You need to make it multiple choice, as many people have been to more than one.

Around 1979 I visited Oak Haven, in Pullman, MI. They had done a cooking school at the Rockford, IL, church a couple of years before. I went with a friend who was thinking about going there to live; we stayed a couple of nights, I think. It was winter, and we helped by chopping wood (used for heating). Vague memories other than that.

Yes, it should be multiple choice.

I attended the self-supporting Country Haven Academy in Pasco, WA for three years, stayed at Weimar for dozens of days, and visited Eden Valley.

Once when we didn't have hotel reservations during the fall colors in New England and none were to be found, we discovered a small self-supporting school in Vermont that let us stay overnight. They were very nice, we were served a hearty breakfast, accommodations were very basic, but I think we only paid $10/room (about 25 years ago).

I have visited several that will go nameless. I found the students and faculty, happy, cordial and helpful. However, the longer I stayed the more I was struck with the Power held by the head master. In fact, they were just inches away from
Waco. One of which collapsed because of open and overt sins by the Head Master. I believed all were founded with the best of intentions. But power correpts and absolute power correpts absolutely! Oh, if only I were king over Israel!. Tom

My brother was born at Uchee Pines in Alabama.

I syaed at uchee pines twice for counseling. I find Dr. Zwemers comments to be right on. I do think they got away from wearing pants under their long skirts. That was mandatory, year around, no long skirt could be worn without pants.
I will say the food was good. You got to eat only twice. Absilutely nothining else. Working; I found a little strange. I stayed with the uchee pines pastor. It was Friday and we worked his garden to near dark. I had to tell him that I needed a shower before the Sabbath. The edges of the Sabbath were not guarded that Friday. I also, during one trip was assigned to the kitchen. We worked 16 hours. The girl who was in charge and I were talking outside after all the clean ups, and the second in command of Uchee, who she lived (with his family) interupted our talk about 7:30 PM and ordered her to go home and to bed.

I was a conference SDA 19 years, an independent 7-8, studied with the SDARM(Nicolici branch) for 9 months.
I now attend a SDB church. It is a blessing to be thru with SDA'ism.After a solid year of re-evaluating all my learnings, I gave up EGW- She (her writings)in no way is the SOP.
later, George Hill

Eric

EGW is still rock solid!

http://adventistsnotcult.blogspot.com/2008/08/divine-gift-of-prophecy-ca...

now attend a SDB church. It is a blessing to be thru with SDA'ism.After a solid year of re-evaluating all my learnings, I gave up EGW- She (her writings)in no way is the SOP.
later, George Hill

It's ok to bash EGW but truth is not tolerated regarding current icons in the church? \The truth always finds you out - this apparently is no forum for truth.

stefanie frankle

I lived in one when I was twelve with my parents. I am just now writing about my experiences. A lot of not so good phychology happened to me. There were some beatings. However, after all these years, 32 now, I have come to enjoy the good that has come out of it in my life. If I had allowed it, I could have become a bitter person, and I did for a while, but I choose to push through the bitter feelings and let God turn it to someting good. Some things that I have learned from my experience was not to believe someone just because they have an air of authority and look like they know what they are talking about. My own study and research will determine if they are trustworthy. I am able to "read" people very well. Religion is just religion, but a relationship with Jesus is a heartfelt loving experience that cannot be forced upon a person. The days of the Self Supporting rigid "headmaster" type situation are over for the most part. They have been replaced by people who sincerely want to combine their efforts in doing something with their lives and something for God. I would say to check it out and if it fits with this time in your life, try it and see what God can do for you. Just remember not to ever get trapped into thinking that salvation comes through your good works. It is a free gift from God.

I have visited self supporting institutions. The people seem sincere in their efforts to follow their convictions of duty to God as they see it. I think they are as misguided as the Amish, Hasidic Jews or anyone that thinks they came reach a certain standard of perfection by some set of rules of external behavior.

Usually when people leave these organizations they go to the other extreme and don’t want to have anything to do with SDA Church. Patience is needed to show them they have a false conception of the truth. Anyone dealing with these people need to be thoroughly familiar with the writings of EGW and how to properly interpret them because they will not listen to anything else.

JB you are correct. I have three brothers who are completely against any type of religion because of direct and indirect experiences with SS Institutions. I have found in my own experience, that the churches I attended as a youth failed to reach out to me in my teens and 20's. They did not have time to spend getting to know me, find out how they could reach me and therefore I spent many years with the burried hurt of my experiences at the institution. God has blessed however and surrounded me with a loving family. EGW was a wonderful writer, but she must never take the place of the Bible. I still hear sermons preached completely from her writings as if the minister was preaching straight from the Word of God. This is where things go wrong. I don't think she ever intended to be thought of as sacred. We must always guard against being thrown about by the winds of doctrine by grounding ourselves in the loving gospel of Jesus Christ,letting him guide us in meeting the needs of others.

The first time I understood that there is always somebody more extreme than yourself, came two years into my sojourn in the SDA church. In 1973 I took part in the then annual SMC-Oakwood week-end get-together. Agatha Thrash from Uchee Pines was the featured speaker together with H.M.S. Richards. She preached about corn flakes, he about Christ.

Kellogg, she asserted, had never intended corn flakes to be eaten with milk. At the most, she allowed one spoonful of orange juice to moisten her cereal before she would crunch it down dry (which she did ostentatiously every morning at the camp). It was meant as a digestive aid, not a snack. Milk should be done away with, but not rashly, since people had developed a cultural dependency. You should take at least--a week--to wean yourself off the deleterious liquid.

Swimming was a questionable activity in and of itself, but if families felt compelled to indulge, dad should take the boys one place and mom the girls elsewhere. Mixed swimming, even within the family, was unacceptable.

And clothes had to cover your entire body, with pants under skirts and sleeves coming all the way down to the wrist, even in the dead of summer, even in the Deep South.

Later she made an appearance on the SMC campus where she banned dating. EGW had not allowed any dating at Avondale
College, so there. I remember Steve, a very consciencious student at SMC, who broke up with his girlfriend after this. (When he came to his senses, he married her.)

A friend of mine was principal of an elementary school in the Calhoun area of Georgia. She chided him for having swings and monkey bars on the school's playground. Children were supposed to spend their free time weeding their garden plots, not fritter it away on useless play.

To me it is striking that I can remember in detail the horror show she put on, but not the words of H.M.S. Richards--possibly the most saintly preacher Adventism has fostered.

While at SMC (of course now, Southern Adventist University), I also had the chance to see Wildwood, near Chattanooga, Tn. If those people had been able to bottle anemia and find a market for it, they would have had it made. At least, to my biased eyes, that's how it looked. I can still see a pale, young married couple sitting chastely apart in a meeting, seemingly auditioning for the senior chapter of the AARP. But maybe it was different to those who lived there. Cliff Goldstein might be able to give a more nuanced picture of life at Wildwood, having been a student there.

There has always been a strong monastic tendency within the Adventist church, and the self-supporting movement has tapped into this. Those who embrace a fundamentalist view of life, divide it into enemies and friends. Instead of viewing people around them as people like themselves with a different point of view, they are invested with satantic qualities, and it's natural that you want to put distance between yourself (and especially your childrne) and the minions of the prince of darkness.

Fundamentalism matters because it turns friends into foes.

Aage Rendalen

Many moons ago I was a student for two years at Fountain Head Academy, a Madison satellite school.

Talk about strict! We poor girls were required to wear long stockings (and dresses of course) in the hottest summer weather in the kitchen with steaming old wood stove for cooking. Many stockings I ruined on the old, wooden rough walls.

Separation of sexes was actively practiced and even hand-holding while walking was discouraged and shamed. The elders seemed to fear rampant sexuality more than anything. EGW was usually read at morning worships and only the instructions she gave against cheese, milk, pickles, and anything else that tasted good.

Later, I spent a few months at another Madison-style self-supporting academy at Chunky, MS. The dorms were unfinished and bare frames separated them; bathing facilities were only in the nearby "san" and outhouses were the only toilets. This was to have been my senior year of academy and when I discovered that there were only 3 of us in the class and one was mentally retarded, the other was over 20, I had finally had it and called my folks to send bus tickets I was coming home! It cost me a year of school as I was only able to get half of the necessary courses at the local junior academy in New Orleans and although there were many happy memories (teens always can find enjoyment even in their mutual misery!) I would never recommend such a place to anyone if they are in anyways similar to my experience.

(Now we should have a clue about Cliff if he attended Wildwood!)

I have met quite a few Mennonites through my work at a hospital, and though I may not agree with their theology, I am very impressed with much of their lifestyle. Are there Adventist communities here in the U.S. that are similar? A place, perhaps, where neighbors can get together in the evenings and share family worship? My wife just gave birth to our first child last week. Along with our prayers, we hope that he grows up with friends and neighbors who love the Lord. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!