When I Visited GloriaVale

At some point after the semester, Kilian (my German travel partner) and I found ourselves working on a dairy farm. Around the dinner table one night the farmer told us about a Christian "cult" nearby (we were on the west coast of NZ's south island). He described it in such a fanciful way, we had to call his bluff. I found the GloriaVale website, called them and asked if we could come see the place. They said "sure!" as I had expected.

When we got there, it was something out of a movie. Everyone wore blue. The men and boys built things, the women and girls cooked and cleaned. Each family had an average of 12 children and people married ages 13-16. This place apparently had the fastest growing population in the world. The 86 year old man that was showing us around the complex, filling our heads with propoganda, and telling stories of how he founded the community, turned out to be The Cooper. If you look up media around Gloriavale you will read about the cult leader that went to jail for molesting children maybe? that was the guy showing us around...