June 22, 2009 issue
Shattering the silence on abuse
Family’s experience led to advocacy
By Laurie Oswald Robinson For Mennonite Weekly ReviewNORTH NEWTON, Kan. — In 2003, Marilyn Wolgemuth received news that was a grandmother’s worst nightmare.
Mary Jo Grant, left, psychologist of El Dorado, Kan., and a founder of Alliance to Recognize and End Abuse, works with fellow AREA member Marilyn Wolgemuth, a member of Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton, Kan., to provide healing and advocacy for victims/survivors of sexual abuse. — Photo by Laurie Oswald Robinson/for MWR
It left scars that are slowly being healed, and it led her to become an advocate for victims of sexual abuse.
Her daughter, a mother of five children, wrote that her husband, the pastor of a growing church, had admitted to abusing their two young daughters. He snuck into their beds at night, swearing them to secrecy by day. They buried their pain under blankets of silence.
“It’s hard to describe just how devastated I was when I read all this in a letter our daughter wrote to us,” Wolgemuth said. “My precious granddaughters had been terribly violated… .
“As a mental health nurse for 20 years, I had professionally helped many survivors of childhood sexual abuse. But when it came down to emotional involvement with my own family, there were no set formulas to go by.”
Today Wolgemuth, who belongs to Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton, along with her husband, Carl, still has not found formulas for “fixing” sexual abuse. But she has found a way to work for justice and to provide a voice to shatter the silence.
She belongs to the Kansas-based ecumenical group Alliance to Recognize and End Abuse, or AREA. The group, part of Survivors of Abuse Ministry, provides healing and advocacy.
AREA meets monthly at First United Methodist Church in El Dorado to strategize ways to more effectively raise public awareness.
Members plan presentations for congregations, community groups and schools about how sex abuse causes lifelong damage to victims and billions of dollars in costs to society.
They also testify before lawmakers to support lengthening the statute of limitations for victims reporting sex abuse crimes and stiffening penalties for perpetrators of incest and rape within families.
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