well does anyone have an iPhone that they could do no now there would be people with phones but
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back when I left absolutely not no um and still even your access within having a phone is very limited like they
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restrict all um Wi-Fi access so if I go up there with my phone and go onto the Wi-Fi I can't Google Taylor Swift I
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can't Google even Kmart or Instagram it's blocked all those websites are
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blocked okay yeah so so when you're in there as a as a as a woman in your late
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tens early 20s are you are you familiar with the word Google and no no no definitely not but there must have
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been things that you you knew though because you you go for Town visits occasionally um so you must be familiar
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with um yeah I don't know the warehouse McDonald's Subway yeah yeah you it's a
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hard one to kind of understand I guess before you even uh allowed out into the world like for a dentist visit or
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something like that you're already prepped to believe that all these things out here are bad and evil and aimed at
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pulling you away from the truth and away from God and taking you to hell and so you kind of look at everything and
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everybody with that lens sort of distrust yeah immense distrust and um everything is
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worldly so inside glor Val anything that is outside there is worldly and that means that it is from the devil and it's
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being used to take you effectively to hell so um and even the warehouse like we didn't shop at the warehouse for
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years and years and years because they sold the book book um Phil's book so Phil is nille Cooper's
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son and it's called sons of the father and they refused to take it off their
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shelves and so we nobody was allowed to go to the warehouse um but even in going
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to the warehouse like normally if you went there it would be to buy like a 100 pair of shoes that were on sale it's not
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like you went in there with your own money and got what you wanted um McDonald's didn't go to McDonald's
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didn't go to KFC you don't have money to spend at those places so when you're
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going into the outside world you're going with a group of people you go to your appointment you get picked up and
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then take them back so um yeah you see things of the outside world I mean I went to India while I was in there too
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but yeah yeah yeah so so yeah so that's one thing that from um escaping Utopia
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so you you went to India so you're on the plane for 15 hours whatever you you
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must be watching movies on the back of your seat or yeah yeah yeah was thaty though yeah yeah we got told
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um before we got on the plane that we weren't allowed to start watching any movies until the leader had checked that
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was with us on the trip had checked what there was on offer and then he would come and tell us which ones we were
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allowed to watch which did happen but also when you when he's watching his and
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you're like 10 rows up the plane and nobody else is watching well you can choose and you just have to be real
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ready to quickly switch it off if they come and to cheek on you yeah so so so in a situation like that are you are you
00:19:33
scared you obviously there's the immediate um fear of the leader that's with you but are you also fearful of
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like being punished by God and yeah I think there's a bit of that that comes
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into it and a lot of guilt while so you might think oh I'm going to go I'm going
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to watch this and then while you're watching it guilt will just take over um
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or maybe later you'll feel really guilty about it and so you'll confess um you're
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sitting there going oh my God I'm going to go a hell forever C's retreat was
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even not wasn't even even a good movie yeah and I I think too then if something else so say later on something
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else went wrong in your life you would think oh that's because I disobeyed and
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I sinned and so you go back and confess about this is what I did um yeah so there's a lot of guilt around that sort
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of thing besides the fact that you're kind of on eggshells thinking I could get caught at any minute
00:20:26
yeah oh God what a what a stressful way your life but surely um your interactions you have with people
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outside even though you're wey of them and you know they're Outsiders um so you
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sitting next to someone on the plane you have a nice conversation with them or someone's nice to you in the the
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warehouse when you're buying the shoes Sur you start to question things at that point like oh okay that person
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seems like a good person you know what I me yeah and I would say that's true
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because people are definitely um really polite and lovely and helpful and and we
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were Tau to to be polite back but um if they're not a Christian then their whole
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motive we were taught was to influence you to think they were good so that you would follow them and then obviously the
00:21:12
result of that is that you were going to hell um and so there was something else
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we tau is that the devil will make you feel good on the outside so that you trust him so anybody that anybody that
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does good things is in fact the devil trying to influence you which is just so messed up but it it kind of preps you to
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be still thinking yeah they're being nice to me yeah they're doing something
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good but that's because the devil's behind it yeah so what what's your
00:21:41
belief now do you think there's like a an Afterlife with a heaven in a hell um
00:21:47
yes I think there's a heaven some might say hell is listening to Britney Spears
00:21:50
on repeat over and over again I think I think what I'm focused on is doing what
00:21:55
I believe is right and what um and also now I believe that God is a good father not a cruel judge and so um
00:22:06
yeah and I believe he cares about me has my best interests at heart and um really
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that's why I actually am here today because if I didn't have my faith in God
00:22:16
I yeah I actually wouldn't physically be here what do you mean you wouldn't
00:22:22
physically be here um now we might get emotional I've got I've got a box of tissues down okay um I
00:22:35
guess you're uh struggle a lot with um depression and yeah taking my life at
00:22:42
one point was the only option out so um yeah how old were you then 18 yeah oh mate that's terrible
00:23:00
and yeah I thought that would be the better option than leaving even though um by Glory of our
00:23:08
rules like taking your own life would be a sin so you're going to hell for that
00:23:12
yeah but if you leave that's more sinful so you'll get more punishment in
00:23:19
Hell how did you get through that um just uh through just really talking to God like all the time I just talked
00:23:31
to God and um prayed that he would show that he cared about me and um give me a way out
00:23:41
and give me some hope yeah and did he I guess he did yeah it wasn't like an overnight fix but um God
00:23:50
has really just given me um all little things along the way and whether that's
00:23:56
say someone like my mom the next day telling me that she loved me which I hadn't heard her say since I was about 6
00:24:03
years old yeah so you're just looking for a glimmer like a sign or something yeah
00:24:11
it's quite funny well it's not funny at all actually but um there's are you
00:24:16
familiar with someone called sjn Kuan I do know the name and I think he's a rugby player am I correct or not yeah
00:24:23
yeah he's a famous all black but he's become more famous as a mental health
00:24:26
Advocate right and he when it's probably about the time you were born actually in um the late 1980s
00:24:32
when he was at the peak of his old black career he was in this hotel room in Argentina with the All Blacks and um he
00:24:39
had a game I think he had a game before the day before and the game was really good but he thought he was going to be
00:24:44
dumped because it's just his mental health was all over the place and the balcony door was open and they were like
00:24:48
eight floors up or something and he was like he had just this thought of like just just running out and jumping out
00:24:53
the window and his um his teammate who was on the next bed next to him Michael Jones um who's a very religious man as
00:25:00
well just out of the blue he said you know what JK you're a good man and um and that was the sign that JK needed at
00:25:09
the time to sort of save his life yeah yeah sounds like a similar thing to you you're just looking for any sort of
00:25:14
glimmer of yeah yeah yeah and it was just little things like that but it really made a big impact and that's just
00:25:21
mom telling me that she loved me and I felt like it was worth sticking around for that what's your relationship like
00:25:26
with your with your mom now um I'd say it's um is she still in there she is still in there so it's strained
00:25:36
um and sometimes it can be really good and other times not um but yeah it's a tricky one to explain
00:25:45
um I love Mom hoaps and I think her and Dad have done the best with what they knew and the tools they had um within
00:25:53
that environment to raise all of us um and I really respect her and and I love her for that but um I
00:26:03
guess it will probably never be a really close relationship yeah you don't seem to have like a chip
00:26:10
on your shoulder at all or anything like yeah I don't know I'm probably projecting here but I feel like if it
00:26:15
was me I'd probably be kind of resentful like you know in a way almost like if
00:26:19
you like it's like if you know it's like quarter of your life if you liveed to
00:26:24
100 that that you spent in this environment and it was like their decision I think
00:26:29
I think there's probably a few reasons for that and there's definitely been
00:26:31
times where that that feeling has come and I've been and probably not so much
00:26:36
against mom and dad but maybe against more um leaders or people that were very abusive to me um and where there'll be
00:26:44
times where I feel angry um but anger doesn't really do a lot for fixing the
00:26:51
situation um but also yeah I just think that I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't
00:26:58
for the life I've lived and I don't want that life for my children but I'm still
00:27:03
grateful to my parents for for what they've done for me yeah do you think this this positivity that you've got and
00:27:10
this attitude do you think part of that comes from your faith probably yeah yeah
00:27:14
definitely yeah and why um um I was going to ask about your name like and this may seem like a really weird
00:27:21
question because obviously you know you leave when you're 27 and so so Rosie
00:27:25
Overcomer is your name and it's all you've ever known but it is also your
00:27:29
glory of Val name and if you if you went back through family records or family trees or I don't know ancestry.com
00:27:35
whatever you could find out what is your actual family name do you know um I do I
00:27:40
do know so overcome is my married name um and before I was Overcomer I had a maiden name so my family glor maiden
00:27:49
name was hope and before that it was steadfast and my dad's name is Marcus bolliger so it would have been bolliger
00:27:58
right um but all those name changes are legal name changes so when I fill in forms and I have to write my maiden name
00:28:05
there's a few to write God oh my God that put put you off traveling a oh it's too hard with all
00:28:14
the forms yeah oh my God yeah I noticed um something I spotted in the background
00:28:18
of um escaping Utopia and your family home now you've got like some wall art
00:28:23
and it's um it's like Overcomer the name and what each word means do you know
00:28:28
what it is off the top of your head no I don't actually cuz my husband did it um it's really cool though it's good
00:28:36
one actually I think I've got a photo of it so throws my phone back I can um have
00:28:40
a look but yeah it is really good and I don't know what off the top of my head
00:28:45
but um I think the name Overcomer has become I guess really significant to us as well and it's who we are now cuz we
00:28:54
have overcome a lot and and also everybody knows Us by their name um so it's yeah it would be hard to change it
00:29:04
so if we changed it now to my husband's family name is b boom so it be there and
00:29:10
I I don't know I think overcoming Probably sounds bitter bter than what what is it bbom ball spoon bbom bbom
00:29:19
yeah right that's a Dutch name overcome is easy isn't it let's stick with it um
00:29:24
a couple of light-hearted ones um like what what are the coolest things you found when you when you first left I'm
00:29:29
thinking like TV shows mu music gadgets fashion fast I Noti you got a nose piercing I have got nose I've got like
00:29:38
few of my ears too which is which is not okay so so so so so you leave glor of Valen I'm
00:29:46
sure there's a a massive amount of um like guilt and shame at that point and
00:29:50
confusion and um just a whole range of emotions but then you sort of settle into the groove of um being an outsider
00:29:57
then what what were some of the big surprises like what became early addictions like gry's Anatomy or
00:30:02
something or no no I've only kind of just heard of that one no it's been a
00:30:07
while um I think it actually probably took me about a year to really start kind of embracing or leaning into
00:30:15
leaning into it yeah cuz that first year was I mean I was a mom I had three very
00:30:21
young children I had fourth on the way um that fourth was born within the first year and so that's you know there was a
00:30:29
lot to kind of deal with just learning how to actually care for them um so Bening watching Netflix shows was the
00:30:37
last thing on your mind yeah no I didn't do that but I actually the first thing
00:30:41
that I loved that I really thought oh this is good is I got a haircut um and that was a friend organized that for me
00:30:50
for my 28th birthday and um the first time I'd ever celebrated a birthday was
00:30:55
my 28th birthday and I can remember walking to down the street and just like going oh I feel free cuz I'd cut like
00:31:04
this much hair off um and yeah that that was I don't know I felt really significant to me as well
00:31:13
too because it was a direct Rebellion to um being in glory Val where women weren't allowed to cut their hair and I
00:31:23
had done that and it was kind of like I had U made a stand with a than myself of
00:31:29
that that was not something I believed in anymore yeah I bet you 30 million bucks as well yeah I did I I can
00:31:35
remember walking down the street still I can still remember the feeling I'm feeling like I was shaking my head like
00:31:40
just feeling so light um and another really significant moment for me was the first time I put on jeans and it would
00:31:48
have been well after a year after we left um what did you wear for the first year just skirts long skirts yeah and
00:31:55
then I kind of graduated to KNE length skirt but I felt like everybody knew every regular person that saw me knew
00:32:04
that I wasn't dressed how I should be um and that I think too is because you've
00:32:07
grown up with this very judgmental mindset where everybody like your outward appearance is everything and um
00:32:14
so I just felt like that's what everybody was doing judging me and they knew that I wasn't wearing what I should
00:32:20
be wearing as well as I was just terrified of being spotted by someone from glor
00:32:25
Val we why just for the judgement yeah for the Judgment for what they would um I guess say about me think
00:32:32
about me um which seems silly now but um it just felt very real at the time and then when we left lots of people donated
00:32:42
clothes and that sort of thing and there were jeans in there and I knew I didn't
00:32:46
believe that it was wrong for women to wear jeans but I thought that I couldn't
00:32:50
so I'd kept a couple of here and I'd actually said to Elijah a few times can
00:32:53
you tell me to wear the jeans and he was like no like you wear them if you want I'm not telling you what to do
00:33:03
like you if you want to wear them wear them if you don't don't like honestly
00:33:08
it's not up to me what you wear it's up to you and I'm not telling you what to
00:33:12
do so I'm really grateful to them for that but at the time I was like well if
00:33:15
you just tell me then I can do it um and would have been yeah over a year later after we left and um I was actually
00:33:24
helping him on the farm and I went over climbed over an electric fence and got this massive shock because my skirt got
00:33:32
hooked on the fence and I just thought this is stupid so I went home put the jeans on and I was like oh I'm still me
00:33:41
like the jeans haven't changed who I am and that was a really I guess another
00:33:47
kind of significant moment for me to realize that it wasn't the clothes who made me who I was yeah wow yeah maybe
00:33:54
the electric shock was a son from God come on put the on I'm not worried yeah
00:34:00
exactly yeah um what what about music and stuff that you leaned into what what did you what did you anything that you
00:34:06
sort of gravitated towards what did you have inside was it just sort of worship music yeah mostly worship classical a
00:34:12
lot of we were allowed to listen to classical music and we played a lot of um classical stuff but like because we
00:34:18
all learned an instrument or multiple instruments um what music did I lean into Cold
00:34:26
Play you you know me better than me Theo yes Coldplay yeah um love Coldplay um going to the concert at the
00:34:34
end of this year yeah oh so am I I missed the concert last time around and I thought I I don't want to end up with
00:34:40
fomo again so I bought them bloody expensive though aren't they yeah but yeah no I don't I didn't really get into
00:34:47
music for a long time um Elijah's into music big time and he was one of the ones that was hooking up the radio and
00:34:53
um recording music to pass around so he he already had a bit of a he knew what he liked um but I do remember thinking
00:35:01
for a long time that you couldn't listen to anything with a heavy beat um or like
00:35:05
rock Musical that sort of thing because that was quite sinful so I took a while to get into that yeah is Cold Play going
00:35:13
to be first concert no it was going to be until um pink came to denan and somebody had a ticket to sell a week
00:35:21
before and asked me if I want to go so I've been to Pink yeah oh just recently
00:35:24
yeah just recently that was my first ever concert yeah how was that was that we no I loved it yeah it was amazing it
00:35:30
absolutely incredible uh phenomenal phenomenal and I was like what have I been missing out on yeah so I mean it's
00:35:38
it's been a it's been a long time since you've been out it's been like at this
00:35:41
point 10 years 11 years or whatever do you do you feel like pangs of guilt when you're there or anything or no not at
00:35:46
all um when I'm at when you no when you're when you're going to the Pink
00:35:51
concert or when you're in the Pink concert with all these other Outsiders no I think it's not lost on me that
00:35:58
my life is so different now to what I could have ever imagined and that's probably more what it is it's like I
00:36:04
think oh um I could never have imagined myself living this life or going to a pink concert I still have values and I
00:36:12
still live my life aligned to those values um and I still have a faith in God and so that's important to me but
00:36:19
that's based on my relationship with God not on what anybody else sees is okay or
00:36:24
not okay and so I don't have any guilt about what I to do yeah yeah I love that
00:36:31
so much yeah I I had um a very um very strict Catholic upbringing um I mean obviously a lot Freer than your it's
00:36:39
nothing like being in um being in a cult like glor ofil but um yeah God God to us
00:36:44
was a Punisher like every every time we did something wrong mom was like God's
00:36:49
going to punish you God's so say God to us seem like a bully rather than a nice
00:36:53
person and then um I i' I'd consider myself to be an atheist now because I
00:36:58
realized As I Grew Older um you can be a good person and not have any religious belief or you can be you can be a
00:37:04
complete dick and be very very religious oh I fully agree with you I do fully agree with you but you can be a good
00:37:09
person and be a Christian too which is something F out since abolutely yeah yeah absolutely um anything you miss
00:37:16
about Glory Val apart from family and friends um prob probably just the ability to um s say something needs
00:37:24
doing the ability to have this big Collective of walking working towards the same goal and really be able to
00:37:31
achieve something quite significant in a short amount of time um yeah like I guess that that comes from nobody
00:37:38
actually having a job I'd do that in inverted um and so when something needs
00:37:45
to happen in a hurry everybody is just called and you can really make stuff happen um but which is quite cool to be
00:37:52
part of something like that um but I I can't say I particularly Miss but that
00:37:59
yeah when we did things like that I thought oh yeah it was fun it was great yeah yeah so back to the um the the eoms
00:38:06
thing with the the job um has has that changed now like it's it's gone through
00:38:10
an employment court and stuff so are people in glor Veil getting paid now for the work they do or no no no no right
00:38:18
but it went through Court did nothing change from that well they're still working on that but um I think what's
00:38:23
important is that to know is gloral is absolute professionals at Optics so they will say all the right
00:38:32
things um perform make it look like they're doing the right things behind closed doors they will say nothing
00:38:39
changes this is what we believe but things have changed in little increments um and I think that
00:38:46
has come from the court cases and the outside pressure where if that backed off they would revert back to their old
00:38:52
ways so they do pay they pay the men but then the men are they have to gift it back so
00:39:02
they're so used to being manipulated told what to do they think they're doing
00:39:06
this for God that they're still effectively not being paid for their work and being paid the absolute be a
00:39:13
minimum too so um so then they just start recording all the hours as volunteer hours rather than as um work
00:39:21
hours so they can pay them less right okay so it's kind of a twisted loophole sort of it is yeah and
00:39:27
I suppose their argument is what do you need money for everything you need is provided yes everything you need is
00:39:32
provided and you need to give your money back to the Lord's work and yeah selfish
00:39:37
if you keep it yeah gez it would have been nice when you when you when you left if you got given like a lump sum of
00:39:43
money for the work You' done though even if it was you know below minimum wage
00:39:47
yeah it would have been something to set you up we did get given $1,000 the day we left um got enough to buy two tickets
00:39:54
to cold playay yeah it's good day us it like that then though um yeah and I mean they made us sign to say that we
00:40:03
had received a gift of $1,000 and that it was full recompense for any work that I had ever done in my life there um
00:40:10
which I shouldn't have signed in hindsight but I guess that stage you just wanted out I yeah I was I just
00:40:15
wanted out I'd already had six hours of people just um yeah really going hard in
00:40:22
like tear and juicing kind of attacks verbal attacks and so I just wanted out so yeah signed it yeah 6 hours so that's
00:40:32
the leadership group having a having a go initially the the leadership how many how many people uh there's 12 of them
00:40:39
right okay so so you're a you're a young M of three and your mid 20s and you got
00:40:43
12 Grand men just what like like raising their voices or oh yeah absolutely yeah
00:40:49
yeah um and that was in a meeting with both Elijah and I on that last day and then when they kind of realized they
00:40:56
weren't getting anywhere with us um they threw up their hands and left the room
00:41:00
and then they sent all my friends my siblings parents um one after the other to talk to me so that yeah one would
00:41:11
come tell me how wrong I was losing my faith giving up um how could I do this to my kids how could I take them to how
00:41:19
and then when they weren't getting where that' go the next one would come and
00:41:22
that went on yeah for six hours yeah why why didn't you just say I'm thinking if I was in your position and I
00:41:33
had like 12 people you know that i' I'd grown up as my sort of bosses or leaders
00:41:38
or whatever you want to call them my entire life I'd probably just end up caving and staying like where did that
00:41:44
strength come from for you guys to stick to your guns dig your heels and then go
00:41:48
well I had already I had already given in multiple times before that day um there had been other meetings there had
00:41:54
been meetings I'd been in alone with out Elijah um and just the men and I had
00:42:01
given in in those meetings um and there' been one where I was with Elijah and I
00:42:07
had given in that one and I think by this point I had really made the decision myself that
00:42:15
um one the place wasn't safe for my kids which is what really led me on the Journey of leaving in the first place
00:42:24
but the main thing was seeing that the leaders were so happy to lie to cover themselves and seeing that just in black
00:42:34
and white over and over again over a period of months um that they were very happy to destroy a marriage um to
00:42:42
destroy a person and to make themselves look good throughout the process that I just I knew that that wasn't Godly and
00:42:53
that they were using God and even like slandering who God is um to make themselves into gods and um I I could
00:43:03
just see it really clearly by this point and so I knew that that's not who I
00:43:07
wanted to follow anymore yeah oh they just shown their true colors over yeah yeah okay let's talk about Elijah um I
00:43:14
feel like we've talked about him a lot but um yeah watching escaping Utopia just the relationship that you guys have
00:43:22
and the kind of man he is um it's it's an incredible relationship you guys have
00:43:26
got so guessing if you to list all the positives from Glory Val he'd be top of
00:43:30
the list yeah um what else so there's getting things done like you said before
00:43:35
yeah anything else um I mean I'm pretty grateful for the skills I've learned
00:43:39
like sewing making cheese I don't make chees but but um I don't know it's real
00:43:46
Handy knowing how to um fix mend clothes and that sort of thing and I and I actually love making stuff um and then
00:43:55
yeah just general skills I can I can make bread I can make I can make yogurt I can I can do a lot of
00:44:02
those things and they're really easy and simple to me like I don't have to think
00:44:05
about it whereas I know like other Ms and other people out here you know that's kind of a big deal to them to
00:44:12
start something like that like I can preserve we get a whole lot of apples I know how to preserve them um so yeah
00:44:18
skills like that I am grateful for skills yeah yeah they are you I suppose Elijah's got the the men's life skills
00:44:24
yeah like he knows how to connect a car radio okay so um yes so so when did so you
00:44:32
were a few years older than him y so according to um escaping Utopia you at the age to get married so you you were
00:44:40
quite late though right like 20 21 22 2 why so old um oh because they were saving me for Elijah now I'm just joking
00:44:48
that I don't like maybe right so they just decided like in New early 26 ready
00:44:53
for marriage and there were two guys who is the what what was the story of the other guy yeah do and do you regret
00:44:58
saying this oh no no there's two two guys that were deemed um suitable candidates there's Elijah yeah um
00:45:05
there's another guy that gave you the ick oh the BG [Laughter] I um what was what was
00:45:13
um you were real vocal about this and I thought I wonder if still does sometimes
00:45:19
sometimes on this podcast I I'll say things or and I end up with like a vulnerability hangover or an honesty
00:45:24
hangover and I when I watched that I thought I wonder if she like regret saying that but no no I don't regret
00:45:29
saying it why what what was ay about the other guy everything okay right so so so it was
00:45:36
Elijah what was um when did you first know to H like did you guys sort of grow up together oh we grew up together yeah
00:45:41
I was really good friends actually with uh his older sister and so when um like early days when we lived at Spring Bank
00:45:49
before the community was all shifted over to glor Val um we lived in the same building called The Big House family and
00:45:57
his family and some other families as well and so I spent a lot of time with their family just yeah I mean I could
00:46:05
have almost thought that they were my siblings or my cousins just the way we grew up um and then I mean I didn't
00:46:13
think of him like that until I was probably around 20 um like think that I could you know
00:46:20
potentially marry him or liked him but um yeah before that I just got on really well with their family and um spend a
00:46:28
lot of time with them yeah and then um yeah in escaping Utopia we can see some footage of your your wedding um how do
00:46:36
you how do you feel when you see that now I don't really like to watch it yeah
00:46:42
yeah yeah that you know you're saying before about the vulner vulnerabil vulnerability I can't even talk here
00:46:48
that one um that's probably something that I have a little bit of a like oh should I put that out there um why why
00:46:55
is that because it's embarrassing about all the stuff about the Seal of a woman or yeah
00:47:01
I think so yeah and it just yeah yeah that's that's kind of ay that's yeah it
00:47:06
is very yeah but then I mean I know why we allowed it to be put out there because it's an important part of um
00:47:15
showing the truth of the place but yeah I mean I yeah it's not something that I
00:47:20
like I just sit down and like ah I want to relax I'm G to pop our wedding video
00:47:25
on so at at the at the time when you're getting married and you're in glor of
00:47:29
valy and that that speech is going on about you know God's special gift for man as the Seal of a woman but it's
00:47:34
talking about the hman right is that what it's yeah yeah yeah are you embarrassed at the time oh absolutely
00:47:39
yeah don't was she weren't there was she could hide under a rock yeah absolutely
00:47:45
and then and then you go away to consumate your wedding and everyone knows yeah everyone knows that's what
00:47:49
you've gone yeah yeah yes and then when you come back he run like cheers you
00:47:53
collaps and have you you guys um yeah it's that's that's embarrassing oh yeah I
00:48:00
mean it's very private and personal yeah I mean that's probably the the biggest
00:48:05
regret I have is that we had a wedding in there not that we married obviously but I just wish that the wedding day
00:48:12
what wasn't what it was but can't can't go back and change it now will you do
00:48:17
you think you'll have a like a renewal one day potentially yeah I think that'd
00:48:20
be really cool Elijah's really up for parties so if I if I sell it to as a big
00:48:25
party yeah right so so so you guys are together in there and you both from what I can
00:48:32
gather um you both seem like Square pigs and round holes and that you're both
00:48:36
sort of disruptors and um I don't know but I suppose by glor state is like troublemakers but you know yeah so what
00:48:43
sort of conversations are you guys having in private um I'll just I think I should mention that I actually grew up a
00:48:50
really good glory of Val girl like I didn't want to be a disruptor I didn't
00:48:54
want to be noticed I wanted to do all the right things things and that was primarily because my family was low in
00:49:00
the hierarchy scale and so was Elijah's and so we both um we both were quite intentional about
00:49:08
being good people within the community even though Elijah collected car connected car radios um he got away with
00:49:14
a little bit more than I did but um I think um what happened was when we got married
00:49:22
we both were trustworthy to each other and you are encouraged um and taught and um made to actually report on each other
00:49:33
but we didn't do that and so we had a relationship where we could talk to each
00:49:39
other and share our um and the most yeah fears concerns and things that were worrying to us and so that gave us a
00:49:47
security with each other and and even the ability to have those conversations whereas beforehand everything that I had
00:49:54
concerns about I thought it was only me and I thought there was something wrong with me and if I said something I would
00:50:01
have been the one in trouble so um you keep all that to yourself but um between the both of us we um we a safe place for
00:50:09
each other so yeah W this is this is so much to take in like it's fascinating and it's
00:50:17
intriguing but it's so much so there's a lot of married couples there where if if
00:50:20
someone says to their husband or wife uh this doesn't seem right the other person
00:50:26
will like shut down or report on them both yeah shut it down and report on them yeah so there's kind of no place
00:50:32
for a meaningful and a real relationship within that environment even between friends um or siblings parents yeah
00:50:43
they've taken that all away so you just can't trust anyone no you can't so um take us back to that period
00:50:52
cuz I'm guessing it wasn't a day or a moment but that period where everything
00:50:55
imp imploded and Elijah approached hopeful so hopeful is like the boss the big boss yeah yeah yeah he's the big
00:51:02
boss so you guys must you guys talked about that for what days weeks months months months before um and we actually
00:51:11
uh yeah probably even nearly a year before we had been um having discussions like this um and then so over time we
00:51:19
had compiled just we had questions and so we compiled them into a list and we spent the week before approached hopeful
00:51:28
um not eating so we 4 days before we fasted and prayed um and that was because well we wanted to make sure that
00:51:40
we weren't just being kind of cocky young people that thought they knew everything um and we really wanted to
00:51:48
understand even ourselves why we had the questions and really focus on that so we
00:51:53
decided not to eat for a few days um and then we actually both went together to Hopeful and told him we had some
00:52:00
questions and he told me I needed to leave cuz I was a woman and I had no right to ask him questions um and he
00:52:09
took Elijah off in the car and um I think it was around like maybe 3:00 in the afternoon because I know I
00:52:19
went and picked up the kids shortly afterwards from uh preschool and then Elijah didn't come
00:52:25
back for ages um probably was a couple of hours later and he came to the room and I said how did that go um and he
00:52:33
said oh well I guess you could say good cuz hopeful didn't yell at me but he
00:52:38
also didn't say anything a lot and he told me I was wrong a few times but he
00:52:43
didn't really say much um and then we were kind of like oh where to from here
00:52:48
you know like like a stalemate yeah what what do we do now and then while we were
00:52:53
having this conversation a leader came to our room and told Elijah he had to come to a meeting um and so he went to
00:53:01
this meeting and then I took the kids to dinner so three kids under five yeah three yeah yeah yeah yeah
00:53:10
um uh so you took them to dinner took them to dinner and then came back put them to bed um did all the normal like
00:53:19
helped with the dishes and that sort of thing and then he still wasn't back um
00:53:24
and then it would have been like nearly probably 10:00 and I I mean I was concerned but then at the same time it
00:53:32
not entirely unusual for him to not come home at that time cuz I thought maybe he
00:53:35
had gone out back out to the farm or something like that you don't have phones you don't have any means of
00:53:40
communication so it's yeah it wasn't entirely unusual but I I was a little
00:53:44
bit you know wondering where he was um and then two leaders just kind of burst into my room
00:53:53
um and said you need to put um a change of clothes and aijah toothbrush in this bag he's
00:54:03
left and I can still remember that um I guess I said to them that can't be right he wouldn't
00:54:12
leave me and the kids here and they said yeah he told us that he doesn't love you
00:54:19
he doesn't want to be married to you and he has already left the property um
00:54:28
yeah kind of that was that for me you um you know that that's [ __ ] though way I knew I knew that it was but here's
00:54:40
these men leaders that I have trusted with my whole life my whole life and thought that they were called of God
00:54:49
thought that they knew everything um and so I guess I was just really confused um and that
00:55:00
started uh I guess a roller coaster for me where I didn't know this was happening but
00:55:08
um I couldn't sleep I couldn't eat and I couldn't think and I felt like I was a a
00:55:17
wooden block which I don't even know how to describe it but it was like I wasn't
00:55:21
a human anymore I think I know what you mean just like a like a living corpse in
00:55:25
a way yeah yeah sorry oh that's terrible um so then when do you hear from Elijah
00:55:41
um H how could how could he reach out to you even if he wanted to do you have access to a phone or no no I don't have
00:55:47
access to a phone I mean there are phones in the host but to have any access you have to ring through the main
00:55:54
office and then who was I going to ring anyway um yeah and anyway I did I asked the leaders if I could contact him some
00:56:04
way and they kept saying no um and then they sent um the woman whose husbands had left to come and talk to me
00:56:17
um and so that went kind of it was a whole day and the first one came and she actually came into my room and I she
00:56:26
never knew that her husband had left cuz he had come back um that was the first I
00:56:30
knew of it and she she came in and she was like right let's go through the drawers and the photo album and we're
00:56:37
going to get rid of all Elijah's clothes and photos and I I just said I said no and
00:56:44
she said but that's what you need to do cuz you don't love him anymore he's gone
00:56:48
against the church and you don't love him anymore and I can remember just having this like but I do but I do love
00:56:53
him um and then yeah the other two came and they both spent a few hours with me telling me I
00:57:01
was doing the right thing staying there and protecting the children from hell and my husband was um a deceiver and the
00:57:08
devil had used him to try and convince me to um go to the world and um and then actually the last woman who talked to me
00:57:18
I had a reasonably good relationship with already um and worked with her a lot and I said to her near the end of
00:57:26
the conversation I said I just want to know one thing can you answer this question honestly for me and she said
00:57:33
yes and I said do you regret not leaving with your husband and she said every day
00:57:45
um and I and when she left I remember thinking I don't want to be 50 and regretting every day of my
00:57:54
life and so so then I went to the leaders again and said I need to talk to Elijah and can I ring
00:58:04
them yeah so um yeah they decided that they would take me to see him so all the leaders and me and a van um and I didn't
00:58:17
know where we were going but when we got there I knew they had lied to me because
00:58:23
it was just one of the farm houses that was about 20 minutes minutes drive from glory
00:58:29
veale and I remember walking in and Elijah was surprised to see me and I went straight and gave him a hug um and
00:58:38
we got pried apart by the leaders and made sit on opposite sides of the room um and they just ran the whole
00:58:52
conversation and I didn't even get to talk to them and they basically were deciding whether he had repented or not
00:58:58
for asking questions and decided he hadn't and so physically dragged me out of there put me back in the van and we
00:59:06
went home and then physically dragged you out of there so you didn't want to
00:59:10
no I didn't want to leave I wanted to stay there and talk to Elijah um I mean there's quite a few
00:59:17
that kind of went on for a while similar situations um and then one of the times
00:59:23
he just he had enough and he biked up um he started sneaking in at night he got actually I told there this the other day
00:59:32
he got shot at one night um when he was sneaking in um but we got to have a couple of conversations and then I think
00:59:40
he realized that unless he apologized that he wasn't going to get back with me
00:59:46
and the kids and I wasn't at the point where I could say I can leave cuz I still thought that I had to be in glor
00:59:54
to be saved um right okay so you you weren't like emotionally quite ready to
00:59:59
leave no I wasn't yeah yeah um and they did eventually let them back in what why
01:00:06
why weren't you emotionally ready to leave then like after after after all the lies and all the the [ __ ] and
01:00:11
the bullying and the yelling I think it's cuz it's just so ingrained in you
01:00:16
that this is the place that God has put you this is where you were born this is where God wants you and this is the only
01:00:22
place you can live out your life to get to heaven and it um and the leaders are God's Advocates they are put in place by
01:00:31
God to lead you and guide you so you have to listen to them and it's just so
01:00:35
deeply ingrained um as well as then I have obviously my kids and I felt responsible for them and I thought well
01:00:42
you know if I leave then I'm taking them to hell as well so then there's that
01:00:48
kind of the mother maternal Instinct that goes I need to protect them yeah so you wonder if you're doing the right
01:00:54
thing for your kids and so that's why I to like I was so confused because I knew
01:00:58
that I didn't want to raise them in gloral but I didn't know that I could
01:01:01
raise them outside gloral and still raise them as good human beings they had the opportunity to get to heaven do you
01:01:08
know so um I wasn't there yet uh he came back um someone very close to us asked
01:01:16
them to help them leave and because they didn't want to marry the person they had been told to
01:01:23
marry um and so Elijah helped them leave and then he that kind of came to light to the leadership they found out that it
01:01:35
was him that had um helped and so he was called into another meeting at that point
01:01:43
um and we and then I was called in later maybe a couple of hours later after he'd
01:01:49
already been in there and I can still remember walking in and he was sitting there with his arms folded with the
01:01:54
staunchest look on his face like not being budged and um they were just and I went straight and St beside me again
01:02:03
they got me and moved me and you know you can't sit beside him he's a heathen
01:02:06
he's a heretic um and that meeting was ugly that was uh a brutal and ugly meeting where they were trying to force
01:02:14
him to fall on his knees and kiss hopefuls feet and he wouldn't so they physically left at him up cheer and all
01:02:22
and put him in a truck and drove him off um these stories are outrageous yeah they're almost hard to believe
01:02:32
yeah it's absurd I mean and there's there's even in telling you there's bits
01:02:37
that I'm missing that are similar the same kind of thing same situation um just repeats of that and you'd think you
01:02:46
know like and I even look back and I say why did it take me so long to understand that I could leave um but
01:02:54
yeah maybe I can get it though I understand it if you're born in there and it's all you know I can understand
01:02:59
also also just the fear of the unknown you know there's um ironically there's a
01:03:04
saying which is probably not perfect for this case but better the devil you know which is exactly yeah anyway yeah
01:03:13
so when did the CU in um escaping Utopia there's a scene in there where you're
01:03:17
talking about um you and Elijah and getting out of there and you end up in a small plane being taken somewhere you
01:03:23
get really emotional talking about this was that around this time yeah it is so this time that they physically put him
01:03:29
in the truck um I knew that they had obviously kicked him out this is what this is the terminology we used as
01:03:37
people got kicked out if they didn't um submit to the leaders and um so again I
01:03:44
asked if I could talk to him and I they said I could call him and fervent steadfast U one of the leaders wrote um
01:03:52
down on a piece of paper what I could say to him and he also pulled out my marriage commitment which in there is a
01:03:59
paragraph saying how that if my husband ever disagreed with the leaders that I was not bound to be married to him
01:04:07
anymore like our marriage was ended um and so he fervent rang Elijah and I had all the leaders
01:04:16
standing around behind me I was sitting at the office desk and the first thing I
01:04:20
said was to Elijah I love you and fent just reached over and hung up the phone um and then I got a big talking to her
01:04:28
about you know stick to the stick to the script if you want to talk to him say what's on there and that happened maybe
01:04:34
three or four times um and Elijah actually said to me on the last phone call he said the leaders are listening
01:04:41
aren't they and I said yes and he said we'll meet at the River tomorrow at
01:04:46
2:00 um and so we hung up and so the next day came and I went and asked Mom if she could drive me down to the river
01:04:58
because I'd been putting the baby to bed and I'd run late and didn't have time to
01:05:04
walk all the way down to the river which was kilometers away um maybe five four or 5Ks away um and so I asked Mom if she
01:05:13
could drive me down and I don't know if she went and told the leaders or if she
01:05:17
just went to ask for a vehicle because she didn't have access to a vehicle anyway and she had to go and ask for a
01:05:22
key but um two leaders came back with her and said that they would drive me down
01:05:28
um and so I got in the car and when we got to not the river to the dairy shed they pulled in and there would have been
01:05:37
50 men and maybe 10 Vehicles all parked around the dairy shed and standing around
01:05:43
Elijah um and so this conversation that we thought we were going to actually get to
01:05:49
talk to each other didn't go well um and there was uh a lot of violence and involved in that physical violence
01:06:00
physical violence um and they tried to run him over with a car and then they took me away
01:06:12
again and they said that they would talk to him hopeful said they talk to him and
01:06:17
that he and hopeful promised me that he would bring Elijah back up to me that afternoon
01:06:26
and so I went back up and it was meant to be a celebration night for hopeful and they
01:06:33
sit up a throne in the dining hall oh they'd set up a throne in the dining hall for hopeful and it was this
01:06:42
big um meant to be a celebration for our leader and how good he was and amazing and I was getting the kids ready for
01:06:50
dinner and then uh a woman and one of the leaders came just bursting into my room and said that I needed to hide the
01:06:59
kids and that's I can't even remember if this is in the documentary um but yeah I
01:07:04
heard the kids and we were in the attic for probably nearly an hour um and I couldn't hear details of what was going
01:07:14
on outside I could just hear a lot of commotion um and yelling and raised voices and then hopeful came to the adct
01:07:24
and he said to me you need to come and um talk to your husband he said he's brought the police he's brought s he's
01:07:32
bought um TV Crews here and um you need to go and tell him to leave and he's
01:07:40
gone mad um I don't know it was yeah and oh he said sorry prior to the meeting
01:07:46
too he said that they had um caught him an interfere with another woman in Dixon
01:07:52
Park like I mean all these things now are just being trying to make him look bad to me um
01:08:00
but yeah so I came down and this is a big regret I have um I saw him I was standing on the balcony and he was down
01:08:09
in the playground um and the whole like everybody from the community was surrounding the playground he was on top
01:08:19
of the slide there were men up there with him trying to pull him down covering his
01:08:24
face covering his mouth um he was yelling he was wild and I've never I'd never seen him like that
01:08:32
before and I thought I mean I remember thinking oh he must have gone mad um but yeah anyway and I told him he
01:08:40
needed to leave um and then pretty much as soon as I said that I got hopeful tap
01:08:46
me on the shoulder and said come and hop in the car and we'll just drive around
01:08:50
until it's calmed down and so I hopped in the car and then he said now get in
01:08:54
the plane we'll just fly around till it's calmed down and that was me gone with the kids
01:09:00
for six weeks yeah yeah what was what was the motivation of that um did they think you
01:09:07
like you were potentially a bad apple being in glory of veale or was it that Elijah could find you there it was it
01:09:14
was to stop Elijah from having any opportunity to talk to me so like a hideout house for you yeah it was yeah
01:09:22
yeah oh jeez this is it's a lot yeah how's how's you I mean you I know you had some
01:09:32
mental health struggles over the years you mentioned earlier that um there was a time where you contemplated taking
01:09:37
your own life in there um how's your mental health been since you left um you
01:09:42
good you got any PTSD or anything have you had any counseling I've definitely
01:09:45
had counseling um yeah I haven't had anything I guess diagnosed with ptcd I'd
01:09:53
say I definitely have it um just the research I've done I've definitely struggled with my mental health and had
01:09:59
some pretty low um periods but then um good as well and I guess learned some tools along the way and and through
01:10:08
therapy and um that sort of thing just even understanding what of my beliefs are lies and what's the truth has been a
01:10:16
really big um help to me uh yeah what about the um what about the kids the older kids how are they oh
01:10:25
they're good they're real good I think what was great was that they were young
01:10:30
enough when we left to not be um too detrimentally affected um even though my three-year-old still knew um when we
01:10:40
left she would cry at night and say I can't be in this house Mom you need to
01:10:44
take me back to gloral because God's not here um and I'd never told her that but
01:10:49
that I think shows that how young that is ingrained into them from wow Jes Elijah right you guys are just
01:10:59
meant to be together yeah we are there was no tearing you apart yeah they got that arranged marriage
01:11:05
right how's how he's been through a lot as well he's he's he's worn a lot of a
01:11:11
lot of this how's he is he good at talking about things or um he is sometimes and he's been yeah he
01:11:21
he is yeah he's a very positive person and he's is a very grateful person and
01:11:27
so he I guess that's how he um has coped and carried on as he's always looking
01:11:33
forward he he doesn't like to look at the past which um I guess could sometimes um I can see why it's hard
01:11:40
affects him but but yeah we have we have great conversations he has some really good um mates and mentors and yeah um
01:11:50
yeah he's just he is a very positive person extremely yeah yeah yeah I'm sorry you went through all
01:11:59
this yeah it's not it's not your fault you shouldn't be saying sorry I know no
01:12:04
but it's just it's heartbreaking can't change it now but um yeah I guess that's
01:12:10
a a part of what fuels me to keep going so that things changes changes for people still in there yeah you regret
01:12:17
not getting out sooner um I guess but I don't look back and go um oh I should have got out sooner because
01:12:27
then I'd be a hidden now it just it is what it is and I can't change the past I
01:12:33
can only use that to make me a better person now and so that's what I focus on
01:12:38
yeah there I mean obviously there's there's age differences but are there
01:12:42
any other sort of noticeable differences between the kids that were born in glory
01:12:46
Val and the kids that were born on the outside world yeah we've definitely parented differently have you um yeah
01:12:52
yeah and and we talk about that better Fe bit and even just um noticing how say our younger three are way more free
01:13:03
thinkers or like the older ones are definitely have come a long way but when they were little like what we restricted
01:13:10
them from doing and thinking um and then seeing the young kids just flourish that
01:13:15
much younger and really just we're happy to see who who they are what their personalities are and not crush anything
01:13:23
whereas with the older ones we we were Our intention was to break their will for God so um that's what we were taught
01:13:32
and how we were taught to parent which is just fully messed up but um yeah we definitely parent differently
01:13:40
and and even I like look at the cids and they would not survive in glory of H they
01:13:46
like you can go from Glory of L to the outside world you can't go the other way
01:13:50
around no my 9-year-old could be kicked out like uh where's the McDonald's
01:13:54
around here yeah yeah can you remember that the older kids when they had their first happy meal and things oh yeah I
01:14:00
can yeah just over the moon and it's good though because they they can be really appreciative of stuff too and
01:14:08
especially now too because the older ones can see the difference um and they can see what we came from and and I mean
01:14:16
you know people out here sometimes say oh we use the police to threaten our kids you know like if they're being real
01:14:20
naughty we'll say I'll call the cops you know and I'll just say I take you back
01:14:24
to glor it's good that you can laugh about this you get a great laugh by the way thanks
01:14:35
it's uh it's wicked in the best possible way hey um I put on um my Instagram
01:14:40
story that that you're coming over and there's a bunch of questions just random
01:14:45
questions um some of some of them quite light some of them are quite serious um oh a name that came up earlier actually
01:14:51
someone wanted to know what happened to Dove love uh well she is married to watchful
01:14:56
steadfast so she is now Dove steadfast which just doesn't have quite the same
01:15:00
ring to it as Dove love how is she about the same age as you or no no she's quite
01:15:04
a bit younger actually yeah um but yeah she's still in there and married and I
01:15:09
think maybe got six kids yeah jeez she she would have done well as an influencer on the outside world she
01:15:15
could have made some good money um H someone said no question I just want to say I follow Rosanna on
01:15:22
Instagram and I think she's incredible oh that's lovely thank you yeah you are
01:15:26
incredible an Elijah are you proud of yourself you feel proud of yourself or are you
01:15:31
because your religious belief you're not allowed to sort of uh feel proud of
01:15:34
yourself I don't I don't think it's got anything to do with religious belief
01:15:37
it's more that um I just feel like I've done what needs to be done and I think
01:15:43
there's so much more to do and so I think uh when people say you should be proud of yourself I'm like oh I'm not
01:15:49
doing enough um so it's hard for me to I guess accept that as a compliment just
01:15:54
because I feel like this so much more I could be doing or should be doing um but
01:15:58
yeah I am like if I look back um and even if I imagine myself as a 15-year-old girl she's proud of me yeah
01:16:08
um that's a cool thing to say so it's really cool I'm really happy with the
01:16:13
decisions I've made yeah it's really powerful yeah and um yeah another thing
01:16:18
that's probably with highlighting I feel like it's easier I'm sure it's still
01:16:22
bloody difficult but it's easier to leave leave leave Glory Val than what it's ever been thanks to the work like
01:16:27
you guys what you guys are doing on that trust you're involved with and um the
01:16:31
community support um obviously it was a lot harder 11 years ago than what it is now oh yeah like jumping off a jumping
01:16:37
off a cliff in the dark basically much so yeah yeah so that's something to be
01:16:41
immensely proud of um thank you someone on Instagram says um does she think Glory of a should be closed
01:16:48
down that's a really tough question um I'll say this I don't think it should
01:16:55
carry on how it is it's an unsafe Community um closing it down overnight I don't think's the answer either um you
01:17:05
think you've got 550 people there that believe this is where they are supposed
01:17:11
to live how they're supposed to live how they're going to get to heaven and if
01:17:14
that's taken away from them you just look at the absolute Mental Health crisis you've got
01:17:21
um and I don't think we set up or prepared for that and I think it's a lot
01:17:25
more complex than maybe the general um New Zealander understands and that is because their everyday life is tied in
01:17:32
with their faith going to work in the kitchen is spiritual and so their eternity is based on how they're living
01:17:40
and working so it's a very complex situation a lot needs to change and it needs to change now but I don't think
01:17:47
just shutting it down overnight is the the right answer yeah anything on escaping Utopia that
01:17:54
they missed oh they missed a lot but I think the general picture they've put that
01:18:00
across amazingly um there's obviously wee bits of people's stories which you
01:18:05
know did if you did a story on Theo that would have taken up the whole documentary you know her life and
01:18:11
getting to where she is same with me um and Eli that would have taken the whole documentary so they've done a really
01:18:18
good job of kind of showing um the beginning to current times um in the general picture but you know there's
01:18:24
obvious bits that are missing yeah there timing restraints I guess isn't there yeah um
01:18:30
at what age did Rosie first get the feeling that something wasn't right I'd
01:18:34
say I knew from a 5-year-old I knew in my gut um really that something wasn't right but I
01:18:41
thought it was me um and I'd say I knew that right throughout my life there but
01:18:49
it wasn't until after I left that I understood that I was right for feeling that way
01:18:55
um yeah so so so as a 5-year-old do you say anything to your parents and and they they they tell you off for having
01:19:02
these thoughts or do you just keep the thoughts to yourself or you keep your thoughts to yourself because even at
01:19:06
that age if you say something you're the bad one and you're in trouble um and and
01:19:11
getting labeled as a 5-year-old or even you know as a 10-year-old whatever age you are as someone that questions
01:19:19
Authority or someone that has if you're a girl if you've been abused if that is
01:19:24
widely known your whole future is destroyed within that community so it's just not worth saying
01:19:32
anything in your mind yeah oh that's terrible yeah so you're the victim of abuse but yeah somehow
01:19:41
it's your fault oh it is your fault not just somehow like within that environment there's no question that
01:19:48
even you as a seven-year-old girl if you've been abused it's your fault well
01:19:53
and that you you've done something to provoke it or bring it on to your yeah
01:19:56
you you've done something to provoke it you've put yourself in a position so
01:20:00
they used to say this thing all the time you were in the wrong place at the wrong
01:20:03
time and if you'd been in the right place doing the right thing at the right
01:20:06
time that wouldn't have happened to you um but and you know we joked before about ankles um ankles and elbows yeah
01:20:16
and I think like we can laugh about that now but it was such a a serious thing where they're creating a culture that
01:20:24
men and boys think that they can't help themselves and if the girl's showing off
01:20:28
her ankles or elbows you know rolling up her sleeves to wash the dishes that she's tempting them and then it's her
01:20:35
fault if they take advantage of that so it's really messed up morally in that
01:20:42
way um and leaves kind of no room for the girl to be um treated then as a victim that needs support she is the one
01:20:51
at fault yeah well I think maybe the most alarming thing for me in the escaping Utopia was um with u Theo who's
01:21:00
sitting here uh towards the end with the the the Indian guy at the Indian branch
01:21:05
of Glory of veale um basically saying he he was I don't don't think he knew he
01:21:10
was on camera right no he didn't but he's basically saying that Indian men
01:21:14
can't help themselves and yeah which was just alarming yeah it was alarming terrifying
01:21:21
actually um how can we help and get more people free you're a brave Woman by the
01:21:26
way thank you um how can we help I think we can't we can't forget um about them and
01:21:38
you know how we're saying it' be easy for me to walk away that's not the
01:21:41
answer um if you have anything to do with people that leave the best thing you can do is be a good person be kind
01:21:50
um and show them that there is um true unconditional love on the outside um that is the most supportive way you can
01:22:00
be to an individual um obviously there's other ways you can help and that is by
01:22:05
supporting the trust um and the Trust website has multiple ways that that is available to do things when that's
01:22:11
donating clothes if you have it or donating money um every donation is we're very grateful for and um that's
01:22:21
that's one way you can help so this is the trust that you're involved with
01:22:24
you're you're the only former glory of Our member Elijah and I both on trust
01:22:28
and we are the only former members on there what's the what's the website uh
01:22:33
it is glor Val l.org maybe NZ okay that's all right we can we can Google it glor Val lever and um so the best thing
01:22:40
is mainly money um not always like obviously when someone leaves you kind of have those
01:22:47
immediately immediate physical needs you know you've got to set up a house for
01:22:51
them we do always hold a um a storage unit of furniture and house supplies um we always have that ready to go that's
01:23:02
just purely from people's donations um and then the other thing I guess down
01:23:08
the track that actually they need a lot of help with what is um finding jobs you
01:23:15
know your CVS setting up bank accounts and then counseling finding them um a counselor um schools you know there's
01:23:24
kind of all these practical things that then the long-term needs are actually more um mental health and um and
01:23:33
spiritual needs yeah actually we they sort of touch upon that in um escaping Utopia is it Boaz yes Bo yeah you see
01:23:42
him and his um wife have recently um left Glory Val she wasn't on camera oh that's your sister yeah right
01:23:52
um and you can just see how much they're struggling and how overwhelmed I'm not surprised I really felt for them
01:23:56
it's like I find adting hard sometimes and I've just grown up with this I just
01:24:00
can't imagine the enormity of um you know just living in that sort of environment where every minute of the
01:24:06
day is accounted for and you know what you're doing and you know what your role
01:24:09
is to having having none of that yeah um yeah and also not knowing how to do any
01:24:14
of that I think I think that's something that people can really help with especially if they know if there's
01:24:19
someone in the area that has left um is actually just approaching them and being like someone that they can talk to
01:24:31
um a friend because again you've left all your friends and family inside you
01:24:35
don't really know people on the outside um and then just having the confidence
01:24:40
like for me to do my first grocery shop and use my e postcard for the first time
01:24:46
and it was nerve-wracking and what do you mean can you can you explain that well you've never done anything
01:24:52
like that you didn't you don't have been account well you do you just don't know
01:24:56
you do um and you've never had a phone or an if postcard and just actually going through even going through the
01:25:03
grocery store and thinking what do I buy for my family because I've never shopped
01:25:08
for myself um or for my children um and then getting to actually pay for it and thinking oh you know there's so much to
01:25:16
remember do I swipe it how does this work what's my pen what is a pen you know just because you're learning so
01:25:24
much in a short amount of time um it's a lot to deal with yeah so that my first
01:25:28
grocery shop I actually went with uh a lady who had left before me and she bought a few things and went in front of
01:25:35
me and um I just watched her and then I did a few things and yeah she was there to help me if I needed it had you been
01:25:43
in a grocery store I had I had been in one before but I had never been um responsible for purchasing anything in a
01:25:50
grocery store before yes there so many things like that that would never even NL people just never even think about
01:25:56
yeah and just little things and kind of things you take for granted now and even
01:25:59
I do but um yeah it's a big deal when you have to learn a lot in a short amount of time yeah what about treats
01:26:06
from the grocery store what what were you like oh my God this is amazing Coca-Cola no what uh well I thought
01:26:13
Coca-Cola was bad when we first left so um but no yeah the treats and the drinks and I guess too the options are
01:26:22
even overwhelming because you know there's six different kinds of brown rice well how do I
01:26:30
choose you go with what it was the the one card specie yes exactly yeah um someone
01:26:37
wanted on Instagram are you surprised how much attention Glory of gets from the outside in particular with things
01:26:42
like the Christmas concert the Christmas concert oh the the um B anal concert but it's not a
01:26:49
Christmas concert okay yeah this has been a thing that's been on that TV the
01:26:52
propaganda TV series we talked about where Outsiders are invited once a year and you you put on a
01:26:59
show I think the ti sort of turned but I do think I know what this person is talking about there has always been this
01:27:05
sort of um I don't know this almost like morbid curiosity or intrigued with what's happening in Gloria yeah more
01:27:11
kind of a fascination of this strange group of people over on the coast yeah and I think I think over the years we've
01:27:17
thought well it's not my S lifestyle but if they're happy doing it yeah who's to
01:27:21
judge them and then you know as it's become a Weare thanks to people like you
01:27:25
guys um yeah it's not everything is as idealistic as what it seems yeah and I
01:27:30
think that's what we've been um I guess trying to do for years is show that it's
01:27:36
not what everybody thought it was on the outside but also when you're in there
01:27:41
and people came to the concerts it was kind of the best time of living in there because you got to see Outsiders and um
01:27:48
I'm still um in contact with people who went out of their way at those concerts
01:27:54
to come and talk to me and then when I left found me and have kept contact up so I think to make a point here any
01:28:05
interaction you have with someone who's inside um it's really important how you
01:28:11
um how you are to them your kindness your generosity your just genuine care of who they are um and I can tell a
01:28:21
story of um actually at the employment case um was towards the end and there was a
01:28:27
girl that I grew up with there was lots of them there but there was one in particular that I hadn't seen um in 11
01:28:34
years and I I kind of I went up to her and I could see she was visibly pregnant um and I said hi and initially she was
01:28:44
kind of looking everywhere else and was afraid to be seen talking to me and then
01:28:49
I just said to her um I can see that you're pregnant congratulations um how are you and she just burst into
01:28:58
tears and she said no one ever asks me that and um and I think that is something like that nobody actually
01:29:10
within the community cares about the individual that the people aren't valued
01:29:16
and so when we can show that to them from the outside it is incredibly meaningful
01:29:24
I love that yeah um there's a couple more but that um that just felt like a really good way to
01:29:34
end it actually I think we we will end it there okay um thank you so much for your time today oh you're welcome thanks
01:29:42
for having me yeah oh no do you prefer to be called Rosie or Rosanna um either or I just I think Rosie has kind of
01:29:50
stuck because um that's pretty much all I was called unless I was in trouble it sounds like you were in
01:29:58
trouble a lot towards the end of my time yeah definitely yes um but yeah so I think Rosie is just it seems nicer to me
01:30:08
like if someone sees Rosanna I straight away feel like I'm stood to attention so yeah is is there anything
01:30:15
um is there anything that you want to bring up is there anything that I haven't mentioned today that you were
01:30:20
hoping we would have touched upon um I don't think so yeah I don't think so that's cool it's been great to
01:30:27
meet you and um I love the stuff you share on on Instagram with you and Elijah and the kids oh thank you thanks
01:30:33
so much for having me Dom I appreciate it yeah oh no it's really inspirational
01:30:36
this the stuff that you're doing for um to raise awareness about uh what's going
01:30:41
on what has gone on and um just helping those that are that are still in there it's really really cool thank you thanks
01:30:47
so much appreciate it yeah [Music] he [Music]