It has been years since I wrote in this blog. I googled my name just to see the results of my son Darren's efforts to create a presence for me on the net. Here was this blog. My long lost blog. I have experienced so much since I last posted here. We left Upton, sold our home...(there's more to that story but I won't bother you with it today) bought a home in Buffalo. I found a quaint little gift shop/gallery that has been selling my artwork and jewelry now for the past 2 years. I've branched out to a local gallery in Sheridan, a gift shop in Sundance, and a jewelry shop on Main Street with my work too.
I lived in Sheridan back in 1962-4. My dad was a pastor of a little store front church on Main Street which is now a barber shop. We lived in the brownstone above it for awhile and we also lived in the nurses quarters of the old hospital building. All of the hospital is torn down now except for the building we lived in. It is a rehab center. My two sisters, my brother, and I would slide down the tubular steel fire escape from one of the third story windows, and wet our feet to climb back up, This was long before the playgrounds adopted the same design. Sheridan was pigeons, and rabbits in cages, and fishing for suckers in the stream below Grandma's house. Playing in the mountains of sand across the highway where the gravel pit was before there were safety rules set up to keep children out.
Now my grandparents are gone, my parents are gone, and my siblings have taken sides and are angry over a number of issues that centered around the care and feeding of our Mom in her last years and our mentally handicapped sister. I used to hear about families doing this, but never thought it could happen to mine. It is a naivety that's been with me since birth. My belief that my life would never have some of the evil that humanity around me seemed to be burdened with has caused me much disillusionment in my later years. Divorce caught me off guard, both in my parent's marriage, and in my own. What is it that gave me the idea that we were above such things? Was it naivety or arrogance? I have a few theories. Perhaps in another blog I will explore them further.
As for Buffalo Wyoming, we have had some difficulties here. Unlike me, my husband was raised in one place. Upton. That gave him a solid social foundation. I knew nothing of that. We moved every 3 years or so to a new town, a new church. This move for him was risky. He knew only a couple of people, and only those people knew him.
No one told him who the con men were until after he had been conned. After he was talked out of over $30,000.00 he began to hear the warnings from this man's other victims, which included store owners, customers of his, business men, and even the random soft hearted Christian who bought his sob stories.
Back home my husband knew who to trust, and his hometown people trusted him. He had spent his life building a reputation as a trustworthy, honest man. He tells me in his hometown if a man says he will do something he does it. I have seen him follow through on his word many times when it hurt his business to do so. I have the utmost respect for him because of it, and he is highly respected in Upton as a man of his word.
It has been heart-wrenching to see this man with a heart of gold be manipulated by someone who claims the name of Christ but is as hardhearted , smooth talking, and devious in his business practices as any pagan could possibly be. It has been equally heart wrenching to watch as my husband pleads his case over and over again to the leaders of this church and he is merely given lip service while this con man continues to be allowed to hold a leadership position in the church. This man has a good majority of the congregation fooled into believing that his knowledge of the Bible has actually penetrated his soul and made him a man of integrity. They are out of his circle of victims. It's the biggest con I have ever been a witness to. He has told people lies about my husband and they don't know him well enough to refute the lies. What a frustration. We want to solve this through the church, but the church is blinded to the truth of this man. If ever I have seen a wolf in sheep's clothing, it is this man.
We will do what needs to be done to resolve this issue, but if this church and it's leadership does not take action to remove this man as a teacher, we cannot remain in that fellowship.. 1Corinthians 5:9-13 tells us not to associate with someone who calls himself a brother but is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler,--not even to eat with such a one.
I lived in Sheridan back in 1962-4. My dad was a pastor of a little store front church on Main Street which is now a barber shop. We lived in the brownstone above it for awhile and we also lived in the nurses quarters of the old hospital building. All of the hospital is torn down now except for the building we lived in. It is a rehab center. My two sisters, my brother, and I would slide down the tubular steel fire escape from one of the third story windows, and wet our feet to climb back up, This was long before the playgrounds adopted the same design. Sheridan was pigeons, and rabbits in cages, and fishing for suckers in the stream below Grandma's house. Playing in the mountains of sand across the highway where the gravel pit was before there were safety rules set up to keep children out.
Now my grandparents are gone, my parents are gone, and my siblings have taken sides and are angry over a number of issues that centered around the care and feeding of our Mom in her last years and our mentally handicapped sister. I used to hear about families doing this, but never thought it could happen to mine. It is a naivety that's been with me since birth. My belief that my life would never have some of the evil that humanity around me seemed to be burdened with has caused me much disillusionment in my later years. Divorce caught me off guard, both in my parent's marriage, and in my own. What is it that gave me the idea that we were above such things? Was it naivety or arrogance? I have a few theories. Perhaps in another blog I will explore them further.
As for Buffalo Wyoming, we have had some difficulties here. Unlike me, my husband was raised in one place. Upton. That gave him a solid social foundation. I knew nothing of that. We moved every 3 years or so to a new town, a new church. This move for him was risky. He knew only a couple of people, and only those people knew him.
No one told him who the con men were until after he had been conned. After he was talked out of over $30,000.00 he began to hear the warnings from this man's other victims, which included store owners, customers of his, business men, and even the random soft hearted Christian who bought his sob stories.
Back home my husband knew who to trust, and his hometown people trusted him. He had spent his life building a reputation as a trustworthy, honest man. He tells me in his hometown if a man says he will do something he does it. I have seen him follow through on his word many times when it hurt his business to do so. I have the utmost respect for him because of it, and he is highly respected in Upton as a man of his word.
It has been heart-wrenching to see this man with a heart of gold be manipulated by someone who claims the name of Christ but is as hardhearted , smooth talking, and devious in his business practices as any pagan could possibly be. It has been equally heart wrenching to watch as my husband pleads his case over and over again to the leaders of this church and he is merely given lip service while this con man continues to be allowed to hold a leadership position in the church. This man has a good majority of the congregation fooled into believing that his knowledge of the Bible has actually penetrated his soul and made him a man of integrity. They are out of his circle of victims. It's the biggest con I have ever been a witness to. He has told people lies about my husband and they don't know him well enough to refute the lies. What a frustration. We want to solve this through the church, but the church is blinded to the truth of this man. If ever I have seen a wolf in sheep's clothing, it is this man.
We will do what needs to be done to resolve this issue, but if this church and it's leadership does not take action to remove this man as a teacher, we cannot remain in that fellowship.. 1Corinthians 5:9-13 tells us not to associate with someone who calls himself a brother but is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler,--not even to eat with such a one.
