A Coffee Shop In My Town

I don’t go to the coffee shop Gloria Jean’s often. Usually on a Saturday, I’ll go past it and if I have spare change, I get a cappuchino. Most of the time, I’ll do a drive-through on the way to work, if I feel like a coffee.

They have a box, next to the till. I never put change into it though, I just go for the tip jar (note, ‘tip jars’ aren’t customary in Australia but usually people are nice enough to throw something in – in my experience, it goes to the end-of-year party or to chip in for retirement presents or whatnot).

The box is for Mercy Ministries. It is pink and pretty looking. It always made me feel suspicious, it being so pretty-looking.

This is what my coffee shop supports with that box next to their till: “They Prayed To Cast Satan Out of My Body”

THEY call themselves the Mercy Girls. And after years of searching they have found each other. Bound by separate, damaging experiences at the hands of an American-style ministry operating in Sydney and the Sunshine Coast, these young women have clawed their way back to begin a semblance of a life again. Desperate for help, they had turned to Mercy Ministries suffering mental illness, drug addiction and eating disorders.

A while back I recommended a film to a good friend of mine. She was interested in why I said that going to the Catholic Education office in my town gave me chills and nasty reminders of the film The Magdalene Sisters – because the building used to be a laundry, just like the one in the film.

I don’t think I warned her enough about the content of the film though. I should have told her the worst of it.

At 21, Naomi Johnson was a young woman with a bright future, halfway through a psychology degree at Edith Cowan University, working part-time and living an independent, social life. Yet she was plagued by anorexia.

With her family’s modest means and her part-time job there was no way she could afford to admit herself into the one private clinic in Perth that specialised in adults with eating disorders. They had no private health insurance, and there were no publicly funded services in the state.

So after much research Johnson found a link to Mercy Ministries on the internet.

I’m currently sitting at a library desk at a university in Perth, very much like the the one that Naomi went to. There’s quite a few 20-something Psych students around me; a bunch are giggling over near the photocopier after one splurted water out of her nose.

They use their Guild card for discounts, they talk loudly about their part-time jobs and the librarian is kind of giving them a filthy look at the moment.

“Naomi” is a common enough name here. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the name of one of them.

Months passed as she devoted herself to going through the application process, pinning all her hopes on what appeared to be a modern, welcoming facility, backed by medical, psychiatric and dietitian support. She flew to Sydney, thousands of kilometres away from her family and friends, and entered the live-in program.

…Nine months without medical treatment, nine months without any psychiatric care, nine months of being told she was not a good enough Christian to rid herself of the “demons” that were causing her anorexia and pushing her to self-harm. After being locked away from society for so long, Naomi started to believe them. “I just felt completely hopeless. I thought if Mercy did not want to help me where do I stand now?

“They say they take in the world’s trash, so what happens when you are Mercy trash?”

…Canham-Wright has asthma, and yet she was prevented from having her ventolin with her at all times, she said. “Every time I had an asthma attack they told me to stop acting … I was punished, I had to do an assignment about why God believes that lying is wrong.

“I was told, ‘You still have demons to battle with. Satan still has a huge control over your life. That is when the exorcism and the prayers over my life started.” She got to the point where she no longer knew herself or what she believed in. “They would call me into their office, saying that I was just make-believing and trying to get attention, and they would start praying over me. They would always pray for Satan to be dismissed out of my body.”

Every night there was a prayer meeting. “When someone wanted to have something prayed about in particular, we would all have to lay hands and the staff member … would perform an exorcism.”

This article says that my coffee shop “fund[s] exorcisms in a program that removes young women from proven medical therapies and places them in the hands of a house full of amateur counsellors.” I found worse things too, about the attitudes towards homosexuals as well. Links to the Hillsong Church? Pro-life groups?

This article says that the internet has dozens of stories online about what the Ministry actually supports… I found a few. I didn’t think I could stomach most of them.

To be frank, I don’t think I can stomach any of what is said regarding what they do to women. Not at all. I like to know what I’m actually contributing to when I get coffee. At least I now have a better idea.

… Rather aptly – don’t forget to check out the recent Carnival of the Godless, over at Ironwolf.

Tagged as: abuse, carnival of the godless, charity, coffee, exorcism, Fundamentalism, Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, homophobia, Magdalene Sisters, Mercy Ministries, Perth, Religion, Sydney Morning Herald, therapy