EP 109 A journey of pain and forgiveness with Elishaba Doerksen

In this one, Cody talks with Elishaba Doerksen, the oldest daughter of fundamentalist Robert Hale, better known as Papa Pilgrim. In 2000, the Hale family — consisting of Papa Pilgrim, his wife and 15 kids — moved from the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico to a homestead in the Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. It's the largest area managed by the National Park Service, with over 13 million acres of land. In that park and on that homestead, Papa Pilgrim inflicted sadistic physical, mental and sexual abuse onto his family. Elishaba, the oldest of the 15 siblings, endured the brunt of that abuse. To the point where he was planning on starting another family in the woods with Elishaba as his wife. He was gathering scripture so that he could biblically justify the decision. That’s when Elishaba — at 29 years old — decided to escape on a snowmachine.

The decision to tell her story wasn’t an easy one. At first, it felt like she was betraying her family by telling all their secrets because that’s what Papa Pilgrim had brought her up to believe. More often than not, she believed that by taking her father’s abuse, she was sparing her mother and her siblings from abuse. It was her job to make him happy and if she didn’t do that, then her father would set his sights on others. All that pain would be detailed in a book called “Out of the Wilderness,” but it would take 11 years before she felt comfortable enough to share her story publicly. Now she believes in the positive repercussions of telling her story: That pain is a gift. It’s a bridge. It’s something that helps us understand one another and it opens a door for relationships and forgiveness. And forgiveness, well, that’s letting go of the debt that that person owes you.