My Path to Youth With A Mission (YWAM)

    I started going to church when I went into foster care.  I remember always feeling at peace there.  I couldn't explain it then, I just knew I loved to go.  That continued throughout my elementary and middle school years.  My friends were at church.  My sense of family came from church.  One time, my mom asked my why I liked going to church.  My answer?  It made me feel good.  To her, that was the wrong answer,  To me, it was the only answer.  You see, somewhere along the way, I met Jesus. He drew me to church.  He kept luring me back.

     When I was in ninth grade, our church split.  I didn't fully understand what happened. I just knew I lost my friends.  I lost many of the feelings I associated with church.  My safety. My comfort.  My peace.  But I still had Him.

     During my high school years we attended a small, non-denominational church.  I made new friends. None enduring like from my childhood, but I was accepted.  If the doors were open, we were there.  I loved going to the youth group and being with my friends, but by my senior year I had drifted away from Him.
     When I graduated I got a job in a grocery store where I was able to work on Sundays.  That was an acceptable, though not thrilling, excuse for my parents. 

     When summer ended, I started college.  I continued working at the grocery store.  God kept speaking, but I was becoming immune to His voice.  I no longer felt the weight of what was happening. I went to church and youth group when I didn't have to work, but I was essentially going through the motions.
     Our pastor was young and very outreach oriented.  He was always trying to keep the youth engaged.  One of those ideas was to invite  a group of young missionaries to visit  our church for a weekend.  Of course, my parents hosted two members of the team.
     It was like torture for me!  They exuded Christ.   I was rude to them.  They were kind to me.  I couldn't wait for it all to be over.
   
     Sunday morning finally rolled around.  I sat in the back rows with the rest of the youth group.  I had already decided nothing was going to stir me.  I sat there, arms firmly folded across my chest.  We talked and passed notes, not paying attention to the service.
     A huge ministry tool of YWAM is skits and drama.  They grabbed attention and shared simple truths.  I remember music and movement.  At one point, they were portraying the crucifixion.  My eyes were drawn to the stage.

     "You did that."  The voice was clear as day. I looked around.  No one else seemed to have heard it.

     "You did that",  He said, as the nails were driven into the actor's hands.

     I began to argue.  I wasn't even there.  How was I responsible?  I was a good person.  What about the person who molested me, or the father who abused me.  Why wasn't it their fault?

     "Even if you were the only one left on the planet, He still would have died for you."

     Those words pierced my heart.  Tears streamed down my cheeks.  I knew He was right.  That's who He is, regardless of who I was.
     I don't remember the wording of the altar call, but I do remember being propelled forward.  I felt as if someone was pushing me from behind.  I felt a hand on my back, but no one was there.

     "Come", He said.   I practically floated down the aisle.  The two girls who stayed at our house, the ones I had treated so poorly, prayed for me.  They hugged me tight!  I felt a closeness to God that I hadn't felt in quite some time.  I decided then and there that I wanted to be a part of this ministry.
     My pastor drove me from Ligonier to Titusville, Pa, to see the base and get more information .  I was hooked!  I needed to be part of it,  However, I  was in my spring term at college and needed to follow through with that commitment.  So I applied for the group starting in September, six months away.
     The school semester ended but I still hadn't received my acceptance into the program.  My pastor called their office.  No one seemed to know what was happening with my application.  I began to feel like they didn't want me.  Like God didn't want me.

      I was still working at the grocery store, but I also added a job in direct sales.  My powers of persuasion weren't great.  Selling wasn't my thing.  I was shy and insecure.  However, that job introduced me to a whole new realm of friends.  Drinking friends.  Buddies, if you will.
     Our sales meetings were on Wednesday nights.  Again, work, so I got out of church.  These "sales meetings" were just a reason to get together and drink ourselves into oblivion.  After which I would drive home.

      I was still praying, journaling, believing in Him.  I just didn't feel the connection with church anymore.  My new crowd was this work crew.  I may have been putting distance between the church and me, but He hadn't given up.
     God began to speak to me, audibly, in my car during the 30-minute drive home from those meetings.  Now, I know a lot of people don't believe God speaks audibly anymore.  And why would he choose to talk to a drunk girl driving on the highway?  I don't want to argue with you.  I'm just telling you my experience.
   
     I clearly remember the first time it happened.  I was rounding the curve near a dam, in the pitch dark, in the middle of the night.

       "Regina."

     I actually looked in the back seat, expecting one of my friends to be hiding back there.  No one.  That sobered me up pretty fast.  This became a weekly occurrence.  I'd get in my car to drive home and I'd hear it.

     "Regina".

     I began turning up my radio really loud, trying to drown out His voice.  It never worked.  He spoke my name so clearly.  So softly.

     I partied that whole summer, making one bad decision after another.  I put myself in situations that could have ended really badly, but He protected me.  Even when I felt like He didn't want me, He was there.
     I finally received my acceptance into YWAM in August, five weeks before the program started.  I was elated!  He did want me!  Then reality set in.  I suddenly felt very dirty.  Unworthy.

     "Come."  It was that familiar voice.  So calming, so reassuring.

     Those next few weeks flew by as I tied up loose ends and prepared to go.  Finally the day came when I was to move in.  My parents drove me the four hours to my new home.  They hadn't seen the base before.  I think they were expecting a more traditional setting.  Instead, there was an office building, another for meals and classes, and four run-down mobile homes.  Later, my mom told me how she cried on the way back home because she felt so bad leaving me there.
   
     I finally felt at home.

13 Reasons Why

   

      I watch "13 Reasons Why".  There.  I said it.  I know it's controversial, and that it really stirred up a lot of conversation, good and bad, when it debuted a few years back.  I think conversation is important, especially when it allows people to have a voice that they may not have had before.  My adult children do not like that I watch it, and actually advised me against it.  However, I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  I could identify with so much of the plot line.  It was much of my own high school experience.  Some feared I would be triggered by watching; actually it was very cathartic.  It's strange for a 52-year-old woman to identify with a group of high school students, but watching transported me right back to high school years.

     I recently binge-watched season 3.  It's the best season so far.  I will warn you, it was often difficult to watch and the f-bombs fall like rain.  But this is the season that the characters find their voices, and finally tell their stories.  It was good to see how they supported each other and helped them understand each person's story could be told in the time frame that was best for them. 

     Sexual assault is never easy to talk about.  As hard as it is for women, it's even harder for men to talk about.  The statistics say that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 5 men will experience sexual assault before they graduate from high school.  Most of them will never tell anyone what happened and will live with that secret all of their lives.  I think "13 Reasons Why" will  help some of them to find their voice and tell their story.

     Here is mine.

     My early, early childhood was rough.  My father was physically and emotionally abusive to all of us, culminating in my mother's murder when I was 4.  He also made me shower with him, and touch him while we were in there.  This might seem mild, but it's still sexual abuse.

     After our mother's death, my younger sister and I ended up at our maternal grandmother's house.  She loved us with all of her heart.  My teen-aged uncles were still living at home, and my grandmother worked very hard to support all of us.  Unfortunately, that meant our older uncle babysat us sometimes.
     He came out of the bathroom wearing just a towel, and sat down beside me on the couch.  He said his girlfriend was coming over and he needed me to help him get ready for her.  He stood me on the floor in front of him and he opened his towel.  He put his penis into my tiny mouth, making me gag and try to escape.  He held my head there until he was done, again causing me to choke on his ejaculate.  He yelled at me for spitting it out.  Then, with his face close to mine, he hissed that I was to never tell anyone what happened.  He said my grandmother would punish me if she knew.

     So began my life of keeping secrets.

     My sister and I were eventually placed into foster care and then adopted.  My sexual abuse didn't appear on any paperwork, and I didn't feel safe to tell.  Plus I was so conflicted inside.  Our new family were Christians who taught us our bodies were our own, to not have sex before marriage, to not put ourselves in bad situations.  None of this meshed with what I had already experienced in my life.  And, my new family didn't know about it.  I felt like if I told them that they would see me differently and, maybe, not want me anymore. 
     I had a lot of trouble reconciling what they were trying to teach me about boundaries with how badly my boundaries had already been trampled on.  I entered my middle school years trying to figure this all out.

     Dennis was our neighbor, and we had a love/hate relationship.  His home life was super-brutal, he and his siblings were beaten on a regular basis by their father so I felt a bit of empathy towards them.  There were times when we got along really well, and there were times when he was just cruel to me. My parents didn't like us hanging out with them, for a number of reasons, but you know what they say about forbidden fruit.
     There were times when Dennis and I would kiss.  We got caught one time, and I was grounded because of the big hickey he left on my neck.  My parents and older sister made me feel so ashamed!  This only caused more conflict for me.  This was nothing compared to what I had already been through in my life.  But their reaction reinforced that it wasn't safe to tell my story.

     I was 12 when Dennis sexually assaulted me.  His family has an empty mobile home on their property that the kids would hang out in.  My parents has strictly forbidden my sister and I from going in there.  One summer day we were all hanging out, when Dennis and his younger brother asked us if we wanted a tour of the trailer.  They said they were making it into some sort fort.  My sister and I decided it was ok, so we went in.
     It started out innocently.  We walked from room to room as a group.  At one point Dennis told my sister and his brother to stay in a room where they had a bunch of games.  He said he wanted to show me something in another room.  I followed him.  There was a mattress on the floor. I looked at him, expecting there to be more.  He quickly pushed me onto the mattress, covering my mouth to stifle my screams.  Just as fast he was on top of me, pushing his tongue inside my mouth.  It was so slimy and his breath was bad.  He was dry humping me while he fumbled to unbutton my pants.  I tried reasoning with him, forcing myself to be calm while everything on my inside was frantic.  He ignored what I was saying, instead putting his hand up inside my shorts and underwear.  My mind was racing!  I knew it wouldn't be long til he won.  In my desperation, I broke into tears.  It caught him off guard and I was able to knock him off balance.  I ran through the trailer, grabbed my sister and leaped out the door.  We took a few minutes to regroup, then we headed back to our house.  When our mom asked where we'd been, we lied and said we'd been playing in the woods. 
     I never told anyone what happened because I was somewhere I knew I should not have been.  That made it my fault, right?

     I developed early, which caught the eyes of the older boys in our neighborhood.  They would appear in the yard while I was doing chores and ask me to go for a walk with them.  After my experience with Dennis, I knew that was bad news.  I made up plenty of excuses to make them leave.
     One night there was a group of us running around in the neighbor's yard.  Dennis's older brother and another neighbor showed up.  The three guys separated me from the group.  They held me on the ground and pulled my pants down.  I was fighting them with everything in me!  They were grabbing my breasts and crotch, laughing as they told me to be still.  I continued to struggle.  Then we I heard it... my dad whistling.  Everyone knew that meant we had to go home.  The guys released me, still laughing.  I pulled up my pants and ran home.  My mom asked why I had leaves in my hair.  I lied and said we had been throwing them in the air and some must have landed on me.
     Again, I kept it secret.  I felt like I would be blamed, so I told no one.

     All of this served to strengthen my introvert tendencies.  In high school I had friends, but no one close and definitely not close enough to tell them these kind of secrets.  I went to parties with friends but I had a heightened sense of needing to be in control, which meant I often stood out for not "relaxing".
     Dennis and his family had moved away while I was in middle school and, for a little while, mostly girls ruled our neighborhood.  One of the three guys involved in the earlier assault still lived with his parents, but he basically avoided us.
     My junior and senior years of high school I worked as a life guard at an amusement park near our house.  By best friend lived right next door to me, and worked at the pool, too.  She had way more freedom than me, with none of the fear.  Sometimes I'd go to parties with her or we would hang out at whichever house had no parents.
     One of those times my parents and sister were away for vacation.  My friend and I invited several of her guy friends to hang at my house.  Someone brought beer and some harder stuff.  We played games, listened to music and all of us ended up falling asleep on my living room floor.  I woke up laying on my stomach with someone's hand under me, a hand inside my pants.  I felt the familiar terror rising up in me. I pushed my body hard into the floor.  He growled, and pushed in his hand harder. The pain was horrible!  I was starting to panic when I realized other people were waking up.  He removed his hand, but I pretended to be asleep until he left because I didn't want him to know I knew.
     Once more I kept the secret and carried the shame.  My parents were away and I broke the rules by having people over.  So this was my fault, too, right?

     After high school I got a job direct-selling cutlery.  The company I worked for had weekly meetings and, occasionally, conferences requiring hotel stays.  Both were just excuses to do a whole lot of drinking.  I remember one of those conferences well.  We had spent the day touring the factory and meeting the bigwigs.  We also discovered that when you're part of a convention at the hotel, the liquor store didn't card you.  What could go wrong with a couple of hundred drunk teens to early-20 year-olds in a hotel?  We danced.  We watched movies.  We sat in the halls and drank. 
     I woke up in a chair, a guys was pulling on my arms, trying to get me to stand.  He said he wanted to help me back to my room.  I didn't know who he was, and I also couldn't see him very clearly.  He stood in front of me and tried to lift me by putting his arms under my armpits.  Once he got me up, he pulled my body tight up against his.  He was kissing me and groping my breast.  He tried to get me to walk saying he was trying to help me, but even stone cold drunk I knew he wasn't.  I acted like I passed out and slumped back down into the chair.  He called me a slut and whore, but he left me there.
     I didn't tell anybody.  I was drunk.  I was passed out where anyone could have harmed me.  This was my fault, right?

     All of these events served to create some pretty hostile thoughts towards men.  It became evident to me that men were only interested in me for what my body could do for them.  I was so disinterested in men that my dad asked me if I was "funny" (his term for gay).  No, not at all.  I was just harmed, damaged and nobody knew.  I was starting to take back control of my own body.
     This has created many obstacles in my soon-to-be 30-year marriage.  When my husband first began to show romantic interest in me, I would vomit most of this to him in an attempt to scare him off.  But he didn't run.  He has not always understood what I've been through or how it continues to shape who I am, but he has provided space for my story.

     If statistics prove true, there will be several people reading this who have experienced sexual assault.  It's time to start unpacking your story.  There are safe places and safe people who can help.  Your voice will come.  Don't let anyone force you to speak.  But remember these things:

• you are brave
• you are strong
• it's not your fault

When you're ready:

• info@joyfulheartfoundation.org
• www.13reasonswhy.info
• www.nomore.org

   

My mind says it all

Did you ever have a conversation in your head?  I do it all the time, and I write the dialogue for all the parties involved.  This helps me process how to handle a situation.  It can also backfire on me and I end up worked into a frenzy.

Did you ever have something happen and at the time you felt it really wasn't a big deal, but as time wore on and you change your mind?  I do this.  And the more I think-- read obsess-- about the situation, the more dire it becomes.  Some event that was truly innocuous can become full-blown treason once it's been through all the conversations in my mind.

I don't know why it's so easy to think the worst of people.  Why have I decided that an innocent action was really driven by some deeper, darker motivation?  I try not to operate that way when I deal with others, so why do I set the standard so low in what I expect from them? I guess I've conditioned myself to "get to the bottom", whether that's based in reality or not.

It drives me crazy when I think people assume I behave like everyone else, yet I am so quick to assume everyone, on some level, is out to get me and so I need to role play in my mind to know why.  My mind is a scary place.  I've long known this.  To try to understand it is crazy in itself.  As I journey to make myself a better person I have to try to understand the mystery that is me.  It's time to hold myself to the same standards I use on others.