Anonymous’ NorthWest Michigan House of Hope/Hope Academy/Abbas House Testimony

When I was a young adult I “chose” to enter a program connected with my parents church to help me with my trauma and mental health. What occurred over the next several months was spiritual abuse, brainwashing, and forced labor (working the land, “service projects” for other organizations, framework ect…). Instead of trauma therapy or help for my mental health needs I experienced “deliverance sessions,” “prayer counseling,” forced off of my medication for my mental health because it is “witchcraft,” denied access to healthcare when I was seriously ill, and a being in a program structure that had complete control over every aspect of your daily life. The program was run like a military program with a high fundamentalist moral basis. You were forced to wear uniforms, to adhere to strict rules and there were punishments for breaking those standards. I was so influenced by this organization I went back and worked for them a few years later in a position I was not trained for, as the director of the “boarding school” which was really just a fundamentalist christian homeschooling program called ACE PACE”s. What proceeded for those next nine months was re-traumatizing and showed how the organization had become more of a cult, adhering to end time “preparations” with plans for the group to get off the grid, get concealed weapons to protect their property and becoming more isolated from the larger community. At this time they even said they were a safe house for human trafficking survivors, which makes me sick to think about because their program structure only reinforces the systems of control HT survivors come from. Even as staff I was still treated as a client and forced to work on their farm above and beyond my hours. This organization is abusive, controlling and has morphed into a cultish environment that has no right to be working with traumatized and what they considered “troubled” individuals. They have no qualifications, and were completely unethical.