Sometimes It's Appropriate To Swear

Eric and I planned to make a weekend out of the Heritage Home Educators of Washington Conference in 2007, just as we had for several years. We were needing the time away as a couple and I always needed the home schooling encouragement by this time of the year.

This conference happened to be just days after Patrick had plead guilty to "Communication with a minor for immoral purposes" and was also ordered to take a sexual psycho evaluation, with his actual sentencing still pending. 


So when I say the last person in the world I expected to see at this family-oriented conference was Patrick Rojas. I mean he was literally the last person I expected to see. In retrospect, I should have expected him to be there. Up to this point, almost always the opposite of what we expected to happen-happened. Patrick was at the conference with his parents, Eddie and Kathy, and his 12 other siblings.

The Rojas family members were actually guests of Michael Bradrick's, who is on the Heritage Home Educators of Washington board of directors. 


We called Jim and Dave (the elders) of our church and requested that they have Patrick leave the conference--that is was too hard for us to see him. As he didn't have any children he was homeschooling, it seemed reasonable that he leave so we could attend the conference in peace. Jim and Dave communicated to us that this was something out of their sphere as elders. They were willing to communicate our wishes, but they would not tell him that he had to leave.

It took hours for all of this to be relayed and many tears. We requested that Dave notify the leaders of the conference as to Patrick's current legal status. We fully expected them to want Patrick to leave this family event. Patrick was walking around freely amongst unknowing families and children. When Dave called back he said Patrick was indeed going to stay. They felt it was good for him to hear the word of God that was being preached. If we wanted they could help us avoid seeing him by communicating with each other on cell phones as to his location.

Once again they deferred to Patrick. We left devastated.

We asked Dave if they had notified the leaders of the conference. He said that they had and that the leaders of the conference felt they didn't have the right to ask Patrick to leave. "All were welcome to attend." 


Dave Barrueto actually stated that our request for Patrick to leave was "unreasonable."

Over an hour after the last phone conversation, we were driving home from Overlake where the conference was held when we received another call from Dave Barrueto, who said, "Patrick had been thinking and decided to leave the conference so we could attend it." The actual conference only had about two hours left by this point and we were one and a half hours away. All of this originally started with a phone call to Dave at around 7am that morning. Now it was about 3pm. Our response to Dave: "It's too little, too late!"

I have a friend that gave me a card during this time that reads, on the outside:

"Sometimes it's appropriate to swear."!

On the inside, it said, 


"Like now."

Totally *!@#ing appropriate.......This was one of those moments!