ATLANTA SPANKING CASE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Jan. 13, 2002
House of Prayer parents may lose kids
State will try to terminate rights in Tuesday hearing
By JILL YOUNG MILLER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
Ben Gray

David and Carla Wilson (cq) have Christmas presents waiting for their daughter Erica, 7, who is still in state custody. Also waiting are (from left) David Jr., 5, Daniel, 4, and Vickie, 3. Seven-year-old Erica Wilson still hasn't opened her Christmas presents. And she may not get the chance.

The gifts, wrapped in red and green, are waiting at the northwest Atlanta apartment of her parents, whom Erica hasn't seen since March, when child welfare officials took her away.

It's possible that Erica won't go home to unwrap her Barbie cash register -- or to live with her parents and brothers and sister ever again. She's one of eight children, ages 3 to 11, at the heart of the latest crisis facing the House of Prayer. On Tuesday, Georgia child welfare officials plan to ask a Fulton County Juvenile Court judge to terminate parental rights to Erica and seven other House of Prayer children -- so the children, who are in state custody, can be put up for adoption.

For almost a year, the small, non-denominational church in a poor part of northwest Atlanta has been in a high-profile dispute with the state over the church's ways of disciplining children, including whippings in church.

Parents have been told repeatedly by social workers and Chief Judge Sanford Jones of Fulton County Juvenile Court that they could get their children back if they agreed to conditions including not using corporal punishment that leaves marks. The parents haven't budged.  "We weren't breaking the law by whipping our children in church, so why should we have to conform to what the judge wants?" Duncan said last week.  Said Carla Wilson, 23, Erica's mother: "No one can love her like we do because we're her parents. We want her home as soon as possible."

The parents' "positions are so entrenched, I don't see any middle ground, unfortunately," Hall said.  If the eight boys and girls -- who come from three families who are devoted to the House of Prayer and its pastor -- are legally severed from their parents, that most likely would escalate the problems between the church and the state. Last week, the Rev. Arthur Allen Jr., 69, the church's pastor, vowed that if the children are put up for adoption, the House of Prayer will retaliate by suing the state for allegedly "brutalizing" some of the 49 children it took into custody last year and for emotionally harming his flock.

"They have done us about as much damage as they can, and now I feel like it's time for us to retaliate," Allen said.  Until now, the pastor has refused to hire a lawyer or to accept help from lawyers who have volunteered to fight on behalf of him and his congregation, over which Allen exerts enormous influence. Last week, however, Allen said he has met with Atlanta lawyer Ed Garland, who led NFL star Ray Lewis' defense in the Buckhead murder trial. Garland could not be reached for comment late last week.

The eight House of Prayer children in limbo were among 49 children seized from six families last March.  The incident that brought the House of Prayer to DFCS' attention occurred in February.

According to documents compiled by social workers, two boys and a girl were whipped at the church. Three days later, one of the boys showed his teacher bruises on his abdomen and back. Suspecting abuse, the teacher made a report. DFCS began investigating the congregation, which has about 130 members including the children, and took the 49 children into protective custody, dragging some from their homes in view of television news cameras.

In May, after acknowledging it had evidence that no more than three to five children had been abused, DFCS let 34 of the 49 go home.  It let another go in July. The rest, officials said, needed more psychological tests.

Since then, the state has allowed four more children -- who repeatedly ran away to go home to their widowed father -- to remain at home. And the state is not seeking to put up for adoption two other House of Prayer children who are in state custody -- a 17-year-old and her baby -- because the girl is almost 18, therefore almost an adult who will be "emancipated" from foster care, said Renee Huie, spokeswoman for the Department of Human Resources, DFCS' parent agency.

But the state has determined that the remaining eight boys and girls need permanent new homes, to the distress of their parents. Still, they insist the matter is not so much in their hands as it is in God's.

"We believe in heaven and hell still," Allen said. "We know what to say to get our children back," but no one's going to lie, he said.  The children haven't seen their parents for months. The parents said they haven't visited their children in foster care because it would be too painful.

But sometimes they hear from the children by phone. Once when Erica called, she told her mother that she had tried to run away, Carla Wilson said. "She don't feel like she's loved where she's at," Wilson said. "I tell her we love her and we want her home and we're working on getting her home."

But the parents have continually refused to work with the state, Huie said. "In some of the children taken into custody, there were severe emotional problems," she said. Because the parents have refused to modify their disciplinary methods or to work with child welfare officials, state officials are compelled to "move toward termination of parental rights," Huie said. "This is to make sure that children ... are moving toward some kind of stability."

Yolonda Wilson, 28, insists there's plenty of stability waiting at home for her absent daughter Deandrea, 8, and son Ricky Jr., also 8.  "It's a decent environment," the mother of nine said last week, as tears welled in her eyes. "My husband works hard for a living for his family," said Wilson, who's Carla Wilson's sister-in-law. "And both of us, I feel, are honestly trying to do what's best for our children and have done what's best for our children. We're trying to raise our children in the Lord."

Her home is a loving one, Yolonda Wilson said, surrounded by her husband, Ricky, 32, a sanitation worker, and many of their children during an interview at the church on Hollywood Road.

"There are so many children deprived in this neighborhood," she said. The thought of losing her two oldest children to adoption is shocking, she said.  It's a society that House of Prayer members have decided to shun more than ever. They no longer send their children to public schools but teach them at home, a practice they started in September. Allen said they are careful to follow state home schooling guidelines and have received advice from home schooling organizations.

"Everything has to be right," the pastor said. The state is "still looking for any little opening, any little excuse."  But those aren't the only reasons the pastor wants the House of Prayer's children schooled at home.

"We don't want other cases," Allen said. "We still at times will use corporal punishment as needed. We don't want every time a child has a scratch on him, a thin red mark, like the teacher reported, we don't want to have to be running to court."