Your Prayers are Needed

I have an important event in our family's life to share with you. This is painful and demanding a lot of our time and energy right now. Please know that this post may be difficult for you to read and does contain sensitive material.

Monday, August 2nd, Ophelia was sexually assaulted by a teenage boy while Lavinia watched. Ophelia is physically ok but emotionally we are all having a hard time. I know some of you are going to want some details, let me give you what we are ready to share.

We were having dinner and some dessert with friends after our families had gone swimming. In between dinner and dessert, clearing the table, loading the dishwasher, and messing around on the computer so I could learn how to post pictures on this site, Ophelia and Lavinia went upstairs to an open play room (no doors) to watch a cartoon. Somewhere in the course of that 20-30 minutes, our friends 13 year old son assaulted Ophelia while Lavinia watched. Lavinia came down while we were starting to eat dessert to get hers and she told us what happened. Long story short, Jeremy talked with her and then Ophelia alone before alerting me. Ophelia told us everything very clearly and in detail. There was no doubt that she was telling the truth, she couldn't have known what she described. She was afraid she was in trouble and we have repeatedly assured her that she did nothing wrong, that what happened wasn't her fault. People, I can't tell you how shocking this was to us. This is a family we trust and consider family. We love them dearly and the boy is the kind of kid that everyone would describe as "good." Our research has revealed to us that a very high percentage of sexual assaults and rapes, specially of minors, happen with people that victim knows, usually family. We are very certain that this was the first time it happened (at least with our girls) and we are taking all the steps we know to help us heal from this. As a family we are in therapy and this has been reported to the authorities.

We have considered remaining silent but we have decided, as a family, that silence is not going to help terrible things like what happened to our family to stop. Please, speak to your children, speak out about what behaviors are acceptable and how to treat people and how not to let others treat you. As we've started speaking out, people tell us that they don't want to talk to their children yet (as in 12 years old for some). If you think it's too early, remember this, the boy that did this turned 13 this summer. Ophelia is 5 and Lavinia (who saw it all ) is 3. It's not too early. For our children, it was too late. We had talked with them about the difference between boys and girls and about not looking at our touching others, but we never told them what to do if someone forced them to do something. Please, the only real way to fight this kind of thing is education, speak out. For us, while the state is involved and the police are questioning our girls, we know that this boy will suffer the consequences of his actions as well as experience forgiveness through Christ. Many perpetrators do not have this. We are blessed that we found out so soon, we are not going to waste that blessing by covering this up. Our daughters shouldn't have any shame over what happened to them, only the one who did it and anyone that thinks we should hide it. We will not be silent.

Please pray for us. We have a long road ahead of us but we are following Christ in all things. If you'd like to email or call us, please do so. When there is more to share, I will but it is just too difficult to constantly relive what happened, so we are speaking out in ways that we can control as much as possible. Thank you for your prayers.

In Christ,

Jessica