Testimony~Part 2

Well, I have some time right now to devote to writing.  I have been pretty amazed at all that is coming to memory.  It's certainly been a while, a long while, since I purposely devoted my memory to my past.  To hear fresh voices again, and to smell smells that seem to take me back very far.  When you can smell the sap of an Alaskan tree again, sitting at your computer indoors, or smell the sticky jam on a countertop, and vivdly remember the little blue container that it sat in.  I always facinated at how cute the little white carry handle was on that container.  We seem to have chosen that brand with that container quite a bit.  I may remember a smucker's jar too. 

When you can smell the paint from your sweaty cheeks and hot tears standing in the corner.  Mother 2 often forgot me there.  "Lil sis, can you go ask her if I can get out now?"...."Ok"....The taste of blood on that lip that swelled up.  Oh how quiet it can be when you're sent to your bed and you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself.  I'm not saying that I feel sorry for the punishments I recieved.  Please don't get me wrong.  It would surely do more kids good to get a swift kick to their rears.  A good ol fashioned lickin.  But what was going on, is that this lil bush-baby needed some ministering to.  But guess what, all was not in vain.  Because at the end of it all, for this little girl, the Lord saved her at age 19!!!  Glory.  But I'll get to that later.  I just wanted to point out that this is not just a pathetic story to get you down or to feel sorry for me.  It's a story of the sufferings of one girl, and the AMAZING transformation God-Almighty did for her, and to her!!  All Glory to my Father. 

Okay, well, we ended with mother 2 meeting a new man, and them both moving these children to Soldotna last time.  And at some time before all this and/or during all this, aunty with her 2 children ended up moving out too.  For aunty met a great man!  They are still married!!! 

Well, the next coming years were not any easier than my very young years.  I began middle school in Soldotna.  Mind you, I had just come from only knowing a one-room schoolhouse in the bush to a school with hundreds of children.  We had many classes to attend, and there was soooo much to get used to.  My family chose, not long after moving into our new home, to take in another little girl.  That stung all us children.  We were already having SOOO much to get used to and adjusted to.  We voiced our opinions the best we could about our hurt and dissapointment in the decision.  There was, in my opinion, no wisdom in this decision, and no proper consideration for the 4 of us children.  This little girl they took in was coming from a problem home (filled with drugs and alcohol), so MUCH of mother 2 and dad's attention went to her. 

It was a very hard new school year for me.  Soldotna is a cute little town where everybody (or most everybody) has known eachother since very small childhood.  You know, Dr. so and so and Teacher so and so's children went to eachother's kindergarten birthday's.  I was the new kid on the block at the wrong place and the wrong time.  It wasn't as hard for my siblings, because they were still young enough.  I think my younger sister started out in like 3rd or 4th grade, and baby sister was like 1st grade and brother was kindergarten.  So you see. 

Well, early into this first year of school, somehow I ended up in special counseling sessions.  That immediately put me in a certain group of peers.  Other uppity-ups wanted nothing to do with me.  I began showing problem behaviour.  I was lying, stealing and crying.  I couldn't focus on my schoolwork.  I have NO idea how I made it through the next 6 years of school.  I got held back for 8th grade.  That also put me in more criticism with my peers.  It was humiliating. 

I remember going to counseling sessions with my mother 2 and dad.  I didn't want to talk.  They were having a hard time to figure out what to do.  There weren't reaches of bonds anywhere else though (at home for instance).  They relied on these counselors to 'fix' me. 

My dad did begin to reach out to me.  I remember some of the first feelings of not just thinking this guy is so cool, but looking up to him.  I also remembering thinking he was pretty wierd that he would so often try to put his arm around me or hug me.  That was the effects from being raped and molested so much.  I tried to appreciate it.  There was an instinct in me that felt his touches were ok and nothing to be ashamed of. 

I'd also like to add in here somewhere, might as well be now, that my grandma was a HUGE and WONDERFUL role in my life.  I think I could blog the next half a dozen blogs on my grandma.  I'm one of her namesakes.  I'm very pleased with that and take GREAT joy in that. 

Beginning when I was very young (still in the bush sometime), my daddy and mother 2 would get me to grandma's house for the summer's.  I think like a couple of weeks a summer.  Oh how I loved my grandma's house.  I could've sworn her home was a piece of heaven.  Oh I loved my grandma.  I'm sorry she didn't get to meet all my children.  She did get to meet Ellery once before she passed away. 

My memories of her are some of my DEARESTED DEARESTED.  I remember when she would sing.  Oh how she could sing.  I grew up Russian Orthodox.  And in Russian Orthodox (which is what grandma was too), they sang in Slovonic (spelling??).  It's a sort of Russian I believe.  Well, it would usually be evening, and she just finished the dishes.  Her counters were that 1950's or '60's white with sparkles in it.  I'd hop up on her counter.  She pull out her wine and wine cup.  She'd fill half water and half wine.  I think she was trying to deal with her cancer ???  I really don't know. 

So she'd stand there and talk with me some.  We'd look out her kitchen window at her sink.  Her backyard was ALWAYS landscaped sooo beautifully.  Grandma loved flowers.  I loved to look way up her big choke-cherry tree.  There at her window, with her cigarette smoke just giving it's smoke while she began to sip at her wine, she'd begin to sing!!  Oh the grand voice she had.  It would give me tickles in my spine when she'd reach certain notes.  In slovonic, there are magnificient highs and amazing lows. 

Another time when it was night.  She had a drunk man that came to the door that she had to shoo away.  Well I was too scared to go to bed, so she invited me to her room to sit on her bed.  There she began to sing to me 'Puff the magic Dragon'. Oh grandma, how I do miss you so.  Oh what I'd give that she could sing to my little ones!! 

Grandma had a pride for me that NOONE else did.  Nobody loved me like my grandma did.  She was my ONLY one in life I could trust in at that point.  I loved how she'd buy me my own special toothpaste and any couple of boxes of cereal.  I remember choosing Apple-Jacks once.  I couldn't believe I was eating Apple-Jacks.  Of course, with raising so many little ones, daddy and mother 2 couldn't afford special choices of cereal.  Well, I never knew that.  I only focused on the special treatment grandma gave me and cherished EVERY moment. 

Well, some reason, my brain and memory are hitting a blank wall spot.  I don't know what else to write.  So I think I ought to go to gather some more memory and thoughts.  I'm so sorry.  I don't want to leave you hanging.  I don't know why this is happening.  Thank you for reading so far.  Signing off for now, Elsie

Recieving my blogs by email.

I have just found this great feature here on Blogger. It allowed me to pick 10 contacts out of my email contacts to recieve my blogs (everytime I post) by way of email. I chose you who have it, because you don't have a blog here on Blogger, and I thought you may enjoy seeing my blogs as I post them. If, for some reason, you don't want to be getting these please just let me know and I'll simply delete you from that option. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this amazing technology! I think it's pretty neato ;)

To begin at the very beginning.

To the past we go.  The above isn't a picture of my family.  But I just thought it was fitting to head into the past with.  I've been asked to give my testimony before.  And in the last several months, I was asked again.  I have hesitated for this reason.  I have a lot of people in my past.  I know, you're probably thinking, "Don't we all?".  Yes, I realize that.  What I'm trying to say, is that there are a lot of people in my past who have wronged me at some point in my life.  Sadly, they are pretty much all my family, or well, the family I was adopted into.  I imagine if any of my family are to read this, they could think,"I can't believe Elsie is publishing this stuff all over the web!!"...The thing is, is that probably most of them are not understood of what a testimony of a saved person can do for other saved folk, or for someone who's been given the Gospel to, and is almost ready to be saved. 

I don't desire to hurt anyone.  But my life can really be a benefit for eternity, by the Grace of God.  It's what Christ Jesus has done in this little village girls life.  And someone can be moved for Christ in knowing this testimony of what He's done for me.  And to be honest, who knows, maybe most of my family doesn't know (and actually, I know this to be true) what's gone on in my life, and maybe it could even lead one of them to the Saviour!! 

So I say all that to begin with my testimony.  I pray it moves you to look to Jesus.  I pray that you will be edified to serve Him with your ALL. 

It all begins with a 2-3 year old Baby Elsie.  From my pictures, that a loving mommy took of me, I was very very loved and cute.  Wispy lil brown baby hair that tickled at my shoulders.  One of my favorite pictures is of me in my lil white jammies, and I'm bugging my Daddy's feet.  Maybe trying to tickle them.

My Daddy was a State Trooper here in Alaska.  He was assigned to the village of Tyonek (where my people are from).  That's where we lived at that time.  My mother looked very young.  She had to have been somewhere, I guess, from the ages 17-19.  That's a guess.  She was a delicate and special lady.  She seems to have been sweet.  I'm told she was cute and kind.  She used to like to drive a truck around the village, with me as passenger. 

She also sounds like she loved my daddy with a passionate love.  She missed him very much when he had to fly to Anchorage (across the Cook Inlet from Tyonek) for meetings.  She really just plain didn't like it.  From what I understand too, it doesn't sound like she trusted him to be that far away.  I believe too, that he may not have given her much to trust in.  This dear young women in love with her man.  It gives me chills to think of her hurt. 

Well, from what I'm told, he had another trip to take, and again, she begged to go with him.  She promised she would not be in the way.  But again, the disappointment ached, her of being turned away.  Oh the sting and fire! 

Well, as you know, him being a Trooper, he'd have guns around.  Yes, the worst that can be imagined, she killed herself.  My poor Grandma always believed that somehow the gun just went off.  Because she didn't want dear sweet June (I don't mind actually putting her name.  In a way honouring her, but other's, I will try to give them other names for some privacy) to be buried outside (as the religion Russian Orthodox would do to one who commits suicide) the graveyard.  My Grandma was very influential in the village and amoung the church, so I'm wondering if she just had the power to keep that from happening.  I truly cannot say.  Most of the past of when I was 4-5 years old and under are stories that have been passed to me and that I've had to disiphere (spelling???).  So please bear with me.  

Well, I'm also of the understanding, that my new mother had babysat me before my very own mother passed away.  Well, she became my new mother, my father's new bride.  For me, that's where a lot began.  Probably where a lot began with my father too.  I don't try to excuse anything that you will read, but really, in life, sometimes reasoning helps out the mind.  I've given a lot of people in my life the 'benefit of the doubt'. 

So what happened in the next few years is VERY foggy for me.  A lot of it that my brain and memory has worked hard at voiding and blocking out. 

From my new mother (who I will call mother 2), I recieved a whole lot of abuse from.  From a very young age (probably around age 2-3), there were angry faces, yelling, dragged across rooms by my hair, smacked faces, bloody nose and mouth, clonking on the top of my head with her knuckles...all that at this young time in my life.  And probably some more.  This was all pretty regular up til around age 9 or 10.  Remember, ages are going to be EXTREMELY hard for me.  I don't go around to my family asking, "So when you did this to me, how old was I?", and thus on.

Well, I had always (as an adult) given the benefit of the doubt for mother 2.  I tried to understand what she had gone through, and what she may've been going through at that time in her life.  She has a past too, even before I was born.  I tried to understand what she may've gone through when she was a child.  I tried everything.

Then not long after she began her abuse, the even more fuzzy days and nights began with my dear daddy.  Now, at that time, he just buried a wife (I belive my mother was wife #2), and he's got the stress still of the life of a Trooper, and a new marriage, and shall I go on?!  Now I've also been told by he himself, that his marriage to mother 2, was very hurtful.  She got him in, and then once married, sounds like she denied him a very important part of marriage.  There are other details that I won't go into about thier marriage.  But as for me, molesting began.

I don't know exactly how many nights.  But it was through the night.  I have very vivid memories of those fearful, and dreadful nights.  I was fighting for my very sanity and reasoning at a little age of 4 or 5 years old.  As an adult now, I've had a dreadful time of depression and Post Trauma.  And Christian, don't dare try to preach to me that well, "Christians aren't suppose to be depressed." " Christians don't get depressed"., "Well, if you look to Jesus enough, you won't get depressed".  And I say to you, have you ever fought for your own life at ages 4-17 years old??  You will understand as I get into more.  I'm just throwing that out right now and will go into more detail about it later.

So as I was saying, that as an adult, I've actually heard my own voice and thoughts of a 4 or 5 year old little girl struggling.  Here are some.  And I do warn you, that much of my testimony may be too hard for you.  But I tell you this, it all truly happened.  This is me.  Some of the voices of thoughts, "No Daddy no." "Please don't.  You don't have to do it." "Oh why Daddy?!" "Maybe if I shrink he won't see me."

Now, I was on the top bunk of our bunk bed.  My lil sister (who is 3 years younger than I.  She is mother 2's first child, first daughter) was on the bottom bunk, or maybe even the baby crib.  I can't remember exactly.  So the bunk had a space of about 4 inches between the mattress and the wall.  I thought I could (and I even tried) squish myself into that space so that he wouldn't find me.  I was so dissapointed in my daddy.  Even though I didn't understand what was going on, and what he was doing to me, I had that gutt feeling that something was very very wrong.  He would take me to the couch and sit there to molest me.  This couch was on the very wall that mother 2's head was nearly up against as she slept.  How disgusting!!  Sure, you'll read me have much heart for my family who were/are trapped in sin, but that doesn't mean that I agree with it, or even tolerate it.

So I have no idea exactly how long this went on.  I just know that it was many nights.  I don't know if it was able to go on for months or weeks.  I do know days (of course in this case nights).  Around the same time, my big brother (my daddy's first born, and oldest son, from #1 marriage) would come to the bush (Beluga was the name.  It's within four-wheeler or snow machine drive from Tyonek) to stay for summers and/or various other times.

One summer around the same time my daddy was abusing me, mother 2 and daddy would leave me with big brother while they went out.  Where they went I don't know.  Errands, dates with eachother, ????  No clue.  Well, a few times (2-3 maybe ??  maybe more ???) my big brother raped me.  This is still at the very young age of somewhere in 4-6 age.  He actually raped me.  It was traumatic.  That's an understatement for sure.  I haven't the words to describe a more understanding of how horrible that was.  So I'll leave it at that.

Well, it was pretty surprising in some while later to get visits from strangers and authorities asking me questions with mother 2 near.  It was all so awkward and wierd for me.  I learned later on in life that it was a dear dear friend who over heard me talking to my cousin at school.  She didn't like what she heard and so she acted on it.  And that's how all the strangers in my life began.  I'm also told that there were some very depressing poems and art that I produced.  Look for signs parents!!

I know this is probably a lot of negative and overwhelming.  And it can somewhat seem untrue.  It all is true though.  Somewhere at this time or more possibly, before my daddy was reported, there were others who intruded themselves on my purity and childhood.  There was another brother and sister (from another family in the village) who would touch me and rub themselves on me and more I don't feel to express here.  When he died, there was a guilty sense of relief I felt.  It was a closing for me.  She has tried to contact me as of lately, and oh how hard it is to have that all introduced back into my life.   My dear husband made it very clear that she is not to do so.  He's such a loving husband trying to take care of me. 

In all this, there were 2 other brother and sister born at sometime (before my daddy went to jail).  Then when my daddy went to jail, mother 2's sister came to live with us and help with the burdens of mother 2 becoming a single mother of 4.  Her sister already had 2 children.  So it was 2 ladies and 6 children.  Well, during that time, there were some things that happened that is pretty understandable.  There was parties in our home.  There seemed to be a lot.  We children would wake up in the morning to giggle at, "How many beer cans there were this time!!!".  I seem to have taken lots of care of my siblings and cousins.  I may be remembering that wrong, but I don't think so.  I seem to remember making Kool-Aid quite a bit and PB&J's.  I don't have anything against all that.  What I remember that hurt, was the fact that both these overworked and emotionally burdended women sure took a lot out on us 6 children.  There were still many words of anger and get out of my hair attitudes in my life, but only now, it was from 2 adults.  I don't want to sound pitiful though.  This was a pretty general attitude in the home, because of the stressful circumstances.  But now, like I said, all this happened almost understandably.  So I won't go into it too much of that time.  There were many times of these two watching soap operas and requesting more otter pops, and demanding the cleaning of our bedroom.  They did not have Jesus in thier hearts to get them through this time in thier lives.  It was all very hard. 

Well, mother 2 then at some point from my age of somewhere from 7-9 met my dad.  Oh how we loved this new man in mother 2's life.  He wore sunglasses!!!  We thought he was soo cool.  What stole our HEARTS away for this man, was that he brought us some REAL and FRESH milk on his four-wheeler!!!  WOW! 

Living in the bush, we were a bush plane flight of half an hour or so, from a grocery store.  So we had to fly in once a month or so to buy a month's worth of food.  But it was mainly non-perishable food.  So I learned to LOVE vienna sausages, corned beef hash from the can, and so on and so on.  We lived on dry milk too.  So that should give you more of an understanding of why we were sooo impressed with dad. 

Okay, so then dad and mother 2 decided to move us all away from there.  We moved to Soldotna.  It's about a 3 hour drive from Anchorage. 

And well, you know I think that's a decent place to stop for now.  I have my children to tend to.  I will continue this as soon as possible. 

I love my Lord, he's done so much for this little girl!  If you have any questions I will answer them to the best of my ability.  I don't mind them.  Thanks.