Selina Nunn
As former Gloriavale member Rosie Overcomer drove over Arthur’s Pass to Greymouth in July 2025, she was contemplating a role reversal that once seemed unimaginable. She was about to testify in the sexual abuse trial of the sect’s disgraced former leader Howard Temple, someone who had held power over her for much of her life.
“It was a weird feeling,” recalls Rosie, 40. “Here was a person who had been my leader. Now I was about to hold him to account for his actions and say how they’d affected me.”
Raising concerns
It was over a decade ago – after she’d already left Gloriavale with her husband Elijah, 37, and their young family – that Rosie first raised concerns with police about the inappropriate behaviour of Temple and other men in the community.
She had no idea the conversation might one day lead to a criminal trial, saying simply, “My intention was the police would hopefully go in and do whatever they needed to do so kids were safe.”
By 2022, several other complainants had come forward and Rosie was asked if she would testify alongside them. “I mulled it over for a long time,” she recalls. “It wasn’t about retribution, but after hearing of the recent offences, I realised kids still needed protection.”
Making a stand
This wasn’t the first time Rosie had bravely stood up to men from Gloriavale. A year earlier, she testified against Temple’s son-in-law Fervent Ben-Canaan for similar offences. Coincidentally, both men pleaded guilty early in their trials after Rosie’s evidence. The courtroom experiences were “triggering”, especially when she confronted Temple face to face.https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/news/real-life/virginia-courage-why-i-had-to-leave-gloriavale-45883/glor
“When you’re told to believe things are your fault your whole life, it’s a freeing feeling to be validated in that way. He is guilty. It’s proven in court. I’m proud of what we’ve done.”
Temple was sentenced to 26 months behind bars, which was overturned on appeal and replaced with 11 months of home detention.
In Rosie’s new memoir Beyond The Gates Of Gloriavale, it reveals what it cost her, Elijah and their family to leave the community and build a new life. The idea of writing a book was planted soon after they left the sect and were taken in by her mum’s cousin David Parsons and his wife Nicolette in Christchurch.
“Nicolette kept saying, ‘Rosie, you need to write a book!’ I was like, ‘Who am I to write a book?’ She said, ‘OK, fine, if you’re not going to write a book, at least write some notes and keep a record,’ so that’s what I did.”
Sharing their dramatic exit
Rosie and Elijah appeared in the 2024 documentary Escaping Utopia, which detailed their dramatic exit from Gloriavale. Elijah was kicked out for asking too many questions of the elders, while Rosie and her three youngest were held in isolation before they could leave.
After the show, several publishing companies reached out to Rosie about writing her story. Working with an editor who guided her through the process, she shaped her experiences into a memoir. Writing the book took about a year, fitted in around work and raising her family.
“Some parts were really cathartic to write and almost like a weight off my shoulders,” Rosie shares. “But other parts were hard to dig back into or take the lid off.”
The family’s challenging first year outside Gloriavale, having to adjust to a completely foreign new life, is covered in the book.
“It was hard and full-on,” she says. “Overwhelmed doesn’t begin to describe how I felt during that time.”
Their new life
Rosie and Elijah are now well-established in the dairy farming industry. They are contract milkers near Rangitata and are partners in five dairy farm operations
on the West Coast.
Rosie was pregnant with their fourth child when the family left Gloriavale 13 years ago. Now they have six kids ranging in age from 17 to eight, with the three eldest at boarding school. She’s happy they’re having a different upbringing to what she and Elijah experienced.
“I’m constantly blown away by how mentally and physically free my kids are. Especially when I think of myself at those pivotal ages in Gloriavale. At 17, my brain couldn’t have computed what my daughter’s life is like at the same age.”
Rosie recognises how much she and Elijah have achieved since they left the sect, even if she doesn’t always stop to acknowledge it.
“I never think about being proud of what we’ve done or how far we’ve come,” she says.
“I guess maybe I should.”
For support leaving a high-demand religious group, go to nz.oliveleaf.network. If you’re struggling with your mental health, text or call 1737 at any time to speak to a trained counsellor for free.
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