Theophila Pratt was born Honey Faithful in Gloriavale, the fundamentalist Christian community that has been at the centre of decades of allegations of sexual and physical assualt, and workplace exploitation.

Raised in this isolated community, where a small contingent of men held all the power, Theo found herself questioning the hostile and controlling environment in which she lived, where women and girls faced oppression and abuse on a daily basis. When she decided to leave the community at age eighteen, Theo was dropped at a bus stop and left to fend for herself.

This is an extract from Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale (Bateman Books) by Theophila Pratt – out now.

The build-up towards seeing my sister again was real. I had been like a child counting down the number of sleeps till Christmas. I now had only one more sleep before I was going to surprise her by turning up at the Indian community to see her. I had a real fear of rejection as I was worried that Precious wouldn’t want to see me.

When morning finally arrived, I managed to eat a few mouthfuls of watermelon for breakfast. Rosanna and I had both dressed quite conservatively so that we wouldn’t be denied entry to the community’s property because of our clothing.

We climbed into the van and our guide directed the driver where to go. Halfway there, we met up with another local who knew the exact location of the community. Rosanna and I looked across at each other, reassuring ourselves
that we were doing the right thing and that we would be fine.

The road got bumpier as we got closer and there was more and more dust from the dry roads. We arrived at a canal that led to the road to the community. My stomach was in knots, as I was nervous about both what my sister’s reaction would be when she saw me and what state we were going to find her living in. I was so scared that I was shaking. I had no idea what we were about to find. I could see the gate in the distance, which brought back memories of returning to Gloriavale in New Zealand for the first time. There was a big blue gate with a gatekeeper sitting next to it and large signs saying ‘Gloriavale Christian Community’ in blue cursive writing. I couldn’t get over how similar it looked to Gloriavale in New Zealand.

Where they live is the opposite of the hustle and bustle of Chennai — it’s out in rural India, down a long dirt road. The place is really isolated, which I guess helps them to maintain their separation from local society.

We climbed out of the van nervously and walked through the gate. We hadn’t told anyone we were coming because if we’d called ahead, they would have tried to stop us from visiting or they might even have hidden Precious from us. Surprisingly, the gatekeeper let us in, and we took a short walk up the dusty road towards the community’s main dwelling. We could see young boys working in the veggie gardens and we spotted some young girls hanging washing out.

We approached them slowly and Rosanna told them we were looking for my sister Precious. They got the fright of their lives, seeing white people who weren’t wearing navy-blue Gloriavale outfits. They pointed us in the direction of the nearby sewing room. We turned the corner to find my sister sitting at a sewing machine, nine months’ pregnant, doing some mending.

When I’d imagined how this moment would go, I’d thought I might rush up and hug her. Instead, I went into shock when I saw how she looked and how she was living. I looked around and saw scriptures stuck to the walls of the
room. It was very clear that there can’t have been much for Precious to look forward to in life.

Precious was in shock too, as my visit was a complete surprise to her, and her first words to me were, ‘Found your way to India, did you?’

The moment I’d dreamed about had turned into reality. Seeing my sister and her soon to be six children after so many years, I felt like I was experiencing all the emotions you can think of at once.

Precious introduced me to her oldest boy, Overcomer. It was so good to be able to introduce myself as his auntie Theo. He was so excited to meet me, and he took me to see all my other nieces and nephews in their room. They came up and gave me big hugs. My two-year-old niece clung onto me and hugged me for about an hour; she didn’t want to let go.

The children were so excited to see me and we talked about Grandma Milly (my mum) and Aunty Eden (my younger sister, who had previously visited the Indian community) as I showed them photos on my phone. They got their photo albums out and pointed to the photos I was in. It made me happy to see my face was still in their photos.

My joy from spending time with my sister and her children was tempered by the fact that I could see that their living situation was terrible. The physical condition of the place was shocking. It was really rundown. When I asked to go to the bathroom, I discovered that there was no door on the toilet that my sister and her children used every day.

When I’d arrived, Precious had been mending a sheet with three different patches because getting a new one was out of the question. The community’s only income seems to be what they’re sent from Gloriavale, and from what
I’ve been able to tell from sources in the Indian media, this ranges anywhere between NZ$280,000 and NZ$450,000 a year. I don’t know what it’s being spent on, but it’s certainly not on where these families are living.

The family’s room was tiny with one small bunk bed and another tiny bed, but my sister had clearly put so much love into making it as homely as possible with the little that she had.

Precious told me that she’d been lucky to be awake one night because it meant she’d been able to catch a poisonous snake that was in her family’s bedroom. A poisonous snake in the bedroom with her children? That’s horrific. It soon became clear to me that this woman was quite different from the Precious I remembered. She used to be confident and quite bossy, but now she was quiet and didn’t show a lot of emotion. When I asked her questions, before she replied, she’d give a nervous laugh. She looked lifeless, as if she was just surviving.

When I asked Precious about passports, she told me that hers was kept in the office where Faithful, the community’s leader, ‘looked after it’. I was shocked to hear that her kids didn’t have birth certificates, as that meant they’d never be able to get passports.

I asked my nieces and nephews if they could write their names. None of them knew how — my six-year-old nephew didn’t even know how to spell his own name let alone write it. The nine-year-old couldn’t read. Even by Gloriavale standards, that was shocking.

I also got to meet Precious’s husband Truth for the first time. It was only then that I realised the extent of his disabilities. As a result, I wondered about his ability to ever become a New Zealand citizen. I also suspect that he’d have trouble surviving in India outside of the community, because of his condition but also because of his conversion to Christianity. I don’t know how there could be a future for their whole family outside of the community. It’s like they’ve almost been set up so that they are trapped.

Next thing I knew I was being summoned by the leader, Faithful Stronghold. Rosanna had told him that we’d been doing some travelling and had just decided to pop in!

He said he wanted to show Rosanna and me around the community. This seemed very familiar as it was exactly what Neville would have done. Neville had loved showing off his handiwork and the kingdom he had created. He had trained Faithful well.

Faithful even used the same lines that Neville would have used when showing visitors around. He took us around the community and showed us a block of land that had been cleared to build houses for the families. He told us that there had been 32 children born in the community to seven families. Of the five women who went there from New Zealand, one has had nine children, another has had six, and Precious has had six. Two women were married here and went to India, then Precious went, then there were two more after her.

Faithful boasted that in ten years’ time the community would have grown by 100 people. Our jaws dropped as he said this. It was going to become exactly like the New Zealand Gloriavale: a breeding ground for children who had no real future of their own.

Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale is available in bookstores now.