May 28, 2026 · 51 min · 15 segments
A rift between Rhoda McFarland and her church she’d formerly attended west of Tinley Park leads Delia to a trove of loan documents that have Rhoda’s signature all over them. A scandal at her former…
We were there all our lives, and we had a big family.
Rhoda is the oldest.
I had an older brother.
Then it was me.
Then I had a younger sister and a younger brother.
From a young age, the Hamilton kids regularly attended church, and Rhoda herself was deeply religious.
After graduating high school in the early 80s, she chose a path few women did at the time.
She went to the Air Force, which she was honorably discharged because of bad knees.
She came back, worked for Illinois Gas Company, done that for a while.
Then after that, she went into the ministry, helping out the church.
It was established in 1986, and by the mid-90s was a place that Rhoda, her mother Barbara, and many others in her family plugged into.
A minister named George Asia Jr. and his wife Angela Asia founded the church, and in 1996, they added Rhoda as one of its directors.
The operation quickly grew, and by mid-January 2002, the church had bought a big new building in the suburb of Crest Hill.
It was several hundred members strong and sat on a nearly five-acre plot of land worth more than a million dollars.
Those jobs required her to do things like keep a ledger of official church meetings, tally membership, execute documents on behalf of the church, and stay on top of the institution's finances.
Her signature, with its perfectly looped cursive letters, is all over paperwork I found for the church.
It's evident that so much about this particular house of worship consumed a lot of her personal and social life.
She also used the institution as a vehicle for a non-profit she'd established called Princess Unveiled.
It was a racially diverse program where preteen girls from the city and the suburbs could be mentored by older women, brainstorm about their future career dreams, get a hot meal, and make friends.
We were there all our lives, and we had a big family.
Rhoda is the oldest.
I had an older brother.
Then it was me.
Then I had a younger sister and a younger brother.
From a young age, the Hamilton kids regularly attended church, and Rhoda herself was deeply religious.
After graduating high school in the early 80s, she chose a path few women did at the time.
She went to the Air Force, which she was honorably discharged because of bad knees.
She came back, worked for Illinois Gas Company, done that for a while.
Then after that, she went into the ministry, helping out the church.
It was established in 1986, and by the mid-90s was a place that Rhoda, her mother Barbara, and many others in her family plugged into.
A minister named George Asia Jr. and his wife Angela Asia founded the church, and in 1996, they added Rhoda as one of its directors.
The operation quickly grew, and by mid-January 2002, the church had bought a big new building in the suburb of Crest Hill.
It was several hundred members strong and sat on a nearly five-acre plot of land worth more than a million dollars.
Those jobs required her to do things like keep a ledger of official church meetings, tally membership, execute documents on behalf of the church, and stay on top of the institution's finances.
Her signature, with its perfectly looped cursive letters, is all over paperwork I found for the church.
It's evident that so much about this particular house of worship consumed a lot of her personal and social life.
She also used the institution as a vehicle for a non-profit she'd established called Princess Unveiled.
It was a racially diverse program where preteen girls from the city and the suburbs could be mentored by older women, brainstorm about their future career dreams, get a hot meal, and make friends.
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