Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2856

Tonight's special guest is John Souza from Rhode Island, a new member of the NAASCA family, telling us his story for the first time. John's mother was a schizophrenic, and his dad an alcoholic who sexually abused him. John was also sexually assaulted by children from the neighborhood, friends of his brothers who were older than John. But the next molester he ran into was even worse. This man, a Lutheran pastor who John saw as a father figure, groomed him at the church for several months. Then he began to try using John sexually, slowly at first, but it lasted three or four incidents a week for 4 years. A lot of the molesting was done in the basement, but when the pastor's wife was gone he had John sleep with him in the master bedroom. Today the same pastor is still serving the community as a Lutheran minister, which as you can surely imagine is really upsetting to John. He relives the feelings of his child abuse, including not being able to trust. Child abuse survivors suffer 'trauma', which is the result of the experiences, not the abuse itself. Fortunately we NAASCA family members have many paths, tools, services and resources today, far more than there used to be. And we understand that this thing called 'recovery' needs to be talked about, not remain a secret. We believe that together we can do what we can not do alone, and we all deserve to be loved. As a family, we're delighted to be able to count John as a card-carrying member!