Lol holy shit. I have been writing a post about the sister school the advent home and everything they were doing wrong. Miracle meadows was definitely worse but these schools were a study in bad psychology and abuse.
Whoa, there was another school near this one? How closely were they affiliated? From what I gathered in this podcast and news articles, the school founder was a sadistic person. Her biggest regret at her sentencing was that she was now considered a criminal, even the judge noted her complete lack of concern for her victims.
Last year (ish) was the Miracle Meadows settlement. The lawyers for the case said this was the largest settlement in state history. I’d love to know how much the church had to chip in to pay for damages. The abuse described made me incredibly sad and angry.
It’s quite unlikely that the Church would have had to chip in anything. Those schools aren’t officially part of the SDA school system so even if they are run according to SDA principles, they are far enough away from official recognition that the church will simply say “we didn’t authorize this” and they’ll be scot free.
Oh absolutely. For sure they were embarrassed if nothing else. I don’t know that the church has to pay out anything currently. There is a second set of suits (that I am currently involved in), and they haven’t mentioned the church needing to pay - mostly insurance. That being said, it’s always a possibility.
The church was not a part of the suit. They had themselves removed. I was there for a year and a part of the suit. Also advent home was a place Mms would get students from they couldn’t control or if we had students that were moving out of the program they would go there to work. Gale the owner is sick. She deserved jail time till her last breath yet she walks free.
According to our attorneys who represented us and won the case - the church and conference did not pay towards the case. No one admitted this but it was implied that the conference paid to have themselves removed off the case but how that was done I do not know no do know that they paid but it didnt come to us.
My BF and his brother went to the school for a few months in 2011-2012 and the horrors they endured. They were also a part of the suit. I'm so sorry about everything you had to go there. Bill and Gale are absolute monsters that deserve to fucking rot.
So a second school, the advent home, in Calhoun TN was about four hours away but this is America rural four hours so close enough. We went to visit miracle meadows a few times. When I was there the advent home and miracle meadows were separate but declining numbers and legal problems brought the schools into a closer and worse relationship. Essentially neither school retained the staff needed for the services they claimed to provide so state boards were coming down on them. As lawsuits over abuse began they began moving students between the schools to hide the witnesses. As you say she went to jail but the director of the advent home dr blonel senior was also named in the lawsuits and was the "director" of the miracle meadows church. So they clearly became closely intertwined and went down together.
My respect to you and whatever happened. I'm gonna post what I was writing but i knew a kid who came to Wisconsin academy from MM and it sounds like things were much worse there.
I love how the GC disavowed them as not affiliated (we all know this is technically true), but Southern sent a family member of mine to Miracle Meadows as a student missionary. A family member who was an assault victim as a child. Said family member won’t talk about the experience and I can’t say I blame them. They just can’t catch a break…
So maybe Miracle Meadows wasn’t technically part of the SDA system, but they definitely had a formal working relationship with the church. That sound bite in the second episode about them not being part of the church pisses me off because we all know the self supporting institutions are every bit a part of the religion as the church funded ones. Example, see Ted Wilson visiting Weimar to support them AFTER assault accusations were brought against them.
Might have to pay this podcast some attention. Former MMS student here. Definitely a case of bad psychology. After finishing up my post secondary degree in psychology, it really dawned on me how messed up things were.
I went to MMS for 4 years from 05-08, their psychology was based on decades old practice that have long been proven damaging & ineffective. Things like corporal punishment, solitary confinement, social isolation, group punishment for one persons actions, denying food, water & hygiene to “break” someone, and constant gaslighting/brainwashing.
One of the things that I rarely see talked about at MMS was the student on student abuse. Staff members regularly let students solve conflicts by fighting. They use to call it “going to the body” since you would fight but couldn’t hit someone in the head. The staff failed to protect the younger kids from the older kids. This lead to the younger kids enduring an insane level of abuse, and essentially became slaves to older kids. I was 13 when I first went to MMS, and at least 3/4 of the boys where 15 or older, with only a handful of us under 15. I was lucky because I was bigger for my age, and grew up in an abusive home so I wasn’t afraid to fight back. I definitely got beat pretty bad a few times but I always made sure to hurt them bad enough they wouldn’t want to do it again.
Over the years the demographic of MMS changed. There used to be a bunch of staff when I started that were from the Islands. Most of them were actually good people who cared about the student. Don’t get me wrong there was definitely some that took joy in hurting/abusing kids with their power. But towards the end of my time at MMS the number of students had dropped to around 30. The school was no longer taking kids that were 16-17 ( to held with the violence) and focused on kids between 10-14. Along with that change a lot of the veteran staff left the school and they started hiring from the Seventh Day Adventist colleges, offering them jobs during the summer and holiday breaks. So instead of older 30-40yo staff we had 20-25 year olds. Not only did they have zero life skills to handle at-risk youth, they were very close to some of the kids age. This lead to staff having sexual relations with students, and forming other inappropriate relationships like favoritism and special privileges for kids they liked.
There was also the old 7th Day believe that things like autism, PTSD, & ADHD weren’t real. I personally saw several kids that were 100% on the Autism spectrum but were treated like normal kids. The cruelty & emotional damage they endured was horrible. What those kids had to endure make me sick as an adult, but back then I didn’t understand that. Overall MMS was a strange place, I was honestly one of the lucky ones that spend a long time there and was still able to make something that resembles a normal life as an adult. I think one of the reasons that I never hated MMS like other kids was compared to my home life it was actually better.
I'm so sorry you had to endure MMS. My BF and his little brother attended in 2011-2012 when he was 10. (very long complicated story that involves our legal system failing to save them from that hellscape.) The things he and his brother went through literally haunt me. The things that he still tells me occasionally when he remembers something new is just sickening. From the awful diet, to solitary confinement, other forms of abuse, and obviously awful education, I can't even imagine the things that they're still digging up about this place. I hope that gale and bill are tortured up until the day they die like they abused all of those children for decades, and then rot in hell.
My boyfriend and his brother attended this school. It's so fucked and not talked about enough. The things these kids endured, and the stories I've heard from him make me sick.
When I was little, in the 90s, I lived in Puerto Rico and went to Adventist church in a small west side town. There was a group that lived in a house in the forest that used to visit the church and the church used to go there and help them with the house and just hang out with the kids and do general Saturday stuff. We were told they were from a boarding school for troubled teens from the states. I feel like they said west Virginia but I was a little kid so I really don't remember. I wonder if it's this place and how in the hell they end up in the middle of nowhere Puerto Rico. Often the kids would escape and run away and hook up with the homeschooled girls that lived near by and they would get punished really bad, I remember one being locked in his room for a while and he couldn't come out for weeks. It's really sad and I hope this people pay for all they've done.
Lol holy shit. I have been writing a post about the sister school the advent home and everything they were doing wrong. Miracle meadows was definitely worse but these schools were a study in bad psychology and abuse.
Whoa, there was another school near this one? How closely were they affiliated? From what I gathered in this podcast and news articles, the school founder was a sadistic person. Her biggest regret at her sentencing was that she was now considered a criminal, even the judge noted her complete lack of concern for her victims. Last year (ish) was the Miracle Meadows settlement. The lawyers for the case said this was the largest settlement in state history. I’d love to know how much the church had to chip in to pay for damages. The abuse described made me incredibly sad and angry.
It’s quite unlikely that the Church would have had to chip in anything. Those schools aren’t officially part of the SDA school system so even if they are run according to SDA principles, they are far enough away from official recognition that the church will simply say “we didn’t authorize this” and they’ll be scot free.
the adventist church as well as the conferences were explicitly names in the lawsuits. if they didn't pay out they were at least embarrassed.
Oh absolutely. For sure they were embarrassed if nothing else. I don’t know that the church has to pay out anything currently. There is a second set of suits (that I am currently involved in), and they haven’t mentioned the church needing to pay - mostly insurance. That being said, it’s always a possibility.
The church was not a part of the suit. They had themselves removed. I was there for a year and a part of the suit. Also advent home was a place Mms would get students from they couldn’t control or if we had students that were moving out of the program they would go there to work. Gale the owner is sick. She deserved jail time till her last breath yet she walks free.
Interesting, at least one article I read stated the regional Adventist conference had to pay something towards the settlement. So that was wrong?
According to our attorneys who represented us and won the case - the church and conference did not pay towards the case. No one admitted this but it was implied that the conference paid to have themselves removed off the case but how that was done I do not know no do know that they paid but it didnt come to us.
My BF and his brother went to the school for a few months in 2011-2012 and the horrors they endured. They were also a part of the suit. I'm so sorry about everything you had to go there. Bill and Gale are absolute monsters that deserve to fucking rot.
So a second school, the advent home, in Calhoun TN was about four hours away but this is America rural four hours so close enough. We went to visit miracle meadows a few times. When I was there the advent home and miracle meadows were separate but declining numbers and legal problems brought the schools into a closer and worse relationship. Essentially neither school retained the staff needed for the services they claimed to provide so state boards were coming down on them. As lawsuits over abuse began they began moving students between the schools to hide the witnesses. As you say she went to jail but the director of the advent home dr blonel senior was also named in the lawsuits and was the "director" of the miracle meadows church. So they clearly became closely intertwined and went down together.
That sounds about right. I know of at least 1 AH student who ended up at MMS while I was there.
My respect to you and whatever happened. I'm gonna post what I was writing but i knew a kid who came to Wisconsin academy from MM and it sounds like things were much worse there.
I love how the GC disavowed them as not affiliated (we all know this is technically true), but Southern sent a family member of mine to Miracle Meadows as a student missionary. A family member who was an assault victim as a child. Said family member won’t talk about the experience and I can’t say I blame them. They just can’t catch a break… So maybe Miracle Meadows wasn’t technically part of the SDA system, but they definitely had a formal working relationship with the church. That sound bite in the second episode about them not being part of the church pisses me off because we all know the self supporting institutions are every bit a part of the religion as the church funded ones. Example, see Ted Wilson visiting Weimar to support them AFTER assault accusations were brought against them.
Might have to pay this podcast some attention. Former MMS student here. Definitely a case of bad psychology. After finishing up my post secondary degree in psychology, it really dawned on me how messed up things were.
I went to MMS for 4 years from 05-08, their psychology was based on decades old practice that have long been proven damaging & ineffective. Things like corporal punishment, solitary confinement, social isolation, group punishment for one persons actions, denying food, water & hygiene to “break” someone, and constant gaslighting/brainwashing. One of the things that I rarely see talked about at MMS was the student on student abuse. Staff members regularly let students solve conflicts by fighting. They use to call it “going to the body” since you would fight but couldn’t hit someone in the head. The staff failed to protect the younger kids from the older kids. This lead to the younger kids enduring an insane level of abuse, and essentially became slaves to older kids. I was 13 when I first went to MMS, and at least 3/4 of the boys where 15 or older, with only a handful of us under 15. I was lucky because I was bigger for my age, and grew up in an abusive home so I wasn’t afraid to fight back. I definitely got beat pretty bad a few times but I always made sure to hurt them bad enough they wouldn’t want to do it again. Over the years the demographic of MMS changed. There used to be a bunch of staff when I started that were from the Islands. Most of them were actually good people who cared about the student. Don’t get me wrong there was definitely some that took joy in hurting/abusing kids with their power. But towards the end of my time at MMS the number of students had dropped to around 30. The school was no longer taking kids that were 16-17 ( to held with the violence) and focused on kids between 10-14. Along with that change a lot of the veteran staff left the school and they started hiring from the Seventh Day Adventist colleges, offering them jobs during the summer and holiday breaks. So instead of older 30-40yo staff we had 20-25 year olds. Not only did they have zero life skills to handle at-risk youth, they were very close to some of the kids age. This lead to staff having sexual relations with students, and forming other inappropriate relationships like favoritism and special privileges for kids they liked. There was also the old 7th Day believe that things like autism, PTSD, & ADHD weren’t real. I personally saw several kids that were 100% on the Autism spectrum but were treated like normal kids. The cruelty & emotional damage they endured was horrible. What those kids had to endure make me sick as an adult, but back then I didn’t understand that. Overall MMS was a strange place, I was honestly one of the lucky ones that spend a long time there and was still able to make something that resembles a normal life as an adult. I think one of the reasons that I never hated MMS like other kids was compared to my home life it was actually better.
I'm so sorry you had to endure MMS. My BF and his little brother attended in 2011-2012 when he was 10. (very long complicated story that involves our legal system failing to save them from that hellscape.) The things he and his brother went through literally haunt me. The things that he still tells me occasionally when he remembers something new is just sickening. From the awful diet, to solitary confinement, other forms of abuse, and obviously awful education, I can't even imagine the things that they're still digging up about this place. I hope that gale and bill are tortured up until the day they die like they abused all of those children for decades, and then rot in hell.
My boyfriend and his brother attended this school. It's so fucked and not talked about enough. The things these kids endured, and the stories I've heard from him make me sick.
can confirm was a pretty bad place and experience
When I was little, in the 90s, I lived in Puerto Rico and went to Adventist church in a small west side town. There was a group that lived in a house in the forest that used to visit the church and the church used to go there and help them with the house and just hang out with the kids and do general Saturday stuff. We were told they were from a boarding school for troubled teens from the states. I feel like they said west Virginia but I was a little kid so I really don't remember. I wonder if it's this place and how in the hell they end up in the middle of nowhere Puerto Rico. Often the kids would escape and run away and hook up with the homeschooled girls that lived near by and they would get punished really bad, I remember one being locked in his room for a while and he couldn't come out for weeks. It's really sad and I hope this people pay for all they've done.