In the community where I teach, there is a religious group, which most of us know next to nothing about, called "Followers." Basically, the only thing most of us know about them are that they have very large families and are not allowed to go to the doctor. That's right, they do not seek professional medical care. As you can imagine, this leads to an unreasonably high amount of unnecessary deaths. That is actually what prompted me to write this blog.
A girl in my first period class was not here this morning, and I'm not sure that she'll be back to take care of her finals this week. When I asked why, I was told that her dad passed away. Well, she belongs to one of the families that is known to belong to this particular religious group. Because of that, they'll never really know why he died. But, that's not the worst of it. Last week she was telling me that her dad wasn't doing too well. She went into some of the problems he was having - things that would have been easily treated by a doctor. But I knew that wasn't an option for them, so I didn't even ask if he had been to see anyone about the symptoms he was experiencing. What a shame, though, to have medical problems and not be able to get them treated. Now, the ironic thing is that they will take their animals to the vet. Hmmm....
So, I decided to look into this a little further. Here's what I found... an article from the Oregonian in 1998: http://www.rickross.com/reference/foc/foc1.html Another website states, "A series by the Oregonian newspaper announced that of 78 minors buried in the graveyard over 35 years, 21 "probably would have lived with medical intervention, often as simple as antibiotics." If so, the cemetery may represent one of the largest concentrations of faith-healing-related fatalities in decades."
Apparently this is a religious sect/cult that has been around for a number of years. That doesn't surprise me as much as finding out that it's real big in Oregon City! That's right. Who knew!?
Well, this is something that comes up every now and then among the staff here, but since none of us belong and the students we feel we can talk to about it don't know why they do what they do, we don't really get any answers.
Has anyone else ever heard of this?
2 comments:
Hmmm...never heard of it before. It is too bad for that student. What a shame. -S
I'm glad you found this article. It makes more sense of it then what I got from the students I talked to when I was teaching in Marsing. It is very sad. But weird, because they do see dentists and opthamologists. So from what I know and from that article it does seem like they have fallen away from the roots of the doctrine. (I don't know if you knew that women aren't supposed to work, they aren't allowed to show their legs, and they are restricted from wearing makeup, oh and if they graduate from high school before getting married it is...not shameful...but rare. not as much any more, but still practiced (I had two students get married and drop out while I was there))
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