For those of you who don’t read MadPriest before you come here, Missy is part of our blog family, and she’s in the midst of trying to extricate herself from an abusive marriage. She has five kids and her husband controls the purse strings. As you might imagine, Missy is in need of our help.
Her friend Jason posted the following at his blog:
Hurricane Missy update
Missy has created a new blog that tells her story about the cycle of abuse in her family. It’s been an unbelievably difficult journey for her and she’s endured a tragic amount of abuse. Please go read it. She’s making a lot of the right choices and is running into a lot of roadblocks. There are also more updates at MadPriest’s blog.She’s going to need some financial help as her husband completely controls the finances, so I’m officially passing the virtual hat now. The lawyer she’s used in the past would not take her case, but she’s looking for a new one. The previous lawyer required about $1700 for a retainer. If you are able and willing to help, you can send money to
Judy Henley
St. Anne Church
825 S. Ortonville Rd
Ortonville, MI 48462Checks should be made payable to St. Anne’s Care & Share Fund with Missy McKerroll’s name in the memo field, and/or a cover letter expressing that is what the donation is for. Doing it this way actually allows you to take a deduction on your taxes too.
Please email me at jase@dufair.org and I’ll keep track of donation amounts in order to ensure she gets at least that amount. I’ll post a running total here.
Missy has tried to leave a few times before, and she really needs our help. If you can spare $5, $10, $20 – whatever to send her way, it would be money well spent.
Filed under: Blogs I'm reading
Of course, we all want to help, but this raises some concerns for me.
A good women’s shelter has pro bono legal services, counseling, and case workers lined up. I hope that Missy is a pseudonym and that this parish is accustomed to doing this kind of work and is working with an established shelter. If that’s really not available, fine, but this is very difficult work. There is also a real possibility of more violence here. She needs to be in a safe, secret location. And even a first name is too much to put on the internet.
I’ll never forget one of the priests in my first parish, who founded a women’s shelter, traveling across the country to testify in a custody case once the man had tracked down the woman and kids.
Bill – The contact info came through Mad Priest initially.
Missy seems to be doing all the right things in working with a shelter and the proper pro-bono advocates. The latest I heard was that abuser-husband was out of the house and not returning. Of course, you can’t depend on the promise of an abuser, but let’s help Missy with the necessities that occur, regardless of pro bono help, and keep her in our prayers and hold her up to the light for courage and strength.
There’s always reason for concern in an unsettled event. Physical and emotional safety is paramount.
As we pray for and support our sister, we might think of the next steps: learning about the “Judge Scotts” of the system, and how we may insure they are at least removed from the bench, better yet from the practice of law, how we may support and advocate others through the groups that operate shelters. In my experience, such groups always need more help.
That being said, my ante’s in the mail.
God bless all of you, once again. That prayer keeps rolling off my lips.
Bill, I appreciate what you are saying about anonymity. For the record, Missy McKerroll is not my legal name; it is my online pseudonym. I don’t particularly worry about my identity on the internet. My husband has always posed more of a threat to me than anyone I’ve met on line.
My husband does not seem to be tracking my on line activity at this time, but if he is I say “so what?” He does a good enough job keeping track of me irl. I can’t hide from him irl. And the more people who know about him in real life, the safer I feel. He possess just enough sanity to know he can’t physically hurt me at this stage without all fingers pointing at him.
When he finally feels like all is lost and he has nothing to left to lose, that’s when I’ll worry. And by then I hope to have legal protection of some sort in place. But you know, I don’t think he’s that far gone. I think he may ultimately come to terms with being my ex-husband.
I hope.
The shelter has legal advocates and counseling, but no pro bono lawyers. They were able to recommend someone to me. I have an appointment on Tuesday. We’ll see how it goes. I hope he’s a good one.
And I will never vote for Judge Scott again.
rubbish
what I mean to say is I really over reacted and my husband is a nice guy and loves me a lot