Letter to My Children (January 27, 2020)

5K Letchworth State Park circa 2007

Dear Jonathan, Sarah, Josh, and Christina,

I know, I've re-used this photo a few times. But it is so descriptive of our family as it was prior to being deliberately destroyed by the leaders of Calvary Temple Church, Sterling, Virginia. Your father liked running, he encouraged you all as well. And you won some of the categories in the 5K races down in Letchworth. Besides running, you children were fortunate; successful in school, lots of friends and a large extended family, soccer, night hikes with dad and friends, swimming, skiing, trips to the beach, soccer games, laser tag, trips to concerts, Civil Air Patrol, working odd jobs alongside of working at our farm.

Then came college, Calvary church, and your sister asking to finish high school at the school in your church. Where the leaders (pastors who had never even been inside our home for dinner), took it upon themselves to distance you children from your parents and eventually command dad to commit the unthinkable—putting his wife in a motel for weeks and months in order to break her, and while I was absent, put his infant grandson and teenage daughter on the street to live in her car. Uhhhh. Who does that?

Obviously not Christians. So here are these pastors and deacons, impersonating Christians. Wreaking incredible damage upon families, through vulnerable members of those families. By their ‘counsel’ slash advice, suggestion, encouragement. I’ve been thinking that these individuals should be held accountable for their ‘counsel’. It is a well-established method of criminal behavior to isolate victims from family members. No one to protect them from abuse!

There are bad counselors out there. Just look at the fruit of their counsel. If someone you know and love, is getting counsel from a pastor or deacon or youth leader, (to be fair lots of bad individuals isolate people, but church leaders hold a position of influence, respect and authority like a police officer and a teacher, thus are even more influential); and they exhibit any of the following changes in behavior as a result, ummm, you have a bad counselor.
  1. They become uncommunicative with family or old friends
  2. Blaming parents and siblings for all their problems
  3. Distance themselves from family and friends for ‘new family and friends’
  4. Rude when questioned
  5. Blackmail family or friends to keep them quiet
  6. Threaten to put restraining orders on family members
  7. Become mean to the most loving of family members
  8. Demand complete obedience or will not have anything to do with family or friends
  9. Withhold normal family information (weddings, graduations, births, deaths, illnesses) from immediate family and old friends
  10. Cannot see family for normal holidays like birthdays and Christmas and Thanksgiving
  11. Etc. etc. etc. 
Well, you get the picture. It doesn’t match the above photo at all. Bottom line. Church leaders who take young people away from their immediate families are bad. Christ came to turn the hearts of the children towards their parents and parents towards their children. Not separate them.

Love you all, come home.
Mom xo