Hi, Big Bad Brittany here.
Actual information for Hurrikayne (it's not much, because the place was nothing really to speak of): "Cleft of The Rock" was not really an elaborately organized home or anything. It was a rather new development. People who had nowhere to put their kids while enrolled in the adult homes put their kids in Cleft of the Rock. When the McNamaras had their kids there, there were just the McNamaras' three girls - Heather, Cassie, and Sarah - and a couple of other girls who had families somewhere on the farm. I know all about it, because I know the Macs and their daughters really well.
I'm not here to either defend myself or argue with anyone, because I don't need to do either. It's all pretty simple for me: I know the facts about New Beginnings. Some people don't think it's such a bad place because a.) their experience was more limited to an outside perspective - maybe even intentionally, because Brother Mac used to make sure that certain girls didn't see certain things, b.) due to the nature of their personal behavior or their more-involved parents they weren't physically assaulted, or c.) they're still in denial about bad stuff they did see or experience. Everyone's experience was different, and there were a lot of girls who weren't taken to the back of a church, thrown down on a dirty floor and beaten with curtain rods. There were a lot of girls who didn't have my experience of hearing Brother Mac call girls "niggers" and see him degrade one girl while treating the one next to her - the one with rich parents - like gold. Some girls didn't see him tackle girls in scuffles or tell girls they should gang beat a girl if she acted up so her actions didn't affect everyone. Some girls didn't actually SEE IT when one girl wanted to leave so badly that she jammed half a pencil in another girl's ear so that she could be sent to jail instead of having to endure the home. Some of you weren't around when girls were forced to pick up rocks in the lap-yard all night long, or when we had to bathe with a garden hose, or when it was so much torture just to be there that girls were trying to run away every other day. During that time, my best friend succeeded. She and another girl disappeared for two days until they found them hanging around several towns away. They were drugged up, sexually assaulted, and covered cuts and scrapes and insect stings. When they brought them back, one had half her head shaved and she didn't know why or who did it. The other had an ankle swollen like a balloon and couldn't really walk. The two girls weren't CRIMINALS before the home. They just didn't want to be made to feel like dirt every day.
I could go on and on, because I was there for so long. There are other girls who saw different things than even I did. My point is, different girls had different experiences. The home goes through phases. It's been as tame as just mental abuse everyday and as rough as the things I've described. I've seen all of these phases. The McNamaras are still there though. Good people don't do these things. They took part in all of this. Mental abuse is bad enough, and the physical can escalate at any time. I've heard Brother Mac say, "we're not going to get involved with any of the corporal punishment anymore. If we keep it up, they'll close us down." And one week later having girls held down again and Mrs. Mac hitting them with mini-blind rods.
These are not the traits of good, honest, loving Christians by any means.
People can say what they want, but I honestly probably know the facts better than almost anyone else. I know the McNamaras in a way that non-staff/junior staff girl could. I had the keys to dorms, the code to the safe, worked the numbers in the books in the office, made the bank deposits, hung out (even slept, several times) in their family's home, did stuff with their daughters, sat in staff meetings, handled private records and files.
I respect your opinion, whoever you are, (though from your tone regarding me I doubt that you respect mine) because you may have had a tame experience. But don't discredit the opinions of other people just because you didn't see the things that we did or know the Macs as personally as we did.
The opinion that New Beginnings is corrupt is widespread and spreading further all the time, because bad stuff still happens. As I've said, I'm still in contact with at least fifty former students who share my opinion. Not because it's MY opinion, but because of what THEY experienced.
I have nothing to gain from any of this. I wasn't some rebellious nutjob who left the home in a convertible full of lesbian lovers, blowing coke off their hipbones and bound for a rendezvous with demons in Sin City or something like that; I left after four and a half years of honest effort to help other girls and to be right with God, after two and a half years of Bible college, because I knew in my heart that the place was wrong. I knew that the Macs weren't good people. I left as quietly as possible, so that you girls wouldn't be subjected to more tumultuous garbage, and so that the Macs couldn't distort the truth. I'm sure they did, anyway.
I have nothing to gain from trying to stop the home. I'm only standing up for myself, for past and current detainees, and for the girls who may be missing out on obtaining real help, love, and care.
Whatever you've heard of me personally after my leaving may not be true at all. Consider that or believe whatever you want. I don't need anyone to like me. It won't stop my efforts.
I was around for a lot of fabricated rumors, designed to keep us girls afraid of our real selves and the outside world.
I hold nothing against you, because I understand that things were different for different girls, but bear in mind that you may cause a lot of emotionally charged reactions if you try to downplay other people. Feel free to try to derive positivity from your experience if you can, but don't spit on other people's accounts or call them liars. You just might not know the entire truth. And don't forget to be true to yourself. You don't want to be dying inside twenty years from now dealing with repressed issues.
