Constance Ready

Lifting cult’s secrecy shroud – former insider’s revealing story

As a typical teenager Connie (Constance) Ready hung out with her mates, preferring to do her own thing rather than toe the parental line.

She was taken to task for it – not by her mum and dad but by an all male hierarchy known as ‘Servants and Shepherds’ in what, in essence, was a facsimile of the Spanish Inquisition. At a communal meal she was publicly denounced as a “Sinful, rebellious young woman.”

She claims as a female she didn’t have the freedom to defend herself.

Connie is a by-product of the much-publicised Gloriavale Christian Community in a remote area of the South Island’s West Coast. 

It is Connie’s view it is a place where women are relegated to second class citizens, their only value is as members of the domestic workforce.    

At 22, she escaped from Gloriavale and Rotorua is now her home. She’s the solo mother of sons Ronan, 3, and Remaliah, 2 and is studying indigenous art at Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Connie’s already completed a year towards a Bachelors degree in te reo Maori at the University of Waikato.

Freedom and traumatic loss   

To set the seal on her independence her hair’s an eye-catching azure blue, she wears colourful clothes (Gloriavale’s women dress in dark navy) and she has a ta moko running from her breastbone to the top of her puku.

An image of her late sister Prayer sits at its apex. 

It was Prayer’s death at 15 that set the seal on Connie’s resolve to quit Gloriavale and what, to her, were its repressive ways.  

Born with Down Syndrome, Prayer chocked to death in a room with a door that couldn’t be opened from the inside, making it impossible for her mother, a sibling, and the cousins with her to run for help.

Connie will never forgive or forget that, or that she wasn’t allowed time to grieve for the sister she adored.

“For me Prayer’s death was traumatic and incredibly hard to process. There was no thought given [by Gloriavale’s leaders] to those who were grieving. I felt that was so unfair, it just about killed my mother as well.”

Connie’s parents met and married at Gloriavale when it was led by the late Neville Cooper under the name of Hopeful Christian and based at Cust near Christchurch. Then members were known as Cooperites.

Like all Gloriavale couples theirs was an arranged marriage. Connie is one of 13 children. “They [Gloriavale elders] don’t believe in birth control, to them it is sinful.”

Obedient workers and soldiers

Constance Ready is her birth name. “I  feel very lucky I was given such a good name. A lot of other children weren’t so lucky.”  Her dad had changed his surname to Ready after joining what his daughter insists is a cult.

“I have read and learnt so much about cults and it [Gloriavale] has so many cultist behaviours. I was very aware the place I was growing up in was very different from life as I now know it. There was a societal expectation of your behaviour, how you acted.  It‘s a weird one to grasp. They encouraged families per se. They encouraged a husband and wife to marry, but they wanted their children to be part of the system, not part of the family.

“They wanted workers and soldiers who did what they were told, didn’t challenge authority and would keep the place running. They call themselves Christians, they say all the principles and rules are strict in a biblical way but only to a degree. It is a means of control.” 

Connie failed to fit the control mode as she was made to realise at her teenage public shaming, it was one of many.

“They use a lot of scripture to condemn you, saying your actions were ungodly, unbiblical, I was accused of being a bossy, independent young woman.”

Life inside Gloriavale

Taking In Profile on a verbal tour of the cult’s way of daily life she speaks with passion but without malice, describing how young girls enter the workforce the day they start school. She likens the tasks they perform to those of a scullery maid.  “You’d be expected to peel a couple of hundred onions, carrots or potatoes. By the time you get to high school you’re working with the older women from 5am or 6am, 12 hours a day, preparing three meals a day for 500 members. You washed the linen and did all the menial jobs.”

What of school homework? 

“There isn’t any. The school’s on the property, members teach you, there aren’t any terms or holidays until the summer break.”

Connie’s education finished when she acquired NCEA’s level two.

With that insight into her growing up, the focus turns to what it was after her sister’s death that convinced her to flee Gloriavale’s constraints and how she achieved it.

“After Prayer died I remained very angry because the environment we grew up in took no care of Special Needs children. Their rights and needs were ignored. They [elders] believed they [children like Prayer] became a drain on the community because they needed more than others.  Prayer was very bright, very smart, she needed specialist teachers yet was denied that.”

The room Prayer choked to death in was used to isolate members who became contagious. This turns us to Covid. Connie predicts once inside it would devastate Gloriavale if it got into the community. 

 “If Covid got in there it would go through it like crazy. No one lives in their own home, they live in dorms, shared living spaces, bathrooms and showers are shared.” 

“It wasn’t until Prayer’s passing I realised how much effort was put into controlling us as a group. Her passing really woke that up inside me, it grew defiance, a lot of rage, within me. The result of that was all these meetings with the leadership who were pressuring me to move on. We were in this Christian society where it was like Prayer never existed.” 

Her brother’s delving led to further meetings, with their parents and some siblings present.

“David was growled for digging up the past.  There was horrible verbal abuse, they called me a ‘horrible, spiteful person’. They had me against the wall and were laughing at my pain and discomfort. I begged in tears to go home.”

Connie refused to end the meeting with the hugs and kisses an elder demanded.

“He asked why I didn’t hug him, I said I was not comfortable doing so.

That was absolutely what sparked my desire to get out of there. I couldn’t remain in that environment.”

Finding freedom in world outside

That was the night Connie decided to run away. She knew a farmer about 20  kilometres away had helped other Gloriavale escapees.

“I planned to steal a bike. I didn’t want my mother to worry so I let my best friend know what I was planning.”

She talked Connie out of taking a bike, saying she’d drive her to freedom. The only car with keys in the ignition was leader Hopeful Christian’s.

“We stole it and my best friend dropped me at the farmer’s place in the middle of the night. I was banging on his door and ringing the bell. I was worried if no one came my only option was to go back, I was feeling helpless then someone came and said ‘Are you alright?’.” I said ‘no’ and asked if I could stay there a few nights, I told him I have to get out of that place’.”

Connie remained at the farm for several weeks. Community members, her mother included, attempted to talk her into returning. The elder who’d demanded she hug him was another to pressurise her.

“He gave me a lame apology, saying he didn’t want to make me feel uncomfortable, he just wanted to give me a godly hug.”

Connie remained resolute –  she could live without Gloriavale, it could live without her. 

She moved to Timaru where other ex Gloriavale members lived. 

“They helped me set myself up, get my birth certificate and an IRD number, go on a benefit. They encouraged me not to get into mahi straight away because there is a process of learning you need to work though first.  When you’ve never handled money you have to learn how to do that.”

Uni study, motherhood

An aunt, whom Connie had met at Prayer’s funeral, contacted her with an invitation to come and stay in Hamilton.

“In January 2017 I accepted her offer as well as deciding to go to university and get the further education I‘d been denied.

I chose to study for a BA in te reo Maori and give myself the opportunity to discover my culture which started my journey of self-discovery.”

En route to Hamilton she stayed with another aunt in Taupo who found her summer work.

“I had two jobs, housekeeping and waitressing which helped set me up for university.

Four years on Connie describes herself as “A happy solo mama of two boys”.

At the end of her first university year she became hapu (pregnant) with her first child. 

“I met the father of my children on an InterCity bus between Taupo and Hamilton. We started a conversation and yeah, the rest is history.”

They are no longer together but Connie has a new man in her life, they connected online      

Does she have any regrets she turned her back on Gloriavale?

“It is very hard for me now to think what my expectations of life was going to be. I never saw myself free.

“I am very thankful for everyone who has been part of my journey, who helped me grow and heal.  I know there is still healing and growing to do. I am thankful for it and look forward to being the person I eventually become.”