Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Part 8: Returning equipment and Facebook comments


It took almost a month for us to get our music equipment back. They showed up on a day I was cleaning a house and I think that may have been strategically planned.
The newly Returned Elder and the Pastor’s wife showed up at the house and Geoff was kind and polite and helped them unload the equipment. As he passed the Pastor’s wife with my keyboard, he looked down to avoid hitting her with the cumbersome instrument and noticed her video recording the entire exchange on her phone. He clearly saw the video running as she had the screen facing up, with the camera towards the ground and he saw the video record running. It’s just sad that she would go to such measures, but none of this surprised me at all when he told me about it. The extremes that I’d dealt with after leaving that other church in 2009 were way worse so that was child’s play in my book.

There were a few things that they missed upon returning equipment and Geoff let them know. Eventually, it was a returned but it took a few more weeks.
Since we left...People, even one of my own team members, deleted me on Facebook right off the bat and the trend continued for months. I knew what was going on, just like the other two Elder’s wives, I knew the gossip was probably horrendous about me, just like it was about them. I can’t say I have a single real friend left from that church. There’s a few acquaintances that will still reach out and say hi whenever I run into them in public, but we’ve pretty much been cut off. Initially, there were a few men who kept in contact with Geoff and expressed how much they missed us both. It’s just sad, because for a year these people were my family, support and I poured into them with everything I had.

I had to start deleting and blocking people myself eventually. Particularly the Pastor’s wife as she was making nasty comments in response to some of our comments on facebook. A mutual friend of ours asked for praise reports on his Facebook and I responded with how God had provided a few extra jobs for me when we needed the money. The Pastor’s wife’s comment, immediately after mine, was “Praise God, He pruned our vine”. Now that was vindictive and just downright hurtful. So I took a screenshot, sent it to the Pastor in a text and explained that I’d be deleting and blocking his wife because of her hurtful conduct and I prayed that this wouldn’t be taken as offensive but for my spiritual and emotional health, at this time that I could not continue to be her friend on facebook and I prayed he understood. He never responded!

There had been numerous comments along those lines and any opportunity to make a nasty comment on either our friend’s pages or our own, she took every opportunity. So eventually we both blocked her.
The Facebook harassment rears it’s ugly head every now and again. Geoff, my beloved husband, loves to post theological stuff on facebook and occasionally it’s in response to someone from our former church, and then mysteriously the Pastor’s wife will respond to Geoff’s comments on facebook in rebuke. We have no idea what is said and honestly she shouldn’t be able to see Geoff’s comments either because we blocked her, but somehow she sees the comments and rebukes Geoff. It all just shows her heart.

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