Help fight abuse with The Abigail Project
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Dear Friends,
I’ve been working with victims of abuse for almost 30 years and have seen the agony it causes in hundreds of victims. It’s heartbreaking. One of the most tragic themes in all that time is how successfully abusers hide. They are devious, and well-practiced.
Our job, at The Abigail Project, is to make is hard for abusers to hide and thrive, especially in the Christian community. But covid-19 has meant a major disruption in our plans and we urgently need your help.
This is a dangerous and difficult time for many victims of abuse. Abusers love to isolate their victims, and right now the pandemic makes that job even easier. In normal times, most victims can get some kind of respite during the week. But routines of work, and school have been disrupted, placing victims under even more stress.
Can you imagine living in fear every day, and having no one to talk to? When every phone call or video conference is monitored by someone who is deliberately hurting you? It is horrific, suffocating, and deeply exhausting. No one should go through that alone.
Yet committed abusers have dozens of tactics. They practice them over many years, and will use whatever advantage they can find. In faith communities, like the Christian community, they will add spiritual abuse to the mix, without shame. They play on the goodness of their victims, and the goodwill of others, doing everything they can to hide the abuse, undermine their victims, and keep them trapped.
So even when victims reach out for help, they are often not believed, or not taken seriously.
And we can help, with your support.
Abuse is complicated because there are so many behaviours, and so many lies and deceit. Yet despite the complexity, abusers have been using much the same tactics for thousands of years. An abuse victim, for example, might well read the story of Hannah in the Bible, a story from over 3000 years ago, and see their own situation in it.
We have an incredible opportunity to teach people what abuse looks like. There are so many goodhearted people in the church who want to learn how to care for others better! We can teach them. Not so that each person becomes an expert, but so that enough people pick up on clues, and know what to do next.
When even “positive” behaviours can be part of the way abusers insert themselves into positions of trust and respect, we can teach people to spot the patterns and do something about it.
What we can’t do, is do it alone. We need people like you – people who care, who want to make a difference, and who can give something. Large, or small.
I simply do not have the words to express the grief of watching case after case of good people deeply harmed, traumatised, by those intent on evil. And while we will never be able to stamp out abuse completely, what we can do together is make it increasingly difficult for abusers to hide and thrive, in the Christian community and beyond.
Please will you stand with us? Together, we can be like oxygen for those who are suffering. They need our help.
Please give as generously as you can,
Steve Wade
Founder, The Abigail Project
PS We have an urgent need to raise $8,000 now, at this critical time as a new ministry. Please don’t delay. We can make an incredible difference together.
I’ve been working with victims of abuse for almost 30 years and have seen the agony it causes in hundreds of victims. It’s heartbreaking. One of the most tragic themes in all that time is how successfully abusers hide. They are devious, and well-practiced.
Our job, at The Abigail Project, is to make is hard for abusers to hide and thrive, especially in the Christian community. But covid-19 has meant a major disruption in our plans and we urgently need your help.
This is a dangerous and difficult time for many victims of abuse. Abusers love to isolate their victims, and right now the pandemic makes that job even easier. In normal times, most victims can get some kind of respite during the week. But routines of work, and school have been disrupted, placing victims under even more stress.
Can you imagine living in fear every day, and having no one to talk to? When every phone call or video conference is monitored by someone who is deliberately hurting you? It is horrific, suffocating, and deeply exhausting. No one should go through that alone.
Yet committed abusers have dozens of tactics. They practice them over many years, and will use whatever advantage they can find. In faith communities, like the Christian community, they will add spiritual abuse to the mix, without shame. They play on the goodness of their victims, and the goodwill of others, doing everything they can to hide the abuse, undermine their victims, and keep them trapped.
So even when victims reach out for help, they are often not believed, or not taken seriously.
And we can help, with your support.
Abuse is complicated because there are so many behaviours, and so many lies and deceit. Yet despite the complexity, abusers have been using much the same tactics for thousands of years. An abuse victim, for example, might well read the story of Hannah in the Bible, a story from over 3000 years ago, and see their own situation in it.
We have an incredible opportunity to teach people what abuse looks like. There are so many goodhearted people in the church who want to learn how to care for others better! We can teach them. Not so that each person becomes an expert, but so that enough people pick up on clues, and know what to do next.
When even “positive” behaviours can be part of the way abusers insert themselves into positions of trust and respect, we can teach people to spot the patterns and do something about it.
What we can’t do, is do it alone. We need people like you – people who care, who want to make a difference, and who can give something. Large, or small.
I simply do not have the words to express the grief of watching case after case of good people deeply harmed, traumatised, by those intent on evil. And while we will never be able to stamp out abuse completely, what we can do together is make it increasingly difficult for abusers to hide and thrive, in the Christian community and beyond.
Please will you stand with us? Together, we can be like oxygen for those who are suffering. They need our help.
Please give as generously as you can,
Steve Wade
Founder, The Abigail Project
PS We have an urgent need to raise $8,000 now, at this critical time as a new ministry. Please don’t delay. We can make an incredible difference together.
Organizer
Steve Wade
Organizer
Asquith, NSW