Mental health issues like hers
were ignored or "treated" with punishment, such as being whipped
with a leather strap referred to as "Mr. Brown."
"I had post traumatic stress
disorder," Sayre told The Star Press. "When Abu Ghraib happened, I
really started having major flashbacks. I could relate to the
torture."
Sayre, who lives in Georgia, is one
of several former New Horizons students who have come forward in
recent months to tell their stories. New Horizons is based in Marion
and, in addition to its camp in the Dominican Republic, has a camp
in Missanabie Woods, Canada.
Many of the former students were
prompted to go public by Jesus Land, a memoir by San
Francisco author Julia Scheeres. In the book, Scheeres writes about
growing up in Indiana in the 1980s and being sent by her parents to
the New Horizons camp in the Dominican Republic after reacting with
"bad behavior" to troubles at home, including her sexual molestation
at the hands of an older brother.
Others talking about their time at
New Horizons have found community and encouragement through an
Internet site,
www.nhym-alumni.org, where former students share stories about
their experiences. A few cite positive experiences while in the New
Horizons program. Others tell stories of physical and emotional
abuse.
New Castle resident Lisa Brown
Wilbur was in the New Horizons system from age 16 to 18. Much of
that time was spent in the Dominican Republic.
Wilbur vividly remembers being
assigned to the camp's quiet room for two weeks. Her memory is
hazier when it comes to the whipping she said she received that went
beyond welts -- customary for New Horizons students -- and resulted
in broken skin.
"There was one time I was hit so
hard that instead of blood blisters, my skin actually broke," Wilbur
said. "I don't remember much about that."
Wilbur does remember wanting
deliverance from the camp but being certain it would not come.
"I thought I was dead and in
purgatory and nobody cared enough to pray me out," she said.
Wilbur told The Star Press she
found Scheeres's book "really gentle. Much more went on than she
wrote."
Scheeres acknowledged that she
tempered her published account.
"I wrote several angry drafts," she
said. "You can't write angry without sounding whiny."
Nevertheless, the author said the
experience is still with her.
"I do still have nightmares about
being sent back -- as a 39-year-old woman -- about being sent back
to that place," Scheeres said.
Tina Male, who spent nearly two
years in the New Horizons program in the mid-1990s, has posted
comments to the Web site critical of the anger directed at the
program.
"I wouldn't ever deny that those
things [abuses] happen," Male said in an e-mail to The Star Press.
"I don't feel that they should still hold the baggage 10 to 20 years
later."
Male said the program was intended
to be harsh.
"For most parents, [New Horizons]
was the last resort and they had nowhere else to turn to," Male
said. "So do I honestly think that it should have been a walk in the
park? Hell no. It was meant for us to fall in order to bring
ourselves back up."
That fall was almost too great for
Deanna Wagler of LaGrange. She and her husband, Robert, sent their
daughter to New Horizons' camp in the Dominican Republic. At 14,
Stephanie Wagler had been diagnosed as bipolar. She refused to go to
church or school, and a social worker recommended she enter the New
Horizons program.
In June -- after their daughter
spent seven months in the Dominican Republic -- the Waglers pulled
her out and brought her back to the United States.
Their decision came after they
visited the Dominican Republic and found that their daughter was
being whipped every week with a leather paddle and being forced to
spend hours at a time in the camp's trash pit.
The whippings "would leave red
welts on her legs and butt," Deanna Wagler said. "I didn't like that
at all."
The Waglers say they were paying
$4,200 a month for their daughter to attend the camp.
"I think their intent is good,"
Wagler said. "The way they go about things is not good.
"There were kids there who had been
in jail, but her problem was mostly depression and that she didn't
want to be involved in life," Wagler said. "But she was treated the
same as the kids who had been in jail."
Sayre, who is now married and works
as a school librarian, said she hopes to channel her haunting
memories of the New Horizons camp into something constructive.
"I'm in the process of writing a
book," she said.
Wilbur is skeptical about the
ability of New Horizons students to put the past behind them.
"I don't think it's possible to
ever leave something like this behind," she said.
