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Living a Life Beyond Sexual Abuse · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, it's the central point of the church's connectivity.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.csdfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are going to address living beyond sexual abuse.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, many of our listeners today will be familiar with the problems that the church worldwide has had with abuse.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: And as a church, we are very sorry for any feelings that this topic might raise for any of our listeners.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: We are particularly sorry if any of our listeners have experienced abuse in the life of the church.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: This should not happen in God's house in any way.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: In the Schweckfelder Conference of Churches, we have affirmed that our churches will be safe spots for all, particularly those who are weak and vulnerable.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sexual abuse is something that we are struggling with as a society, and the purpose of the next few minutes is to dialogue about this with a survivor of sexual abuse, Mrs.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Lisa Radcliffe.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Lisa, thank you for joining us on our on our program today.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: We're very glad to have you come and share about your story.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jake.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've known you for many years, but can you share with our listeners a little bit about your growing up experience and also about your family now?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be happy to do that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up actually here at Central Church.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was adopted at four months old, but my parents divorced when I was three.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we were attending a church in Lansdale, and my mother was invited to attend Central, and so we came here.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was here through the Sunday school program that I was saved, and then later met my husband, who was also grew up here.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we married in 1985 and had three boys.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're all grown and married, and each one has two children, and the newest was just born yesterday.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Congratulations.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you were involved with the youth group here and uh led many, many youth over the years.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: But your unfortunate story about uh sexual abuse came not as a result of being involved with this church, but as a result of your contact with a school bus driver.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Can you share uh what happened to you?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the man was a neighbor and actually worked with my dad.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: He he was a bus driver later in life, but um when I knew him, he was just a friend of our family.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he abused me for over a 10-year period, somewhere between age five and fifteen.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: After that, he he retired and became a school bus driver.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he was very beloved, very popular, um, very much uh part of what they call the grooming process.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: He really epitomized that, where he really gained credibility.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone liked him, every no one would believe that he would be an abuser.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's what kept him going for so long, I'm sure.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: He was never arrested until probably a decade after my abuse ended, and that's when my story went very public.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he had abused dozens of girls over very many decades, but was finally stopped, oh, around 1980-99, I guess.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: So this person wasn't uh someone you you say walk down the sidewalk and say, Oh, that that person's an abuser, but uh maybe just a normal looking person.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, and that's something that we need to know that 90% of all abusers are known to their victims.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: It they're not strangers and they're not these scary people that you think about when you look at someone and go, Oh, there's something wrong with that person.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: They they don't look like that at all.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're just normal, everyday people, um, and they're very good at getting parents, getting other adults to trust them, um, to think that they're really great people.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's how they get access to children.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when he was a school bus driver, he was the most beloved school bus driver there was.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the school district, whenever they had a a person of some significance coming to their school, they would have him be the guy to pick them up because they trusted him that much.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: So then this must have made it very difficult to share the story for somebody who was so beloved uh within um within the community.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I I tried to tell my mother um at one point during the abuse, I didn't really have the words to say.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know exactly what was going on, and later found out that he did tend to target kids who didn't have fathers at home.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know exactly how to explain it to her, but I thought I had done a pretty good job, and but her response was that I just misunderstood him, that he was just really friendly.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Can you share some of the feelings that came uh as a result of uh abuse?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Anything you feel comfortable being able to share with us about that?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: It started out with confusion.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't understand what was going on.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: All I knew was that it wasn't right, and I I couldn't explain that, but I just had I just knew there was something wrong.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I was really confused about it and didn't know how to um ask anybody what was going on.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then there was fear.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I really became very fearful of just about everything, but mostly of men.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm s I still struggle with claustrophobia, just being closed into a place is really hard for me.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I preferred being alone a lot when I was a kid, and that's a big sign that there's something wrong.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hopelessness came after that time that I told my mom, and I I just got into a point where I thought this is just gonna be how my life is.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is just what it is, and I just need to expect you know, accept that.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I had no power and I was just totally hopeless.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then shame happened, especially as I got older and it was still going on, and then as a teenager, my body would react to his touch differently, and I thought I must be bad because I reacted positively to it, and that's really common, and that's where the shame comes from.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, kids don't understand physiology, and abusers will use that against them.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And she and you spent some you did try to speak uh with your mother about this.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Did you try to speak with anybody else?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And were any of these feelings um confusing as you as you would speak to others about uh abuse?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't speak to anybody else about it until I started dating my husband.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted him to know because I wasn't sure how it would affect our relationship, I wasn't sure how he would react.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I did tell him, and he reacted in a very positive way and was very supportive of me and actually became very protective of me as well.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a really great thing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was after my abuser was arrested in another case that it became public knowledge that I was abused because I did talk to my pastor's wife, and she said you really should talk to the police.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when I told them my story, they wanted to use it to establish a pattern of behavior with him.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: It became a public kind of thing as it went to trial.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I could sense that God was telling me through 2 Corinthians 1 that I suffered this in order to help other people who were suffering in the same way.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And at first I said, no, I'm not doing that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want anybody to know about this, I want it to remain a secret.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, within an hour or so of arguing with God, which never ends well usually, I just submitted to whatever he wanted me to do.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm glad I did, because I can really see how he has used it to help others.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know this from some of the research that you've done, but I'm sure some of our listeners uh uh will not be familiar that there are many people in American society who are being abused.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: From the National Uh Sexual Violence Center, they have issued these statistics.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: One in five women and one in seventy-one men will be raped at some point in their lives.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years of age.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh these are staggering uh statistics.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Might you have anything to say to someone who might be abused?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh just about uh uh uh trying to speak with others about it and and and being able to uh find help.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say the most freeing thing I can say to any victim is it's not your fault.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that's the biggest thing that abusers get their victims to believe somehow it was their fault, uh that they deserved it or they did something that caused the abuse, and and victims need to know that it wasn't your fault.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime a child is abused, it it's always the responsibility of the adult, always, and that needs to be known.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's people like me who were saved for a long time, who were serving in the church, but still felt stuck because of their past, that there was still this nagging thing, and they need to hear that it wasn't their fault.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Some uh of us who might be listening to this um uh may have had family members who are abused or may have suffered some type of uh abuse in the past, whether it be a wife, uh uh a daughter, a son, a friend.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any advice uh for those uh who know people that uh are abused?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um how we might be able to uh help, um encourage uh um one who is abused to find to find help.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think the first and most important thing is believe them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not an easy thing to disclose abuse to someone else.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: They are really trusting you when they are disclosing their abuse.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Don't act shocked, don't um get a look of disgust on your face.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Try to remain very calm and very matter-of-fact because being believed is just so important.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when we don't believe people that disclose abuse to us, it just adds to their shame and probably drives them into more secrecy, which is just harmful.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing you can do is just be really sensitive.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's triggers that happen.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: My husband's very aware of things that trigger me.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's very good about asking me, Are you okay with this?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do we need to leave?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were at a movie recently with friends, and I didn't know that part of the storyline was going to be that there was a uh a child in it that was being sexually abused.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And because we were in a in a more public place with other people, I didn't want to get up and leave, and I didn't need to really, but he knew that I could be sensitive to that, and you know, so he just put his arm around me, just let me know he's there.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's be kind of like I said, he was he's very protective, and I really appreciate that, and I think that's something spouses can do for one another, is just put that arm around, put a put your hand on theirs, something that lets them know you're there, you understand, and you're being protective.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Anything that you might be able to share for parents that might be protecting a uh a daughter or a son from abuse.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Again, believe them and don't try to fix it within your family.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: If there's real abuse going on, you need to call childline or the or the police and let them handle investigations.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do that on your own, but go ahead and and get the authorities involved because it is serious and it's not something that you can handle within your family.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you need to take that child to therapy to help them, do that.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Don't keep it a secret.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the biggest issues with this, is that it's kept silent and it's kept a secret.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: These kids, especially, they need help processing it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So the a real enemy in this then is uh the secrecy and not being able to speak and you'd encourage each of us uh to listen better and and to take it very, very seriously.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: At the center of your testimony of getting past uh sexual abuse is the person of Jesus Christ.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, in the church we believe Jesus is uh uh as being God, uh, but this is a person who lived some 2,000 years ago.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: How does someone who lived 2,000 years ago help someone in a modern uh day and age uh get past something like sexual abuse?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like I said, I was saved here um through their Sunday school program, and then the example of the youth leader that we had here, and that really helped me to understand that although I believed Jesus died on the cross for me, I really wasn't living for him, I hadn't really given my life to him, and that all turned around at the when our youth leader died suddenly, and I took a real look at my life.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then I saw I really dove into scripture and I saw 2 Corinthians 15, 7, it says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: The old has passed away, and behold, the new has come.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And although I knew Jesus had taken away my sin, when I read that verse that the old had passed away, I realized that he's also taken away my past.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: That I didn't have to um live in it, I didn't have to be controlled by it, or it didn't have any power over me.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that really is what started my freedom.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it helped you put behind the past, but how did it help you look towards the future?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I just kept reading scripture.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I just I didn't look specifically for things to help with abuse, just scripture in general.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think because it is living and active, it makes a difference every day of our lives.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: You've written a book called Hidden with Christ, Breaking Free from the Grip of Your Past.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: We have uh copies of it here at the Central Schwenkfelder Church.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if you might say a word or two about uh the book.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope the book offers hope to victims of sexual abuse.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I want people to know you really can live an abundant life, live a joy-filled life after abuse.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: It really is possible through Christ.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the the book is about.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: It it's a little bit different in that it um comes at it from the point of having heroes in my life, which I thought was an important thing, that we look at our lives and see who God has put there to help us through this life.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's a very encouraging book.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've gotten a lot of feedback from people saying they have found freedom for the first time in their lives, and uh that gives me such joy to hear that God is using it that way.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for coming today, Lisa, to share uh your story.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: We certainly wish you uh uh God's best in your future and with your family.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And thank you to all those who listen today to Centrally Speaking, a ministry from the Central Schweinfelder Church of Worcester, Pennsylvania.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: The Sunday morning services are the following a traditional service at 9 a.m.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: with organ and various choirs.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Our praise team leads a contemporary service at 10 35.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sunday School for Youth is at 9 o'clock and at 9 and 10 30 for adults.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: We warmly welcome you to join us.