Author: TryingtheSpirits

One fall afternoon in 2008, my mentor’s husband, Randy, instructed me to call him as his failing transmission drudged slowly along the interstate in first gear. Perhaps, he was contemplating his pending boredom on his usual one-hour commute that had suddenly turned into a several hour trip, or maybe he subconsciously needed a minuscule amount of control over the moment considering the financial detriment his family was about to incur. Either way, after obeying his instructions as my “spiritual dad,” he demanded to know every potential sexual detail of my only past relationship in high school. The problem came when his wife started calling me at our pre-scheduled time, and I had not yet satisfied the extent of his demands. He instructed me to ignore his wife’s incoming phone calls, without explanation, knowing full-well the extent of the hurt and feelings of abandonment his wife would endure, all while threatening whatever consequences he thought sufficient, should I not “obey” him.

Finally, he allowed me to hang up and call his wife, but as my mentor and I spoke, she knew me well enough to know that something was wrong. I could no longer obey Randy’s demands to keep silent about the phone call without being dishonest with my mentor. As if the afternoon had not already been stressful enough, I believe she subconsciously went into survival mode, resulting in her redirecting her anger towards me instead of her mentally abusive husband. Randy had something to hide but his feeble attempt at shoving his newest skeleton into the closest had not just merely postponed the aftermath, but it also simultaneously fueled the fire, causing as bleed-out nigh impossible to recover from. What if Randy had stopped when his wife began to call? What if he had never tried to cover it up by directing me not to tell his wife that he and I spoke? Certainly, his wife would have still been upset, and rightfully so, but could his admittance, without cover-up, significantly reduced the detrimental outcome?

Just as with Randy, I have personally wondered what would have happened if Pastor Andrew Ray and his wife had simply admitted to leading teenagers towards courtships/engagements, not only against their parent’s expressed wishes, but to the extent of aiding in the deception. What if, instead of repeatedly justifying their actions, the Rays had mended friendships as closely knit as David and Jonathan by a true apology, instead of lip-service? Could it be, I wonder, that if they had swallowed their pride closer to the beginning, there may have never been an entire church service dedicated to destroying an entire family’s name?  Perhaps there never would have been a letter of ostracization sent to family including a threat toward a college student’s education. Just maybe, there would never have been a men’s meeting to follow that was aimed at humiliating another young college-age girl for wanting to marry the pastor’s son.

I believe that if Pastor Ray, even following the mass exodus, had been honest instead of showing off the pitiful wounds in a purposefully hushed silence around the truth, maybe those families- mine included- would have never endured such calloused disdain. Perhaps countless spiritual lives would not have been destroyed long-term. Maybe marriages would not have been shaken close to their breaking point! I believe that if Andrew Ray, and his wife Lula, had owned up to their questionable actions sooner- if at all!- there may never have been such an extensive domino effect at Antioch Baptist Church in 2017 and in the many months to come. Unfortunately, heaps of skeletons lay tucked away in a closet without question. Let us open the doors and finally give some of them a chance to speak.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Skeleton #1: Manipulating the Broken” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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On Monday, August 31, 2020, Douglas Stauffer contacted my husband for the first time since December 2018. Stauffer’s first phone call did not work out, but he called back and left a voicemail (transcribed below), revealing yet another example of what we feel is attempting to manipulate and control our family through fear. Interestingly enough, since sharing his voicemail online shortly after receiving it, Douglas Stauffer and Andrew Ray never followed up as of February 2021:

“Hey Matt, this is Doug Stauffer. I’m calling you at a time when I was sure that your voicemail would pick up, not to blindside you at work, but I don’t think that happened. But now I’m leaving a voicemail. In early July, Brother Ray brought to my attention your wife’s stalking of the two of us. He found out about our attacks while traveling. We remained completely silent, and instead prayed for you and your family. I even added them to our family- uh, to our church weekly prayer bulletin.

Now, we have some clear guidance from God on how to proceed, and our talking on the phone is the first of potentially six progressive steps. The second step will be an open letter that Brother Ray has written, he’ll send to you first. The third step is meeting together or posting the open letter on the internet. We are going to let you two determine the direction of things as they proceed and to what extent they evolve. By now, all of her blogs have been archived along with all of her Facebook attacks against us. We have not yet reported her to Facebook concerning her defamatory harassment and libelous postings, but that could happen soon, too.

I met with you and Crystal twice in 2018 on June 5^th and September 2^nd with witnesses present at both meetings. We all assured each other that everything was settled, and after the first meeting, until Crystal blindsided me with several unwarranted email attacks. Almost three months later on the meeting, in the second meeting, I against stated I hoped that we never had to discuss these matters again. You assured me that that was the case, and your wife agreed, stating that we could move forward, and I think we are all good. Those are Crystal’s exact words at the end of the meeting during my last interaction with the two of you.

What in the world has possessed your wife to get her to write such nasty, malicious, fictitious and defamatory things about us and the church? The way things seem to be heading, I’m afraid they could turn out to be even more psychologically damaging into your wife’s fragile psyche, hurtful to your marriage, potentially damaging to your precious family. We want to avoid all of this, and regardless of how things progress, it’s completely up to the two of you at this point.

This call is to start the process of attempting to head things off before things progress to the point of no return with outcomes quite unpredictable.

If I don’t hear from you in the next few days, I’ll tell Brother Ray to proceed with a rather lengthy letter. My number is ***-***-****. God bless you. I hope to hear from you very soon. Thanks. Bye.”

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: When Closet Skeletons Speak” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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The day after my third Facebook post that fall, “What Really Happened- Part Two,” Douglas Stauffer sent the following private message to Matthew Olds through Facebook, claiming that he was “saddened” when he had heard that we had left! According to Stauffer, his reasoning for the message was “since it seems that you [Matt] may not be privy to all this” and so that “you [Matt] can know how to better help Chrystal [me].” He proceeded to copy and paste my Facebook posts from October 2018 and November 2018, supposing incorrectly that Matt was not aware, just as he claimed back in June 2018. Even today, Matt and I both feel that Stauffer’s message (below) is telling of the facade that we believe he presented on regular basis.

**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

Douglas Stauffer (December 7, 2018 4 at 9:05am): 

“12/7/18 THU 10:26 PM 

Matt: I received this last night and simply filed it away but after much prayer I want to forward it to you since it seems that you may not be privy to all this. This is the second post that I have received and plan on doing nothing about either one other than this time passing along a copy of both to you—not even passing a copy to the pastor. I am certainly not going to react to it because reacting was my mistake in the past and I try to learn from lessons taught. When I came back from travels, I heard ya’ll had left the church—I was saddened.

This post is indicative of what started the problem back in June; using Facebook to publicly air one’s grievances that could be perceived as attacking the pastor or the church, rather than going to the individual (highly unlikely at this juncture). I think you are a good man and want to do what is right and best for all (especially Chrystal and your children). Anyway, I do pray for you guys and wish nothing but the best and sure miss the smiles from your children that could brighten anyone’s day.

Do not feel compelled in anyway to respond. This message is simply informational and not meant to fix a problem that may remain broken and irreparable. I wish the latter not to be the case but do realize that Chrystal feels wronged, hurt and betrayed.
Additionally, this message is not sent to you to cause division in your family but so that you can know how to better help Chrystal. It is not even intended so that you can have her take down the post—that is irrelevant. If what she is doing is right than I am fully supportive. If it is not, I will simply leave that in God’s hands since I could have done better in handling her posts back in June.
Because of Calvary,

Doug

12/6/18
Wanna know why people don’t speak up about various forms of harassment? Still wonder why there’s a MeToo Movement? Let me show you…..

This was supposed to be a place of balance and a place of healing. I opened up the scars and the wounds in hopes of moving forward, and despite the many hours of tears, counsel and advice over the course of FIVE YEARS, I heard the words… I don’t know how to talk with you.
I sent an email about the harassment that occurred in June, but what happened? A message on forgiveness that night. He later said he was preaching to himself too. I’ve since learned the Bible says to recieve not an accusation against an elder except by two or three witnesses. Now I know why.
My husband was called downstairs into a meeting where the man told my husband that he thought this mess had fallen into my husband’s lap for him to help me with my past trauma. It was believed to all be transferance but I have the proof that tells otherwise. He then said that an email like this can destroy a man’s ministry and attempted to get my husband to agree to deleting it from his email as well. He said to my husband, “Let’s start ripping it up now” and proceeded to attempt to physically rip up the document. When that did not work-awkwardly, I might add- he sent my husband to the office to shred it. It was presented as the ONLY copy remaining, just a day after giving a copy to the man who harassed my family saying, “Brother Olds doesn’t know you have this.”

Two months later, the man who harassed my family to begin with approached us because he knew about the email (had a physical copy) and couldn’t rectify that I went over to say “Hello” And apologize for avoiding him, and wanted to meet because he was afraid of a #MeToo movement. He threatened (but said it was NOT a threat) that if the meeting didn’t go a certain way, he would step down, leave the church, and my accusations of harassment would go up before the church. When my husband asked the man we sent the email to about the harassment to be in the meeting, he said we were trying to destroy our church because I had asked a friend for advice in June. He also tried to control the number of witnesses and tell my husband who he could and could not ask for as witnesses. Oh yes, and he said that shredding the email wasn’t meant too be deceitful.
Why speak up? Because these types of situations happen all of the time and people are told, “This could destroy his ministry.” Well, what about everyone else that is destroyed IN his scope of ministry? #BreaktheSilence

10/1/18 We’ve made it a year again despite the struggles of three young children, lip ties and sickness, and nursing in a time where breastfeeding is still developing as a norm! This is NOT against mothers who use formula (we had to for a while with our first because of ties), but breastfeeding is hard work and I’m thankful that we’ve made it a whole year by God’s grace! Joshua* had horrible a horrible lip tie and tongue tie at the beginning which made for a very exhausting, painful and discouraging first month.
After all of the junk we faced while nursing our second (Annabelle*- that’s a post for another day), I’m thankful that we only had one person actually approach us about nursing this time and it wasn’t until Joshua* was about eight months. The man [NOT my old pastor] said that as kneeling for the anthem is giving America the finger, I’m giving my church the finger every time I nurse. He continued to say that it’s an authority issue in our home, that it will be a hindrance to us being sent out as missionaries, and that my husband needs to “man up” and say “Woman, this is what you are going to do [go down to the mother’s room]. And yes, he knew that I struggled with depression and anxiety that was exacerbated by being secluded/isolated away in the mother’s room.

I’m thankful for my husband being the MAN that he is and standing up for me again as his wife and friend. He truly has been my rock through all of it. I don’t know where I’d be without him, but I don’t think we would have made it a year and still going strong.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Yet Another Message from Douglas Stauffer (December 2018)” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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