The important thing that I wish to share. Is that I do care, I do feel and I have choices. Just the same as you, as we are not at all that dissimilar. So, take a moment to think about someone, anyone. Push out a good thought from your head and into theirs. Feel it? Now you know that you are always in touch and for just a moment, part of you, was now shared.
For me it’s hard to decide where I should start and at the same time, it is very easy for it’s all there. All the memories, the pain, the fear, the stress are all just a simple recalled flashback away. The moment from a time long ago, when my world was turned upside down and my child abducted. In hindsight, because of nothing more than another persons whim, of control over me. So they could say, look at what I can do to you and you can not stop me!
Even though it is now long ago, during a time when my dreams become reality and my reality would seem to become dreams. To this day I am haunted, as it plays back in my dreams, this haunting is from non the less, than a smile. A smile from the last time that I saw this person of now 20 years ago, as she walked out of Court. Walking past me, that smile which said, I am free, unpunished and a I am feeling all powerful, as my twisted mission for you is accomplished. For you can not stop me and just wait and see what I will do to you next...
Every night or every other night, this smile comes back into my thoughts, via my dreams. It starts out simple enough at times, I am with my current wife, or any woman, doing some activity together. This could be anything from doing supper dishes to attending an event but then it goes all wrong. Things and reality twists like a very bad "Alice in Wonderland", then the kind person that I am with, becomes that evil. Doing tormenting things that were done to me 20 years ago and just as I start to wonder why, once again the smile appears. She has just morphed herself back, into my life and again with that smile.
Now Evil knows me well and plays on this event of the past to haunt me and torture me. It's not really the past but present events, that actually bother me today. Especially if feel I have no control over today's event, then the one event that I really truly could not control. Comes back to basically say, hey your nothing, your hopeless and helpless and I am all powerful!
Not so Satan, as a good friend recently reminded me, that I can re-wire my daily thinking. That I must keep in mind that this smile that is worn by that person, should be more pitied and not feared. As I must use my strong belief in the Lord, which is very strong, to say to that smile. In fact you are "NOT", to be feared but pitied and hence, evil looses once again! So this is how to remove a "SMILE", that was evil from my haunted 20 year old dreams...
Hello my TH Family, If you are wondering where does he get the time to write, well I do this as my way of relaxing. As I always set aside time for that.
The below was written to try and help a TH member who felt troubled due to her childhood. She wondered were was God in her life back then, so I wrote this as we share much "In Commonality" and were both "Kid Parents" before our time:
Hello *******,
My friend whom, I am sorry that I have taken so long to write you back. First, "Thank You" for sharing as I can feel and I do understand some of what you went through. If I may also share some of my personal horror as a child.
I am the eldest in my family and as such, my Mother leaned on me a lot. For even today, I feel that some of me was made to grow up to early...a lost childhood but I have almost no regrets. My parents had a rocky marriage for years and when fights broke out, I was either sent to get help next door or ride my bike to my uncle's home. To get help from there, as this was about 2 miles away and I either ran or rode my bike. Each year the fights got worse and worse, until 1965 my parents separated and we move to Maple Ridge B.C.
During that summer at 10 years of age I worked raspberry picking with my cousins. Every day from 7 AM till 5 PM we worked and at the end of it all, my Mother took all of my pay as she needed the income to help with the families school supplies. Keep in mind, that I also either took care of and was a "Kid Parent" to my siblings, as I did dishes, washed walls, even had supper made for when my Dad got up for work on his graveyard shift. Probably not as hard an experience as yourself but from 10 to 17 but I did it all, to help out.
Finally for some lost reason in my memory, we moved back to Calgary and found a home and I, got a paper route and once again, all my money went to the family coffers. For I even had an extra job working at a Drug store sorting pop bottles and stocking shelves. I was now 11. This last paragraph was just a little vent, as I guess I was wrong as it still bothers me.
One night in the Spring of 1966 in the upstairs tenant who lived in that apartment had a party that my Mother went to. I put my 2 brothers and sister to bed and had total control of the TV! Yessssssssssssssss!! Around 3 AM my Mother returned home and sent me to bed. Then at 4 AM, a guy from the party got into our home (why the door was open, I do not know but I found out later what B&E meant) and then it started. My Mother screamed "No I can't please get off of me", "Your hurting me!!!" Get Off... For I was 11 and the guy on top of me Mom, looked really, really big, so all I could do was to throw my kid brother's wooden letter blocks against Mom's door. I even scored a hit on this creatures, head. :) Then like a thunderstorm he left and Mom was crying and crying, I went down stairs shaking and then I heard my Mother scream "Richard!" Bolting up stairs I found my Mother covered in blood and with her wrists slashed. My siblings were awake by then and so I made them go to there rooms down stairs and bolted the door as they hammered at this door requesting over and over "let us see and what is wrong with Mom"???
My mother just kept ranting over and over, that Dad would for sure now take us all away from her and while this was happening, I bound up her wounds with 2 dish towels. Started cleaning up all the blood and also called 911 plus my Dad and then all at once. the Cops, Ambulance guys and my Dad, all showed up. My Mother was then taken away on a stretcher and we kids went to my Uncles home. I went downstairs to the room that I was assigned to me by my Aunt and with my coat still on as soon as I laid down, I feel asleep until the next day. My Mother recovered and had her against the law suicide charges were dropped.
The creature that caused all this was charged with break & entry, rape and did prison time for his actions. My Dad and Mom got back together and at least we were back to the "All In The Family", existence that we kids deeply desired. I was still Head Parent Kid but that only lasted until I hitched hiked to Height Ashbury San Francisco in 1973 (found nothing there but long haired drunks) and after this, I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Thinking about us both, I believe that we have choices and sometimes for you and I, events are thrust on us against our desires. God takes care of people like you and I, by giving us the strength and experience to handle all of these. From this we became the dependable people that we are and yes, you and I are known to be very dependable. I believe God also thrust us together as comrades not for fun but because we have a commonality and our strengths from the past keep us going where others would have caved in, like a house of cards.
For we are all, men and women alike created in the image of God. Fearfully and wonderfully made, fashioned as living icons of the Bravest, Wisest, most Stunning Beautiful Being = God. Those who have seen Him, I have read fell to their knees without even thinking about it, just as you would find yourself breathless before the Prairies at sunset, the Rockies on a clear day or the Ocean at dawn. For that glory was shared within us, as we are really “statues of God walking about in His garden,” endowed with a strength and beauty all our own and as such, we are also blessed with being fully alive.
When I look at the night sky and see the work of His fingers in the moon and in the stars that He set in place, who are we as mere humans to think that He does not care for us? For even as we have all heard about original sin, we have not nearly heard enough about "Original Glory", which comes before sin and is deeper to our nature. Because if we remember and if only faintly, that in His eyes we are more than we think we are now. The reason one would doubt there could not be Glory to their life is because that Glory, has been the object of a long and brutal war between God and Evil! To which we are both in the front lines helping the Lord to fight everyday, each in our own way and to our last of our breaths.
Please forgive me if I sound preachy but I was touched with what you shared with me and believe that you and I have much "In Commonality".
Thanks for letting me share this vent, as you are in my prayers.
For my Team Hope Family - Something wonderful will come out of our efforts! :)
Hello my Team H.O.P.E. family, if you are ever in doubt about what we do, may I share this email which I received recently as it reads:
"Dear Richard , are you still involved with the TH children's group? Even if your not, I stumbled upon this saved message from 2004 from you and wanted you to know, that something you said to me once when I was very down and did not know how it would all work out. You said, that good can triumph over evil and right will eventfully conquer wrong. My Son has been living with me full time for the last 3 years, with very little to none at all contact with his mom, due to her part, not the availability to see or talk to him. I miss you, as you are a good person, be well my friend. Sincerely, **** ******"
Now just think about all the lives that we have all touched, they may or may not have told us how grateful that they are. They may not of had the time yet but I can assure you, that they think about us at least once a week! Multiply this into "OUR" future and you will come out in sum, of many, many, more people who we have helped with our blessed talents and love. So if you ever wonder if something wonderful will come out of our efforts - keep in mind it already has started. :) Amazing people you all are! http://www.teamhope.org/index.html Sincerely,
Richard Abbenbroek Volunteers At:
Centre Street Church, Child Find Alberta, Team Hope NCMEC, Samaritans Purse Canada, RCACS, The Hanger, Sir Richards Music Promotions FREE
May 1989 – December 2013 (24 years 8 months) Child Find Alberta, Team Hope NCMEC
Assisted 408 Parents in the recovery of their Missing Children, through Child Find Alberta (1989 – 2008) and Team Hope of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children (2003-2013).
Helped build a Computer Lab at the High School in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Bhekulwandle South Africa.
Centre Street Church Mission
Went to the Gulf of Mexico and assisted in the recovery of 70 Hurricane Katrina ravaged homes with Samaritans Purse Canada.
Also a Billy Graham Rapid Response Team Chaplain
RCACS ROYAL CANADIAN AIR CADET SQUADRON’S 604, 52, 781, 538 Voluteer and Parent Advisory Commitees.
The Hanger – As a Guide and Greeter, Air Show Events.
Sir Richards Music Promotions FREE: Currently helping young female singers reach their goals as professional acts and for Free.
by,
Sir Richard/Mzikayifani (My Zulu name for homesteads are different)
With Love and all that heaven will allow!
http://bayo-hunter.blogspot.com/
