So you guys will be happy to hear that our meeting with the church leader of the club went amazingly well. Amazingly well in the sense that both my 12 year old son and my nine-year-old daughter shared their stories of the horror that happened at that club and outside of that club by monster boy with the leader of the group and the leader of their specific age group. The leader of the group is still in complete denial and kept asking extremely disrespectful questions to see if my kids were telling lies which rubbed me the wrong way but at least it's over now and he can't say that my kids are liars because they were very evidently telling the truth.  If anything ever happened again this church would be at fault.

1 of the questions he asked my daughter was after she went and showed them a bush that monster boy used to take her under to abuse her sexually and physically with knives and sticks, (and all she had the courage to share was that "bad stuff happened here"),  was "what did you guys do when you were under there?  Did you play patty cake?  Was the bad stuff that someone lost?"  Immediately after he quoted that to her she stood up and walked away to the playground and I believe that they saw that was due to anxiety. Luckily two other men were there alongside the other leader and these two men actually believed my children.  Another time she was explaining how monster boy had brought her into the boys bathroom at this club and he asked her "how did he bring you in?  Did he grab your hand and say "hey, come here?" OR did he call your name and wave you in?"  She put him in his place by responding, " he grabbed my clothes and made me come in, pulled me in."  She's never even finished telling me the story about that incident but I know that there had been something to do with urine and sex of some sort. So when he inquired what happened in the bathroom and she shut down and started crying and saying she wanted to go home, I point-blank shared with him "she hasn't even talked to me about that, I don't believe she's strong enough to tell you."  When my son shared that this monster boy punched him on the playground he asked "how did he punch you?"  He was attempting to get my son to show the punch wasn't that hard and immediately my son pulled down the front of his shirt and said "he was trying to hurt my port (his scar from surgery).  See my owie? He knows that it's sensitive. He punched me here."

Mainly he listened to the safety concerns of both kids about the property and he did take notes.  They're concerned about the fact that the playground is way too dark at night time and that kids should not be playing out there. They made sure and let him know the reason they were concerned is because "kids can hide and do bad things out there without people knowing."  He agreed it was way too dark as I had showed him a picture of what it was like 8 o'clock at night.  My son urgently requested he not allow children to play on this playground after dark and during this group time.  My daughter even mentioned they should put video cameras under the playground so that nobody can hurt anyone underneath there. When he explained to her that that would only happen if somebody complained about bad stuff happening underneath there numerous times, she became quiet because what happened under there was pretty traumatic for her including being stabbed with knives. So he dismissed the idea. They also shared that the big tree in the corner of the playground was easy for people to hide behind and hurt people. Like I said we showed him the bushes underneath the stairs where monster boy would hide and do things to people. We did a lot of focusing on how to stay safe when going to the bathroom with the boys and girls. My kids were trying to tell them they should build a wall between the two bathrooms but the problem is the bathroom they were discussing is upstairs and only has a hallway that's about 5 feet across. So we ended up turning it into a joke because obviously you can't build a wall across the hall when there's no other way to get through. However they discussed the bathrooms long enough and in detail enough for this leader to understand that things have occurred in these bathrooms. We also discussed putting a gate around the basketball court for safety purposes. I have hope that possibly these various items will be taken care of however I'm at a point where I don't care because I've already shared enough and it's up to them now.

The biggest happening at this meeting was my kids sharing for the very first time with their specific group leader  about the abuse that had happened this past  4-5 years.  They did most the talking with this man then spent over 30 minutes sharing with him items that had happened to them at Club as well as outside of club. He actually validated us from the get-go, sharing things like he remembers having to reprimand monster boy for doing various items that they shared happened at Club.  He also says he remembers having to confiscate knives.  He even shared something kind of interesting ladies...About when monster boy was allowed to come back to this club after our case has been "closed."  He shared that the first two visits that monster boy had at Club were manageable but the last two where horrifically difficult.  The kids went as far as saying they had been sexually abused  during club and outside Club...They used the terms "sexual abuse" and "inappropriate." I was so proud of them.  Now this very sweet man understands why he disappeared for the last year.  And I made it very clear that I had been in conversation with the main leader for this whole entire past year and that if he had any questions about the situation he would have to ask that man  as I could not give him any answers.  Specifically he was wondering what had been done this past year to fix issues.  Lol!  He was very sad to hear that we're cutting ties but he completely understood and was supportive.  

While speaking with this new leader who had no prior knowledgexperience, my son disclosed a new piece of information that's actually amazingly important: monster boy used knives on him too!  I've been waiting all year to hear if any of my other children have been affected by weapons of some sort and I knew that the oldest boy had to have been affected somehow with weapons based upon some of the things he said but he'd never validated that theory.  One time he had shared the monster boy used the wooden pocket knife on him that we had gotten from Alaska so that would have been impossible because it would have given him the opportunity to have it used on him only one time since we only saw them the day after we got back from Alaska and then cut ties. Anyways when I followed up with him later on that evening, he shared with me that the type of knife that was used on him was...ready?... a pocket knife.  The same type of knife this monster used on my daughter or at least one of the types of knives. It just lends Credence to their story because individually they both have confirmed that a weapon was used on them to threaten them. He had no clue that knives were used on my daughter and I accidentally said under my breath "oh he used knives on you too" and that gave him pause and he said "wait...he used them on (*sister*)?"  So now that cats out of the bag but I didn't go into any details or confirm or deny what I said.

So now we're done with that church; we are making a stand. We've decided we will not attend or be a part of or go on the premises of anything that has to do with this church at least for a while. I think that's the best way we can get our message across to them after everything we've gone through this year to try to help them. Sadly, it seems like all the people we were hoping would leave this group and follow us to a different Church to go to the group are either taking the easy way out by just not doing the group anymore at all with their kids or they decided to stay because they're believing that things are going to change. My husband said it's a good thing because then they'll make new friends.  I figured will still be having play dates with these families outside of this group anyways so I'm fine with it. I just am sick and tired of being surrounded by cowards. I guess after going through everything that we've gone through I just don't see any point in not doing what's right no matter how difficult it is!

Well today we meet with CPS with my oldest son and hopefully they close the case out. I have a dOctober up version of the waiver to allow them to talk with our kids therapistshould.  They seriously wanted us to sign a form that said that we understand that by doing so anything that they find out could be used against our family to take our children away and we were like yeah not going to happen.  So we created our own form that made it very clear that the information was only going to be shared so that the caseworker to prove to herself that the stories my children told about monster boy are true and their big brother is not the perpetrator they're working through anxiety about.  Today is also my husband's special test to find out if he has heart problems; hoping that there's nothing that shows up.

Signing off...