The Great Dissapointment, More Theft, and a New Beginning

A Crazy Story

I met a friend last summer with an interesting story about his experience with a church, and his subsequent dislike for  the Christian religion.  The story was rather unbelievable, but unfortunately more than likely entirely true. His wife convinced him to try out a church and see if they could find a way to raise their kids with Christian ideals.  The people were nice, and some well respected people in the church, invited them home for supper. Being the socialites that they are, he and his wife accepted their invitation, and were having a nice time visiting. During the visit, the Husband of the couple who invited them over to church placed his hand on my friend’s wife and propositioned her. My friend and his wife were rather surprised by this act, and cordially dismissed themselves and went home. I had this happen at work once, where my boss did this to my wife, I have never experienced this from a Christian! My friend was braver than I would ever be, and attended the same church again, and went to dinner with the same people, (Not sure why he did this, but we all want to think better of people, and sometimes open our selves up to get burned again.)  This time, the couple asked my friend and his wife to swap spouses for the night. Wow, this is some kind of church, that would have a man serving on their board practicing open sexual sin. Paul in the Old Testament was very clear about this kind of thing. My friends at this point was devastated and wrote to Anne Lander’s or Dear Abby about this problem, and wanted advice on dealing with this sort of thing. The response from the paper was This is crazy, it never happened, you are a liar. When he told me the story I was shocked, disappointed that he had such an experience, and that people could not take the time to understand his situation.

March 10, 2012 Recap – The Great Dissapointment, More Theft, and a New Beginning – Rolling Shoe Box | Rolling Shoe Box // < ![CDATA[
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 Last August,we hear that the Adventist Academy in Salem is having trouble with their computer networks, and cannot afford to hire an admin / engineer at full price.  Their network is in bad shape, and they needed real help getting it up and working correctly. My vote was to stay the path of full time RV’ing, but voluntarily bring it up to speed over the month of August. The school, did not want a volunteer, they wanted an admin.  Athena agreed to work for them as teacher, a network admin, and baby sitter, for $15.00 an hour to cover the cost of parking the RV in a local park. She asked that the school find enough financial assistance to allow Holly and Sarah to attend. We talked to my Dr. about it, and he advised against it due to my illness and the way the cloudy, cold and wet weather aggravates it.  To make a long story short, she took the job, the kids got in school, and really did like it over all. I was not impressed with the education from a college entrance standpoint, but it was working for now.   The problems began in September! Holly being the cute girl she is, can’t dress plain enough to avoid extra attention, and since she can’t see how cute she is, it is hard to get her to dress drab! By September 4th, she has two boy calling on her, one treats her like she is a gem, the other only has one thing on his mind and will stop at nothing to get it. The first we learn of this problem is when I am asking a teacher about her work load in Biology, it is keeping her up past midnight most nights. He blows me off and tells me if she spent less time with boys, and more time doing her works, we would not have an issue. Holly was getting home from school about 5pm each night, never left the house and did home work all night. I failed to see his point. He did not explain further. I chocked him up as an arrogant….

We Pull Holly and Sarah out of School for a Week

Fast forward to January, Holly is acting weird, getting angry, and her grades from from A’ to D’s and F’s. I snag a text from the not- so-nice boy off her phone explaining what he wants, and when. Athena makes sure their meeting is foiled, then she opens Holly’s Face book, there are 14,000 messages from this kid bothering Holly, and giving her a hard time about being less than receptive to his touching her in school. She tells him no over and over again, but will not leave her alone, and no one is able to stop him. Holly feared telling anyone as he threatened violence against other students, or giving up Christ; should she stop talking to him, or tell on him. Holly is too proud to ask us for help, she is sure she can handle it herself.  He knows what instructors to send her to when she complains about her feelings toward him, as those instructor will blow it off and keep him in the clear. So this goes on until Athena and I attempt to put a stop to it. We realize Holly is in grave danger, so we take a week off of school and try to work with the principal to solve the problem.  The principal pulls the boy out of school, until a meeting can be held with the school board.  It appears we are getting somewhere, so we return back to school, awaiting the board meeting.  Athena visits with some trusted teachers we have known since Holly was in Kindergarten, and they seem to understand the problem and assure her things will work out.

The Board Meeting

Tuesday the 28th, A few days before the board meeting, a teacher is talking to Athena, and begins to blame Holly for the whole affair as she dresses too sexy.  Then another teacher, one of our most trusted does the same thing! What! Are they kidding? I see things are going down hill fast and have some idea of how things at the meeting are going to turn out. We are wondering what happened to everyone. Why the strange turn? We provided the strange text messages, names of other kids this kid has messed with, what more would it take to get them to understand?  We get word that the Meeting will be on March 1, and they will decide what to do then. On March 1, we get a call and they want us to present our case to the school board.  We had an hour to prep a document, and decide what to say!  We arrived at the meeting with our document in hand, they opened with a prayer asking God that we would have an open mind in dealing with Holly’s transgression. That set the stage for a great meeting!  We found out the case had never been investigated and that the board had a poor idea at best as to why we were meeting.  They did not want to hear, nor did they believe much of anything we said. The conclusion was that since it was only inappropriate touching, and she did not scream, it was consensual.  I left the meeting in total disgust and blown away.  The boy was readmitted to school, so Athena quit her job, pulled the kids out of school, filed intent to home school according to Oregon law, and decided to again become a full time rv family. This boy has a history of abusing girls, after Holly left other girls have come forward with more dastardly stories than Holly’s, we are only left to hope he gets help before he really hurts someone. The boy is left to carry on  as junior in high school, and the only High school member of the middle school gymnastics team.  People say we are brave or stupid living on the road with all the scary things that can happen out here. Compared to the scary things that happen at church and in Christian School, I’ll take my chances with the road. They say our kids will not get proper socialization, if that is socialization, society can keep it. I prefer strong morals, proper study, in a family environment!

 A New Direction

We decided the Rolling Shoe Box, should not set in one location rotting its tires to the pavement.  It is time to get on with the road of life, and look for new opportunities.

 

 

Our take on this, is that there are people who are not great people in every walk of life. We do not give up on Christ, just because a few people are not quite right. If it were not for Christ there would be no good in this world, for his meter we are thankful. It is however a good idea to separate ones self from a caustic situation, which for us, is the school and local church, as those with the power to fix this problem can not see the problem.  Right now, our family, like many others has bumps, bruises, and open wounds, but we are healing, and working to find a closer relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Good Evening and Good Night….