Short Creek Dream Center in Hildale, UT

On Thursday, we visited our friend Jan who is volunteering at Short Creek Dream Center in Hildale, UT.

On the drive over (I think we were in Arizona at this point).

Front door of the Dream Center

View from outside of walled area which was previously Warren Jeffs' compound and is now the Dream Center.

This compound was previously the house of Warren Jeffs, leader of FLDS, and of his wives. It is a horrific story that God is currently redeeming. I think the video on this page may be helpful to tell the story:  https://shortcreekdreamcenter.org/briell-history/

More information about the Short Creek Dream Center can be found from links available on that page as well. 

One interesting thing -- it seems that most of the properties in Hildale, UT and Colorado City, AZ were owned by a trust that Jeffs controlled. He directed the FLDS members not to "complete" their houses so taxes could not be assessed against them -- so nearly all the buildings that we saw there had windows and siding missing, just plywood on some part of the exterior walls -- which would make some parts of each house uninhabitable. I don't exactly understand why that means that they would not have to pay taxes... maybe there is some provision that a house under construction doesn't have taxes assessed against it? But, it seems that there would also be no occupancy permit allowed? I don't know...

We passed by the Coral Pink Sand Dunes on the route there, so we stopped on our way back to take some pictures.

The sand was so fine, which made it difficult to climb...

A view of the dunes from the top

For perspective, there are two black figures in the right middle of the picture -- that were two other folks who were hiking out on the dune while we were there. The dunes were pretty massive.

It was an interesting day. We enjoyed our visit with Jan and found the information about Short Creek Dream Center very encouraging, though the darkness that still is all around them in the area is horrifying. We are praying for their success in helping the folks there who are otherwise helpless and hopeless. Jan is doing a great job managing their food preparation / kitchen area -- she is a huge blessing to them. We look forward to seeing her again at the Christian Fellowship Rally at Welcome Station in a couple of weeks!