October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month – It IS your business!

[Juan and Yenan]

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month – It IS your business!
By Bonnie Nicholas 10/2005
The intersection of Christian Faith and relationship violence is complex. For many survivors of domestic violence, church has been a place of refuge or a place that perpetrates abuse, a place of safety, or a place of fear, a place to find support, or a place to find condemnation. Faith itself becomes a crisis. Believing in a loving, all-powerful God in the face of abuse is not an easy thing. The church is one body – the body of Christ. When one part suffers, the whole body suffers. As members of Christ’s body, it’s time to face this issue, to increase our awareness, to learn what is true; so that we can become Christ’s healing presence, a light of hope shining in the darkness of a culture that tolerates and even encourages relationship violence.
Relationship violence is a pattern of learned behavior in which one person uses force to control another person in an intimate relationship. This behavior may include a cycle of emotional, physical, sexual, and/or spiritual abuse. Abuse occurs in all kinds of families, crossing lines of socio-economic status, race and religion. Women and children are most vulnerable to being victimized by this kind of violence.
The problem is pervasive. For a statistical summary visit: http://www.ncadv.org/files/DV_Facts.pdf . The statistics go on and on and they are absolutely staggering. God has called us to be instruments of his righteousness and justice in the world. There are many ways for those interested in ending domestic abuse to get involved. Listen, perhaps he is calling you into this arena.

[Michele Green]

Yes, He is calling, and He has been calling me into action for quite awhile. And I AM doing something about it.. for the LONG HAUL!

You see, I am a survivor of domestic abuse. My blog over on the Black Business Space page will give you my details and yes, very staggering facts aboout abuse. I am also the former case manager and counselor for Citizens Opposed to Domestic Abuse (CODA - www.codabft.com) here locally, and I worked directly with and for victims for over 3 years. I've seen horrific abuse and I've also seen these women many times GO BACK - the average victim leaves her abuser 7 TIMES before she leaves for good - if she survives that long. I left 5 times myself - the sixth was the charm for me.

I have undertaken a project and formed a company, SAFE HAVEN PUBLISHING, that gives back to domestic violence victims and programs. Five friends and I have compiled a poetry and short story collection called 'THE PASSION WITHIN', and proceeds from teh sale of these books will be donated to three organizations, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (www.ncadv.org), the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCCADVASA - www.sccadvasa.org) - I live is South Carolina, where we have been one of the TOP 10 States in which a spouse KILLS the victim for the last 10 years or more - and CODA, the shelter I used to work in and mentioned in the previous paragraph. The books will be vailable nationally after September 1, 2007 at Amazon.com and other national retailers. They can be purchased directly from me as the publisher for $13.50 tax & shipping INCLUDED. They will retail for $15.99, plus tax and any shipping costs.

I'm hoping to move enough books to give each benefactor a sizeable donation each calendar quarter. Will you help me in spreading the word, or lending your support? This is my way of giving back, besides volunteering at the shelter and doing outreach services on websites and forums such as this.

Thank you Apsotle, for allowing me to use this forum to share. All Praises Be to GOD Almighty!

Peace & Blessings,
Michele

[Juan and Yenan]

Amen sister, I will share this info on my others networks and also you can post this at the forum for everyone to see!!! I invite you to provide us with more inforation that could help others that came near this network and also those that share at this network for them to learn and be a voice also!!!

If you want you can open a victim oriented group and invite people, the group can be open as a private group so it will be by invitation only, can announce at the forum that will be confidential for those suffering DV. Think about it.

Be abundantly blessed sister,