Hiding in Plain Sight

How aware are we of our surroundings at any given time? I confess that I’m a people observer. I always have been. When I go into public places, I’m always looking around to the point of distraction. What am I looking for? Mostly danger–anyone pacing nervously, anyone with their hands in wrong places, children who look uneasy around their guardians, unscrupulous characters–those sorts of things. I go into full ADHD mode when I’m out. You know those leashes that they make for kids? Well, I should have to wear one when I go out with my wife so she doesn’t lose me.

Why am I so attentive? You could argue that it’s paranoia, but I assure you that I’m not a paranoid person. But I do like to be aware of my surroundings. Maybe we should all be more aware of our surroundings. I can remember working at a Pennzoil oil shop when I was attending seminary. One day our boss pulled us all together and said, “Did any of you see a suspicious guy at the carwash yesterday?” None of us had. He went on to explain that the police stopped at the shop and wanted the video tapes because a college girl was vacuuming her car when she noticed a man snapping pictures of her while masturbating. To my knowledge, they never found the guy.

I recall a time last year when my wife and then 2 year old daughter were with our in-laws at a shopping mall in Grand Rapids. As our daughter was riding the carousel with grandma and grandpa, I noticed a man sitting next to the carousel who looked out of place. The more I watched him, the more I noticed he was infatuated with some young girls riding the carousel. I told my brother-in-law to watch this man’s face when these 2 girls came around. It was disturbing. I reported the man to the carousel operator and she said, “Come to think of it, this man was sitting in the same spot for several hours last night.” After I reported him, she called security on him.

Were these girls’ parents aware that their daughters had a pedo-fantasizer mentally undressing their daughters? From my perspective, they didn’t have a clue. This type of thing happens millions of times a day at any given time. Remember Jaycee Lee Dugard? She was abducted by sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife in 1991 and was held captive in his back yard until discovered in 2009. He did what was a common tactic of many pedophiles–the old “I’m filming something interesting here” trick while actually shooting footage of children. Watch this clip beginning at the 2:30 mark:

This is not an uncommon tactic. Some are more obvious than others. This story is about a pedophile giving a nice Valentine’s treat to a Gresham, OR man’s 5 & 8 year old daughters while walking to the school bus stop. The father recalls: “I saw a guy in a silver car with four doors and he didn’t belong around here. He was staring at my daughters funny.” So he walked around the car to see what the man was doing. You guessed it, he was caught in the act of masturbating. The dad punched the man then the man drove off.

How does this stuff happen so often? I can assure you that I barely scratch the surface of this epidemic through this website. As the son of a pedophile, I can assure you that they truly are hiding in plain sight, a term I borrow from this 1988 article about pedophile preacher Tony Leyva. He sexually abused 100 young boys, but investigators estimate he actually abused around 800 victims. “Brother Tony” was a Pentecostal preacher who spent his time on the road as a very famous evangelist. He passed the boys around a pedophile prostitution ring of other preachers, an organist, and government officials. How does one person sexually assault 800 victims before getting caught? Unfortunately, these numbers are not unique. Statistics are staggering. Pedophiles truly are hiding in plain sight.

We’ve got to be more attentive to our surroundings. We’ve got to be louder. We’ve got to stand up for justice and prevention. If you want to find out what you can be doing within your own communities, you can register for my free 3 hour webinar here. I’ll have guest Les Ferguson, Jr. joining the discussion in the last hour. It’s from 9AM-12 Noon eastern this Saturday. The webinar is open, so you can join it at any time within that 3 hour period. This option is for those who cannot attend the entire webinar but who would still want to hear part of it.

See some of you on Saturday!

Protecting Your Kids: Preventive Tools For Parents

There’s an irony that comes with technology, convenience, and efficiency–the more “advanced” we become, the more fragmented our knowledge is and the more socially isolated we become. Unfortunately, isolation of children makes them vulnerable targets for abusers, and it certainly doesn’t make for healthy relationships within the family structure. Here’s a great video to illustrate how social media actually makes us more isolated:

A professor once told our counseling class that being BUSY is an acronym for Being Under Satan’s Yoke. It would take me a few years to find out just how prophetic that statement was. Ecclesiastes 5:3 says, “For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words” (yes, it does say business, not busyness. . . but much business creates much busyness!). In a time-crunched environment, I’ve found that busyness is something that keeps many of us educators from finding the time to network our resources for protecting children. I get asked a lot, “What are some resources that you can point us to?” To be honest, I find myself asking that same question. The frustration at the lack of a clear pooling of resources has actually been motivating. I’d like to work on a project to create a network of resources–from prevention of abuse to what constitutes good organizational policies, to what steps to take for finding and funding victim counseling, etc. The good news is that there are a lot of resources out there. The bad news is that, for now, there’s no good networking of these resources that I’m aware of. I’d like to change that.

As for now, I don’t have such a tool developed. Therefore, when I come across valuable resources, I will highlight them via my blog. Today I’d like to highlight the work of Lauren Book. She is a survivor of child sex abuse and I just finished her memoir on abuse titled It’s OK to Tell: A Story of Hope And Recovery. The book is excellent and I highly recommend it. Lauren took the worst imaginable experience and has turned it into an opportunity to arm children with the tools to prevent abuse from happening to them. She is the founder of Lauren’s Kids. Their mission is “To prevent sexual abuse through awareness and education, and to help survivors heal with guidance and support.” She and her dad have successfully lobbied for funding to keep counseling centers for the sexually abused opened in Florida.

I’m also impressed with the curriculum that Lauren has gotten into the schools in Florida. I checked out her Safer, Smarter Kids for parents and was really impressed. I highly, highly recommend spending some time on Lauren’s site, viewing the curriculum, and going over it with your children. When I speak places, a question that always arises comes from parents of young children. They want to know to know what they should be teaching their kids and how they can arm their kids with knowledge to prevent abuse. Fortunately, now I can point them to another great resource!

If any of you know of other great resources out there, please let me know via the comments section.

My Child Is More Important Than Your Feelings

Jesus loved people. . . enough to offend them at times. Sometimes he name-called. He liked to use the word “hypocrites” for religious people who treated others poorly. One time, after calling a group of people “hypocrites,” Jesus’ followers said, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matt. 15:12 ESV). Did Jesus apologize? Nope! He responds with more name calling. . . “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matt. 15:14).

We are a reactive society. When someone is offended, Twitter lights up like a Christmas Holiday tree, death threats included. Because we are a reactive society, we often become reactive to others’ reactions. I find myself sometimes worrying to the point of paranoia about hurting someone else’s feelings because I don’t want the hassle of being ridiculed or threatened. Blogging about child abuse is difficult. I try very hard not to be offensive or to hurt people’s feelings. But then I remember that Jesus wasn’t concerned with massaging hurting feelings. He was concerned with love, justice, and being a voice for the broken and marginalized–in spite of mobs of people who threatened to imprison or kill him.

I get a lot of people who ask me a lot of questions in a lot of different ways, but essentially most of them boil down to this: “How do I protect my kids from abusers?” In order to answer this question, we must first know something about the abusers. First of all, child sexual abuse is about power and control more than it is about sexual attraction. To be sure, the vast majority of pedophiles have normal adult sexual relationships and only about 7% of pedophiles report being attracted only to children. So begs the question–why do perpetrators risk so much to sexually molest young children when they are also attracted to adults? Why not pursue a sexual relationship with an adult, or have an adult affair, or have sex with adult prostitutes? Granted, there are many factors and many of them are complex, but studies with pedophiles show that the thrill of doing something so out of the ordinary is part of their enjoyment. So is the ability to control and manipulate. Plus children are extremely vulnerable, easy to sexually manipulate, and easy to keep quiet. People with deviant sexual patterns find ways to isolate and victimize children. If we were to oversimplify things for a moment, we could say that deviant thrill seekers find vulnerable people and they attack.

To illustrate this in a visual way, there is a “game” that’s rapidly gaining popularity among teenagers in the streets. You may have heard of it. It’s called Knockout. The idea is for a group of teens to randomly find the most vulnerable person walking on a sidewalk or riding a bike. Whoever sucker punches the person and knocks them out cold (or kills them) is the Knockout King. They target defenseless women, children, and the elderly. There literally are no restrictions on who is targeted. It’s tough to watch, but it is happening and it’s becoming popular:

Child molestation is, in some ways, a lot like the game Knockout. Perpetrators find the most vulnerable kid, groom them, sexually assault them, and move on to their next victim. To make matters worse, many pedophiles are very good at manipulating the feelings of adults and can easily make them feel bad for a number of different things. If you draw boundaries to protect your child from abuse and someone makes you feel bad for that, remember that your goal is not to protect the feelings of others. It’s to protect your child.

If anyone gives you a guilt trip (and they will) for not allowing your child to go on a sleepover, or if someone makes you feel bad for any reason whatsoever, remember that your child is more important than others’ feelings. Predators prey on vulnerable people by acting as if their feelings are hurt. Don’t fall for it. Keep the focus on your child’s well-being. If you begin to soften your approach on setting boundaries for your child, just remember the game Knockout. Let your guard down for a second and someone could eventually swoop in for the sucker punch.

Sometimes protecting your child means that you will offend people. Sometimes other people may have hurt feelings. You may jeopardize relationships or be labeled a whack job. But guess what? God expects us adults to be protectors of children. There is no excuse for negligence. Keep protecting your child and stop worrying about protecting the feelings of others. . . . without guilt.

Corey Feldman, Hollywood, and Pedophilia

It came as no surprise at all when I saw news articles recently come out outlining Corey Feldman’s new book, Coreyography, revealing Corey was molested as a child. Corey describes the grooming process, how he was made to believe it was his fault, and how he was told that the sexual encounters were what “normal people do.” All of these things are stripped right from the same playbook of pedophiles. Having a very broken home life with drug-addicted parents, Corey was primed, as currently are millions of other children in this nation, to be a vulnerable target for abuse. Yes–sexual abuse of minors is even in Hollywood.

Corey believes that pedophilia is a huge problem in Hollywood, and that it is everywhere else too. He says, ” I think there’s a lot more of it than we’d like to believe and a lot more of it in all paths of life. The world is a very, very dark place right now. Right now, more than any other time in the history of mankind we need to have spirituality in our lives, we need to believe in a higher power and stay positive no matter what.” 1. Apparently, experts conclude that pedophiles are a bigger problem in Hollywood than in Corey’s day.2.

I would agree, too. Statistics show it is true. But so does experience. Recently, I met and prayed with a Christian man dying of AIDS who was from West Hollywood. I asked if I could ask him very pointed questions about life as a gay man, and he was very open and honest. What he described sounded more like a horror flick than reality. At the age of 49, he had outlived every one of his friends. Every single one. As a paramedic, he described routine calls for overdoses and suicide attempts in the San Fernando Valley, the porn production capitol of the world. His patients for those types of calls were almost exclusively porn actors. But he also told me something that had struck a nerve with me. He said, “Jimmy, all you hear about is the glamor of the gay lifestyle. As one who lived my whole life in this community, there are things that go on that you wouldn’t believe. And child molestation is wildly out of control here.” Before anyone rushes to blast me, these are not my words. I passed no judgment on my friend. I simply let him tell his story. As a man who was, for years, sodomized by his biological father when he was a young boy, he had the authority to speak on the subject.

Child pornography and pedophilia are everywhere. On lunch break today, the local news had a story of young minors who posted hardcore nude pictures on a pornographic website because their boyfriends told them to. Ironically my own website, which tries to combat child sex abuse, is bombarded daily with traffic from people seeking child porn. Just today the top searches which led people to this very site are “child sex site,” “very young teen hardcore porn,” and “pinay child phonography.” I know what you’re thinking, “What is pinay child phonography?” Pinay is a slang word meaning a Filipina girl but it’s also slang used to describe the most beautiful kind of girl alive. Phonography has appeared almost daily as a search term and is an intentional misspelling of pornography to sort of “fly under the radar” of illegally searching for child porn.

The bad news is that this is a pandemic. Corey Feldman is right that there is a lot more going on “than we’d like to believe.” That’s just it. We don’t want to believe it. So we deny. And the more quiet we are, the more enabled abusers are. It’s also bad news that the majority of abuse is not reported. And the majority of the abuse that is reported never gets investigated. Corey experienced this in December 1993 when he reported the abuse to the Santa Barbara Sheriffs department and they never investigated.3. I experienced it last year when I turned in a prominent person in the churches by handing over files of explicit pictures and comments posted online with young children, only to be told that there was not enough evidence. This happens all the time and it needs to change.

The good news is that more and more people are speaking out about abuse. Where it was taboo in the past, it is slowly gaining attention today. And it’s not just a fringe group quietly typing away at the keyboard. I’m encouraged by the people who have contacted me privately to join forces, who have their own books and websites to specifically educate others and speak out. I’m encouraged by people like Corey Feldman who take an unpopular approach and risk their careers to speak out. I’m encouraged by people like Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, who is speaking out about her sexual abuse as a child. And I’m encouraged by Jaycee Lee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart who were brave enough to recount their horrible kidnappings and rapes from men who stole their innocence. I’m encouraged by former porn stars, prostitutes, and strippers who now have thriving ministries to help rescue women from the industry who’ve never known anything but abuse and exploitation. I’m encouraged by the National Child Protection Training Center for the war they have waged on abuse. And on and on it goes.

Finally, I’m encouraged by my readers who read these blogs, pray, and comment. This is not easy stuff to talk about or read about. But you all do it. And so we press on. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17 ESV).

When Boundaries Fail, Part 3

security-cameras-over-fence-mounted-steel-barbed-wire-30665401 I could write a lot more on boundaries–don’t even get me started about church leaders and school teachers texting their students! But I decided that today I would write to the countless people who have either failed to set proper boundaries, or their boundaries were still violated and their children were sexually abused. There are over 40 million survivors of child sex abuse in the U.S. alone. Obviously there has been a major breakdown somewhere. My wife and my biggest fear is that boundaries we have set will be overridden by a predator and our child will be molested. Without instilling fear into my readers, the reality is that it happens every day, thousands of times a day.

Should boundaries be crossed to the point of your child being abused, I offer some guidelines to help you through the trauma (and it is very traumatic).

#1 Never be Arrogant or Naïve Enough to Believe That Your Child Cannot be Sexually Abused
James 4:7 (ESV) says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I just read an excellent article titled What Should You Do if You’re Threatened by a Mass Murderer?. It spells out places mass murderers inevitably target: places that offer little or no resistance. These places are specifically targeted by murderers for a reason–they can easily gain access, they can easily kill (young children are statistically the most targeted because they cannot physically defend themselves), and they can sometimes easily escape. Places that offer resistance (i.e. places with armed guards or armed permit-holding citizens) are rarely targeted. Why? Because they are actively resisting evil. It’s tough for a coward to get through armed guards in order to kill, so most likely he won’t.

Also be aware that over 60% of sexual molesters live under the same roof as their victims. This is most likely because there is easy, unhindered access to victims. We must be vigilant even in our own homes and be open to the possibility that spouses or children my suffer with pedophilic attraction to young children.

I’ve said before that sexual predators, like water, find the path of least resistance. It’s time we all stand together and be guards who are armed with knowledge and boldness. Resist. Make it tough for someone to gain access to your child. At the same time, we have to be open to the possibility that our children, even with safeguards in place, could still be victimized, which leads me to:

#2 Talk Openly With Your Children About Their Bodies and Always Listen
Our daughter is 3. Their brains can only comprehend so much. Talk with your children, at their level, about privacy with their bodies. And ALWAYS let your children know that they can talk to you about ANYTHING, and that they will not be in trouble for telling you. Just last night, my precious wife had a mother-to-daughter talk and told our daughter, Eden, “You know that nobody is ever allowed to touch you down there, right? But if anyone ever does, you need to tell mommy or daddy right away. You won’t ever be in trouble for telling us.”

This is extremely important. Eden knows that (1)her body is private and is off limits for anyone to touch in certain places and (2)if anyone ever does (God forbid!), she can tell mommy or daddy without getting in trouble. Victims are most often groomed and framed by perpetrators to believe that the abuse was the child’s fault. Why is this important? Because it guarantees silence! Children will often be told something like this: “You came on to me. I didn’t want this but you turned me on. If you ever tell I’ll let everyone know that you initiated it.” Children believe this because they are highly susceptible to suggestion, gullible and, by nature, are trusting of every adult. A child who believes that the abuse is his or her fault needs, needs, needs reinforcement by their parents that, should abuse happen, it is never their fault and they will not be in trouble for telling.

Strangely, we don’t hesitate to teach children fire drills, tornado drills, gymnasium safety, etc., but when it comes to teaching them sexual abuse safety, we clam up. And predators know it!

Furthermore, a child needs a stable, peaceful home in order to tell. It takes extreme courage and heroism for a child to tell an adult about abuse. If a child lives in a home where mom and dad are constantly shouting, blaming, and accusing one another or their children, a child will likely never tell their parents if abuse has happened. This is because they associate telling with yelling, screaming, and finger pointing. A child who’s been told by a perpetrator that the abuse is her fault will only be afraid of further rejection if they believe a parent will agree, which leads me to:

#3 The Three Most Important Words a Child Who Discloses Abuse Can Hear Is: “I Believe You”
It was the day before my dad’s sentencing in 2012. I was asked by a friend to do a training for his staff on child abuse. After my presentation, several young ladies came to talk to me. One young woman came to me in tears and told me that she, as a child, had told her mom about her dad sexually abusing her. Her mom didn’t believe her and actually yelled at her for “lying.” How, pray tell, will children ever trust anyone to protect them if their own mothers accuse them of lying?

I’m tired of reading accounts where children who are repeatedly abused by the same perpetrator, say to themselves, “I’ll just initiate this (sex) and get it over with.” No child should have to feel that he should endure abuse because nobody will believe him if he tells. If a child discloses abuse, don’t probe, don’t blow up, don’t tell them you’ll kill their abuser, and don’t tell them that they must be mistaken. Do, for the sake of your child, be calm. Do tell them that you believe them. Do tell them that you will do everything in your power to keep them safe. And do report it to the police for investigation.

#4 Churches Should be a Place of Peace and Refuge
I was at a training workshop on abuse and heard stories of children who, after disclosing abuse, were forced to stand before their abuser and forgive him “because the Bible says if you don’t you won’t be forgiven.” Forgiven for what? That very statement suggests that the child did something wrong. And who in their right mind would force a child to stare their abuser in the eye and utter the words, “I forgive you.” I’ll tell you who–the person who has never been abused and has no idea, and doesn’t care to know what it is like, to be sexually humiliated as a child.

It’s troubling to hear all the stories of children who are forced to be put on the stand and relive their abuse to a group of strangers. It’s humiliating. Devastating. What’s worse is hearing all the stories of prosecutors who lament that, more often than not, it is the perpetrators, not the victims, who have teams of people in the courtrooms to support them. Churches are not exempt. What in God’s name do you think it does to young children’s souls when they see people who show up to support their abuser? I beg you to watch this 6 minute clip and listen to the voice of a victim’s mother who just went through this. A Rose City, MI teacher who raped a male student had 6 colleagues write letters of leniency to the judge because “it did no harm to the child.”

As a minister, I loudly and publicly tell my congregation that abuse will not be tolerated whatsoever. Our church will be a place of refuge, not turmoil for children. I want children who may have been abused, or who may one day be, know that we will stand beside them. They can trust us. They can tell us. They will never have to face their abuser and they will never be shamed by their church family because of abuse that happened to them. And finally:

#5 Don’t Get Trapped in the Past
When I found out how many victims my dad had, what their ages were, and some of the details of what he did to them, there are no words to describe the sense of guilt I carried. How did I not see it? What could I have done differently? Why did I fail? How could I be so naïve? I felt a huge burden for what had happened, and I understand that many parents whose boundaries have failed never can move beyond the guilt. How did I let this happen to my baby? How can God forgive me? What if I had been more bold? What if I knew more about abuse? How could I be so trusting?

The devil will gain a huge foothold over your life if you live in the past. The best thing you can do for your child who has been abused is to first forgive yourself and then to focus on protecting and healing your child. Children who see a parent who feels constant remorse and guilt will sometimes feel guilty for ever having told. They do not need to carry that added burden.

No More Mr. Nice Guy: Jesus and Children

It’s a scripture that many avoid. We don’t want to believe that Jesus would utter violent words, so when he does we pretend like he didn’t really say them. But what if we took seriously Jesus defense of children? What if churches were willing to go to war for the protection of the kids who were in their care? Jesus is often painted as a fuzzy, cuddly kind of guy who was always soft spoken–a pacifist who turned to the other cheek at all costs, even the cross.

But the reality is that Jesus sheds his nice-guy persona when children are willfully led into darkness. Listen to his words: “He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea‘” (Matthew 18:2-6 NIV). I’m not arguing that Jesus was talking about vigilante justice here. Rather, he is talking about the justice of God. Over and over again Jesus talks about judgment, exclusion from the Kingdom, and torment with weeping and gnashing of teeth. God does not smile at abusers, pat them on the head, and say, “There, there, my unfaithful servant. Just try harder next time.” And neither does Jesus.

In fact, it is not often that we find Jesus visibly upset. But when children are involved, the gloves come off. The word for “to become angry at” is only used once of Jesus, and it appears in Mark 10:14: “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant” (Mark 10:13-14 NIV). Jesus then rebuked his disciples and took the kids in his arms to bless them. But only after he tells them that anyone who doesn’t receive the kingdom of God like a kid will never make it there. An angry Jesus. A Jesus who says a person would be better off to have death by drowning than to cause a kid to sin. In other words, “You think that downing was bad? You haven’t seen anything yet!” Let that sink in for a minute.

After conducting a workshop on child abuse, a young woman came up to me in tears. “I tried telling my mom that dad sexually abused me. She told me that I probably just imagined it. A few years later I got the strength to talk to someone at church about it. I was told that the Bible says to forgive and I need to move on. How can I trust anyone anymore? Doesn’t God care that he did this to me? I don’t even know if I believe in God anymore.”

When our response to abuse is a pacifist view, and when children are told to “just get over it” or to “learn to forgive like the Bible says,” I wonder if some of the wrath of God will not be reserved for them as well. I know–but their intentions were good. They didn’t mean to harm a kid by telling them those things. But guess what? They did. The last time I read my Bible cover to cover, I failed to find where people are rocket launched to heaven for having good intentions. We Christians are just as likely to “cause one of these little ones to sin” as the abuser if we give them a picture of God as someone who couldn’t care less about their abuse. And pulling scriptures out of context in order to not have to face an uncomfortable conversation is no excuse for damaging children’s eternal souls.

I’m just thinking out loud, but perhaps we should tell our sons and daughters, our children in the pews, our students in the schoolroom that we’d be damned (literally) if we would ever intentionally allow someone to harm them. I go out of my way to tell my 3 year old daughter that I will always try to protect her and that if anyone ever does something to hurt her she can always tell her mom or me. Kids should feel protected. They were designed by a Creator to feel safe and secure in a stable home. They shouldn’t have to fear that if they tell mom and dad about something bad that happened, they will get in trouble or be ignored. One night as I was putting my daughter to bed she said, “Dad, you make me feel safe.”

We exchanged “I love you”-s and as I walked out of her room I fell apart. I cried as I thought about the countless children who feel abandoned rather than safe. It’s time to take a closer look at the anger of Jesus and live in His shadow.