Contd: How Marco Archer's Death May Change How The Bahamas Deals With Abused Children

I digressed in my post earlier because I had to address a nation filled with religious Eli's.

The Bahamas' number one crime has always been incest and sexual abuse even though the news mainly focuses on property crimes and murders. I shook my head when I read the article detailing Marco's death "the murder count is now 104 for the year of 2011 (because this is the public's main focus)." For every murder there are hundreds of molestations that does not receive any attention.

How the predators are getting away with such an outrageous number of abuses? Often times family members are not willing to act (in addition, because of incest, in order to safeguard the victims names, these rapists are not revealed); cases take a long time to be adjudicated and the predators island hop from one island to another evading bench warrants, and preying on new children. There is no systematic way to track these predators without up-to-date technology. This is why a sexual offenders registry should be implemented by the Bahamian government.

There should also be a mandatory probation of two years where they will be required to check in with a probation officer whether they have served their time. It is utterly wrong to unleash these criminals on our society without our knowledge of their whereabouts. Prison does not deter their conscience of evil only solidifies it. They spend days trading stories and learning new ways to evade detection.

Convicted offenders should be banned from having contact with minor children (anyone under eighteen years of age). In addition anyone who aids them in continuing their vile trek through society should be held accountable by the law.

When I was thirteen I had taken a babysitters job for the summer. It was for a successful insurance agent, and his wife, in Freeport at the time. The job was without incident, but I am mentioning it because a year later, he was sent to jail for molesting his wife's niece. He, like most, went to jail for a short time, nothing was written about him in the newspaper. About  four to five months ago (twenty-four years later he was in the newspaper) for molesting a young girl in his congregation. Turns out this guy went to jail, came out and became a pastor and continued his mayhem.

Certainly his family knew his history and warned no one. Certainly a sex-offenders registry would have saved this young girl this unwanted pain.

to be continued......

How Marco Archer's Death May Change How The Bahamas Deals With Abused Children

 

What you do to the least of these:

I was abused, exploited and preyed upon and you called me a liar and told me to be quiet, stop talking about it, forgive and move-on, and touch not God's anointed (are you familiar with at least one of these sayings).

There are countless stories of abuse of children in the world and in congregations today. Yet, when abuses from someone we are acquainted with is revealed there are people who most always side with the perpetrator instead of the victims. We don't have this occurring in Marco's case because he is dead. He went missing five days ago and was found raped, murdered and his body dumped behind an apartment. Now his family is lamenting that there are too many sex offenders on the loose in the Bahamas.

Marco's mother is right. There are too many sex offenders loose in the Bahamas. And it is the fault of all of us. You see, we shield the silent abuser who we know (we tell our children don't shame the family) and castrate the stranger who does the same, raping and killing our children.

Why is it that we detest sexual predators that are unknown to us, yet condone the abuse that is happening in our homes and neighborhoods? Why is it that pastors preach on our young people staying sexually pure but stop short of condemning sexual predators that steal the value of our children's sexual integrity?

What hypocrisy!

We don't even try to bandage the wounds of the survivors of this crime. Many victims of abuse, including me, find that when we honestly expose our feelings of hurts and wounds that we've carried and that have caused us so much bondage, pain and turmoil there is little compassion from brothers and sisters in Christ (because the pain cannot be healed with an aspirin). How little love and compassion of the many who talk of acquaintance with Christ. We give Christ no honor here.

For now, we grieve for Marco..................what about tomorrow will we embrace the survivors of abuse with love while listening with compassion?

To be continued............

Familial Distraction, Marriage

I am sorry that I have not posted in awhile but my distraction was a joyous one. My baby sister is now a married woman: all the planning and shopping culminated in a beautiful day. May her marriage be guided by Christ. With this in mind, I will only write one paragraph on the Pat Robertson controversy.

I wonder how guilty we are as Christians that condone putting away a spouse as Pat Robertson. As irresponsible as his statement was Christians still divorce all the time for many reasons. Some then remarry, yet are still accepted by their congregations. It is hard for me to imagine that any preacher would encourage their congregation to abandon their spouses the way Robertson did (but we do). Why are we not outraged when the Body of Christ is scandalized daily when we allow one another to divorce and remarry on grounds the Lord does not allow. We as Christians do not take our Lord’s restriction of divorce and remarriage seriously–––by not getting divorced and remarried except for fornication. Instead of berating Robertson, we need to look inside to see that he is only voicing what we have allowed. May the Lord have mercy on the entire body of believers, who claim Christ as their Lord, yet find ways of rationalizing behaviors that He clearly condemns.  I tell you, as I pen this blog, I am contemplating how my own sins scandalizes the body of believers as well.