December 24, 2024 • 26 mins
Uncovering the Hollow Apology: Addressing Sexual Abuse in Protestant Reformed Schools
>>>WATCH THE VIDEO HERE: https://youtu.be/_Zd3nWQppSY
In this episode, Hope PRC school board convenes to acknowledge past sexual abuse and apologize to Heidi Woldhuis who was a victim of abuse at this school by a female teacher named Hulda Kuiper. The discussion covers the school's new abuse policy, handling of past incidents, apologies from the church, and the need for real action to protect children from future harm. Despite the apologies, Heidi expresses deep frustration with the system's failures and the lasting impact on victims. The meeting concludes with calls for genuine change and accountability moving forward. To be clear: Michigan is a one-party consent state for recording verbal conversations. As long as the person recording (“recorder”) is also a participant to the conversation, the recorder may record the conversation with “apparent impunity." www.thenorthcoastlegal.com/blog/can-you-record-arguments-in-michigan/
00:00 Introduction and Apology
00:12 Discussing the Abuse Policy
00:40 Personal Struggles and Awareness
01:46 Reading from Ephesians and Prayer
03:46 Communication Issues and Apologies
07:19 Victim's Perspective and Emotional Impact
20:50 Call to Action and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The purpose in meeting is toacknowledge your abuse and
(00:04):
to apologize to you for it.
on behalf of the board.
We have a few other things to talk about.
The school has also adopted anabuse policy that it has worked on
For over a year, year and a halfor so, more awareness to that
subject, definitely, than years ago.
(00:26):
I, I hope and pray so, becauseit is unbelievably destructive.
Absolutely agree..
Very destructive.
So.
Something that we in our circleswere not aware of until yeah.
I struggle with that.
I hope you can understand why I struggle.
There was a lot more awareness.
There was more hiding.
(00:46):
yep
And that should not have been allowedand it should not have happened.
Sure.
And teachers shouldn't havebeen placed in places they were.
They shouldn't have been passed around.
And information should have beentransparent and open because children,
many, many, many children have beenseriously hurt and seriously harmed.
(01:08):
And that doesn't go away.
I've heard enough from people that it'sbeen a long time so get over it, and
it's taken this long to finally be that..
And it's
I understand.
Yep.
Um, obviously not living in your shoesand I don't know what you went through..
(01:29):
I wouldn't
want anybody to.
Nope.
Nobody.
Nobody.
Not even people thatI don't care much for.
I would do anything sothey wouldn't have to.
Sure, yeah.
Well, if you don't mind, I'd liketo start by reading something that
(01:49):
was put in the abuse policy, andthat's Ephesians 5, 1 through 5.
And then I'll open witha prayer, if I may.
Yes, please.
Uh, it says, Be ye therefore followersof God, dear children, and walk
in love as Christ also hath lovedus, and hath given himself for
us, an offering and a sacrifice toGod, for a sweet smelling savor.
(02:11):
But fornication and all uncleannessor covetousness, let it not be once
named among you as becoming saints,neither filthiness nor foolish
talking nor jesting which are notconvenient, but rather giving of thanks.
For this you know, that no whoremongeror unclean person or covetous man who
is an idolater hath any inheritancein the kingdom of Christ and of God.
(02:35):
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for theopportunity to meet with Heidi and
Robert tonight It grieves us thatthe Subject of our meeting It is the
abuse that Heidi experienced duringher time at this school, and the pain
that she's endured for many years.
We pray that this time together willbe beneficial, both for her and for us,
(02:56):
that it would help Heidi in the healingand restoration, and that it would help
us to expose any form of abuse for theterrible sin that it is, and work to
prevent it from happening here ever again.
Be with us as we work to be with us aswe work to Protect the children from
abuse and hold the abusers accountable.
Father, we're mindful of our weaknessand our human frailty, and our need
(03:20):
to put our trust in Thee alone.
We're thankful for Thy word ofcomfort to us, that in all things,
all things are working togetherfor good to those who love Thee.
Help us to hold on to that promiseand be assured of it, so that
we have true peace in Christ.
Help us to show love and respectas we talk together tonight.
(03:41):
And keep us from sin.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
So you're welcome to have a copyof the abuse policy, if you'd like.
I would very much like to see that.
Thank you.
You're probably aware of the
(04:02):
guidepost, um, thirdparty that was contracted.
We read some of your statementin there, your testimony of it.
Yeah.
I'm not sure if you got a letterfrom Southwest that was sent.
No.
My communication with Southwesthas been less than pleasant.
They were It was ugly.
(04:25):
I'll just put it that way.
Okay.
Um, this is a letter fromHope School to its parents and
society, explaining Hulda's abuse.
You can have that as well.
Thank you.
So yeah, I just wanted to apologize.
Sincerely On behalf of the board,um yes, we represent the board even
(04:47):
though we weren't here at the time.
But, um also understand theneed for you to hear that too.
So, That's the reason we're here, becausethat Guidepost sent us that report that
you, um, didn't hear anything from Hope.
So we did a little searchingback in our records and didn't
find any correspondence from you.
(05:08):
So I don't know if there's an apologythat's needed that, that Hope that
you sent something and you didn'tget anything back from the school?
I got nothing back from Hope School,and I got an awful, very rudely
worded response from Southwest Church.
Well, did you send somethingto Hope at some point?
(05:30):
Like, did you ask forsomething from Hope School?
I didn't ask for anything,but I sent communication.
You sent something?
I did send, I sent a letter to HopeSchool, stating that I was myself a
victim of Hulda Kuiper, and I would beopen to speaking, to speaking about it.
But, um,
(05:51):
I'm just curious when that was.
Oh, my goodness, I wouldhave to see when it, it was,
Like a long time ago?
Last year.
Oh, okay.
Mm hmm.
Because our board, we looked back onrecords and we just didn't see anything.
I apologize I don't know if it got lost or
I think because it was me, thereaction I got and I understand
how people feel about me.
(06:12):
I am well aware of it.
I hear it.
Um, I kind of understand it, butat the same time I didn't ask to
be put in that position, but I hadhad enough of being called a liar.
So, um,
Well, Steve and Phil wereon the board last year.
I was not.
Um, I think if a letter came thatwe would acknowledge every letter.
(06:33):
So, um, Again, I apologize, I don'tknow what happened, but that was not
intentional ignoring you at all, wesincerely would have reached out.
Okay.
I apologize if, uh, if that happened.
We did not receive it.
We have no record of it.
Okay.
We went back several years andtried to find some communication
and didn't find it, so.
(06:53):
Okay.
Yeah, I've, um, I've run into that alot with dealing with, um, With a lot of
this situation, a lot of my communicationwasn't received and isn't available.
And it's um, it is what it is.
It's neither here nor there.
I wasn't on the receiving end.
(07:13):
So, um, I understand thatI didn't make any friends.
I'm well aware of that.
Um, but at the same time, regardless ofhow you feel about me, I was a victim.
And what was done tome was pretty horrible.
And what was done to me hada profound effect on my life.
Like, profound beyondwhat people understand.
(07:37):
That's just the nature of sexualabuse committed against a child.
I have
a daughter who turned 12today and is in the 6th grade.
How would you feel?
Terrible.
Absolutely.
Can't imagine.
Imagine.
And then you keep going back every day.
(07:58):
Every single day.
Wondering when she's going todecide she wants to do it again.
That's a wicked thing.
Especially coming fromsomebody in authority.
Taking advantage of young kids.
It's one thing when it's adults ofthe same age but totally different
and that's, that's bad.
(08:20):
I can't say that that's good.
But, um, when a child is put in thatsituation, And it's naive as our
children, especially then we're growingup, nobody talked about sex ever, ever.
Um,
(08:42):
I mean, the whole thing was just,I mean, it was going to happen.
There's just so much secrecy and inhouse and we don't go anywhere because
don't you dare embarrass anybody.
And it's dangerous.
It might be helpful for you to know,too, that in this investigation with
Southwest They looked into what theirconsistory did and they apologized to
(09:03):
their, uh, congregation for the wayit was handled there, on their end.
Um, my dad said he wasat Southwest at the time.
Yeah, even mentioning sex wasnot something that was hidden.
It was just so embarrassing thathe just didn't talk about it.
Yeah, you don't talk about it.
All you knew as a girl is if you'rea bad girl and you get pregnant,
(09:23):
you have to stand up front.
In front of everybody, which, I'msorry, that's not godly either, but
But the other thing I was going to sayis that the Consistory reached out to
Hope School and asked if the men on HopeSchool remember it ever being reported
to Hope School, that Hulda was doingthat here, and the four men that were
(09:45):
contacted said, no, the report from thechurch to the school, and they apologized
to the school and said, we should havetold, that teacher should have been gone.
So, that.
It wasn't, I just wanted to let youknow, I'm not making excuses, just it
wasn't hidden between church and school.
It was a failure of those men atthe time to recognize the need to
(10:06):
remove her from young students.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, what do people do thatshe did get her hands on?
What about the other ones?
Right.
What about them?
What about the price that hasbeen paid and the fallout?
I mean, you can't just look at it and say,well, God's grace is so good, which it is.
(10:27):
I love God.
I'm so thankful to be backin church and back with God.
Because I left for a longtime because of this nonsense.
Because it's not godly.
It's not in the Bible.
I read the Bible.
I know the Bible.
It's drilled in our head here, anda lot of stuff didn't make sense.
Because it wasn't biblical.
(10:48):
It wasn't love the way God says to love.
My heart hurts for the number of victimsthat all started as children, lots of
them, and I counsel a number of them, someof who are still members in your churches.
(11:13):
Come to me for counseling to deal withthe trauma from sexual abuse as a child.
I,
We're thankful that it came to light.
All of our churches and all of ourschools now in the last 2 years
have very tight abuse policies.
because of that.
(11:35):
Awareness is now in theforefront of our minds
Can you understand as a victimhow we don't feel that way?
Everything's shut down as soon as thisstuff is getting what you don't like
and you don't want anybody to know this.
We're gonna shut it down.
Let's just handle it and be quiet.
And trust me, I don'twant to be out there.
I don't like being public.
(11:55):
I have much better thingsto do with my time.
I don't want more people to comeand ask me, can we interview you?
Can we talk to you?
I don't want more people to call askingme for help because it guts me every time.
They walk away with anotherpiece of my heart every time
because this is happening.
in a place where God should be.
But, um,
(12:18):
I can tell you from the perspectiveof a victim, it just looks like
a lot more scrambling to justsay, but now we know what to do.
Now we've got it handled.
Now we learned..
We don't believe that.
I'm just telling you, we just don't.
I want to.
I would love to see it.
I don't see it.
(12:39):
I don't, you know.
And yeah, it would be horrible.
There are people sitting in yourchurches that should be sitting in
jail or prison, but they're protected.
And that is not right.
I agree.
That isn't right, butthey're gonna be protected.
I was thrown away.
I was thrown away because I wasn't willingto subject myself to violence anymore.
(13:04):
But people can rape Childrenor people can hide abuse.
And they're sitting in your churches.
And they're fine.
Maybe they got money.
Maybe they have a name.
I don't know what it is, but from thevictim's perspective, and this isn't
just me because I'm finally like, thankgoodness, most of this weight has been
(13:26):
shed in finally, thank you God for yourgrace and your mercy and your restoration.
But I'm telling you there's a lot ofvictims and I call them yours because I
see as this denomination they are yours.
They're suffering.
And it doesn't looklike really people care.
It looks like damage control.
Put a little smoothing on it.
(13:48):
We got a big anniversary.
Settle them down.
And I, I don't know what it's gonnatake to make it look like victims
really matter more than your name.
I know what it feels like to lose respect.
(14:08):
I feel what it feel.
I know what it feels liketo be trash and dirt.
I know what it feels like to haveyour name in people's mouths and
not in a way that's loving or kind.
I know what rejection feels like.
I know what blame feels like.
I know what made up stories feel like.
(14:29):
I know what spinning things feels like.
I know all of that.
But why should I have to know that?
Why do I have to be the oneto sit there and know that?
I didn't deserve what Hulda Kuiper did.
None of it.
I didn't deserve to lose myvirginity to my 6th grade
(14:53):
female teacher in the bathroom.
At school.
I didn't deserve that.
I didn't deserve to have to continueto walk into her classroom for
the remainder of a school year.
I didn't deserve to have tosit in her choir class for the
rest of my time in junior high.
(15:14):
I didn't deserve to have to sit next toher in church when she went over there.
But I had to.
You know what it's like to sitwith a person who rapes you?
I do.
As a child and as an adult.
I know what it's like.
And that's wrong.
(15:34):
I agree.
You wouldn't ask your daughters oryour sons or your wives to do that.
I choose to believe you wouldn'tdo that, because shame on you
if you'd be okay with that.
Absolutely not.
I would not want that in mychurch or in my school society,
if I knew that I would be.
(15:56):
They're there now.
Willing to...
they are there now.
But that's not our responsibilityhere at the school level.
I just wanted you to knowthat I am hearing you.
I'm listening to you.
I'm hearing what you say.
I can't put myself in the victim's shoes.
I absolutely cannot.
I don't claim to be able to.
Um, I just need to tell you again thatwe apologize for what happened here.
(16:21):
Um, I don't know what God's willis or when, why things happen other
than it happened for a reason.
It happened for a purpose, um
Romans 8 says it all happenedfor good to those who love God
Why?
Why do bad things happen to people?
And what we believe is everyone'sbeing refined, made ready
(16:45):
for their place in heaven.
We are all sinners, saved by God's grace.
There's no perfect person.
We're all equally able to sin.
Um, it's just very sad that somepeople, yeah, seem to get away with it.
Um, it's horrible.
And yeah most of us say we don'ttolerate it, we don't like it,
(17:08):
we don't want it around us.
God will have the justice.
God says that too, that vengeance is his.
He will repay those who abused.
I wish it didn't have to be that waybecause Hulda deserved somebody to care
enough about her, to call her to accountand to forgiveness before she died.
(17:31):
Yeah
That was unfair.
To leave somebody in their sinto die without Without having
worked with her That's wrong
You may, yeah, I cansee I can understand it.
I can't fully understand itbecause I am not in your position
(17:54):
but I do, I do have to trustthat God will have his vengeance
on those who perpetratedagainst those who are innocent.
Okay.
At this point, I don't know,right, with Hulda being dead
and buried, what else to say.
(18:14):
There's nothing that we can doabout it here on earth yet, right?
Nothing else that we can sayother than we apologize for the
mistakes that our forefathers made.
It should have been handled differently.
It's easy to look back and say,if I was on the board, I would
have done things differently.
I can't say that.
(18:35):
I'm not, I'm not perfect, but yeah,looking back, I wish things were
handled differently for your sake.
But even for Hulda's sake, you're right.
Yeah.
They didn't do her any favors.
No, no,
They let her go.
No, because I at least had achance and thank you God for
(18:57):
loving me so fiercely through allthese decades, but leaving her.
in her go on your way,continue as is, you're right.
You are right.
It's not love, it's not Christian love.
At all.
Punish the wrong people.
(19:21):
It's difficult to sit.
I love God fiercely.
I, seven days a week, amserving in our ministry.
Because I love people.
And I serve the broken, and I serve thehurting, and I serve people in recovery.
That's what I've chosento do with my life.
And it heals me, and it'swhat I'm called to do.
(19:47):
I couldn't imagine looking at somebodythat came to me, and we're talking.
And it doesn't matter how manydecades go past an event like that,
that happens in a child's life.
(20:08):
How in the world do I look at themand say, we're giving you a sorry now.
There you go, it's all better.
Nothing can be fixed.
I can't get it back.
The fallout of it isn'tgoing to be restored to me.
The damage isn't going to be undone.
What I've lost will never be given back.
(20:28):
That's impossible.
But you're doing good work.
I know I am
It will help betterprotect the youth today.
And that's what we hope as well.
If you look through that policyand see anything that you can
add to it to help from yourperspective, we would be grateful.
(20:48):
I will read it.
I am, I'm going to call on you to
be brave and to use voices andto be willing to stand up and say
something is wrong, even if theywant you to sit there and be quiet.
Even if they want you to say,Okay, we know what we're doing now.
(21:11):
Sometimes you don't.
And I'm just going to say it.
A lot of the times you don't and youhaven't and you've caused more harm.
And I know that because I sit withthe people that it was done to when
they went back trying to get help.
And then they come to me.
Secretly, because they getin trouble for talking to me.
(21:34):
Because I'm perceived as thisreally mean, horrible, awful person.
And I'm the furthest from it.
I really am.
I am just asking you toplease do more than just talk.
Because we're sick of just hearing words.
We're really sick of it.
We've heard it all.
It's just more talk.
More words.
(21:55):
That's it.
Well we on the school board...
Another one of these.
But where's the action?
We don't see it.
We all, a lot of us, wegot publicly trotted out.
It's not that I enjoy that.
I don't.
I hate it.
I also don't feel that it's theChristian way to approach things.
But I am saying, this has to stop.
(22:18):
At every level.
All of it.
Our children.
Everywhere in God's family must beprotected at all costs, no matter
what it costs you as a grown man.
I agree.
I do not disagree at all.
(22:45):
It just feels really shallow.
I don't know, it's just, I don't,it's difficult because it's
like, what would make me feellike anybody really does care?
I don't feel like anybodygives two, two cares.
They just want me outof here, and I get it.
I really, really do.
But I would have really haveliked for someone to genuinely
(23:05):
say I'm really, really sorry atthe price that we made you pay.
But I don't want it if it's not meant.
I hope that you can say, can hearme say I sincerely apologize.
Steve, we have
history and I'm gonna say any of mypast doesn't include you because you
(23:28):
were always nice, you were a good man
And I regret what happenedto you here Heidi.
I do.
So sorry it happened.
So am I.
And I wish something had beendone when we were here, when
we were going to school here.
It could have been dealt with then.
Yeah.
But it wasn't.
(23:51):
You were a good man then, I'mcalling on you to be a good man now.
Stand up for people whether ornot they're your family or not.
Stand up for the people that needyou to stand up for them and use
your voices because they need you.
Because there are people that areterrified and scared to death.
There are people that feeltrapped and stuck here.
(24:12):
And people like you can change that.
If you would just be willing to maybetake some arrows that will come your way.
But be willing to do it ifit's the right thing to do.
I was just saying that to my wifethe other day, I hate injustice.
I want things to be right.
(24:32):
Yeah.
Then you need to stand up and say it.
Absolutely.
Anytime anything comes in front ofme that I think is wrong against
God's word, I will stand for it.
Stand for the right.
You have my word.
I will hold that to you because ifI hear something, I will call you
and say, you gave me your word.
Well, the thing is that there's aproper way of going about things.
(24:54):
I agree that there absolutelyis, but it has to start.
Yes, and if you would tell me If youwould email me, call me, and say, there's
something going on in your school, inyour school, to investigate, absolutely.
But if you call me and say, I know a manin such and such a church, and he's doing
this, I'm going to say, I'm sorry, that'snot the right thing to do for the church.
Again, I'm not, I am not looking atyou to fix the denomination as a whole.
(25:21):
But I'm sorry, as much as you say thechurch, the school is separate, it is not.
You have to send your kids here.
There's a connection and there is a tie.
You have to use your voices here,and I pray you use them when
you go to your churches, too.
It's a parent run school.
I hope so.
It's a parent run school.
It's an extension of the home.
And yes, if anything's going onin the school that's against the
(25:41):
policy or against God's word,I will stand for the right.
Absolutely.
You may share that with me.
I will investigate.
Do you have anything youwould like to say at all?
I didn't think so.
(26:02):
Okay.
I appreciate your time, I really do.
Thank you
We are glad you came.
The purpose in meeting is toacknowledge your abuse and
(00:04):
to apologize to you for it.
on behalf of the board.
We have a few other things to talk about.
The school has also adopted anabuse policy that it has worked on
For over a year, year and a halfor so, more awareness to that
subject, definitely, than years ago.
(00:26):
I, I hope and pray so, becauseit is unbelievably destructive.
Absolutely agree..
Very destructive.
So.
Something that we in our circleswere not aware of until yeah.
I struggle with that.
I hope you can understand why I struggle.
There was a lot more awareness.
There was more hiding.
(00:46):
yep
And that should not have been allowedand it should not have happened.
Sure.
And teachers shouldn't havebeen placed in places they were.
They shouldn't have been passed around.
And information should have beentransparent and open because children,
many, many, many children have beenseriously hurt and seriously harmed.
(01:08):
And that doesn't go away.
I've heard enough from people that it'sbeen a long time so get over it, and
it's taken this long to finally be that..
And it's
I understand.
Yep.
Um, obviously not living in your shoesand I don't know what you went through..
(01:29):
I wouldn't
want anybody to.
Nope.
Nobody.
Nobody.
Not even people thatI don't care much for.
I would do anything sothey wouldn't have to.
Sure, yeah.
Well, if you don't mind, I'd liketo start by reading something that
(01:49):
was put in the abuse policy, andthat's Ephesians 5, 1 through 5.
And then I'll open witha prayer, if I may.
Yes, please.
Uh, it says, Be ye therefore followersof God, dear children, and walk
in love as Christ also hath lovedus, and hath given himself for
us, an offering and a sacrifice toGod, for a sweet smelling savor.
(02:11):
But fornication and all uncleannessor covetousness, let it not be once
named among you as becoming saints,neither filthiness nor foolish
talking nor jesting which are notconvenient, but rather giving of thanks.
For this you know, that no whoremongeror unclean person or covetous man who
is an idolater hath any inheritancein the kingdom of Christ and of God.
(02:35):
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for theopportunity to meet with Heidi and
Robert tonight It grieves us thatthe Subject of our meeting It is the
abuse that Heidi experienced duringher time at this school, and the pain
that she's endured for many years.
We pray that this time together willbe beneficial, both for her and for us,
(02:56):
that it would help Heidi in the healingand restoration, and that it would help
us to expose any form of abuse for theterrible sin that it is, and work to
prevent it from happening here ever again.
Be with us as we work to be with us aswe work to Protect the children from
abuse and hold the abusers accountable.
Father, we're mindful of our weaknessand our human frailty, and our need
(03:20):
to put our trust in Thee alone.
We're thankful for Thy word ofcomfort to us, that in all things,
all things are working togetherfor good to those who love Thee.
Help us to hold on to that promiseand be assured of it, so that
we have true peace in Christ.
Help us to show love and respectas we talk together tonight.
(03:41):
And keep us from sin.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
So you're welcome to have a copyof the abuse policy, if you'd like.
I would very much like to see that.
Thank you.
You're probably aware of the
(04:02):
guidepost, um, thirdparty that was contracted.
We read some of your statementin there, your testimony of it.
Yeah.
I'm not sure if you got a letterfrom Southwest that was sent.
No.
My communication with Southwesthas been less than pleasant.
They were It was ugly.
(04:25):
I'll just put it that way.
Okay.
Um, this is a letter fromHope School to its parents and
society, explaining Hulda's abuse.
You can have that as well.
Thank you.
So yeah, I just wanted to apologize.
Sincerely On behalf of the board,um yes, we represent the board even
(04:47):
though we weren't here at the time.
But, um also understand theneed for you to hear that too.
So, That's the reason we're here, becausethat Guidepost sent us that report that
you, um, didn't hear anything from Hope.
So we did a little searchingback in our records and didn't
find any correspondence from you.
(05:08):
So I don't know if there's an apologythat's needed that, that Hope that
you sent something and you didn'tget anything back from the school?
I got nothing back from Hope School,and I got an awful, very rudely
worded response from Southwest Church.
Well, did you send somethingto Hope at some point?
(05:30):
Like, did you ask forsomething from Hope School?
I didn't ask for anything,but I sent communication.
You sent something?
I did send, I sent a letter to HopeSchool, stating that I was myself a
victim of Hulda Kuiper, and I would beopen to speaking, to speaking about it.
But, um,
(05:51):
I'm just curious when that was.
Oh, my goodness, I wouldhave to see when it, it was,
Like a long time ago?
Last year.
Oh, okay.
Mm hmm.
Because our board, we looked back onrecords and we just didn't see anything.
I apologize I don't know if it got lost or
I think because it was me, thereaction I got and I understand
how people feel about me.
(06:12):
I am well aware of it.
I hear it.
Um, I kind of understand it, butat the same time I didn't ask to
be put in that position, but I hadhad enough of being called a liar.
So, um,
Well, Steve and Phil wereon the board last year.
I was not.
Um, I think if a letter came thatwe would acknowledge every letter.
(06:33):
So, um, Again, I apologize, I don'tknow what happened, but that was not
intentional ignoring you at all, wesincerely would have reached out.
Okay.
I apologize if, uh, if that happened.
We did not receive it.
We have no record of it.
Okay.
We went back several years andtried to find some communication
and didn't find it, so.
(06:53):
Okay.
Yeah, I've, um, I've run into that alot with dealing with, um, With a lot of
this situation, a lot of my communicationwasn't received and isn't available.
And it's um, it is what it is.
It's neither here nor there.
I wasn't on the receiving end.
(07:13):
So, um, I understand thatI didn't make any friends.
I'm well aware of that.
Um, but at the same time, regardless ofhow you feel about me, I was a victim.
And what was done tome was pretty horrible.
And what was done to me hada profound effect on my life.
Like, profound beyondwhat people understand.
(07:37):
That's just the nature of sexualabuse committed against a child.
I have
a daughter who turned 12today and is in the 6th grade.
How would you feel?
Terrible.
Absolutely.
Can't imagine.
Imagine.
And then you keep going back every day.
(07:58):
Every single day.
Wondering when she's going todecide she wants to do it again.
That's a wicked thing.
Especially coming fromsomebody in authority.
Taking advantage of young kids.
It's one thing when it's adults ofthe same age but totally different
and that's, that's bad.
(08:20):
I can't say that that's good.
But, um, when a child is put in thatsituation, And it's naive as our
children, especially then we're growingup, nobody talked about sex ever, ever.
Um,
(08:42):
I mean, the whole thing was just,I mean, it was going to happen.
There's just so much secrecy and inhouse and we don't go anywhere because
don't you dare embarrass anybody.
And it's dangerous.
It might be helpful for you to know,too, that in this investigation with
Southwest They looked into what theirconsistory did and they apologized to
(09:03):
their, uh, congregation for the wayit was handled there, on their end.
Um, my dad said he wasat Southwest at the time.
Yeah, even mentioning sex wasnot something that was hidden.
It was just so embarrassing thathe just didn't talk about it.
Yeah, you don't talk about it.
All you knew as a girl is if you'rea bad girl and you get pregnant,
(09:23):
you have to stand up front.
In front of everybody, which, I'msorry, that's not godly either, but
But the other thing I was going to sayis that the Consistory reached out to
Hope School and asked if the men on HopeSchool remember it ever being reported
to Hope School, that Hulda was doingthat here, and the four men that were
(09:45):
contacted said, no, the report from thechurch to the school, and they apologized
to the school and said, we should havetold, that teacher should have been gone.
So, that.
It wasn't, I just wanted to let youknow, I'm not making excuses, just it
wasn't hidden between church and school.
It was a failure of those men atthe time to recognize the need to
(10:06):
remove her from young students.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, what do people do thatshe did get her hands on?
What about the other ones?
Right.
What about them?
What about the price that hasbeen paid and the fallout?
I mean, you can't just look at it and say,well, God's grace is so good, which it is.
(10:27):
I love God.
I'm so thankful to be backin church and back with God.
Because I left for a longtime because of this nonsense.
Because it's not godly.
It's not in the Bible.
I read the Bible.
I know the Bible.
It's drilled in our head here, anda lot of stuff didn't make sense.
Because it wasn't biblical.
(10:48):
It wasn't love the way God says to love.
My heart hurts for the number of victimsthat all started as children, lots of
them, and I counsel a number of them, someof who are still members in your churches.
(11:13):
Come to me for counseling to deal withthe trauma from sexual abuse as a child.
I,
We're thankful that it came to light.
All of our churches and all of ourschools now in the last 2 years
have very tight abuse policies.
because of that.
(11:35):
Awareness is now in theforefront of our minds
Can you understand as a victimhow we don't feel that way?
Everything's shut down as soon as thisstuff is getting what you don't like
and you don't want anybody to know this.
We're gonna shut it down.
Let's just handle it and be quiet.
And trust me, I don'twant to be out there.
I don't like being public.
(11:55):
I have much better thingsto do with my time.
I don't want more people to comeand ask me, can we interview you?
Can we talk to you?
I don't want more people to call askingme for help because it guts me every time.
They walk away with anotherpiece of my heart every time
because this is happening.
in a place where God should be.
But, um,
(12:18):
I can tell you from the perspectiveof a victim, it just looks like
a lot more scrambling to justsay, but now we know what to do.
Now we've got it handled.
Now we learned..
We don't believe that.
I'm just telling you, we just don't.
I want to.
I would love to see it.
I don't see it.
(12:39):
I don't, you know.
And yeah, it would be horrible.
There are people sitting in yourchurches that should be sitting in
jail or prison, but they're protected.
And that is not right.
I agree.
That isn't right, butthey're gonna be protected.
I was thrown away.
I was thrown away because I wasn't willingto subject myself to violence anymore.
(13:04):
But people can rape Childrenor people can hide abuse.
And they're sitting in your churches.
And they're fine.
Maybe they got money.
Maybe they have a name.
I don't know what it is, but from thevictim's perspective, and this isn't
just me because I'm finally like, thankgoodness, most of this weight has been
(13:26):
shed in finally, thank you God for yourgrace and your mercy and your restoration.
But I'm telling you there's a lot ofvictims and I call them yours because I
see as this denomination they are yours.
They're suffering.
And it doesn't looklike really people care.
It looks like damage control.
Put a little smoothing on it.
(13:48):
We got a big anniversary.
Settle them down.
And I, I don't know what it's gonnatake to make it look like victims
really matter more than your name.
I know what it feels like to lose respect.
(14:08):
I feel what it feel.
I know what it feels liketo be trash and dirt.
I know what it feels like to haveyour name in people's mouths and
not in a way that's loving or kind.
I know what rejection feels like.
I know what blame feels like.
I know what made up stories feel like.
(14:29):
I know what spinning things feels like.
I know all of that.
But why should I have to know that?
Why do I have to be the oneto sit there and know that?
I didn't deserve what Hulda Kuiper did.
None of it.
I didn't deserve to lose myvirginity to my 6th grade
(14:53):
female teacher in the bathroom.
At school.
I didn't deserve that.
I didn't deserve to have to continueto walk into her classroom for
the remainder of a school year.
I didn't deserve to have tosit in her choir class for the
rest of my time in junior high.
(15:14):
I didn't deserve to have to sit next toher in church when she went over there.
But I had to.
You know what it's like to sitwith a person who rapes you?
I do.
As a child and as an adult.
I know what it's like.
And that's wrong.
(15:34):
I agree.
You wouldn't ask your daughters oryour sons or your wives to do that.
I choose to believe you wouldn'tdo that, because shame on you
if you'd be okay with that.
Absolutely not.
I would not want that in mychurch or in my school society,
if I knew that I would be.
(15:56):
They're there now.
Willing to...
they are there now.
But that's not our responsibilityhere at the school level.
I just wanted you to knowthat I am hearing you.
I'm listening to you.
I'm hearing what you say.
I can't put myself in the victim's shoes.
I absolutely cannot.
I don't claim to be able to.
Um, I just need to tell you again thatwe apologize for what happened here.
(16:21):
Um, I don't know what God's willis or when, why things happen other
than it happened for a reason.
It happened for a purpose, um
Romans 8 says it all happenedfor good to those who love God
Why?
Why do bad things happen to people?
And what we believe is everyone'sbeing refined, made ready
(16:45):
for their place in heaven.
We are all sinners, saved by God's grace.
There's no perfect person.
We're all equally able to sin.
Um, it's just very sad that somepeople, yeah, seem to get away with it.
Um, it's horrible.
And yeah most of us say we don'ttolerate it, we don't like it,
(17:08):
we don't want it around us.
God will have the justice.
God says that too, that vengeance is his.
He will repay those who abused.
I wish it didn't have to be that waybecause Hulda deserved somebody to care
enough about her, to call her to accountand to forgiveness before she died.
(17:31):
Yeah
That was unfair.
To leave somebody in their sinto die without Without having
worked with her That's wrong
You may, yeah, I cansee I can understand it.
I can't fully understand itbecause I am not in your position
(17:54):
but I do, I do have to trustthat God will have his vengeance
on those who perpetratedagainst those who are innocent.
Okay.
At this point, I don't know,right, with Hulda being dead
and buried, what else to say.
(18:14):
There's nothing that we can doabout it here on earth yet, right?
Nothing else that we can sayother than we apologize for the
mistakes that our forefathers made.
It should have been handled differently.
It's easy to look back and say,if I was on the board, I would
have done things differently.
I can't say that.
(18:35):
I'm not, I'm not perfect, but yeah,looking back, I wish things were
handled differently for your sake.
But even for Hulda's sake, you're right.
Yeah.
They didn't do her any favors.
No, no,
They let her go.
No, because I at least had achance and thank you God for
(18:57):
loving me so fiercely through allthese decades, but leaving her.
in her go on your way,continue as is, you're right.
You are right.
It's not love, it's not Christian love.
At all.
Punish the wrong people.
(19:21):
It's difficult to sit.
I love God fiercely.
I, seven days a week, amserving in our ministry.
Because I love people.
And I serve the broken, and I serve thehurting, and I serve people in recovery.
That's what I've chosento do with my life.
And it heals me, and it'swhat I'm called to do.
(19:47):
I couldn't imagine looking at somebodythat came to me, and we're talking.
And it doesn't matter how manydecades go past an event like that,
that happens in a child's life.
(20:08):
How in the world do I look at themand say, we're giving you a sorry now.
There you go, it's all better.
Nothing can be fixed.
I can't get it back.
The fallout of it isn'tgoing to be restored to me.
The damage isn't going to be undone.
What I've lost will never be given back.
(20:28):
That's impossible.
But you're doing good work.
I know I am
It will help betterprotect the youth today.
And that's what we hope as well.
If you look through that policyand see anything that you can
add to it to help from yourperspective, we would be grateful.
(20:48):
I will read it.
I am, I'm going to call on you to
be brave and to use voices andto be willing to stand up and say
something is wrong, even if theywant you to sit there and be quiet.
Even if they want you to say,Okay, we know what we're doing now.
(21:11):
Sometimes you don't.
And I'm just going to say it.
A lot of the times you don't and youhaven't and you've caused more harm.
And I know that because I sit withthe people that it was done to when
they went back trying to get help.
And then they come to me.
Secretly, because they getin trouble for talking to me.
(21:34):
Because I'm perceived as thisreally mean, horrible, awful person.
And I'm the furthest from it.
I really am.
I am just asking you toplease do more than just talk.
Because we're sick of just hearing words.
We're really sick of it.
We've heard it all.
It's just more talk.
More words.
(21:55):
That's it.
Well we on the school board...
Another one of these.
But where's the action?
We don't see it.
We all, a lot of us, wegot publicly trotted out.
It's not that I enjoy that.
I don't.
I hate it.
I also don't feel that it's theChristian way to approach things.
But I am saying, this has to stop.
(22:18):
At every level.
All of it.
Our children.
Everywhere in God's family must beprotected at all costs, no matter
what it costs you as a grown man.
I agree.
I do not disagree at all.
(22:45):
It just feels really shallow.
I don't know, it's just, I don't,it's difficult because it's
like, what would make me feellike anybody really does care?
I don't feel like anybodygives two, two cares.
They just want me outof here, and I get it.
I really, really do.
But I would have really haveliked for someone to genuinely
(23:05):
say I'm really, really sorry atthe price that we made you pay.
But I don't want it if it's not meant.
I hope that you can say, can hearme say I sincerely apologize.
Steve, we have
history and I'm gonna say any of mypast doesn't include you because you
(23:28):
were always nice, you were a good man
And I regret what happenedto you here Heidi.
I do.
So sorry it happened.
So am I.
And I wish something had beendone when we were here, when
we were going to school here.
It could have been dealt with then.
Yeah.
But it wasn't.
(23:51):
You were a good man then, I'mcalling on you to be a good man now.
Stand up for people whether ornot they're your family or not.
Stand up for the people that needyou to stand up for them and use
your voices because they need you.
Because there are people that areterrified and scared to death.
There are people that feeltrapped and stuck here.
(24:12):
And people like you can change that.
If you would just be willing to maybetake some arrows that will come your way.
But be willing to do it ifit's the right thing to do.
I was just saying that to my wifethe other day, I hate injustice.
I want things to be right.
(24:32):
Yeah.
Then you need to stand up and say it.
Absolutely.
Anytime anything comes in front ofme that I think is wrong against
God's word, I will stand for it.
Stand for the right.
You have my word.
I will hold that to you because ifI hear something, I will call you
and say, you gave me your word.
Well, the thing is that there's aproper way of going about things.
(24:54):
I agree that there absolutelyis, but it has to start.
Yes, and if you would tell me If youwould email me, call me, and say, there's
something going on in your school, inyour school, to investigate, absolutely.
But if you call me and say, I know a manin such and such a church, and he's doing
this, I'm going to say, I'm sorry, that'snot the right thing to do for the church.
Again, I'm not, I am not looking atyou to fix the denomination as a whole.
(25:21):
But I'm sorry, as much as you say thechurch, the school is separate, it is not.
You have to send your kids here.
There's a connection and there is a tie.
You have to use your voices here,and I pray you use them when
you go to your churches, too.
It's a parent run school.
I hope so.
It's a parent run school.
It's an extension of the home.
And yes, if anything's going onin the school that's against the
(25:41):
policy or against God's word,I will stand for the right.
Absolutely.
You may share that with me.
I will investigate.
Do you have anything youwould like to say at all?
I didn't think so.
(26:02):
Okay.
I appreciate your time, I really do.
Thank you
We are glad you came.
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