Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Wayne and Sherri Labins
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000249
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00:31 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome to Issues and Answers.
00:34 We have a very delicate topic that we're going to be 00:37 discussing today and I would like to warn parents that 00:42 parental supervision is required for this program. We're going 00:45 to be speaking to a convicted child molester who has been 00:51 born again and converted by the Lord and it reminds me of the 00:56 scripture from Acts 26:18 which is one of my favorites. This is 01:01 what Paul had to say, actually it's what Jesus said to Paul. 01:05 He said that I am sending you to open their eyes that they may 01:08 turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God 01:12 so that they may receive forgiveness of their sins and 01:16 have an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in 01:22 me. I'm very excited to introduce you to Wayne and Sheri 01:28 Ladins. Wayne, thank you so much for coming today and Sheri, I'm 01:32 so glad you're here as well. Now you have a testimony as well 01:36 that we will be talking about in a later topic. But let's begin 01:41 with what you are doing today. We're going to talk about your 01:47 former problem but let's talk about what God is doing in your 01:51 lives today. Well, first of all he's brought 01:54 Sheri and me here today to share our testimony, which is, like 02:00 you say, a delicate testimony and that's a door that God has 02:03 opened. He brought us here and we can only just say, All right 02:06 Lord, we'll go through it. But for the last three years God has 02:11 opened other doors. We're involved in a number of things. 02:14 For one thing, prison ministry, and we'll have some graphics 02:19 here a little bit later. I'm an electronic engineer and that's 02:23 basically what I'm doing right now. Sheri's involved in air 02:26 craft hardware sales. But we're devoted to ministry 02:31 opportunities and devoted to the Lord and being available to him 02:34 wherever he puts us. We've been involved in abuse addiction 02:38 deliverance ministries on campmeetings, not officially in 02:42 a campmeeting, but just with the people that God puts in our 02:45 path in the tent, in the aisles, you know, just talking with 02:48 people. We've also been involved in public evangelism, door to 02:56 door out reach. I've gone to the Amazing Facts College of 03:00 Evangelism and we'll have some graphics on that, too. But some 03:06 of those things are all piling up together to prepare Sheri and 03:11 me for just ministering to a wide variety of people. We have 03:14 different backgrounds and God uses that to really minister to 03:18 a lot of people. 03:19 Why don't we look at some of the pictures now and see how God is 03:23 leading in your life. 03:25 First of all, I think there's a picture of us camping. We enjoy 03:29 getting out in God's cathedral, God's nature, and we need that. 03:33 We absolutely need that. When the stresses of life are way too 03:37 much, you've got to get away and we certainly enjoy that. 03:40 I mentioned, I think, prison ministry as well. We've been 03:45 involved in that. Sheri does it regularly and I go in on what's 03:50 called family days. Twice a year the state prison where we're at 03:55 allows a group of people to come in and minister and to be part 03:59 of the worship service there. I tell you what, this is a 04:02 powerful ministry. Not everyone is cut out for it, but the men 04:08 and women behind bars, they are reflecting on their lives. They 04:12 are ready to hear the good news about Jesus. When they can get 04:16 past this idea of - well you don't know what I've done - 04:19 God could never forgive me, when you can get past that, then they 04:24 respond and that's a real blessing, a real blessing. 04:26 And the next picture. Well I think there's a picture, 04:29 yes, there's a picture of me at the Amazing Facts College of 04:32 Evangelism. I went there last year and there's probably some 04:36 one you recognize there, not me. Doug Bachelor. Anyway God 04:41 really opened the door. I've been trying to get into prison 04:44 ministry full time with Sheri, but because of my criminal 04:47 background they would not let me in on a regular basis. When I 04:51 applied to Amazing Facts College of Evangelism they let me in and 04:55 every staff member there knows my story and they let me in. 05:01 Glory to God. So do my classmates, all the 05:03 class members there know as well with a sermon. 05:06 And the next picture. Well this is putting the 05:12 knowledge to work basically. We had two outreach classes at 05:16 our church. This is a picture of the first one and you can see 05:19 there is a lady in a wheel chair. She wanted to go door to 05:22 door and, bless her heart, she did. She wanted to get the word 05:25 out to people and that's what needs to happen. I'm involved 05:29 with Go Preach Ministries which is a group of AFCOE graduates 05:34 who are training people in their churches to do door to door 05:38 ministry public evangelism partly because when the church 05:42 hires a Bible worker there's only one Bible Worker and when 05:46 that Bible worker leaves they tend to take their friendships 05:49 with them. We want to train 20 to 30 people at a time in the 05:52 churches to do outreach ministry and then you have an army and 05:57 the harvest truly is great then. 05:58 Wayne, when I met you and Sheri and, of course, you spoke some 06:04 time with my husband J.D. and I heard all your story, I was so 06:08 excited to invite you to come and do Issues and Answers with 06:13 us because we know that child molestation is a problem that is 06:19 widespread and there are many predators even that are 06:22 attracted to churches. What I appreciated so much about you 06:27 was the accountability program that you promote. For our 06:32 viewers' sake, let's go back and share some of your story. 06:37 As you were growing up as a young boy, what kind of set you 06:42 off to where you took that first step in the wrong direction and 06:47 then how you were led? 06:49 Yes. This is kind of a light story that God has ended up with 06:58 and we are praising him for that. It started in real 07:00 darkness; it really did. But I think it's important for people 07:05 to know that no matter how dark things start, God is wanting to 07:09 draw them out of that and he can and he will. With Jesus' 07:12 strength he can. So it basically starts when I was five and my 07:18 folks divorced and that was traumatic for me. My younger 07:21 brother didn't get affected as much and my older brother seemed 07:24 to be able to handle it better. I was really traumatized. 07:28 I remember crying deeply about it and in fact if I needed to 07:32 cry for a reason to get something out of my eye, I would 07:35 actually think of the divorce and the tears would just come 07:38 up; I would just start crying. My dad moved out and he 07:43 remarried. He and the lady he married thought it was okay 07:47 to walk around the house naked. They did that in front of her 07:51 children and in front of us. It was a very sexualized 07:54 environment. They took us to a nudist colony where we went 08:00 camping and we did all the things you do when you go 08:02 camping but everybody was walking around naked. So for a 08:06 child, he sees normal behavior but everybody's naked and he 08:11 somehow associates it as must be okay. So the messages being 08:15 sent were very wrong but of course at five, six, seven I 08:19 didn't know that. My dad molested his stepdaughters 08:25 in front of me, one of them, by stroking her genital area. 08:30 As far as I know there was no penetration. But that behavior 08:34 is something that I saw and later in my teen years I started 08:41 doing the same. You become what you behold. 08:44 That's a biblical principle. So this is what appeared to you 08:50 to be normal behavior. You didn't know that this was really 08:54 that aberrant and then you repeated it. 08:57 Well, I would at least say that if I knew it was abnormal, it 09:04 was like well Dad's doing it. It must somehow be okay. 09:09 As I was a 14-year-old, I knew it was not okay, but I was 09:14 experimenting. There was a 7- year-old girl in particular who 09:19 I was grooming and that's a word that's used to describe 09:23 how a perpetrator gains the confidence of a victim to the 09:27 point where they will surrender and be under the power of a 09:31 perpetrator and it's a very scary thing. It was real and it 09:37 happened. Fortunately we got caught before, again, there was 09:40 any penetration although I'm sure that's where we were headed 09:43 I know there would have been something I would have tried 09:46 at 14. We got caught. The young girl told her parents, praise 09:54 God and unfortunately all that was done was then parents said, 09:58 Well stay away from each other. We didn't get any help and the 10:00 victim in particular. So there really weren't any 10:02 consequences for your actions? 10:04 Not really, not really, and I'll deal with that later. It's very 10:07 important that there are consequences. God chastens those 10:10 he loves. There needs to be a punishment, there needs to be a 10:13 consequence for true healing. Well that didn't happen. The 10:16 problem was there and identified but, again, there was no help. 10:21 I was overweight, wore horn rimmed glasses. I was a brain, 10:27 an honor student. I didn't have much social skills. I withdrew 10:32 to myself and plus I'm feeling guilty about this sexual side 10:37 of me that I know is abnormal. But I didn't know how to get any 10:42 help. Were you getting any kind of 10:45 religious training at all? My mom was a Seventh-day 10:51 Adventist. She worked nights at the Adventist hospital so if she 10:55 worked Friday night, we didn't go to church Sabbath usually and 10:59 I would say the Christianity was kind of nominal in the home. 11:03 We read the Bible Christmas Eve, we read the Bible story. Sabbath 11:08 was a drag. The whole idea was kind of a drag. But you know 11:14 what? It laid a foundation. I want to say right now for 11:17 parents who are wondering if their kids will ever make it 11:20 back into the church, the foundation you lay now really 11:24 does help and it helped me later. As a teenager in high 11:29 school, I didn't have a girl friend, not until senior year in 11:34 high school. Then when I did it was like, Thank goodness, I'm 11:40 normal now; I have a girlfriend. And I'd hope that the problems 11:44 of molest behavior would be somehow buried. The thing is I 11:50 got involved with a high school student who had herself had been 11:56 abused. It is typical; people who are abused are for some 12:00 crazy reason often attracted to those who are abusers and 12:05 so we have dynamite here. It's going to blow sooner or later. 12:09 But at this time, again, I was feeling like we have a normal 12:15 relationship. We did get engaged we got married and about two 12:19 years into college there was one night we shared the worst things 12:25 we've ever done. I had shared what I had done with this 12:28 seven-year-old girl earlier and it just floored her because my 12:33 wife had been molested by a junior high teacher and she had 12:40 never gotten help, never gotten any therapy and nothing really 12:43 happened to the teacher. He sort of quit his job and went on to 12:47 something else. So this is the mistake that we make as a 12:51 society and especially sometimes as a church where we don't deal 12:54 with these issues head on and that's really the only reason 12:59 we're here today is to help people who are in abusive 13:03 situations get help, but also for the church. What can the 13:06 church do? We'll deal with that later. 13:09 Now you and your wife had a baby girl. 13:13 Yes, we had three children and actually as a young dad who has 13:19 got problems already and very selfish unfortunately although 13:23 I was very happy to have my children some days, other days 13:27 I was very resentful, very angry because it took away time from 13:32 my wife and me and we did not have a good intimate 13:35 relationship. She was uncomfortable with sexual 13:39 activity. I was oversexed. It was a real mess. It was not a 13:43 healthy relationship in any way. Unfortunately, yes, after we had 13:49 our daughter about two years, she was about two years old, 13:51 with the stresses and strains of the marriage not working out 13:55 my molest behavior returned and that's not a justification for 13:59 the behavior in any way. It just explains the dynamic that was 14:03 happening there. I started molesting my daughter during 14:07 bath time. And you were fondling your 14:15 daughter during bath time? Yes. I was rubbing her genital 14:19 area. There was no penetration, but, you know, early in therapy 14:26 it hit me, I'm the father, the one person on the whole planet 14:31 most responsible for protecting his children, especially his 14:34 daughter and I'm the one who is hurting her. Sometimes I look 14:39 at these hands and I think of what Jesus said, If your hand 14:41 offend thee, cut it off. And he is serious about that. Early on 14:47 I thought did he really mean cut my literal hand off and he meant 14:49 cut sin out. Zero tolerance; that's what God is interested in 14:54 Complete healing, not partial healing. He never said, Go and 14:58 sin a little less, to the woman caught in adultery. Go and sin 15:03 no more. If we believe that God has the power to do that 15:08 in us, because he says it right here, we have to walk in that 15:11 belief. We have to walk it, put it into practice. 15:14 How long as a young father now, and you are doing these things 15:20 during bath time. You know it surprises me your wife even 15:24 allowed you to bathe your daughter when she knew your 15:28 history. But she obviously trusted you. How long did this 15:32 behavior go on and what affect was it having on you? When did 15:36 you wake up and take a step toward recovery? 15:40 Well, there was one situation where my wife came to me and 15:44 said, You know, I've noticed some behaviors about our 15:48 daughter and she says, Should I be concerned? And I did not have 15:53 the guts to say yes there's a problem. But six months later, 15:58 this would be the fall of 1992, the guilt was so strong, the 16:05 anger was so strong. When I would come home from work I 16:14 would be so angry because I knew what I was. The guilt could 16:20 not come out in terms of I need help, so it came out as anger 16:24 towards my family. Because if they weren't around, if I was 16:29 angry at them they stayed away, I couldn't hurt my daughter, I 16:32 couldn't hurt them. So unfortunately although I was a 16:36 great guy in many respects some of the time my mood could change 16:40 just like that and so my whole family, wife and kids, were 16:43 walking around on eggshells waiting for Dad to blow and Dad 16:47 would blow but couldn't share why he was so torn up inside 16:52 out of guilt for what he's doing and couldn't get help. The thing 16:56 is, people need to know, don't listen to that voice where it 17:01 says you can't get help, you're scum, no one will believe you, 17:05 you will lose your job, you'll lose your marriage, you'll lose 17:08 you liberty if you're committing a crime. This was a crime. This 17:12 was against not only God's law but man's law and there's a lot 17:16 of fear. But God says, Perfect love casts out fear, and God 17:22 says, I will help you. I will lead you out of this mess 17:26 of a wilderness. No matter how low the gutter is, he will pull 17:30 you up out of it. He promises that, so we need to hold onto 17:33 that. And that's what I want to encourage people. When my wife 17:37 asked six months later I finally did have the guts to say yes 17:41 there is a problem, and she was devastated. I mean this was her 17:48 nightmare come true. I mean this was the thing she feared most in 17:52 her whole life and there it was and it was in her house and I 17:55 had devastated her, betrayed her trust. I had abused my daughter. 18:00 And the ramifications just go on and on. But, you know, at least 18:07 there's a starting point for recovery, a starting point for 18:10 healing. That is admitting it. Admitting it is first. Once you 18:14 can get over the denial and get into admitting it and confessing 18:19 it, that's a big, big step but it's only the first. I called 18:25 Child Protective Services and said I need help. I have 18:27 molested my daughter. What do we do? How do we go through 18:31 this? What do we have to do? And they said, Well, you have to 18:34 leave the house. You have to get out of the house right now. You 18:38 can't stay there tonight. And that was the first part of my 18:42 anger coming back, kind of. It's like, wait a minute. I'm calling 18:45 to get help, why do I have to leave my house? 18:48 So that's still very self- oriented, very selfish. 18:53 Oh yes, we are so selfish. The heart is desperately wicked, 18:58 desperately so. Pride is the first thing. We are so into self 19:04 especially young men and I was a young father. But I complied. 19:10 I wanted to get help. I wanted to get help. They set up a 19:13 social worker and also in talking with them I knew there 19:17 would be a police report, so I called the police and said I 19:19 have a situation so you need to come on down and get your 19:22 statement. I talked to the detective and told him what had 19:25 happened. So started the whole process of being involved with 19:29 these agencies. Praise God, for the first time in years I was 19:33 getting a sense of relief and help, but my whole family was 19:37 now having to deal with a lie that was finally just out and 19:41 they were devastated. What were the consequences of 19:46 this confession? First did you turn to God at the same time? 19:52 No. You still weren't turning to God. So you were just dealing 19:57 with the consequences of man's law at this point. 20:01 Man's law and I can do this. I'm going to get better. 20:04 I'm going to solve this. I'm going to work hard, and I did. 20:08 I was required to get into therapy with a therapist who 20:12 specializes in sex offenders and we met twice a week for many, 20:16 many weeks. I had to live outside of my home. I could only 20:20 see my children when my wife was there, supervised visitation, 20:27 line of sight and also auditory supervision. After about three 20:32 months of intense therapy the anger went away pretty quickly 20:36 as I realized this is what has to happen. The laws are there to 20:40 protect the children, not me, not to help me really; it's to 20:44 protect the children and they have to be that way because 20:47 otherwise people will fall into a relapse. 20:50 Was the remorse really coming over you to recognize, not just 20:54 oops, now I've got myself in a situation, but were you really 20:58 remorseful for what you had done to your daughter? 21:00 No, not at first, not at first. There was a lot of empathy 21:04 training. I realized, You know what, this is not an object. 21:08 This is a living, breathing soul here. These are people, these 21:12 are children that are powerless and most importantly, this is 21:16 your daughter, your flesh and blood. She does not deserve to 21:20 have this behavior from you, from anyone, and she is not at 21:24 fault in any way. You are entirely responsible. 21:27 And later in group therapy we sometimes see this especially 21:31 with those who have gotten involved with 14-year-olds or 21:34 15-year-olds. Well she wanted it. She was consensual. 21:37 You know, she's not old enough to make the decision to be 21:40 sexually involved. You're the adult. It's fully your 21:46 responsibility. That has to happen and that did happen. 21:51 I started to realize I've hurt my daughter, my precious 21:57 two-year-old daughter. I mean, it sickens me to think about it, 22:02 but it happened. Now, you did not get convicted 22:08 then? No. Three months or so later 22:12 I was able to move back into the house and it looked like, 22:16 by the way this is my second wife, my first wife... we're 22:19 going to be able to get back together again. I was making 22:22 good progress in therapy and the therapist was allowing certain 22:26 modifications to the therapy contract to be able to be around 22:31 my children again. But it was in the spring of 1993 that a 22:35 daughter of very good friends of ours at the time recalled an 22:38 incident the previous summer before I had admitted my problem 22:42 with my daughter where she was molested by me and when I talked 22:46 with the mother about that, I didn't deny it. I said, Yes that 22:51 did happen. We were reading on the chair and I had put the book 22:56 in her crotch and she got stimulated and then I started 23:01 rubbing her and same sort of things. She didn't recall it 23:05 apparently until nine months later and I didn't bring it up. 23:09 How old was this child? She was three. Three years old. 23:12 So she was able to remember. My daughter was never able to 23:15 remember any physical abuse. She was examined and there was no 23:19 evidence, so there was no case. But this did turn into a case. 23:23 She had recalled an incident, I didn't deny it. We went into 23:26 court and that it was it for my ex-wife. That was it. She was 23:30 like I can't deal with this any more. That was the end of our 23:34 relationship. The consequences then of your 23:36 actions finally are hitting you. Now you go through a divorce. 23:40 You are convicted of child molestation. Now you received 23:45 probation, is that correct? Eight years' probation, 75 days 23:50 in county jail. Did you lose your job? 23:55 I did not lose my job. God saw fit that I could keep my job and 23:58 the way it was structured was my ex-wife and children were 24:02 dependent on my job. So I thank him for that. I still have that 24:07 job today and all of the management at my work know of 24:11 my situation and all of my offense. 24:13 So as a convicted child molester you were obligated to inform 24:18 everyone around you. No. No? That was my choice, 24:22 that was my choice as a part of the accountability. It was 24:25 that time when I was going through the court process that I 24:29 met a man who shared his faith with me and for the first time 24:33 in my life someone who mentioned Jesus was someone I could listen 24:37 to. Anytime anyone had approached me with do you know 24:40 Jesus, I would say no, go away; because I knew I couldn't be 24:46 a hypocrite. I couldn't get involved in Christianity. 24:49 I had dabbled in it in college. In fact, there was one dear 24:53 friend in college who was frustrated with me: 24:56 You know so much. You know the Gospel but you haven't taken the 25:01 step to receive Christ. There's an act of receiving. It can't 25:06 just be head knowledge. You can't just know about it. 25:08 Wayne, you did receive Jesus Christ and he did make you over 25:13 as a new creation. If you could speak to someone who is caught 25:18 up in this sexual sin right now, what would you say? 25:21 What I would say is, Christ can lead you out of that mess, no 25:26 matter now messy you think it is he can. He wants to do it. 25:31 I want to make this point though that nothing, losing your job, 25:34 losing your marriage, losing your freedom, even if you go to 25:39 jail, none of that compares to the damage of molesting or 25:43 hurting a child even one more time. You have got to get help. 25:47 As soon as you become accountable to even one person 25:49 the chances of you repeating your behavior drop dramatically. 25:53 Please, get help. We are going to have you come 25:58 back and do some programs on recovery and accountability, 26:01 but I know that one of the blessings that God has brought 26:06 into your life is Sherri. You heard this awesome testimony 26:12 and yet you chose to marry this man. 26:15 That's true, yes, that's true. Well that is an amazing story 26:21 that God led us and I'll share that with you later. 26:26 Okay, we're going to do a program with you and hear your 26:29 personal testimony in how the Lord led the two of you together 26:34 But, you know, God restored more that just a marriage. He has 26:39 restored your relationship with your daughter. Tell us. 26:42 Absolutely. Well actually when she was informed of the molest 26:45 she wasn't informed until she was about 9-10 years old and 26:48 there were some difficult years there, in fact, three years 26:51 where she didn't even communicate with me or anyone 26:53 in my family. But, you know what? She reached out to my 26:56 mom during one Thanksgiving and then she decided to come out for 27:00 Thanksgiving and we had a lot of healing; some heart-to-heart 27:03 talks that needed to happen. She needed to hear that I took full 27:06 responsibility for what I did, that she did nothing to bring on 27:10 what had happened. Praise God! In the next nine months, she 27:13 wanted to go to campmeeting with us and at that campmeeting, I 27:16 think we might even have a picture, there it is, she got 27:20 baptized. Over those 10 days she got baptized. I just love 27:24 the look on her face there. Praise God! She's a child of God 27:28 and she loves Jesus. God is in the business of restoration. 27:32 That's his job, he wants to bring healing. 27:34 Amen, that is. He is a God of new beginnings. I am sorry 27:37 that we're out of time, but remember this, that God's 27:40 mercies are new every morning and great is his faithfulness. 27:45 This is the story of Wayne and Sherri Ladins. Please tune in 27:48 next time and we'll be hearing part of Sherri's testimony. 27:52 Good bye, for now. |
Revised 2014-12-17