*~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~* It is a most insidious drug which must be administered to others in order to achieve its desired effects for oneself. ~ Marie Winn *~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~*
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #4 on Aug 6, 2010, 12:41pm »
I…I’m gobsmacked, quite frankly. Serene should be able to access resources from her husband, through her family, from readers, or even from the government, but she doesn’t do any of this – presumably because female initiative is of the Devil.
It’s possible to live fairly well in an off-grid cabin without running water, but that takes consistent hard work, and a major portion of this work is devoted to repair and maintenance – for example, keeping the chimney flue clean to avoid being choked out by smoke from the wood-burning stove. (And she had her kids wear glasses to avoid getting smoke in their eyes? What about the smoke they were breathing?)
And this bit about her kids breaking ice on the stock tank for water, then hauling it back to the house in five-gallon buckets – what? I thought Serene lived on a joint property with her parents? She couldn’t just borrow a relative’s car, draw water from their bathtub faucet, and haul that back to her house? (I hope they started using either chemical or composting toilets instead of continuing to flush their house toilets using the water those kids carried back – but somehow, I doubt they’ve thought of that.)
Allowing a flooded area (like Serene’s entire downstairs) to molder away without prompt and thorough repair while she and her seven children occupy the upper floor – well, that’s simply unacceptable.
What makes her situation so much worse, however, is that she presumably lives in a house designed for electricity, heat from a conventional furnace, and indoor plumbing. She now has all this extra infrastructure just rotting away and damaging even more of the place as it goes. People living in structures built for use off-grid often have water tanks and properly installed wood-burning stoves rather than some makeshift set-up slapped together by a lazy git who doesn’t mind having his wife and children live in squalor.
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #5 on Aug 6, 2010, 12:55pm »
Oh, Nancy.
Her mini-newsletter for June 2010 on her website has this little blurb:
"HOME NEWS
I have just completed eight Above Rubies weekend retreats, mostly in a row. It is wonderful to be home for a few weekends before our next Family Retreat in Missouri.
You'll have heard about the floods in Tennessee. We bucketed hundreds of gallons of water out of our downstairs room. Fortunately we have a concrete floor. Serene and Sam didn't fare so well. Sam had put in beautiful wooden floors in their home. Their down stairs living area is now the funniest site you could ever see! You walk in to see waves of the sea, some three feet high as the floor has buckled! They came down a couple of days after the flood to find all their furniture upside down and falling over because the floor had grown into waves! It is hilarious. They have now had to move upstairs to live."
So glad to know that she finds her daughter's misery hilarious.
"Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry of the wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country to the abyss call ruling too difficult for ordinary men."
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #6 on Aug 6, 2010, 1:40pm »
This might be worth a call to child welfare authorities for the sake of Serene's children. Those living conditions probably qualify as child neglect/abuse, given the hazards caused by the smoke.
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #7 on Aug 6, 2010, 1:41pm »
I'm seeing a parallel to the men who rip up a portion of their homes, a kitchen perhaps, and leave it that way for their wives to cope with, Sometimes for YEARS!
Nobody should have to live that way for more than a day or two. If you're going to live off grid for pity sakes maintain your 'equipment'
Joined: Oct 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 835 Karma: 29
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #8 on Aug 6, 2010, 2:21pm »
"What kind of example is it to them that their parents choose not to provide basic needs like adequate shelter."
So, my first question is... Can we be certain that this family can afford to provide adequate shelter? And I'm curious from those who have had actual contact with the Campbell family--could they afford to provide assistance as well?
I think this is an important question because it makes a difference whether or not (1) these things are being denied because the husband is abusive or (2) these things are being denied because the family cannot afford them. If the truth is consistent with option one, then I'm right on board with this analysis. But if it's not, then I'm very uncomfortable with blaming poor people for being poor. And I'm likewise uncomfortable shaming women for having more children than they can afford.
I…I’m gobsmacked, quite frankly. Serene should be able to access resources from her husband, through her family, from readers, or even from the government, but she doesn’t do any of this – presumably because female initiative is of the Devil.
Well, okay, yes, she could access government resources if nothing else, and I think it's probably safe to assume that she hasn't done that because she's committed to the whole "anti-government" thing. It would definitely help, but I would like to point out that it isn't exactly possible to live comfortably on government assistance either. It would go a long way, yes, but it isn't enough.
And while I am urging caution against blaming the poor for being poor, I would also note that someone should probably call social services on this family. It is not legal in the United States to raise children in conditions like these. A woman in my home town is being charged with child abuse because she left her four year old daughter to stay with her boyfriend, who then lived in a barn with no bathrooms, electricity, or running water. The four year old ended up being killed by the boyfriend, but the mother is being charged simply because she left her kid in such awful conditions. This situation sounds not a lot better. So, while I want to stay away from overly judgmental language, I will also say that someone needs to call a social worker and have them investigated. If this is really how they live all the time, then the authorities should step in and remove the children from the home.
Joined: Jun 2010 Gender: Female Posts: 13 Karma: 1
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #10 on Aug 6, 2010, 2:27pm »
Oh wow, this one really resonated with me because as soon as she started talking about women lying to themselves and their children, pretending everything was okay, I had a flashback to a movie I saw in college that just made me bristle.
Has anyone here seen the Italian film "Life is Beautiful"? It won a number of awards and was critically acclaimed. There were parts of it I really liked - mostly the beginning, when the Jewish man romances and wins the well-to-do, non-Jewish girl of his dreams. But then the Germans invade and he and his son are sent off to a concentration camp. The entire time, this man (who is a delightfully goofy person) lies to his son, convincing him that they are in the concentration camp as part of a contest, and if he can stick it out the entire time, no matter how bad things get, he will win his very own tank.
The movie is great in a lot of ways, but this is outrageous to me. The little boy was maybe six years old, and children are not stupid. There is no way a child would actually believe this and that his father would put him through this for a stupid prize. Nor would the child have "chosen" to stick it out the way he did. And what kind of father would lie to his child like this, telling him they were there on purpose and because he chose to put his son in this situation? It's supposed to make the little boy feel better, but I can see no possible way that could work. Far kinder would be to admit that there are awful people in the world, and bad things happen, but if they can just stick it out they might be all right, and if nothing else they are together. Now that would have been a movie I could appreciate.
Lying to yourself and your children about a bad situation is worse than stupid.
This might be worth a call to child welfare authorities for the sake of Serene's children. Those living conditions probably qualify as child neglect/abuse, given the hazards caused by the smoke.
Oh wow, this one really resonated with me because as soon as she started talking about women lying to themselves and their children, pretending everything was okay, I had a flashback to a movie I saw in college that just made me bristle.
Has anyone here seen the Italian film "Life is Beautiful"? It won a number of awards and was critically acclaimed. There were parts of it I really liked - mostly the beginning, when the Jewish man romances and wins the well-to-do, non-Jewish girl of his dreams. But then the Germans invade and he and his son are sent off to a concentration camp. The entire time, this man (who is a delightfully goofy person) lies to his son, convincing him that they are in the concentration camp as part of a contest, and if he can stick it out the entire time, no matter how bad things get, he will win his very own tank.
The movie is great in a lot of ways, but this is outrageous to me. The little boy was maybe six years old, and children are not stupid. There is no way a child would actually believe this and that his father would put him through this for a stupid prize. Nor would the child have "chosen" to stick it out the way he did. And what kind of father would lie to his child like this, telling him they were there on purpose and because he chose to put his son in this situation? It's supposed to make the little boy feel better, but I can see no possible way that could work. Far kinder would be to admit that there are awful people in the world, and bad things happen, but if they can just stick it out they might be all right, and if nothing else they are together. Now that would have been a movie I could appreciate.
Lying to yourself and your children about a bad situation is worse than stupid.
I was thinking about this movie as well. But it's sad that Serene's survival techniques with her family call to mind a movie about trying to survive in a Nazi concentration camp.
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #13 on Aug 6, 2010, 3:30pm »
Does anyone want to volunteer to make the call? It would need to be someone who has access to the copy of Above Rubies in which this was published, and preferably someone who has had some contact with the Campbells. I'm outside the U.S. and have no way to get hold of a copy of Above Rubies, so I'm not in a great position to do it.
"What kind of example is it to them that their parents choose not to provide basic needs like adequate shelter."
So, my first question is... Can we be certain that this family can afford to provide adequate shelter? And I'm curious from those who have had actual contact with the Campbell family--could they afford to provide assistance as well?
I don't know the answer to your question, I can only report what I read. I do know that in the picture of Serene and family there are 2 little kids from Liberia. The Campbells are big promoters of adoption from Liberia. A quick google search says each adoption costs anywhere from $10K - $12K. I also know that Nancy and Colin Campbell have adopted several from Liberia as well. I don't think money is the issue. Maybe just money for things that make Serene's life livable is in scarce supply.
Her mini-newsletter for June 2010 on her website has this little blurb:
"HOME NEWS
I have just completed eight Above Rubies weekend retreats, mostly in a row. It is wonderful to be home for a few weekends before our next Family Retreat in Missouri.
You'll have heard about the floods in Tennessee. We bucketed hundreds of gallons of water out of our downstairs room. Fortunately we have a concrete floor. Serene and Sam didn't fare so well. Sam had put in beautiful wooden floors in their home. Their down stairs living area is now the funniest site you could ever see! You walk in to see waves of the sea, some three feet high as the floor has buckled! They came down a couple of days after the flood to find all their furniture upside down and falling over because the floor had grown into waves! It is hilarious. They have now had to move upstairs to live."
So glad to know that she finds her daughter's misery hilarious.
Hilarious? OMG! Think of the fungus that will grow in there too! People who have to work cleaning up a fungus infested home generally wear HAZ MAT masks and stuff. That is killer stuff they are dealing with! The last thing in the world this situation would be, IMO, is hilarious! Whoever wrote that is one sandwich short of a picnic!
I'm convinced there are more disturbing things in this family than just one of the daughters being neglected. Nancy doesn't introduce her adopted children except one daughter??? What's up with that?
Her mini-newsletter for June 2010 on her website has this little blurb:
"HOME NEWS
I have just completed eight Above Rubies weekend retreats, mostly in a row. It is wonderful to be home for a few weekends before our next Family Retreat in Missouri.
You'll have heard about the floods in Tennessee. We bucketed hundreds of gallons of water out of our downstairs room. Fortunately we have a concrete floor. Serene and Sam didn't fare so well. Sam had put in beautiful wooden floors in their home. Their down stairs living area is now the funniest site you could ever see! You walk in to see waves of the sea, some three feet high as the floor has buckled! They came down a couple of days after the flood to find all their furniture upside down and falling over because the floor had grown into waves! It is hilarious. They have now had to move upstairs to live."
So glad to know that she finds her daughter's misery hilarious.
Hilarious? OMG! Think of the fungus that will grow in there too! People who have to work cleaning up a fungus infested home generally wear HAZ MAT masks and stuff. That is killer stuff they are dealing with! The last thing in the world this situation would be, IMO, is hilarious! Whoever wrote that is one sandwich short of a picnic!
I think people also don't consider that dry wall wicks up water, so the dry wall on the second floor is probably wet, too, and growing its own mold.
Of course, the problem may not be that they don't want to repair the lower floor. After the post-Katrina flooding in New Orleans, it was hard for people to find contractors to repair flood damage even when they had the money. This was not an isolated flood - a large swath of Tennessee was affected. And if you try ripping out the damaged stuff yourself, you risk sending mold spores swirling throughout the whole house. So I don't know if we can assume that they have chosen not to make necessary repairs or can't afford to.
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #18 on Aug 6, 2010, 4:38pm »
Ima, Hi - I am new to commenting here (although not to reading). I have looked for an article on this topic since I received my copy of Above Rubies earlier this week. I have almost every issue of the magazine from at least 10 years back. What disturbed me was another aspect of this family and I got out my back issues to check and I found that indeed, Serene and her husband used to have 13 children and now they only have eight in the latest issue! Five of the adopted children have simply disappeared without a word of explanation.
Nancy mentions the number of grandchildren she has in most issues and this number has actually decreased instead of increasing as one would expect. I just don't understand how these Liberian children could vanish with nary an attempt at explanation. I don't want to be in their business BUT since they are promoting adoption so heavily they should in all honesty let people know when something goes wrong. Something MUST have gone wrong for these children to no longer be part of the family in any way. (And as you point out in your comment, there is a question about what happened to the other three teens that Nancy herself adopted. Why does she not give an update on them or even say how many of them there are rather than the vague statement that she adopted "some" other children.)
I think your posted article about the family policy of "lying" to make things appear in a better light dovetails with the complete silence on this adoption issue. I have looked around the web a little this week and can find nothing about this at all. I find the whole thing more than odd.
I think people also don't consider that dry wall wicks up water, so the dry wall on the second floor is probably wet, too, and growing its own mold.
Of course, the problem may not be that they don't want to repair the lower floor. After the post-Katrina flooding in New Orleans, it was hard for people to find contractors to repair flood damage even when they had the money. This was not an isolated flood - a large swath of Tennessee was affected. And if you try ripping out the damaged stuff yourself, you risk sending mold spores swirling throughout the whole house. So I don't know if we can assume that they have chosen not to make necessary repairs or can't afford to.
I understand where you're coming from, but I still can't wrap my head around it. I saw footage of Nancy Campbell's house in one of the specials on the QF movement, and it looked quite spacious to me. Moreover, according to that biography ImaWakeNow linked, two of Campbell's other adult children live on property adjacent to Serene's house, which is itself adjacent to her parents' place.
Her other three siblings (one of whom owns the Grammy-Award winning Newsboys band) all live less than an hour away.
Where were all these people when her house had no heat or water? Where were they when her main floor flooded? Why is she living on the second floor of a moldering house when her parents and her siblings have enough room to take her family in? I guess they were just too busy laughing at the hilarity of it all.
I have no doubt they could also afford to get that floor fixed if they pooled their resources. But I guess sharing falls outside the scope of what QF families are willing to do for their own.
And on a related topic, I have one of Nancy Campbell's CDs. In it, she mentions that both she and Serene have adopted children from Liberia - and that's almost exactly how she refers to them. She calls them 'our children from Liberia' and had to wrack her brain for a second to remember the actual name of Serene's little adopted Liberian girl.
Talk about setting them apart from the rest of their forever family. She lists all her natural children and grandchildren, but excludes two of the three adopted kids (now adults) entirely.
Ima, Hi - I am new to commenting here (although not to reading). I have looked for an article on this topic since I received my copy of Above Rubies earlier this week. I have almost every issue of the magazine from at least 10 years back. What disturbed me was another aspect of this family and I got out my back issues to check and I found that indeed, Serene and her husband used to have 13 children and now they only have eight in the latest issue! Five of the adopted children have simply disappeared without a word of explanation.
Nancy mentions the number of grandchildren she has in most issues and this number has actually decreased instead of increasing as one would expect. I just don't understand how these Liberian children could vanish with nary an attempt at explanation. I don't want to be in their business BUT since they are promoting adoption so heavily they should in all honesty let people know when something goes wrong. Something MUST have gone wrong for these children to no longer be part of the family in any way. (And as you point out in your comment, there is a question about what happened to the other three teens that Nancy herself adopted. Why does she not give an update on them or even say how many of them there are rather than the vague statement that she adopted "some" other children.)
I think your posted article about the family policy of "lying" to make things appear in a better light dovetails with the complete silence on this adoption issue. I have looked around the web a little this week and can find nothing about this at all. I find the whole thing more than odd.
That's...disquieting. It would be great if you could scan the related pages and post screenshots and issue dates. That might be a wake-up call for some of Campbell's supporters.
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #21 on Aug 6, 2010, 5:15pm »
This whole thing has me shaking my head.
Nancy's comments of "it's so funny that my daughter's house is ruined" are quite chilling, although I understand where she's coming from. In my fundie/patriarchial upbringing, any negative feelings were simply not allowed. So feelings like anger, annoyance, etc couldn't be expressed. It got to the point, for me, where I would feel the emotion but I couldn't put a name to it.
It was really eye-opening when I started working with a therapist and I would use the exact same languate Nancy used - "it was so funny that________ happened (fill in the blank with a bad experience from the patriarchial past)" and my therapist would tell me - that's actually a really painful experience/memory. I was so out of touch with my feelings that I literally couldn't tell you what I was feeling. Everything was funny, because that's the way I dealt with the pain. Fortunately I was able to process a lot of my feelings and I'm way more in touch now (although sometimes I do have to stop and ask myself what I'm feeling).
I think these women have swallowed the "be sweet" koolaid for so long they literally can't see anything else. What other people would see as a tragedy or as abuse they see as a joke, and that's a really, really bad place to be. Even Jesus cried whe He was sad and He wasn't laughing when He was on the Cross, yet these women seem to think that any adversity should be met with a smile. Scary - for them and for their children.
What disturbed me was another aspect of this family and I got out my back issues to check and I found that indeed, Serene and her husband used to have 13 children and now they only have eight in the latest issue! Five of the adopted children have simply disappeared without a word of explanation. .... Nancy mentions the number of grandchildren she has in most issues and this number has actually decreased instead of increasing as one would expect. I just don't understand how these Liberian children could vanish with nary an attempt at explanation.
I have no idea what is actually happening there, but I agree that is plenty of cause for worry. Some child abusers or molesters will foster or adopt children to create a pool of easy-to-access victims. That sounds like a scare tactic, but it's a real possibility, and it happened to someone I know. (When I found out, I convinced her to tell her mom, call the police, and prosecute the father...and they did!)
The explanation that I'm hoping for is that those kids found out about the world beyond the Campbell compound, and found a job and a place and a family-by-choice that doesn't treat them as second-class. My thought is that if the Campbells don't approve of the job/place/family in question, then maybe they just don't speak of that adoptee anymore. But then, I do like happy endings.
Joined: Mar 2010 Gender: Female Posts: 100 Karma: 7
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #23 on Aug 6, 2010, 6:03pm »
Years ago I was told by this person (http://www.clarkchatter.blogspot.com/) whom I used to be friends with, that she was a part of a Yahoo group for people that have adopted from Liberia and Nancy Campbell was on the list as well. She said that Nancy Campbell sent her kids back to Liberia because they were "dangerous". When I asked if they were going let everyone know she said no, it was supposed to be hush-hush.
Re: Above Rubies Magazine Review « Reply #24 on Aug 6, 2010, 6:22pm »
If you look at the link that Ima Wakenow provided in comment 16, you can click on magazine archive and download several back issues. Issue 69 has a cover photo of one of Serene's adopted sons. She also has a touching article about him in issue 71. Four years ago when he arrived in her home, he was 10 so he would be only 14 now, not old enough not be on his own. Three of her older adopted children would now be in their late teens so perhaps they did just leave the family.
I want to make sure that I say that I don't condemn the family if indeed they could not handle the children. It is hard for me to even imagine a mother who could parent over a dozen children, some of whom had experienced severe trauma in their birth country, educate them all at home, and do it all without running water or central heating. I just think they went overboard on the "can-do" attitude and admitting that would be a great help to their readers.
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Nobody should have to live that way for more than a day or two. If you're going to live off grid for pity sakes maintain your 'equipment' ![[avatar]](http://i676.photobucket.com/albums/vv126/vyckieb/GRANDMA1.jpg "[avatar]")
