Dear Renisha: Turning Trauma Into Triumph

REBEKAH HOME FOR GIRLS

Located in Corpus Christi, Texas, this is the largest home on the Roloff Farms.
To give you an idea of what that means: fifteen hundred girls came through the Rebekah Home in seven years. The three dormitories have a capacity of about three hundred beds.  The Farm as it was called was located on 440 acres of land.
The Rebekah Home for Girls was established by Lester Roloff back in 1968 in Corpus Christi, Texas.  It was the very first Roloff home for girls. And its aim was to help young girls who were addicted to drugs, banished from their homes, involved in prostitution, serving time in jail, or in need of refuge. It sounded like a noble undertaking, especially to those in the IFB who were/are known for having a low view of the female gender.
He [Roloff] parlayed his traveling tent revival into a multimillion-dollar enterprise by founding the reformatories he called the Roloff Homes and asking his radio listeners for "love gifts" to sustain them. The adult homes—the City of Refuge, the Lighthouse, and the Jubilee Home for Ladies (Formerly, Help-Hers Home)—ministered to alcoholics, drug addicts, and petty criminals who Roloff believed could straighten their lives out with Scripture, hard work, and clean living. The Anchor Home ministered to boys, and the Bethesda Home to pregnant teenage girls.
But his greatest success was with the Rebekah Home for Girls, which he founded in 1967. The Rebekah Home took in fallen girls from "jail houses, broken homes, hippie hives, and dope dives" who were "walking through the wilderness of sin," he told his radio listeners. Roloff touted he remade these "terminal cases" into Scripture-quoting, gospel-singing believers. Girls who had been "saved" harmonized along with his Honeybee Quartet at revivals and witnessed "the power of the Lord'' on his radio show. He showed off his Rebekah girls at every turn.
Roloff's wards were subjected to days in locked isolation rooms where his sermons played in an endless loop. They also endured exhaustive corporal punishment. "Better a pink bottom than a black soul," he famously declared at a 1973 court hearing after he was prosecuted by the state of Texas on behalf of 16 Rebekah girls.
The list of behaviors that would result in demerits at the Rebekah Home for Girls, specifically:
talking about "worldly" things (such as television shows, secular literature, or old friends)
singing songs other than gospel songs
speaking
doodling
nail biting
looking at boys in church
failing to snitch on other sinners
being too close to another girl (called the "Six Inch Rule")
falling asleep at any point during the day
if you were a "new girl" (arriving within the past 30 days), you could not make Eye Contact with another "new girl"
talking
"Direct Disobedience"(before they removed the doors from the bedrooms) closing your door before "Lights Out"
talking after lights out
not finishing food
bad attitude
negativity
forgetting to wear a slip (which many girls are not accustomed to)
Living conditions

Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Renisha?  Because it's the same list of rules as the other homes. They all got the idea from Lester Roloff. They saw how well it worked for him to become a millionaire and used the same formula.
The Roloff Enterprises not only profited off the abuse of a youth teen but also exploited and sold the babies of teen mothers who came to the Roloff programs.
Lester Roloff opened a spin-off home called The Bethesda Home for Girls in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. More than three decades have passed since a federal lawsuit state investigation exposed the abuse of hundreds of girls there.
Like the Rebekah Home for Girls, the Bethesda girls were beaten and called whores and harlots. Staff members censored the girls' communication with outsiders including their parents' and for those who were pregnant- another trauma awaited the removal of their babies. It was all in secret. There was no oversight from the state and government which at the time didn't require childcare centers to register with the state, let alone be inspected.
Bethesda became known for taking unwanted pregnant teenagers and promising to help place the baby up for adoption with the Christian family that was approved. The adoptions were typically handled privately. Bethesda became a "gray market" for people who gave "love offerings" to Lester Roloff.  For the babies, because no official paperwork was done it's made it hard for them to find their birth family. Most or all details of their birth mother and biological family are non-existent.
Under Mississippi law at the time, a birth mother- even as a minor- had the right to decide whether to place her child up for adoption. To do so, she would need to sign a consent agreement. Once signed, depending on the state where the birth took place the mother would have only a very short window to challenge the adoption in court. Many of the young ladies who were forced to give up their babies for adoption do not recall signing any paperwork or if they did sign anything, they were too drugged to even read or know what they signed. 
The girls were forced fed dog medication with Thorazine in it to keep them drugged. Thorazine made them compliant and calm.
Recently, some of these birth mothers have started sharing their stories. Their babies were sold in churches, across state lines, and in parking lots of grocery stores for as little as $250-$300 per baby. NBC News reported that several survivors who were forced to give up their babies stopped at a parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly supermarket after the baby was born. Dot Barnwell, the wife of Bert-the guy in charge of the home would wrap the child in a blanket and make a call on a payphone. About 40 minutes later, a car pulled up to them. A man stepped out, handed over $250 in cash which the girls were required to count and Dot would hand over the infant to the man.
At the Rebekah Home for Girls, as well as Bethesda, they had burn barrels and burn pits that were constantly burning. Several girls recall hearing Lester Roloff /staff asking the unwed - pregnant girls' parents upon arrival if the child's father was white or black. If the child was of color, then the child would be burned in the burn barrel and the white babies would be placed up for illegal adoption.
I also want to add: the mothers of these babies never received any compensation for these babies. All money was kept by Lester Roloff. You can literally google this information and a bunch of articles where the women who were forced to give their babies up have spoken out about the unlawful illegal adoptions. A few of them have even done DNA genetic testing similar to the one I used to reunite themselves with their stolen babies.
In the facility, there were no televisions, no radios, no magazines. Only approved books could be read. The approved movies that were watched in the home consisted of Little House on the Prairie and videos with preachers shouting about the penalty of sinful living, music, and thoughts. The Bible was enforced every moment of every day. Anywhere from (approx.) 30-60 bible verses were recited aloud and as a group at least once a day. Bible verses were recited before meals, before songs practiced and performed for church performances (the girls performed every Sunday for the People's Baptist Church and a small group toured at different times throughout the year). We even had to recite bible verses sometimes during disciplinary action.
The rules about Communication: