Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Mon, 23 Nov 1992 10:59:25 EST
Comments:     Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X
From:         Brenda Curry-White <BSCURR01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject:      Prayer Request Update

A suspect has been arrested for the rape of the 5 year old girl here in
Louisville.  A homeless transient with a criminal record and some mental
instability reported a theft to the police, who recognized him from a
drawing (the 5 year old was very accurate in her description).  The suspect
confessed the crime to police, but later plead not guilty.  Continue to
pray for this little girl and her family.  Pray that the guilty man be
brought to justice and get help so that no other little girls will be his
victim.  Apparently the same man who was arrested had tried just hours
earlier to rape an adult woman.  He broke into her home posing as a gas
company employee and held a knife to her throat, but her boyfriend chased
him out of the house.  This was blocks from where the 5 year old was raped.

I don't know the family or the little girl, but this whole crime has really
reminded me of how vulnerable children are.  This week David's family is
visiting.  Yesterday his 9 year old niece and 7 year old nephew were outside
playing and we saw a stranger from the window.  I couldn't see his niece, and
I just about panicked.  I hurried downstairs to make sure she was still okay.

There is so much evil in the world.  We are told to be in the world but not
of it.  For me, that means accepting that because of our fallen human natures
there are going to be things that I cannot accept, but have to live with
anyway.  But I have a really hard time when it comes to the evil of crimes
against children.  I look at my new little infant, and I ask, "How could
anyone harm such an innocent, vulnerable little thing?"  And these crimes
do not just exist outside the church.  There is something fundamentally
wrong with our world when we can allow our children to be harmed.  I've
heard that as many as 25% of women will be raped or molested by the time
they are 18 years old.  A friend of mine at church just started remembering
this year some extended sexual abuse that occurred when she was little.  I
shared with her that I had once been molested, and she said I was the fourth
person in her circle of friends at church to tell her that.  Her own daughter
was nearly molested by a babysitter - the son of a friend of theirs from work -
someone they trusted.  It's a sick world.  And sometimes I think the church
is lax about confronting it (remember the priest in Massachusetts who was
simply moved around when parents started complaining rather than dealt
with?)

Oh well.  Off my soap box.  I hope and pray that as we continue to discuss
such vital issues as whether homosexuals should be allowed to kill people
beside the rest of us, whether we are predestined to hell or choose to go
there, or whether or not Ozzy really is a Christian, we can keep in mind
that somewhere a family is grieving because their son died by falling on
a piece of glass, and that somewhere a 5 year old is hurting because she
was raped violently and made to bleed, and that somewhere many children
are being abused physically, sexually, and emotionally.  I hope we all
remember to pray today for a world gone wrong, and that Christ will
enable us to commit ourselves to help right it.  For the children.

Brenda
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia