Prayer Time for the Schneider's...not really!

Shortly after the Valentines dinner, I went to a friend and expressed my deep hurt in the fact that the church had hosted this dinner and that she and her husband had attended the event. I went on to express that I would expect people in the church to be literally praying with us or the Rojas family (at this point we had no idea that Eddie and Kathy Rojas were involved nor did we have any idea of how deviant Patrick was.) It was not a time for status quo.

Right after this conversation, my friend started orchestrating a prayer time for us. We were willing to show up for this, but didn't want the Rojas family there. While we didn't have specific information at this point, we sensed something wasn't right. It appeared they were in support of Patrick hiring an attorney.

Eric expressed this concern with our elder, Jim Cameron. Jim stated that Eddie and Kathy Rojas hadn't done anything wrong and made it clear they would be at the prayer time for our family. Jim also stated that if we didn't attend this prayer time, we were letting satan win and missing out on what God had for us. A couple came over and pleaded for us to attend this prayer time. They felt it was vital for the congregation to see that we were devastated and broken--not angry and bitter (as some had said.) 

We showed up at the church against our better judgment. We brought a couple that did not attend that church to help filter what was happening.

The meeting started out being more of a question-and-answer time directed by Jim Cameron and Dave Barrueto. Eddie and Kathy Rojas sat quietly in the front row. We were asked how we would like the congregation to pray for us. We took that time to remind those in attendance that we had always been willing to talk to anyone who had questions. We stayed where we were seated while the prayers began. Dave Barrueto ended the prayer time with a prayer for Patrick. I couldn't barely stand it. I was sickened by that. Pray for Patrick--fine, but don't do it in my presence! Not now. This was another moment that was written off by most as, "Oh, this was just an innocent mistake." It wasn't simply a mistake! It was rude and insensitive! It was purposeful!

This was the last time we attended that church, but it took another devastating interaction with Patrick, the Rojas family, and the elders before we had the strength to actually officially leave the church.

From "Insensitive With a Purpose" post.

Clear Right Side, Clear Wrong Side

More from "Pretending Status Quo"

When it became clear that the elders were in on the cover up (by their own admission at a church meeting) and that Eddie had gone on the run with most of his family. Eric and I felt that the families that stayed with the church really communicated by their actions (or non-action) which side they were on.

YES, at this point we believed there was a clear right side and a clear wrong side, both morally and biblically. We felt it was necessary to cut ourselves from any family that was still standing along side the elders and the church during that time. None of this was done lightly or without much personal grief. All of our children suffered on different levels, in particularly by losing friendships that had been nurtured for six years. All of our regular activities were affected by this. We had built a community with these families. We had literally moved our family so we could be closer to the church and more involved with this church community.

If you can imagine, we were in the country on just shy of one acre, homeschooling, juggling six kids, and  suddenly very isolated. Something died inside of me when all those families continued to fellowship with this church body. I don't even know how to adequately express what I felt. But I remember thinking how can we communicate to our children that you only stand up for what is right if it is easy or convenient? This was no small matter. If there was a time to stand up and do the right thing, this was it! There is still a core group that have stayed on with Jim Cameron and Dave Barrueto as elders.

We  had one family come to us personally and ask for forgiveness for the way they treated us during that time. They were sincere and I believe honestly understood the grief their actions caused us. They were also realistic and knew although we forgave them, everything was different now and did not expect us to be friends. The husband ended up writing a very long letter outlining (from a biblical point of view), how the church should have handled this situation and how to respond to an un-repentant Patrick as a christian. His letter was sent to all the church members and some other leaders that support what the Rojas family has done. What was strange to us was everything in his letter, we had been saying all through the court process (remember this went from January to August), but we didn't have scriptures attached to every statement. Thankfully his letter did seem to open the eyes of some.

We have a friend that always refers to the "ripple effect" that Patrick's crime caused. Like when you drop a rock in the water and you see the ripples expand further and further from that one little stone. I pray that the "ripple effect" from this little blog will grow and grow and grow and shine light into the darkness, be helpful to some, healing to others, and mean freedom for the Rojas girls!

What If

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.~Martin Luther King Jr.

I'd like to explore "What if we didn't call the police, question?"'

If you have read my previous posts and will assume some of the actions of the pastor, Eddie, (the predator's father) and elders stayed the same, It is logical to conclude we would have never known that our child was sexually molested beyond "a few kisses," and our family would have been counseled by the elders that true forgiveness meant fellowshipping again with Patrick (the abuser), the "relatives" that Patrick had sexually abused would still be vulnerable of being his victims again, Patrick would be able to pursue a career in any field (including working with children), Patrick would certainly add more victims to his resume, and our child would not have received the proper help and would be a continuous victim (literally and/or emotionally.)

I know some adults do not report the crime of childhood sexual abuse.  I submit to you, if you do not report a crime of sexual abuse against a child you are also abusing the child (in a different way.)

I want you to think about this: If Eddie would have educated himself on pedophilia the first time he discovered that Patrick had sexually abused one of his "nameless relatives" at age 15, (which according to Patrick's evaluation was his first victim.) IF, Eddie would have sought out the proper help for the "nameless relative" and reported Patrick and properly protected others from Patrick and sought out professional help for Patrick, then the five children that followed could have been spared the trauma and devastation of being sexually molested by Patrick! 


Instead, Eddie and Kathy Rojas chose to stay purposefully ignorant at the expense of innocent children (even their own.) I do not want to in any way be part of hiding or keeping secret any information that might possibly help protect children from being victimized by Patrick (or anyone else involved in hiding his crimes or hiding that he is a predator.)

If nothing else, I hope this brings awareness to parents and anyone that is responsible for children. Assuming the statistics are correct and 1 in 4 girls are sexually molested before the age of 18, this is an epidemic! Flushing these predators out into the light, by naming them and exposing their crimes, by demanding tougher laws with real prison sentences for sexually motivated crimes against children, and by educating ourselves on the issue of childhood sexual abuse  (www.darkness2light.org/ ) we will start to turn around this epidemic.

The change starts with you and with me! Are you willing to be an advocate for children? Are you willing to call and e-mail your State representatives? Are you willing to forward this blog to your contacts?


*Partly from "Was It Worth It Post".

Questions Considered Gossip

From my view, our church was in crisis. The pastor's adult son had victimized our child and the police were involved, shouldn't people be asking questions?

Instead questions were considered "gossip" and the congregation bought that hook, line, and sinker.

One of the events that really bothered me was when the leadership decided to have a "Valentines Dinner" for the married couples.(about 1 month into everything) Of course, we were invited.....WHAT??....What planet were these people from? I just could not act as if nothing happened. My child was being interviewed by a sexual assault specialist, we were being interviewed by the sheriff investigating the case, we were being contacted by Patrick's lawyer, we were finding out more and more information about pedophiles and how they operate, we were being told that Patrick was refusing to cooperate with the state, and we were realizing that our leaders were in fact minimizing the sexual abuse of a child--our child.

Somehow during this I had the presence of mind to realize the best thing we could do for our child was acknowledge that a crime did in fact occur. That was the start of my conviction to really live this out. We were not going to pretend that everything was as if it was before the victimization of our child. We were going to deal with this now...in hopes of saving our child from a life time of "stuffing their emotions" and hopefully minimize the long term damage and hold that sexual molestation can have on an individual.

*From "Pretending Status Quo"

Something Wasn't Right

Early on, it became clear to Eric and I that "something wasn't right."After a series of attempts where we tried to explain to the elders our belief that what in fact happened was bigger and more serious than "just inappropriate affection." We were cautioned about gossip, becoming bitter, that is was wrong to listen to "worldly" psychology, and that we needed to get to a place of forgiveness (which in their interpretation meant immediate reconciliation with Patrick and our family) we knew we needed to break from this congregation and it's leadership.

This was the start of our isolation. Some would say the isolation was self inflicted. I would argue we were collateral damage that the leadership was willing to lose in order to save their church. To stand with our family would have meant standing against the Rojas family. The elders were "used" by Eddie Rojas BUT they had an opportunity to tell the truth to us and the authorities BUT they chose to stay silent. If the elders felt they needed to stay silent out of a biblical obligation, then why, within days after Patrick was sentenced (and protected from further charges in our case) did they break "privilege"  and tell a room full of church members that they knew detailed information about what he did to our child and that they didn't report it?

It has been said that we are the ones that are in sin....we are angry, bitter, and unforgiving....

I reject that! 

Peninsula Household of Faith Fellowship's Elders Knew

Two days after Patrick's sentencing the elders called a "Heads of Household" meeting. During this meeting the elders, (still currently in leadership at, Peninsula Household of Faith Fellowship of Churches, in Port Orchard, WA.) would admit to having a private meeting with Patrick and Eddie Rojas. The elders were pressed by some in attendance and the elders would eventually reveal that during the private meeting Patrick admitted to them all that he had done to our child. They knew for six months before we knew.

THE ELDERS KNEW! And kept quiet. They never told us the additional crimes beyond the "kisses." Jim and Dave knew details of the abuse our child had endured but didn't tell anyone, not even us, the victims parents. The elders spent the day (literally) with Patrick and Eddie. They even came over to our home directly after that specific meeting.

We had asked a couple in the church to come and be a witness to the meeting (the husband was out of town) but the wife came. The elders, Dave Barrueto and Jim Cameron, basically came to see how we were and told us that they had been in contact with other pastors to get advice and that they had contacted a lawyer to find out their legal liability. I remember them explaining that because we had reported the crime, "They had no legal obligation to report it as well." That since the case was now in the "states" hands they were not going to talk about it with us. 


They did ask  how they could help us in the process of healing, forgiving, and reconciliation. 


Our friend that was with us has a background working in a sexual assault center and she directly asked the elders if there was any information that came out of their private meeting that we (the parents of the victim) should know? Any new information at all? Jim Cameron had been at the original meeting with us and knew exactly what Patrick had admitted to doing to our child in front of Eric and I. The elders looked at each other and said,"No, nothing to add." They reminded us they were going to stay out of the legal stuff.

Approximately 2 1/2weeks after our initial discovery of the abuse and the elders private meeting with Patrick , Jim Cameron, was interviewed by the sheriff detective working on our case. 


Jim Cameron ends his statement to the sheriff with, "In his opinion Patrick wanted to stay pure, but wanted to know what it felt like to kiss ....... and it was just the wrong place and wrong age."


We would not know that Jim Cameron had basically mislead the sheriff detective until after the sentencing of Patrick. When I saw (on the report) that Jim Cameron minimized the crime in his statement and in my opinion, he even lies by omission, I will have to admit my heart filled with hate. This man along with Eddie and Dave Barrueto knew everything....he knew that we, as the victims parents, didn't know what had really been done to our child. He and the others in authority allowed the church congregation to believe what happened was "only a kiss." 

Not for six more months did we know what had actually happened to our child at the hands of Patrick. Which by the way....we never minimized. From day one we considered even a kiss forced on a sleeping child in their own bedroom from a 22yr old to be sexual abuse and so does the state of Washington! Six months! 


The state had no reason to believe nor did they have proof beyond our child had been groomed and kissed by a pedophile. So, they entered a plea agreement to avoid trial. Eddie, Dave Barrueto, and Jim Cameron influenced the outcome of the charges filed by their silence and they also influenced a congregation to support a seriously dangerous pedophile. 

THE ELDER'S BETRAYAL IMPEDED JUSTICE!


*Elder's Post

Last Time Eddie Was Seen In Washington State

The evaluation revealed that Patrick at (15yrs of age) was "caught" and that he was disciplined by his father, he repented and all was forgiven. Then again at (age 17)  Patrick was caught another time. This time Patrick shared that both his parents talked with him, that he repented and all was forgiven.

Life as normal to the outside world.

As part of the evaluation, Patrick had to reveal all of his minor victims and outline the crimes in detail. What I am willing to say about the other victims: ages range from 18 months old to11yrs old. Patrick was actively victimizing someone when he was between the ages of 15-22, (then we reported him.) Out of the five additional victims four of them could qualify him for 4 charges of child molestation in the first degree and the fifth would be a lesser charge. (Patrick states that per his lawyers advise he only gives the age, sex and details of the sexual abuse of his 5 additional victims. He does however name the adult sister that he had consensual sexual contact with. Along with the details of what was done to my child.)

Eric and I were told to keep the sex/psycho evaluation information quiet. This was an ongoing investigation and we shouldn't talk about it. It would be two more months before Patrick's sentencing day and before all the information would become publicly accessible.

We didn't know at the sentencing that we would be dealt the final blow.(At least we hoped it is was final blow, but it wasn't...) The Sunday before Patrick was sentenced Eddie Rojas stepped down from his role as Pastor of the church. Eddie attended Patrick's sentencing and was approached by CPS and was asked to produce the girls for an interview. Eddie asked for some time. He told others that he was taking his family camping to get away from everything and that's the last Eddie or the minor children have been seen in Washington State. 


Evaluation Request Information:http://ourstoryhelp.blogspot.com/2010/10/evaluation-request.html

Do You Get It

From the first deviant sexual act, the child is forever changed!


Do you get what is taken from a child when they are sexually molested, regardless of the level of the molestation? Their innocence. Their ability to trust. Something that is meant to be beautiful,(sexual intimacy,) gets introduced as something dirty and bad. The child's sense of safety is robbed.

The child that is damaged far more is the child who never tells or isn't supported when they do tell. The trauma that is caused by childhood sexual abuse, if not properly dealt with, can lead to a lifetime of residual consequences.

At our church there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of individuals who wanted to bury their heads in the sand. They didn't want to know what was really happening with our case or in our family. I believe they chose this so they could be friends with everybody. I am not good at playing that game. This was too big!

All the areas of our lives that this affected made it such that we just couldn't play along. Essentially, we stayed away from these people, they didn't want to know and we didn't have the emotional energy at the time to make them face the facts. Amazingly enough most of these people wrote letters in support of Patrick to the judge asking for leniency.

The leaders weren't discouraging it and hey, he was Patrick Rojas, and it was only "inappropriate affections." They didn't bother to ask us questions, or take the time to call the prosecutor, nor the sheriff detective in charge of the case. They simple pulled their heads out of the sand, wrote a letter of support for Patrick, and stuck their heads back in the sand.

Then when the true nature of Patrick and the crimes he committed were exposed they acted as if they shouldn't be held accountable for writing the letters of support because, "If they knew then what they know now......" THEY NEVER BOTHERED TO ASK QUESTIONS. To be fair the congregation was all but forbidden to speak about what was happening between the Rojas family and the Schneider family. This should have been a RED FLAG!

I don't even know what to say about the people who would quote scripture only to us. I have to be careful here so I am not misunderstood. When I would tell someone about what had happened in our family and then their response was something along the lines of, "Just trust God," "God is in control," or "God is sovereign." I wanted to shake the person and say,

"Does that make you feel better because it doesn't change any of the consequences that our family will endure."

Their statements actually made me somewhat defensive, what exactly were they implying? I felt like I needed to defend the fact that I was undone by what happened to my child and by who and with the help of others that I had respected and trusted. The countenance of the person and the way in which they were talking to me made it seem as if I was suppose to be happy about all of this because it was Gods' will. If I would just trust God everything would be fine. It was like I was doing something wrong by mourning the betrayal of so many people.

*From "Reactions" post.

Regret

The day after we reported the suspected crime against our child we thought the "right" thing to do would be to let Eddie Rojas and Jim Cameron know that we chose to involve the police. They were our pastor and elder. I deeply regret giving them the heads-up. We had no idea just how intertwined Eddie Rojas was with his son's deviant sexual behavior. We trusted the Rojas family. We trusted Eddie and Kathy Rojas. I believe everyone at the time actually felt sorry for Eddie and Kathy. No one in the general congregation and I mean NO ONE knew that both Eddie, Kathy along with Jairus knew that Patrick had a history of sexually abusing minor children. And it didn't help that their family just continued on with normal life and their normal activities as if nothing serious had transpired.

Our family on the other hand was devastated. Our lives would never be the same,our faith would never be the same, our ability to trust would be forever altered.

What good are we if in a moment of real need we deflect, distant ourselves, or ignore the issue?


 I don't want to ever be that person!

For the first two weeks our family was trying to figure out how to maneuver through all of what was happening. Initially, we stated that we didn't want our family named as the "victim family" when the leadership spoke of the matter. We wanted to try and control who knew it was our family for the simple reason of protecting our child's privacy. Fairly soon we decided we didn't have anything to hide and communicated to the leadership that it didn't matter to us who knew it was our family. (About a week after the discovery the leadership had a meeting and told the congregation that there had been "inappropriate affection" between Patrick Rojas and a child in the congregation. They informed the church members that the authorities were involved.)

When we started to tell our close family and friends the reactions were so diverse. I would start by saying that we called 911 to report sexual abuse by Patrick Rojas against one of our children. It was always disbelief  at first but after that some would actually start to cry and show deep concern for our child and family.  They would want to listen, ask questions, they would be real.

Some reactions were hurtful! I had a few people after the initial shock actually turn their concern towards Patrick. No kidding, one comment was, "Well he better get a good lawyer, the state will be out to get him."

Another one went right into rantings of how "The Rojas ways weren't all that great after all, now were they?"

In those moments, I was struck by the fact that the individual in front of me really hadn't heard me. I had just told them I had to call 911 because my child had been sexually molested by Patrick.

The comments I resent the most were the ones where the person would say, "At least that's all he did, it could have been worse."

I wanted to scream, WHAT IS WORSE?" (Any form of sexual abuse is devastating!)

These people just didn't get it! I think this is when I started to shut down inside, to hunker down.

Part of me died inside.

*Partly from the "Reactions" post.

911 Call

The following 24hrs after the emergency meeting were horrible, as you might imagine.

...it started to play back in my head....I kept thinking, are we making too much out of this? In the spirit of not being a "gossiper" we didn't let anyone else in our church or family know what we just discovered. (secrecy gives the sex offender power)

A name popped in my head, it was someone I could call that could help me process what we just discovered and would tell me if we were making something out of nothing. She has a masters in psychology and is a Christian. She would know what she was talking about from a biblical world view which mattered to me. I hadn't spoken to this person in many years other than running into to her at a mutual friends birthday party or something like that....but I located her number and called.

Almost immediately after outlining the note and the "emergency meeting" she stated that we needed to report sexual abuse to the police. I was very hesitant and she could tell. She went on to explain a 22yr old man does not just wake up one day and fall in love with a child under 12yrs old, that Patrick most certainly had other victims with the grooming pattern he displayed towards our child. She asked if he had any sisters and expressed concern for them. (The very girls that were taken into hiding by their father, Eddie Rojas, to protect a pedophile from further prosecution.) She told me to call a sexual abuse hot line and talk anonymously with them about our situation and see if they gave us the same advice, which was to call the police! As I'm sure my friend knew the sexual assault center did in fact say we absolutely needed to call the police!

Eric and I were still struggling and praying. When I looked at my husband and said, "if it were our neighbor that we were talking about we wouldn't hesitate calling the police." The phone rang. It was my friend who said I just want to ask you one thing "If this were your neighbor you were talking about would you even hesitate to call the police?" I was blown away. (This still gives me chills, to this day, when I recall it.) I explained that I just said that exact thing to Eric. She urged us to hang up and call 911.

That is exactly what we did!


*Retelling from the original "Discovery" post.  Our Story will continue tomorrow.