Walking The Walk: Residents Show Up For Religious Survivors, Victims

ORLEANS – As a kid growing up in the Community of Jesus, Tim DeLude would weed in the garden, where he’d often look out at the people recreating at Rock Harbor on the other side of the compound.

 “All I wanted to do was be on the other side of that fence,” DeLude told attendees gathered at the harbor last Sunday afternoon. “I wanted to be going out fishing on a boat. I wanted to be out having family time going to the beach. I didn’t have any of that.”

 Instead, DeLude said he and others growing up inside the Community were separated from their families, pitted against their friends and neighbors and routinely called out for their perceived sins. In a Community numbering hundreds of people, he felt alone.

 But close to 30 years since he left the Community for the last time in his brother’s pickup truck, DeLude stood Sunday on the other side of the fence, addressing a different community of supporters who had shown up in solidarity for former members of the Community like himself.

 “My name is Tim DeLude,” he said. “I’m a survivor. I don’t stand alone anymore. I stand here with all of you.”

 Approximately 100 residents and visitors participated in a Walk For Truth in the Rock Harbor parking lot June 7 in a show of support for victims of what the nonprofit Rock Harbor Truth, the walk’s organizer, called "coercive and high-control religious environments.”

 During the hour-long walk, participants repeatedly circled the parking lot, which fronts the Community of Jesus compound. Many held signs reading “You Are Loved,” “There Is Life Beyond Fear,” “Silence Doesn’t Heal” and other phrases of support. Others donned hats embroidered with the word “Truth.”

 The walk is the second held by Rock Harbor Truth, a survivor-run nonprofit based in Orleans dedicated to supporting religious victims past and present and educating the broader public about what happens within the walls of highly controlled environments such as those allegedly operated by the Community. The first walk was held on Good Friday, and Anne Buchs, a Rock Harbor Truth board member, said additional walks will be held through the summer.

 Allegations and rumors of abuse and mistreatment of its members have surrounded the Community since its founding in 1970. Most recently, a lawsuit filed last July in U.S. District Court in Boston by a former Community member, Oliver Ortolani, alleges that the Community’s performing arts center in Brewster was built through unpaid child labor and trafficking. Allegations in the suit include that children in the Community were forced to work as long as 16  hours a day with minimal breaks, and that they were “assaulted’ or “shunned” by the Community if they complained or resisted. 

 The suit, as well as the death of Aaron Bushnell, a former Community member, by self-immolation in February 2024, have brought more public awareness to the Community. Linda Finkral of Eastham said she’s been following and reading up on the Community over the past decade. Finkral, an Iowa native, called the allegations of abuse coming out of the Community “appalling,” and questioned why the town, police and other agencies aren’t doing more to address them.

“Being from the midwest, we take these things seriously. And it doesn’t seem like the town of Orleans does,” she said.

The Community has repeatedly denied the allegations put forth in the Ortolani lawsuit. In an email Tuesday, the Community’s attorney, Jeffrey Robbins, said the walk is the work of “serial protestors who have been reciting the exact same stuff about the Community for 40 years.” He added that some have not had any connection with the Community “for decades,” and in other cases none at all.

“The good news is that they do not represent the feeling of the Community’s neighbors in Orleans or on the Cape, who have come to know the decency and humanity of the Community and the spirit with which its members live their lives,” Robbins said.

But Tim DeLude pushed back against the narrative that Rock Harbor Truth and other survivor advocates are “a hateful group.” 

“Why are we still being called bitter ex-members who are making stuff up? Why?” he said. “I lived this. I went through this. I saw all the things that are getting talked about happen.”

 Rock Harbor Truth’s founder and president, Shawn DeLude, Tim’s brother, said that events like the Walk For Truth and other public demonstrations of support are needed now more than ever.

 “Spread the word,” he said. “Be ambassadors. Be the voice for those that have been abused and are being abused. We can do it together. We can do it by unifying.”

 Among those showing their support Sunday were Michelle Freschette and Richard Loring of Brewster, who took Shawn into their home for two years after he left the Community when he was just 15.

 “All we want is for people inside to know they’re safe,” Loring said. “There are people here who will support you.”

 Tim DeLude said Community members who speak of leaving are threatened with a life of drugs and damnation on the outside. Because of that, he said it’s often hard for former members to establish trust with people outside of the Community. For a number of years after he left the Community behind, he recalled struggling with suicidal thoughts and self-esteem issues.

 “No one knew what we went through,” he said. “No one knew that I was going against everything that was ingrained in me since I was a little baby.”

 But for Kristin Seay Hoffman, who befriended Shawn and Tim after they left the Community, a simple gesture can go a long way. When she and her husband bought their first house in 1999, they opened their doors to the brothers and others looking to start a new life outside the Community.

 “How do you connect with those who are struggling in the Community of Jesus and looking for a way out? We let them know that they are seen,” she said.

 Hoffman told a story of a “chance” meeting she had with one Community member who was ready to leave the Community behind to attend college. She wrote down her phone number, and promised to help her leave whenever she was ready. When she took her up on her offer, Hoffman and her friends helped her move into college. She and her husband also gave her a place to stay when she needed it.

 “The ticket to freedom was a phone number written on a scrap of paper,” she said. “That was it.”