Those of you who live in Florida may have heard about the young teacher who was recently convicted and sentenced for having sex with a 15 year-old student...
Everything in me rages against a violation of trust/abuse of authority like this. I'm normally the first person on the bandwagon of "Lock them up and throw away the key!"
Except...I know this woman. She is from my hometown. DH and I both know her and her family very well through the Bible camp we both worked at as college students, and the Christian school that was a ministry of my home church.
The way she was portrayed by her attorney is the honest-to-goodness truth - a very naive, sheltered fundamentalist Christian - we're talking extreme fundamentalist family - who was very emotionally stunted when it came to relationships. This does not excuse her behavior in any way, and yes, there must be consequences to one's actions.
But I am asking for prayer for her family - I'm sure they're devastated, and for protection for her while she's in prison. Sex offenders are the lowest of the low in the prison system, and I am truly scared for her! And for acceptance from her family and fellow Christians (as I've mentioned, her church back home is extremely fundamentalist and legalistic!) and some sort of a life for her when she gets out...
There are no winners here. Only lives that have been completely devastated, and people who desperately need healing and therapy!
Puppetmaster - are we talking about the woman from Tampa? Debra LaFave? I am just curious as to the fact that it would be very interesting that she's here in my neck of the woods.
Anyway, if it's not her I have not heard about this yet. Maybe I just have my head in the sand here in the busyness of what is going on in the church.
No, it's not Debra Lafave - although the person I'm talking about was featured on Dr. Phil last week along with Ms. Lafave. That's how people from our hometown found out about it.
Janelle, the person I'm referring to, has been living in Pensacola. I'm not sure how widespread this scandal was, or if it was just in local papers - but after the Dr. Phil show, it's not going to be just local anymore...
I understand the "buried with church stuff" phenomenon. DH and I have been eyeball-deep in Christmas musical stuff, and at Saturday night prayer a couple of weeks ago, a lady stood up and said, "Pray for North Korea." Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.
We both looked at each other and said, "Why?" Yeah...apparently we don't watch the news!!
