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Buyer Beware: When God Becomes the Sales Tactic

It seems it happens nearly every time I need work contracted on my house. At least one estimate, generally from a contractor I like, comes back with a fish symbol or a “God bless!” or a bunch of praying hand emoticons.

There’s nothing wrong with these… except this is a business, and the businesses I worked with in the past who used God as a sales tactic… generally were closer to being in league with the devil. Seriously, those businesses that tended to advertise as “Christian owned and operated” or otherwise indicated their faith as part of their business model lied, cheated, took advantage, and sometimes left me with more problems than I started with.

The worst was the HVAC man. He was a guy in my former church. A preacher, one of those in the ‘inner circle,’ one of those people whom the pastor bragged about and told others to respect. Good guy? Well, I was told he was. “Keep business in the church.” “Use him, he’ll give you a deal because you’re a sister.” I asked him to install a new AC unit for me. He ordered it, had me pay, and put it in my basement. He did NOT hook it up, though he’d promised to. A year later when I was trying to sell my house… it was STILL IN THE BASEMENT. The pastor finally did intervene, but it was a very stressful situation for me and even then, the man tried to shame me for wanting it installed. AFTER A YEAR. No one else would even touch the install, because they hadn’t ordered it… and apparently because it was nearly too old to meet the new rules for installing.

Another time, tree trimmers came. Good church members, always so helpful. They cut the tree down for me, but when I told them that yes, they could leave some of the trunk for a table and could leave some firewood for my fire pit, they left the ENTIRE trunk, in one piece, in the middle of the yard. I called and asked about it and they said I’d asked them to leave it, and what did I want them to do, now that it was there? It was too large to handle once it was laying on the ground, because it was huge. Well, a trunk 12+ feet long and over four feet in diameter at the base is too big for firewood OR a table, too!

There were other situations like this, from people within my former church… and unfortunately people from other churches too. Today it was a concrete contractor. The estimate came in with “God bless!” and immediately I had a gut feeling. I started digging in and researching more, and searching for some references that he did NOT solicit. Unfortunately, they were all one-star-never-again bad. And unfortunately it began to be apparent that most of the good reviews were associated with a single church and a single job, done for the cost of materials only, for one local church. It’s hard not to leave a good review for one job done at cost, with free labor. You’d almost think it was an advertising ploy.

Over time I’ve learned, leaving a card with “A Christian owned business” emblazoned as the byline, or a flyer or website with a fish symbol or cross on it, or email or text communications ending in “God bless,” or worse, with little Christianese emoticons (emoticons are not professional communication – double warning sign!) on them, is a reason to beware. Those have been the businesses in my experience that were least likely to treat people right. It’s almost like they expect those things to sell their business… and get those who solicit their business to back them even when they’re bad. They remind me of abusive pastors in that way.

Churches aren’t the only ones who spiritually abuse or take advantage of people ‘in Jesus’ name.’ Too bad God doesn’t sue people for slander, using his name in vain like that.

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Labeling and shaming

As a teen, before I ever went to a Pentecostal church, it started. I even remember where it started, outside my immediate family, and who it started with.

“Mary, look at his butt on the court!”
“Umm… OK”
“Don’t you think that’s sexy?!?!”
“Not particularly. He’s just a guy in shorts.”
“What, are you gay?”

Actually, I seriously doubt my response had anything to do with being gay. It was a bunch of scrawny teen boys on a court. We were in the balcony. We saw them every day, and I simply had no interest in them in general because I DID know them. The same ones who threw snowballs with rocks in them at me. The same ones who followed me down the halls trying to grab me inappropriately. No, why would anyone be interested in that?

The girl who asked was supposed to be my friend, but she was a bully… and she had a strong influence from Pentecostal churches herself. She treated me incredibly poorly throughout junior high and high school. And no one really noticed. Definitely no one, to my knowledge, ever tried to stop her.

I didn’t have but one boyfriend in high school, and he was a jerk. I enjoyed going out alone much more than being with a guy who snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground behind him, expecting me to follow him. And so the questions continued in my small school. Usually quietly, but always from the same group when they arose, and generally at times when everything seemed to be going well for me otherwise.

I didn’t associate it with church or religion at the time.

In college, I joined a United Pentecostal church. Before I was even a member, the comments started.

“We wouldn’t have even known you were a girl, your hair short and you wearing pants like that.”
“Maybe you should wear a padded bra.”
“You just look so much like a boy!”

They’d tell me that I should spend more time with the ladies, but the ladies wouldn’t accept me and I didn’t relate well to their gender-divided culture. My parents and grandparents all shared work for the most part and interests and clothing colors weren’t divided by gender. I’d never been discouraged for learning to use hand tools or helping Dad work on the car (well, except maybe by Dad since my help usually led to extra work!) or playing cards “with the guys” rather than sitting in the living room “with the women.” We could choose what we wanted to do and who we wanted to be. We played with toy cars sometimes as well as dolls. There weren’t ‘boy colors’ and ‘girl colors’. (A church would later preach that if a man wore pink he was effeminate.) I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup or get my hair done or go on shopping trips; my parents often told those things were too expensive or I didn’t need them.

But at church… around these new friends, there was ‘something wrong’ with me if I didn’t fall right in line with a very different culture, one where women separated from the men and kept to themselves, where hair and clothes were a really big deal and actually part of identity, and shopping trips were not just a thing to do once in a while, but actual events. Big events. Out of town, overnight, look-forward-to-this events. I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now. And yet repeatedly I was labeled or shamed because I didn’t conform. And often my sexuality or sexual orientation were questioned.

I never married and people now ask why. I never met a man in church who could look past the labels and see me, respect me, and love me. And so being single became a very good thing, because who’d want to marry someone who couldn’t?

Did their labels or shaming change me? Yes, but I believe for the better. The labels didn’t change who I was, nor did they force me to conform, but in time they did increase my empathy and acceptance of others. I guess all their efforts backfired on them. And I’m glad.

Shaming and labeling… the tools of any unhealthy group to force conformity and/or to dehumanize those who are different in order to isolate them. It’s easier to hurt “the gay” or “the Jezebel” or “sinners” of whatever sort than it is to hurt “Mary” or “Joe” or “Jane.” Mary and Joe and Jane are people with their own lives and stories, but “sinners” are “bad people”. And so, they shame to try to force conformity and when that doesn’t work, it’s a short jump to labeling… and it is much easier to bully, to shame, to isolate and mistreat “those bad people” than a human being. It is also easier to label them “bad” than to consider there might be another way than their own to exist. And sometimes… sometimes they’re simply jealous. After all, it must be frustrating and even frightening to think that the people they’ve labeled “bad” are happy, free, and confident individuals, especially if they are freer, happier, and more confident than those who are doing the labeling.

If you’ve been shamed or labeled, be encouraged. Don’t accept the labels and don’t try to conform. Instead, simply become a better person as a result of them, and keep being the wonderful individual you are meant to be. God made you YOU. And even if you are the girl who likes the pixie cut or the guy who enjoys wearing pink, be you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re exactly who God made you to be.

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Blindsided: Medical Mazes (Part One)

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

When my oldest son, Brendon* was about two months old, he developed an infection with a severe wheezing cough that left even the on-call pediatrician concerned because of his general lack of responsiveness. After realizing that Brendon* had not been inoculated against whooping cough, the pediatrician instantly sent him over to Children’s Hospital to be tested, but as I frantically researched through the night while waiting for the results, we learned that whooping cough usually killed around day ten, while results would not become available until around day fourteen! I was distraught, especially considering we had just made the decision not the vaccinate against pertussis (whooping cough). Knowing that my uncle died from polio, we had previously decided to move forward with vaccinating our children- just on a delayed schedule- but we decided against the whooping cough vaccine because the immunization had proven itself deadly on my father’s side of the family and almost claimed my brother’s life as well. The new a-cellular pertussis vaccine contained a lower dosage, according to the pediatrician, and thus tended to have significantly less side effects, but we were nervous to take the risk. Shortly after this decision, my little newborn was being tested for whooping cough, and it carried just shy of a 100% death rate in children under six months. I was an emotional wreck for days, fearing we could lose our little boy.

Within a few days, however, Brendon* started acting more like himself, and shortly after that, we received the negative results back from Children’s hospital! Though we were beyond grateful that God had saved his little life, vaccines became an even weightier topic in our home. Unfortunately, when it came to our Zambia trip, the list of recommended vaccinations appeared endless. To make it worse, Zambian officials required a certification of immunization against yellow fever, a live-vaccine known for knocking trained military-men off their feet, before permitting travelers into the country. Though we worried for our children, we had no idea that this one vaccine would become a predicament unto itself.

Required… Or Not?

In Zambia, yellow fever had only been eradicated for several years and the Zambian embassy clearly stated, “Since 1^st October 2011, all travelers to and from Zambia are required to be in possession of either a Yellow Fever Certificate or a valid wavier certificate.” With this in mind, we gathered our immunization records from out-of-state, obtained updated records for our children, and called the health department to gather precise information about immunization requirements and costs for our upcoming trip. To our dismay, the nurses informed us that they could not administer the yellow-fever vaccine to us because the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website stated the vaccine was not recommended for American traveler’s to Zambia! No matter what information we gave from the Zambian embassy, their hands were tied. Furthermore, even if they could approve the vaccine and give us the yellow-fever vaccination certificate required to enter Zambia, they could not administer it to Annabelle* because she was less than nine months, creating a new conflict for administering my yellow-fever immunization because it was “counter-indicated” for breastfeeding mothers. Combine that with learning that the total vaccinations costs amounted to several thousand dollars and it was beyond our ability. We could only rest in knowing that God alone was able to work out the details and get us to Zambia in a few short months.

Should Our Children Stay?

The Zambian embassy confirmed over the phone that they did, in fact, require the yellow-fever vaccination certificate for Americans to enter into the country, but there was still nothing more we could do until the appointment at the health department. Should the health department decide to follow the CDC website according to protocol, our options would be limited to canceling the trip or risking someone stopping us at the border and possibly offering our family that vaccine unofficially at inflated prices. To say the least, receiving the vaccines through the health department before departure was the significantly better option. We decided to pray and allow God to work miraculously in the days leading up to our appointment, while we focused in on the safety of me and Annabelle* even receiving the vaccination because of breastfeeding.

Would it not be better to wean Annabelle* before her first birthday so we could leave our children safely behind with trusted friends? On the other hand, would it be detrimental to be away from our separation-anxiety-prone children for two whole weeks? And how would we ever know exactly what we needed to have prepared for the field if our children stayed back in the states? We grappled with the idea for a while, but finally decided, again, to move forward, knowing that the very God who called us to go to Zambia in a few years was the same one we needed to entrust with our children for the upcoming trip, and the same one who already knew the answers.

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: Medical Mazes (Part Two)” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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Blindsided: Crossing I’s and Dotting T’s

Early in public high school, I was privileged to see the Lord work miraculously by answering prayers in ways that would increase my faith and even begin preparation for missions later in life. During this time, I firmly believed that Crown College was the next step in God’s direction for my life, but simply visiting the college was a hurdle unto itself as my unsaved parents hesitated to send me to a private Bible college that was out-of-state, rather than to a successful, accredited college nearby. As the months went on, my father eventually set his eyes on a liberal college nearby in honor of a friend’s devout daughter who had unexpectedly passed away while attending the college just a few months prior. On the morning of our visit, however, the Lord used an elderly gentleman seated behind us at Bob Evans- nearly a hundred miles from our home, by the way!- to sternly warn my father about the college’s immense shortcomings! By the time we left the college that day, my father was not only firmly against this particular school, but he was finally ready to visit Crown, with one stipulation in mind: I had to do the leg-work for planning the trip.

Truly, the entire situation at Bob Evans was an answer to prayer, a solid pillar in my life that I could look back on to remember God working through the impossible, but the Lord used it for significantly more later on. While I probably looked like a deer-in-headlights from my father’s purposefully limited guidance in planning the trip to Tennessee, this one life-lesson provided me with the knowledge and experience to break down a major trip into manageably-sized potions. By the time my husband and I were preparing for our Zambia trip a decade later, that seemingly minuscule folder of lists for the Crown trip evolved into organized binders, an expandable file folder, multiple envelopes to carry pertinent documents, and computer files where the folders had folders, and even the lists had lists! Zambia made the Crown trip look like a cake-walk, but the Lord used it to prepare us for navigating through passports, visas, medical authorizations, complications with necessary immunizations, packing for our young family, and infinitely more. Through it all, when we became overwhelmed or discouraged, the Lord continually reminded us of His goodness in the past, and that “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”

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

Passport Blessings

Back in 2014, before Douglas Stauffer had a significant influence, we were astonished when Pastor Andrew Ray had graciously offered for Antioch Baptist Church to pay for our passports to assist us in completing our survey trip before starting deputation! Our tentative trip that year did not come together, but around the time we bought the airline tickets two years later, we continued to count it a blessing that we only needed to apply for Annabelle’s* passport, saving us hundreds of dollars. We were even more excited to learn that we only needed to get two extra passport photos each to send with our visa applications. Imagine our relief to learn that Walgreens was still issuing regulation-approved passport photos considering we needed 2inx2in photos, with head sizes between 1-3/4 inches, white backgrounds, and neutral expressions, not just for ourselves, but for an eight month old infant and a high-energy two-year-old boy! The ways that God worked in the little things were ever a reminder of the goodness and greatness of God.

Strict Government Documentation

After receiving Annabelle’s* passport in the mail and confirming with the missionaries that we needed to apply for four tourist visas, we finished-up the two completed visa applications per family member, with a signed, recently-taken passport photo attached to each individual application, as per instructions on the Embassy website. The Zambian Embassy also required our physical passports, individual copies of the confirmed airline ticket/itinerary, and separate money orders/cashier’s checks for each set of applications! As we prepared to send off the documents, praying they were filled out correctly/entirely and attempting to trust the Lord to keep these sensitive documents safe in the mail, we learned that the Zambian embassy FURTHER required the paperwork to include a pre-paid return-envelope that was completely filled out. Any mistake in paperwork, documentation, or mailing information could not only delay the approval of our visas, but significantly increase the amount of time it would take to receive them back.

After calling around to the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the United Postal Service (UPS) without success for the service we needed, we were finally directed to Fed-Ex, a company that had already established a process for providing tracking numbers with the initial and return envelopes, as well as the ability to charge an account later on for the return shipping cost. Within a few short weeks, the Lord came through once again as the Embassy notified us that our visas were approved without complications, and we later praised the Lord for returning our sensitive documents in a safe and timely manner!

Planning for the Unexpected

Per my father’s advice, we placed our passports in our recently-purchased passport holders to go around our necks during travel for safe-keeping, and we made copies of our passports and other important documents in case anything became misplaced on the trip. After that, while researching about passing through customs, we learned that misplacing our passports could result in our children being stopped and held in a country overseas until we could provide official documents- in this case, birth certificates- to prove to the government that we were not transporting someone else’s children out of the country illegally! In general, presenting birth certificates would have been considered sufficient, but as a married woman, several governments required a marriage license as well as proof of a change in surname! After making multiple copies, we placed these pertinent documents with the other papers for the trip.

Thankfully, we never lost our passports and never had to show proof of rightful guardianship, but we were grateful for the advice to prepare ahead of time. Imagine our surprise, however, to learn of our next bump in the road: immunizations. The local health department already greatly hesitated to give us the yellow-fever vaccination required by the Zambian Embassy because Annabelle* was a nursing infant, but then they further informed us that they were restricted from administering it to us because of conflicting information between the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations, and the Zambian Embassy website’s requirements for entering the country.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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Colorado United Pentecostal Sex Abuse Cases Part 4

After reading my last post about the unreported sexual abuse of several minor boys involving a former Youth Pastor at a United Pentecostal Church in Colorado, one person shared with me the following:

I came to this church right after this youth pastor left. No one said anything even to this day. Yes, this person still is a pastor and is friends with former members of this church. I met them once at the church in May 2000 and by at least in September 2000 they were gone and new youth pastors were in. Something happened with him as well, and he left and became a pastor in California for awhile and he is currently a UPCI minister in another state.

The history of youth pastors is true and the list continues on. What I witnessed there was that most sins went unannounced and were swept under the rug. It’s not only sexual abuse at this church, but emotional/verbal abuse from the senior pastor’s wife and the present pastor’s wife.

This is part 35 of a series of articles and part four involving a United Pentecostal Church in Colorado that allegedly failed to report cases of child sexual abuse. (Some statements in this article are what have been alleged by more than one individual. There have been no convictions as the cases mentioned were not reported to the police at the time and to my knowledge, the alleged perpetrator has not admitted guilt.)

In the last article, it was shared how the United Pentecostal Church has had a long-standing rule that any minister who has committed sexual sins/crimes is to forfeit their ministerial license. This is nothing new and is printed every January in their yearly Manual which is distributed to every licensed minister. District officials are supposed to uphold this rule. If a minister is suspected of sexual wrongdoing, it should be reported to their District and the officials should investigate, abiding by their Judicial Procedures. The District has the authority to rescind their license if charges are proven guilty, whether it be a sin or criminal act. Any licensed minister should be well aware that any sexual crime, or suspected sexual crime, is to be reported to the police.

[2024 Note: Since this article was written, the UPCI added a new policy in their judicial procedure where the districts will no longer handle sexual abuse cases of a minor as these will be handled at the regional level.]

It is reprehensible that this doesn’t always occur in the United Pentecostal Church and there are men licensed today who should not hold license based upon the UPCI stand against sexual sins/crimes. Unfortunately, if a case even reaches a District Board and isn’t covered up or handled ‘in house’ by individual pastors, District Superintendents are granted some wiggle room in following UPCI written policies. I don’t know how many cases I have heard over the years where the son, or other relative, of a UPCI minister has been sexually immoral and yet gone on to be granted license. Written policies have no real meaning when things like this happen. They are empty words and quite hurtful to victims and their families.

Last fall, at the UPCI’s annual General Conference, almost two years after I started this series about sexual abuse and five years after our first individual article, the General Board adopted a new position paper regarding Abuse and Sexual Misconduct. While we applaud them for making a more detailed stand, we are also hesitant in believing it will make a difference. Actions always speak louder than words. If they are now committed to doing what is right, they need to look into the cases we, and others, have already documented and remove the licenses of ministers who are guilty. (You may want to read what I previously wrote about this position paper and what I feel the organization needs to do in my coverage of UPCI pastor Howard Wayne Geck failing to report child sexual abuse committed by Dexter Hensley.)

In addition, we believe that they should also revoke the licenses of those ministers who fail to report any alleged or known instances of child sexual abuse to the proper authorities. It is my firm opinion that any minister who handles instances of sexual abuse ‘in house’ is negligent, irresponsible and unethical, and should the perpetrator assault anyone in the future because they chose to not report it to police, that they are partly to blame.

Thankfully, one man who had been licensed in Wisconsin, Glenn Uselmann, who never should have been considered to be a minister, either had his license revoked or he turned it in sometime last year.

I have a collection of UPCI Directories, which are released in January of each year and the following information comes from them. Unfortunately, I only have some of the 1980s and 1990s. I believe the licensed Youth Pastor I wrote about in the last article might first appear in the 1988 and 1989 editions under his first name instead of how he was later listed by his middle name. He is noted as holding a general license in 1988 in a Northwestern state, followed by Colorado in 1989. There is no listing for him in the 1987 or 1981 editions. (I do not have Directories from 1982-1986 or 1993-1998.)

Starting in 1990, he is seen listed by his middle name and is likewise seen in 1992 and 1993. By the 1999 edition or before, he is no longer listed, but is seen once again in the 2000 Directory, still in Colorado with a general license. The 2001 Directory is the last one showing him as being in Colorado.

It is important to understand that because these directories were compiled near the end of the previous year, they are more reflective of the year prior to their publication. Because of this, it shows that he was in Colorado for at least some of 2000 but could have left the state prior to 2001. According to one witness quoted above, he was no longer the Youth Pastor by at least September 2000. He continued to hold license until either 2010 or 2011. He was not listed in the 2012 edition.

Let’s look at what happens in a case like this, when a licensed minister, who had also been the Colorado District Youth Secretary and then the District Youth President the following year, is alleged to have sexually abused multiple minor boys. Instead of taking appropriate action, where he should have been made to forfeit his license and been reported to the police, he is permitted to retain his UPCI license for at least ten more years.

He gets to move to an unsuspecting state in the north Midwest followed by another in the Gulf Coast.
By 2003, he rises from a general license to being an ordained minister in the UPCI. This is their highest level of licensing. (To learn about the levels of licensing see this article.)
By 2004, or possibly 2003, he establishes a new non-affiliated UPCI church in New Jersey. (Any church whose pastor is licensed by the UPCI is considered a UPCI church. They can go a step further and have a legal affiliation with the organization. He did not.)
By 2006, he gets elected to serve as a District Presbyter, a position he holds until 2009 or 2010. He and the church are last seen in the 2011 edition, which could mean he was still UPC that year or may have left the prior year.
As of the writing of this article in June 2020, he is yet a pastor, approximately two decades after leaving Colorado. Are there other victims? How many could there be over a twenty year period and three states?

Now read what another former member of this church shared with me near the beginning of last November. It has been edited to remove names and the edits are in brackets.

I was a member of [a UPCI church in] Denver, Colorado. A few years ago there was a church break up and chaos. Many old members were told they were going Hell by the Bishop and Pastor [last name removed] as well as [the pastor’s wife], who was the cause of much chaos and lies. I left the church awhile after the 1st break up. There have been three as of today. We left due to a cover up of several young boys being sexually abused. It was covered up and the Youth Pastor was then asked to leave. During that time [the pastor’s wife] never spoke to us, but continued to tell people to stay away from us, don’t talk to them. Even a few months ago one of her entourage told a good friend she wasn’t to speak to me… it’s been almost two years. But she continues… Last night I attended a District event with friends where [the Bishop’s wife] was speaking. She had [the pastor’s wife] and [her granddaughter] testify. They both quoted this scripture, Psalms 119:165. When the event ended [the pastor’s wife] grabbed me by the arm. I thought she was going to be genuine and talk BUT… I hugged her and told her we need to talk. She then turned vicious, angry and pointed a finger and said, “If you ever speak of my father, the man of God he is, or ruin his integrity you will pay! You will pay! Stay away from my people!” Really her people, in my mind, her cult. Her daughter [who testified] came in and chimed in Psalm 119:165, “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” Really. Really. As we stood in the church. I am so furious upset and last night [was] my breaking point of [these leaders and this church]!! The ABUSE, ACCUSATIONS, THREATS OF GOING TO HELL has to STOP !!!

[Because there may be other sexual abuse victims from Colorado reading this, some may wish to review this PDF document, which covers the law, statutes of limitations and potential sentences and was valid as of at least 2015. In 2020 Colorado officials have been working on eliminating the statute of limitation for civil lawsuits for sexual abuse crimes. The bill was postponed in June 2020. You may also wish to read this article of why it is important to report possible cases of sexual assault. Never assume a pastor has reported child sexual abuse, especially in a state like Colorado or Wisconsin where children are not fully protected by the law due to clergy privilege.]

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

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