Remember the Christian Alamo
Evangelist Lester Roloff drew a line in the dirt to keep the State of Texas from regulating his Rebekah Home for Girls. Years later, George W. Bush's plan to free faith-based institutions from government rules handed Roloff's disciples a long-sought victory. But this Alamo had no heroes—only victims like DeAnne Dawsey.
Liam says: As an evangelistic Christian I can understand the perspective of Roloff and his people. However, their treatment of these girls, though "troubled", just does not seem to be very Christian. They do not seem to show the LOVE of Christ. It would seem to me that treatment such as this would do more to chase someone away from the Lord than to draw them to Him. (January 14th, 2009 at 12:10pm)
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DeAnne looked out the dormitory windows, which were still wired with alarms to prevent escape, and tried to picture spending the next year of her life at the Rebekah Home. Her mind reeled. "I cried all night long," she said. "I don't think I fell asleep until about an hour before I had to wake up. I was freaked out." Her anxiety only grew in the days to come. Each morning, she and the other girls were required to listen to a taped Lester Roloff sermon while they did their chores. Each afternoon, they were required to attend a Bible memorization session, where they had to read Bible verses out loud, in unison, in what sounded like a chant. What troubled her was not the sentiment behind these exercises, for she considered herself to be deeply faithful: Raised in an Assembly of God church, she had stepped forward at a revival when she was twelve years old to be baptized and to accept Jesus Christ as her personal savior. What disturbed her was her growing suspicion that this was "a cult," whose methods had left some of the girls in her midst brainwashed. "Everyone talked about Roloff like he was God," she said. "The majority of every sermon was talking about how Roloff did this and Roloff did that, instead of testifying to how God did this and God did that. It was just totally mixed up. People were really worshiping him instead of God."
DeAnne hated many things about life at the Rebekah Home—the isolation, the constant surveillance, the joyless view of faith. She took pity on a dim-witted girl whom, she says, Fay Cameron slapped for not doing her homework; DeAnne would have her own run-in with Mrs. Cameron as well. DeAnne had written a letter to her boyfriend, whom she had not been able to communicate with since leaving Houston. As was the custom, Mrs. Cameron read the letter to see if it needed any alterations before being mailed. She soon handed it back to DeAnne and told her that she would have to rewrite it entirely because it painted too negative a portrait of the Rebekah Home. When DeAnne refused, Mrs. Cameron told her the letter would not be sent. "I lost my temper, and I called her a nasty word—I called her a bitch," DeAnne said. "I was furious because everything in that letter was true, but I wasn't allowed to write it." In return, she says, Mrs. Cameron delivered a stinging slap to DeAnne's face.
The two would have another confrontation several weeks later: DeAnne had been caught talking in class, and when she was told to write "I will not talk in class" one hundred times, she refused. ("I was tired of playing by their rules," she said.) Mrs. Cameron grabbed her by the arm and marched her to the lockup. "You'll stay here until you write your sentences," she said, bolting the door behind her.
Inside the lockup, Lester Roloff's voice began to play over the intercom, his rich baritone echoing off the walls—sermonizing, singing gospel songs, and exhorting all who listened to come to Jesus. His voice droned on as morning turned into afternoon and afternoon into evening. DeAnne stuck her fingers in her ears, but his voice seemed to have lodged in her brain. She began yelling rap songs at the top of her lungs—anything to drown out the sound—but Roloff's voice was only turned up louder. "You people are crazy!" she screamed at one point, beating her fists against the wall. "Get me the hell out of here!" She began kicking the wall that night, and by morning a hole had formed in the Sheetrock. ("I felt like I was losing my mind," she said.) Mrs. Cameron warned her that if she did not stop, she would be restrained. When DeAnne persisted, she was wrestled to the ground by three male guards, who pinned her arms behind her back while Mrs. Cameron bound her wrists with duct tape. Her ankles were then bound as well, and once she was immobilized, someone—DeAnne is unsure who—gave her a hard kick to the ribs. She was left alone to writhe on the floor, gasping for air. Having worked herself into a sweat trying to fight off the guards, she was able to squirm out of the tape within a few minutes. She has no idea how long she would have been left restrained.
After 32 hours in the lockup, DeAnne finally relented and wrote her sentences. The following day, when she complained that her ribs were hurting, Wiley Cameron called her mother to say that he was sending DeAnne home. "The only reason they put me on that plane is because they knew that if they called a doctor, they were going to have to answer a lot of questions," DeAnne said. She had lasted only three weeks at the Rebekah Home. As soon as she returned to Houston, she called Child Protective Services, which launched an investigation into the Rebekah Home. Since Texas law forbids child-care facilities to seclude their residents in locked rooms or bind them with restraints like duct tape, the agency issued the home one finding each of physical abuse, medical neglect, and neglectful supervision—and ultimately banned Fay Cameron from working with children in the state of Texas ever again. The home was not given so much as a warning by the TACCCA, even though it had violated state law; in fact, it was reaccredited the following year.
Abuse allegations surfaced last year from several young men who were housed at the Lighthouse, another home on the Roloff compound. That incident has resulted in a misdemeanor conviction of the home's superintendent on charges of unlawful restraint and a civil suit against the People's Baptist Church, the TACCCA, and several individuals, including the Camerons. DeAnne Dawsey has joined the suit as a plaintiff, alleging physical and emotional abuse. The case is expected to go to trial in the spring and seeks unspecified damages. "The Rebekah Home should never be open for business again," said DeAnne's mother, Debbie. "I hope the lawsuit can finally lay that to rest."
Now nineteen, DeAnne is trying to get her life back on track. Though she never graduated from high school, she is working part-time as a model in Houston. Her former boyfriend is out of her life, and she and her mother have reconciled. "I'm still angry about what happened to me," she said. "It's hard for me to understand how people who speak His word could act that way."
WILEY CAMERON CLOSED THE REBEKAH HOME THIS SUMMER AFTER THE LEGISLATURE failed to renew the law that allowed it to escape state regulation. During its four-year life span, the law had little impact, except on the lives of people like DeAnne Dawsey, who had the misfortune to wind up in the Rebekah Home: The overwhelming majority of faith-based child-care facilities chose to remain under state oversight; only 7 of 2,015 religious institutions elected to operate under alternative accreditation. Still, what happened in Texas could happen in Washington if President George W. Bush has his way. Bush has sought to duplicate the same regulatory rollbacks for faith-based groups that he enacted in Texas. During his second week as president, he established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and charged it with a familiar task: to "identify and act to remedy statutory, regulatory, and bureaucratic barriers that stand in the way of effective faith-based and community social programs," almost the same language that was used in Texas. He also named Don Willett—who drafted the bill that allowed the Roloff Homes' return to Texas—to serve as the director of law and policy for the White House office.
The administration's faith-based proposals had already encountered opposition when the events of September 11 put non-essential legislation on hold. However, the White House has said it can put its plans into effect by executive action. The easing of regulation would apply only to faith-based groups that receive federal grants, such as runaway shelters and drug or alcohol rehabilitation centers; private child-care facilities like the Rebekah Home would not be covered. Faith-based organizations, freed from regulation under the proposed Bush plan, could impose the same sort of harsh discipline that was practiced at the Rebekah Home. For that matter, the Texas Legislature could resurrect the law that cleared the way for the Rebekah Home to reopen without state regulation. Samantha Smoot, the executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, which opposed the 1997 bill, warns, "In Texas we saw that the loosening of regulations was an open invitation to fringe groups to operate."
Back on the Roloff compound, south of Corpus Christi, Wiley Cameron still keeps hope alive. On a cool, clear morning this fall he walked the grounds and spoke about his "burden to help the down and out." The 72-year-old preacher—dressed in a crisp white guayabera and khakis—whistled gospel tunes and waved at his brethren, speaking with the certainty of a man who knew he was following his calling. "Morning!" he called out to residents of the adult homes, wearing a broad smile. "Good morning, Brother Cameron!" they would reply or simply "Praise Jesus!" Women on the porch of the Jubilee Home nodded and swept, and young men from the Lighthouse tilled soil off in the distance, tending to their winter gardens. "We feel it's a Bible mandate, like the Samaritan, to help people in the ditch," he explained. "If we have to get down in the ditch to help people, sometimes we get a little dirty doing it." Put another way, he said, "We get troubled kids and we use unconventional methods." Did that mean that abusive disciplinary methods were used? "We have never abused one person—all of these years, there has never been one case of child abuse that's been proved in court," he said. "There have been allegations, but some people construe abuse where there was not abuse." As for DeAnne's case, he would not talk about specifics, given pending litigation, except to say, "DeAnne was a very troubled girl."
The Rebekah Home for girls lay ahead of him, an empty white dormitory shuttered against sunlight. Inside, the beds were still tidily made in girlish pinks, as if their keepers had stepped out for a moment and never returned. The house seemed almost ghostly, filled with the residual memories of too many forgotten girls. Lester Roloff used to walk these deserted halls in the wake of the Christian Alamo, when his girls were briefly sent away: Overcome by the stillness, he would often fall to his knees and cry.
The compound is quieter now, having faded into the rural landscape, but it is still haunted by Roloff's memory. Behind the Rebekah Home stands his old stone house, where his living room serves as an informal shrine. The walls are adorned with heroic portraits of Roloff brandishing his Bible, and scattered about the room are an odd assortment of personal effects: his felt hat, his John Deere bicycle, his radio microphone. The bullet-torn American flag from Vietnam that graced his casket is on display, as is the Purple Heart an admirer gave him for his valor. Beside the door hangs a lacquered sign that reads "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants." Now Cameron followed in Roloff's footsteps, walking down the long, dark corridors of the Rebekah Home, passing empty bedroom after empty bedroom. "We have a million-dollar facility that's empty, and there's no rhyme or reason to it," he said. "I have to say, 'Lord, I don't understand, but I know You have a plan.'"
Then he suddenly leaned against the wall, as if his will to continue on this sad march had left him. He began to weep softly. "If they could just understand the good we do here," he said. "There are so many more girls left to help."
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