Our New Feeding Program

Back in December a friend worte me about a group looking for more feeding programs in Guatemala to give  food to. Of course, I was interested as we have 25 new communities wanting our feeding programs and the only thing holding us back was the food. The first week here in January we met with the representative of Kids Against Hunger. Everything is a process and in Guatemala, everyting is a slow process. Finally, we were asked to pick the new community. We were doing some clinics in Maria de Carmen and realized how desperately the kids needed the food. Also they are 3 kms. down the road from Nueva Victoria so we picked them. 150 school kids to add to the feeding program. They also allowed us to put Nueva Victoria on the program. We still spend money on chicken, vegetables and fruit to add to the chicken flavored rice, lentils and dried veggies that are in the KAH packets. But with the money we saved we started a monthly feeding program for mamas and tots and infants at Chiuti-estancia. Here are some of the 150 kids from Maria del Carmen who now eat 3 times a week and have 3 hours of tutoring from our two teachers 5 days a week.

We still need the funds for the other 24 communities. Our funds are very low so please donate.

thanks

Vicki 20.vicki@gmail.com

More Fragile Kids we need Help With

Here are some more of the kids who came to Doc Peter's clinic.

I can not remember what was wrong with this sweet little one . He looks healthy in the picture, but he would not have ben there if he did not have some major medical issue

 This next baby was abandoned by her mom and is being raised by a foster mom. She was extremely malnourished and we started her on our infant feeding program immediately. The adoptive mama had heard about us when we did clinics in Maria del Carmen.

 Here is Maria again. The spina bifida child we have in our feeding program. We also provide the bandages and medicines she needs to keep her major sore on her foot doctored. When I say we, I mean you all. It is your donated money that enables us to buy these things.

 This little boy is one of 8 kids. He was signed up for the nutributter program and it was discovered how malnourished he was at that time. Because the new Guatemlan government has put the nutributter program on hold, we have taken him into our feeding programs.

Speaking of feeding programs, next blog I will go into the new one we have started and how Kids Against Hunger is helping us out.

Please help us if you can. We need formula donations, shoes and cash to help more kids. We have 25 more communities begging for our help. Please pass this blog on to all you know. Remember 100% of their donation goes to these kids. We donate our time, travel and personal expenses associated with this work. Jody and I travel to Guate in July. If you want to send something for us to take down , it needs to be to us by July 15th. Write me at 20.vicki@gmail.com for an address.

From Sex Trafficked Child To Child Prostitute: The Letter

One thing I have seen through the years is that child molesters can be very charming. My father certainly had that capacity.

The Letters

By the following spring Vicki’s memory work had attenuated, and her perspective on her childhood had completely changed:  Her father had been a monster—a man without restraint.  His oldest daughter had simply been there for him and his pleasure.  She remembered incidents from age five into her middle teenage years.  The latter were the most difficult to handle because she felt she ought to have said or done something—why hadn’t she?  Why had she simply blocked it out of her memory?  No wonder she had gotten pregnant and then married and moved out of the house—because she had been afraid of her father and wanted to get away from home.

I had a difficult time reconciling this information with the man I knew.  Vicki’s father was charismatic with a host of friends and had run for mayor, but in private he was at times crude and demeaning to his wife.  But he was also very generous.  If we were in a financial pinch, he seemed to know and would give us a little money to help out.  In many ways he was a more engaged father, than was my own father.  Years earlier when I had started a carpentry business, he had run advertising for me and gotten my business off the ground.  Despite his occasional indecent jokes, I had grown fond of the man.  What made the most sense—and what we both hoped—was that her father had grown out of that behavior; it was part of the past.

“It’s time to confront your parents,” Isaac announced suddenly at the beginning of one of her usual biweekly sessions.  “. . . your father for what he had done and your mother for not protecting you.”   This was standard procedure in the healing paradigm for incest of the time.  Isaac wanted her to write personal letters to each of her parents, noting with specific, but not graphic, detail the sexual abuse: how it has affected her over the years, and how she felt about it.   He also warned Vicki that her father was not in a therapy group like the offenders that she had come to know and trust and may not respond like these men had.

While reliving the memories had been difficult, this was terrifying to Vicki.  She did not know how her father would react; she hoped he would repent like the men in her therapy group and apologize, but it would seem out of character for him.  And she was afraid that the stress would be too much for her mother, now over 70 years old.  Vicki could only imagine how her mother would feel when she saw the profound cost of her maternal neglect. “   And, I , Vicki, had something going on in my subconscious that said If you ever tell, something bad  will happen to you.  I was absolutely terrified of writing these letters, but I had committed to doing what Isaac said and overcoming the PTSD I suffered with, so I spent time first panicking and then figuring out how I could write them.  I did not have aTemple recommend at this time, but felt like I would be able to gain the strength I needed and write the letters in the visitors center of the Washington temple.”

The two letters went off by certified mail in mid-July.  To get away from the telephone that she knew would ring, we scheduled a two day trek along the Appalachian Trial.  The kids were sent to friends’ houses.

 Vicki had earned the time off and it was refreshing to body and soul.  But it was not long enough.  As if on cue, we had not been home more than a few minutes when the telephone rang.  It was her mother:  “We’re coming up there right away and have you committed to a psyche ward.”  “Okay, come up and meet me at my therapist’s and we’ll talk.  And then you will know the truth and Daddy may go to jail.”  Her mother quickly backed down and over the next few weeks she begrudgingly admitted that it was possible that her husband may have been involved.  Then she waffled and absolutely denied it was possible.  Her position was difficult to read:  she did not want to lose her daughter, but she did not want to antagonize her husband, who categorically denied everything.

This was the beginning of a four year hiatus from seeing her father.  Her mother came alone to visit a couple times a year, especially wanting to see the grandkids.  It was too painful emotionally for me to see him, especially since he insisted in denying everything.   At this time in my life, my PTSD was horrible and just being around my father could affect my sleep and emotional well-being for weeks.  It also hurt our family life because I was so unstable.

Several months later, when Vicki was beginning to process her anger, she called her father and asked him to help with the therapy costs.  Although we were bartering on the costs of each session, transportation and meals added up.   There was no reason I should be paying both the emotional and financial costs of this.  Without hesitation my father agreed.  “Just don’t tell your mother.”   Thus my dad admitted, at least to me, that my memories were real and he was taking some responsibility.

Some of our fragile kids.

Right before we left Guatemala the middle of April, Doctor Peter, of nutribtter fame, did a clinic at our clinic at Los Robles for the fragile kids that we try and help. We had about 20 kids show up. Some were new that were discovered during the nutriibutter distribution. I try and keep tabs on all of them, but do not know all the stories of the pictures I will post over the next week . This first one is  the sweetest little 3 year old, Eduardo. He can not hear. But Doc Peter says with hearing aids he will be able to hear loud noises  and things that might be dangerous to him. Doc Peter says they will cost about $2000.00. CASA DE SION CAN NOT BUY THESE WITHOUT YOUR HELP. IF YOU WISH TO DONATE, PUSH THE DONATE BUTTON AND TELL US HOW MUCH. DESIGNATE EDUARDO. REMEMBER WE KEEP NOTHING FOR OURSELVES. OUR TIME AND EXPENSES ARE DONATED AND EVERY PENNY GOES TO THE PROGRAMS IN GUATEMALA.

This picture is of Elder. We buy his seizure meds. His mama helps pay us back by cooking in our kitchen for the feeding programs. The next little girl had part f her intestines outside her body. We paid for her operation.

 Lastly. this little fellow showed up at our church with his equally immaciated 5 bros and sis'. My kids asked me if I had seen the downs baby at church. I had not, but investigated and found out from the missionaries who the family was. Mama and dad are rarely there, kids all look malnourished, baby is downs and they can not afford for any of the kids to go to school. We started the baby asap in our formula program and he was seen by Peter.
WE NEED HELP WITH THESE KIDS AS THEIR MEDICAL NEEDS ARE MORE THAN WE CAN PAY FOR. AND THEIR PARENTS CAN NOT AFFORD ANYTHING

. WE STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY HELP FOR THE 16 YEAR OLD DISABLED GIRL ONORIA. PLEASE IF YOU CAN GIVE, YOU WILL BE BLESSED

THANKS

VICKI

20.vicki@gmail.com

From Sex Trafficed Child To Child Advocate: The Men's Group

The Men’s Group

Because of the distance Vicki

was driving Isaac recommended that she

attend a group therapy for women.  There was no cost for this group

and it would give Vicki more therapy time to help compensate for the

long drive.   Isaac said that different kind of healing takes place with group

therapy and Vicki was interested.   The group met once a week in an

old church building, but from the beginning Vicki didn’t like it.

It was all about anger for those women.  They couldn’t even function;

they hated men so much.  Their lives were a wreck and I couldn’t

identify with any of them.  None of them could even hold a job; in

fact, they were so angry they had to meet on a different hall than the

Offender’s Group.  They threatened to claw the eyes out of those men

if they passed them in the hall.

After several sessions with the Victim’s Group, Vicki decided to quit.

 Therapy was hard enough without getting depressed being around those

women.  They talked about anger and retribution, not about forgiveness

and that’s what our church stressed.  That’s the direction Vicki

wanted to go in.  Then she had the idea of attending the Offender’s

Group.  These were men, accused or convicted of incest or sexual abuse

of children, that were court-mandated to attend.   It would require

special permission, interviews and the consent of the men’s group, but

Vicki thought it might be helpful in understanding her father and his

motivation.  She hoped it might eventually lead to forgiveness.

Although the men were initially wary of having a victim in their

meetings, Vicki was tentatively accepted into the group.  On average

about twenty men attended the once a week meeting.  If they missed a

meeting, they were immediately sent back to jail.  This was a

mandatory part of their probation.  There were also one or two other

women—a wife and a girlfriend of two of the offenders—at the weekly

meetings.   Much like an AA meeting trained therapists helped the men

acknowledge and come to terms with their crime.  Whenever a new member

came into the group, each was required to “tell his story”.

Vicki learned that all of the men were sex addicts and sometimes had

gone to great and crazy lengths to get that rush.  They had almost all

been molested as children and some had thought that it was just part

of your initiation into life:  even though it was illegal, it was like

speeding—everybody did it.  They had been convicted of molesting girls

between the age of eight and twelve, usually their own daughters.

Each man had already spent time in jail and was doing individual

therapy with a counselor like Isaac, Vicki’s therapist.  It was

embarrassing for them to be in such a group and almost all of them

wanted to get out of it and put this behind them.  But the truth was

that their lives were a wreck.  Inevitably their wives divorced them

and they lost contact with their children.

When Vicki did not castigate the men for their crime, a healing,

reciprocal acceptance entered the group.  To her surprise Vicki came

to like most of the men.  They had much in common; they were both

damaged goods and spent too much time thinking about sex.  Some were

able to compartmentalize their behavior out of consciousness.  One

man, who reminded Vicki of a younger, heavier version of Archie

Bunker, told the group that he would get irate with stories of rapists

and child molesters on TV:  “They ought to cut their-you-know-what

off!”  he admitted ranting, oblivious to what he was doing to his own

daughters.

“Sex-offenders” quit being a category for Vicki, but a group of

individuals, each with their own heart-rending story.  She learned

that sex offenders were not born but made.  Much like an alcoholic

they probably had a proclivity but fed it until it became a

full-fledged and out of control addition—not that hard to do in our

sex –saturated society.  Empathy replaced hatred as she got to know

these men and their tragic backgrounds and the uproar that their

malicious behavior had caused in their own lives.  Many had destroyed

their own families and it was just plain sad to see them struggle to

rebuild on those ashes.  But it also created hope for her relationship

with her own father because she had seen that repentance and

restitution was possible.

One of the things that struck me, Vicki, so much in this group was how

hard it is in our society to deal with a sexual addiction. The men

spoke of it often:  How TV, movies and bill boards were always in

their faces and how children were sexualized.   Children’s clothing,

even costumes copied after Walt Disney characters, was often sexual.

And that was 20 some years ago before the internet. I have seen a

sickening increase in sexual crimes against children.  Then it was

said that 6% of the male population becomes addicted to porn.  Now,

with the internet and the increased availability of pornography I am

sure it is much worse.  So we have men (and sometimes women) who are

molested as children and then go on to molest more children and we

have a vicious cycle.  Everyone wants to blame the perpetrator, but I

feel sorrow, as well as anger, towards them.  It is the public

tolerance of the sexualization of children and our sex-saturated

society that leads to child rape and child trafficking.

While Vicki’s father rarely talked about his childhood, we did know a

little.  His father had owned a burgeoning auto parts business but had

drunk himself into bankruptcy and then died.  At fifteen years old

Vicki’s father had to quit school and work to support the family.

Vicki’s grandmother had lived with Vicki when she was a teenager and

was obviously mentally ill.  Vicki saw that her father’s childhood had

been at least as dysfunctional as many of the men in her group.  From

Vicki’s perspective there was room for reconciliation but her father

first had to acknowledge his trespasses.

Since these long biweekly trips to therapy took so much time and

energy, Vicki decided to start making business contacts.  Before long

she was doing drapery estimates and making the trips profitable.  She

would leave around noon on Tuesdays and do any business she had.  Her

session with Isaac lasted from four to five-thirty.   And then she

went to economical restaurant with the three older girls and the

nursing baby.  After dinner it was group therapy with the men’s group.

 It would be around midnight when she returned home.

Lucia and the March medical team

Here are more pics from our March medical team. Kim, the pediatrician is checking out one of the older women from Maria del Carmen. High blood pressure and diabetes are always problems and no money to buy meds. The next picture is of the wife and children of our teacher in this area, Alfredo. Alfredo borrowed the money to get his degree and is now having to pay it back. His wife needs an operation for kidney stones that will cost $400.00. A lot of money for them. Can you help?

The third picture is of the pick-up load of kids we brought over from Nueva Victoria. We have 100 plus school kids there and it took 2 pick-ups of kids packed in to bring them to us. The last picture is of Lucia. She was one of the school kids from Nueva Victoria. Dr. Kim did quick heart, ear, eye and throat checks on all the kids. Lucia's heart check showed heart trouble. Plus her eyes showed that she can not get enough air and the world is a scary place for her. The next week we had Doc Peter do a more thorough exam and he has ordered an echocardiogram. Lucia's granma needs diabetes meds and the family can not afford any of this. Please pray for those in need and help. Even $5.00 amongst 100 people would pay for a lot of this.

Bad Internet

Well I thought I had enough internet to do a post. I have not had picture uploading power for a while and was going to take advantage of it, but this was all I could upload. The first is the twins that we helped get a home when they were born and their birthmom could not take them home. Lillian, the midwife in Los Robles adopted them and we pay for some of their expenses. The next is part of a wonderful medical team we had here in March. They did clinics in Los Robles and Maria del Carmen and the school kids in Nueva Victoria. They are the ones who discovered Lucia. Another "we saved her life story" to be told later.

From Sex Trafficked Child To Child Advocate: Therapy With Issac

Therapy with Isaac

Besides being an excellent mother, Vicki was skillful at networking.  After years of dallying with the idea of incest therapy, Vicki had made up her mind earlier that spring to get serious.  After several calls she had found a therapist with an outstanding reputation and to our astonishment Isaac was willing to barter because his fees would be far beyond our affordability.   The problem was that he was two and half hours away.

With the long drive and our busy summer Vicki’s trips to therapy became hit and miss.  As summer receded in autumn the misses began to outweigh the hits.  As the turmoil at home increased, the hits became even fewer.  In those sporadic sessions with Isaac during the summer and fall Vicki had begun to flesh in the one memory from age eleven and because of its brutal nature Isaac suspected that there were probably more.  He wanted to use hypnosis but Vicki resisted.  She was afraid of the loss of control.  She already hated the sessions with him.  He pushed for details, wanting to trigger her memory, but when the session was over, it was over.  She often felt like a basket case when she walked out the door and still had to drive home for 2.5 hours.

Although the long trip and our busy lifestyle were her usual excuse for canceling sessions, both Vicki and Isaac suspected that her aversion to therapy was the fear of more memories.  With Isaac’s help she did come to understand the root of her need to intervene between our oldest daughter and me—it was a simple primitive maternal emotion of protection:  The protection that she hadn’t gotten but needed as a child.  But that didn’t change things at home.  Isaac did promise her that as she rooted out her past, those feelings would subside.

Finally, in late November, Vicki called to cancel one more appointment.   Isaac told me bluntly, “I can’t work with you on this kind of basis.  It’s obvious that you’re running away.  Either you come every other week like we originally agreed or I’m going to drop you.”  I knew Isaac was right; I was running away.  I didn’t know what from, but I was running.  The feeling was not unlike giving birth.  When I got to the hard part of labor, I wanted to quit and forget about having a new baby and walk out of the hospital, but it was too late.  I had to keep going, no matter how painful because the process I’d already started was irreversible. Now I was too far gone to quit, but too scared to keep going.  It was my love for my family and especially my oldest daughter that pushed me to recommit and to make the long drive to therapy that next Tuesday and each long drive after that.  Vicki rarely missed a session afterward. 

A few weeks later Vicki was heading toward Roanoke in the early afternoon with the sun warming the van.  Suddenly she remembered another pleasant afternoon living in Hawaii at five years old.    She could clearly recall the military base housing where she lived that surrounded the playground and the cabana in the center.   In the next scene the pleasing ambience was ruined as she fought and kicked against her father in the cabana while he was trying to remove her underwear.   

Soon the memories came tumbling out like ripe fruit from a cornucopia.  And they never seemed to wait for a therapy session; instead, she got in the habit of interrupting my work at the sewing room.  With a background in psychology I was fascinated with this process of bringing to light buried memories.   I would listen, ask a question or two if needed for direction, and then write down the memory when she was finished.  I was impressed with the clarity of Vicki’s memory work as was Isaac.  There was a sense of release with each memory, and Vicki and I both had the feeling that we were cleaning out her subconscious.  And we patiently (and occasionally not so patiently) endured this sometimes explosive process that would usually upset our home for a few days before and after because we believed that when Vicki was finished with the memories, the reconstruction and healing would begin.

Memories were not just things that popped into my head.  They caused tremendous physical and emotional feelings.  I was overwhelmed with feelings of horrible shame, sweats, shaking, panic attacks, feeling like I was going to pass out, dizziness, feelings of being suffocated.  The words “my father molested me” turned into many, many times of him sneaking into my bedroom at night even from a very young age.  The word molested turned into what it really was “rape of a child”.It hurt both physically and emotionally and spiritually.  My body relived everything and there was a certain amount of uproar around our house.  And then I would review what I had learned in my next therapy session with Isaac and he would push for more details. 

These memories had lived behind a wall of fear.  When I was three years old my father killed my cat and brought him to me.   He said that if I ever told the same thing would happen to me.  So I did what he said, I never told and eventually large portions of my life were placed beyond that wall.  This allowed me to survive and be “normal.”  But at this point in my life I finally felt safe enough to venture beyond that wall.  I was motivated by my love for my children and husband.  But I had to traverse that wall of fear.   That’s what entering into therapy meant for me.   The fear was overwhelming and even now twenty years after remembering these buried traumas, I am afraid to talk about it.  My father has been dead for two years and the fear of telling is still palpable.  

Neither Isaac nor I ever doubted the veracity of Vicki’s memories.  They were clear for Vicki and occasionally I would ask her questions later to see whether she remembered the same facts.  I came to the conclusion that she wasn’t making things up; she was reliving her past and from that point on she remembered as any person would.  Over the years I had observed enough of her father to recognize he had a seedy side; it was just more than I could have imagined.

Credit where credit is due

For the next couple blogs I want to highlight some of the amazing volunteers that have been to visit us in Guatemala.  

In April we had Pan el la Boca come visit.  This amazing group from CA has been helping us for the past 5-6 years.  Because of this group we were able to build our clinic, beautify the grounds and so much more.  This time they came for just a few day but left having touched the lives of many.

Pan en la Boca headed to Chuiti-Estancia.  First, they built cement floors for 4 homes so the residents no longer have dirt floors

They built a roof on the building where we hold the Mother and Tots program.  They also, brought 56 more sheets of tin to change out/repair/build roofs on some of the homes.

Seven lucky recipients received ONIL Stoves, now they and their children can breath safely in their homes.

They build 9 beds and put them in the houses that needed them the most.

Thank you Pan en la Boca, please come back soon!

Meet Onoria Yoxon Locon

We met this special little girl at our Mother and Tot's Feeding Program this week.  Her name is Onoria Yoxon Locon.  She is 16 years old.  We do not know what she has, but she is not able to walk or talk.  We do not know where her parents are, she has been left is the care of another.  Her caregiver have been taking her to therapy appointment carrying Onoria on her back.  She says that Onoria has grown to big to carry (the women I meet in Guatemala are amazing, I don't know how they carry what they do on their backs) and now she needs to take transportation.  The problem is that this women lives in poverty and cannot afford transportation, she is begging for help.  She is also asking for help to buy the diapers that Onoria needs.

She is asking for 450Q/mth (approximately $60) to help pay for transportation to therapy appointments and diapers.  If you would like to help her take care of  Onoria please donate today and send me an email to let me know--I will give you updates on how Onoria is doing.

Onoria (and her caregiver) enjoyed the wheelchair at Casa de Sion

Froom Sex Trafficked Child To Child Advocate: Blog no. 2 "The Indian Summer"

Here is part two. So hard to send this out. But down in TX today some of my friends who work in child sex trafficking rescued a little girl today who is now in a safe house . If this can save even one little girl like the 5 year old beautiful birracial girl from NC who died while being traffcked , it is worth it.

The Indian Summer

The year was 1988. Vicki had turned 39 years old that spring and I was a year and a half behind her.  Our youngest, number eight, was a year old.  And we were incredibly excited because we were moving into the house I had been building for the past four years. 

Prematurely pushed out of a small rental house, we were half camping in our dream home.  With no kitchen Vicki was cooking all of our meals outside on an open campfire while I put in a few hours of carpentry work into our new house each night after a long day at our drapery workroom.  We had moved in with only an upstairs bathroom and a couple bedrooms; gradually I finished our bedroom and then the living room—dining room area.  We both have fond memories of sharing and decompressing after those incredibly long days, days of dreams coming true, days of camaraderie and cooperation.  We talked around the outdoor fire into the night, relished the Indian summer and enjoyed the kids, equally excited, racing around the flotsam of a house under construction. 

The weather cooperated enough to get the kitchen in and we settled into a house that was 90% finished.  But it was soon obvious that something was wrong as we sat down to eat dinner each evening at our new harvest table.  Vicki sat at one end and I at the other, but to save her life, my wife could not find the right spot for our oldest daughter who was eleven.  There wasn’t a right spot.  If I would look in that daughter’s direction, Vicki was certain it was with a lecherous eye.  In our brand new house, with the first table that fit our entire family, dinner often erupted with accusations and heated arguments.  Our poor daughter was humiliated and sometimes ran from the table while Vicki and I slung recriminations back and forth ruining the meal we had so long looked forward to having as a family.

I, Vicki, did not understand my own behavior.  I am not really sure what I was feeling other than a compelling need to protect my daughter.  When I would try and be rational with myself, it did not help. I did not believe Jody was or would molest our daughter.  I knew my behavior was bizarre, but I had a physical, overpowering need to jump between him and them any time he got physically close.   And that is what I would do especially with the oldest.   I was protecting my daughter, which my mother had not done for me—I was the oldest daughter in my family.  To save my life I couldn’t explain my behavior but the compulsion was powerful.  As it would turn out my body was already remembering things that my mind was not ready to accept.  Even though I did not remember any details I knew the word “molested” applied to me.  I knew that my father had molested me when I was eleven years old. 

The information about Vicki’s childhood was not new.  From the beginning Vicki had let me know that it came with her—a kind of package deal.  She felt in some way that she was damaged goods and that I needed to know that.  But the truth was that we both came from dysfunctional families and there had been an undertone of discord in our relationship from the beginning that occasionally erupted into scrimmages.  Getting along was often difficult and we suspected it was, at least, partially due to our childhoods.  We did way too much fighting and we knew it; we just didn’t know what to do about it even after several years of professional therapy.  For her part, Vicki had started incest therapy that spring, but with all we had to do moving into the house it was only half-hearted.   What we didn’t know was that her strange behavior regarding our daughter was merely the visible tip of a huge iceberg that we would yet learn about.

With our house flaring up almost every night at dinner, Vicki and I both saw the need to get serious about her therapy.  And that turned out to be like opening a door and walking into a world that neither of us had known existed.  In our wildest imagination we could never have dreamed it.  We would go from the sordid further into darkness to raw evil and beyond into another world that strained credibility. It was hard to believe that Vicki could not remember some of the things that had happened to her as a child, but then upon further reflection, it easy to see why she would not want to remember her childhood.  Who would want to live in that kind of world? 

This chapter of my life is a really hard one for me.  I have always loved kids partly because my mom did and partly because I saw so many hurt when I was growing up (but I didn’t know this at the time).  I considered babysitting as a teen to be an honor, much better than dating.  So it was not surprising that Jody and I had 5 kids in 6 years.  That made 6 kids with my oldest from a previous marriage. 

I did not recognize how much my oldest daughter looked just like me at age 11 until I began probing my inexplicable behavior.  With only the vaguest memory of being molested at that age, I had promised myself growing up that the same thing would not happen to my daughters.  At all costs, I was going to do it right this time; I was going to protect my daughter.