We first met Joe (not his real name) in October of 2010, when he and his teenage step-daughter showed up on our doorstep selling candy bars as a fundraiser for her school. They stood on our front porch and talked with us for a long time- about an hour and a half.
She was a friendly girl, but appeared to be way too old to have a step-father who was so young. (We later found out that Joe was 25, and she was only 13! WOW!! She surely looked and dressed like someone who was about 17 or 18 years old.)
Joe talked a lot and we fell in love with his boyish nature. He was quite sincere, almost naïve.
He had a good sense of humor, and asked LOTS of questions about Christianity. (It never takes us too long to start talking about Jesus when we are around people.)
He followed another religion, one called paganism, so he knew nothing about our beliefs.
Joe and his step-daughter were goofing around with each other the entire time that they were here; they seemed to get along really well. They actually almost acted more like brother and sister than anything else- gently poking each other in the side, or laughingly twisting the other one’s ear. It was so refreshing to see, since we so often hear about the
‘wicked step-parent.’
Joe and his wife, Jill (not her real name) had moved into the trailer park that we live in about a year ago, but we had never really met them because we are gone so much of the time. (The girl divided her time between their house and her dad’s house.)
On a cold January afternoon in 2011, 3 months after we had first met him and his step-daughter, Joe and Jill walked to our house and asked if they could come in and talk to us. (Most of the people in the park know that we are ministers- and when they need advice, they will come to our house.) We welcomed them in and they talked while we listened- for 6 ½ hours!
They told us about the problems that they were having with Jill’s daughter. The girl was totally out of control. She would hit her mom and step-father often, sometimes literally beating them with her fists or other objects; and would get angry at them for no reason
whatsoever- cussing at both of them. She had also grabbed a sharp knife and tried to stab Joe that very day before they came to see us!
She would speak hatefully to the step- father; telling him to go wash her dirty laundry, or to make her something to eat- when mealtime was already over with. (The mom has cancer- and is often bedridden.) So Joe would comply with the girl’s wishes to keep peace in the house, but he resented the way that she treated him.
They said that she also dressed in very sensual clothing which had belonged to her grandmother. (Jill’s mother was 61 when she died, and her risqué wardrobe fit the granddaughter perfectly.) We told Jill to throw the clothes out- but she wouldn’t do that. She told us that those clothes were all that she had left of her mom’s belongings and they had sentimental meaning to her.
Joe and Jill informed us that the girl also claimed that she had been raped on five different occasions, but then gave them different names and circumstances each time that they questioned her. They also admitted to us that they knew that she was lying in order to get attention, but they didn’t know what to do about her behavior.
Jill further told us that her daughter had been abused as a toddler, by a trusted friend, and that the Department of Social Services (DSS) had stepped in and removed her daughter from her home for a while, so she felt that this was the cause of the girl’s behavior now.
We told them that they needed to talk to the daughter’s guidance counselor at school IMMEDIATELY and tell him everything that they had told us. We also informed them that they did not need to put up with her abuse- and that they should warn her that if she EVER hit them again, they would call the police and have her arrested.
We warned Joe that we know two men who have been accused of sexually abusing their step-daughters and both men, even though they are innocent, are now registered sex offenders in the State of North Carolina for the rest of their lives. And we didn’t want to see the same thing happen to him.
We nicely, but firmly, told both of them that a girl who would lie about being raped in order to get attention will surely have no problem lying about her step-father, claiming that he had done the same thing to her.
When we were done giving Joe and Jill advice, they told us that they COULD NOT call the police, or even talk to a teacher at school, because they didn’t want DSS to step in and take the girl away from her mother. Jill said that she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her daughter again.
(Their water had been shut off one week before, they had no phone, and they were about to have their electricity shut off as well. So they were afraid that if DSS came into the home and saw their living conditions, they would remove the girl immediately.)
They left our house after thanking us for our time, and we prayed that God would help them. What a sad situation!
Two days later, they were back again- this time asking us to take them to look for work. (Neither one had a job; and with no car, it was hard to find employment.)
So we drove them to different places nearby so that they could apply for jobs. We also took them to a ministry which gives out food and clothing to people.
We were gone for most of the day, and when we got back to their house, the teenage daughter ran out of the house and cussed them out right in front of us! She was VERY angry that it was now 6:00 pm and they were just getting home. We just stood there in awe that someone would talk to their parents like that! WOW!! We couldn’t believe what we had just heard.
We continued to pray for their living situation and asked God to intervene and take care of that mess. And what a mess it was! We felt sorry for the parents being held hostage by a rebellious, out-of-control teenager, who knew that they wouldn’t do anything her about behavior because they were so afraid of the Dept of Social Services!
THE PLOT THICKENS:
Ten days after Joe and Jill had come to talk to us, police cars swarmed our little trailer park and surrounded the trailer where they lived.
Joe was hauled off in handcuffs and arrested for sexually molesting his step-daughter!
We were shocked- but only that it had happened so soon after we had warned them that this exact thing would happen!
It turns out that the girl had told her real father, when spending the weekend at his house, that her step-father had sexually abused her! She then gave him EXACT dates- two of them a year and a half earlier!- of when it had happened! WOW!! Now that’s a pretty good memory, I would say! (Please note my sarcasm here!)
Jill was understandably devastated. She told us that she knew that her husband was innocent, and didn’t want us to think badly of him. We told her that we also knew that he was innocent, and that we would pray that God would let the truth be known.
Now, 6 months later, Joe is in prison awaiting a mental evaluation. We found out that he has a learning disability and may not be competent to stand trial. (That explained his boyish nature!)
Jill is dying with cancer and the daughter has been taken away from her by DSS (due to her deplorable living conditions) and placed with an Aunt and Uncle- who are raising her.
The whole story is so sad- but one that is quite sadly all too common in America today.
The Bible clearly states in:
Proverbs 23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Proverbs 23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
These scriptures refer to punishing your child. They don’t mean to literally beat him, but rather to punish him severely enough that you will ultimately be saving him from a life of crime; and saving him from ending up in Hell.
How many of us remember dad’s belt? OUCH! But we DID know that if we disobeyed, we were going to get punished! Our parents taught us respect by letting us know that there were consequences for disrespect- and they were painful ones.
Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
This is exactly what happened in the case of Joe and Jill. Their daughter was “left to himself”- in other words, not punished as a child because the mom was afraid of DSS! And now she has brought shame to her mom.
So how do we handle children like this girl? What is the solution?
The answer is actually quite simple!
We need to go back to using the Bible as a rulebook for raising our children…
UPDATE: Aug 25, 2011
We found out that Joe was sentenced to 21 years in prison for ‘raping’ his step-daughter. She gave police EXACT dates that Joe ‘raped’ her- going back 2 years ago. Pretty good memory, huh? Joe- who was represented by a public defender, decided to plead guilty to the charges to save his wife from anymore disgrace. She is dying from cancer and is now living in a nursing home. He will be released when he is 46 years old! We will keep in touch with him by mail.
Just another example of an innocent person whom the justice system failed. The INJUSTICE system actually. Very sad!
UPDATE: Oct 7, 2011
Joe’s wife, Jill, succumbed to her cancer today.