By: Darrell Matthews
January, 27, 2007
I met my wife, Beth, at church when we were very young, she was only 13, I was only 15. That was over 30 years ago. After
we met, she was the sunshine of my life, and still is. She and I were typical teenagers, and shared many phone conversations.
We went to different schools, so letters and the telephone were our tools of communication. Until I started going to her house
to spend precious time together. People said we were too young, and it would never last. They were wrong.
After we actually started dating, she and I were listening to the radio, and there was a news report of a little girl who
had been abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered. This pierced straight thru to my heart. The first time I’m sure
that this was the first time that Beth had ever seen me fighting back a tear. I said to her; “I wish I could hold every
child in the world and protect them from harm.” She replied; “You know, every now and then, I see a side of you
I’ve never seen before”.
She and I both went to church together when we were actually dating. I had already felt compelled to be a minister. So
I started preaching on occasion at my church, and soon was licensed to preach. She and I were married in 1979, and soon afterwards,
at the age of 22, I was the pastor of a church. I also held a Crusade for Christ in the local Movie Theatre. It was a stepping
stone to my ministry.
I was the pastor of this church for only about 2-½ years. I’m not sure what compelled me to resign. But I think it
was due to the onset of illness, which I did not understand at the time. Over the years we visited different churches, and
with the struggles of life, we never became actively involved in a church again. But I still had this burning desire to help
fight child abuse. And although we still went to church on occasion, with a new family, and the stresses of work, and crazy
schedules, I found it hard to attend services.
I tried to get involved in child abuse prevention at this stage in my life. I would hear of babies found left for dead
in dumpsters, etc. These stories always stuck with me. As my illnesses progressed, and it became a challenge just to work
and raise a family, our church visitations were infrequent. But I still maintained my position as a Christian, and decided
not to be intimidated by those who judged me for not attending church on a regular basis.
I read my Bible, and prayed frequently. I’ve read it from cover to cover with conviction. I also had Bible study
groups at home. And I still paid attention to the issues of child abuse. Reporting to the authorities cases of abuse of which
I had first hand knowledge, and even witnessed. I tried to volunteer for the CPS, but they said I needed a degree to even
volunteer.
After several years of progressive illnesses, and harsh work environments, I finally had to leave work for good in August
of 2005. At that point, I began to realize that God had been tempering me, and giving me wisdom, knowledge and a commission
to move forward with a child abuse campaign. So I set up a message board on drphil.com called: A Child’s Voice Connection
about one year ago. I also started building a web site also called A Child’s Voice Connection.
From there, just a lot of time and effort to solicit members to this cause, and through Dr Phil’s audience on the
message boards related to Shocking Accusations, I started promoting the campaign and web site. From there, we were able to
add about 30+ members to the campaign. And now, there is only one way to go from here, and that’s forward.
This is only a brief history of the campaign. I owe my gratitude to many people, including many people on drphil.com who
encouraged me to continue and not give up. And to DR Phil and Co for allowing me to promote the campaign on his message boards.
It has been a slow process so far, but with the valuable and dedicated members of this campaign, we have the strength to
continue forward with a successful campaign, and to fulfill our goals in raising awareness, and building that army of defense
for our children from sea to shinning sea, and abroad.
I was more than excited to have each of you to join up, and to stay with me. We are a group with a cause. And I was even
more surprised to have people from other countries to join the campaign.
So we are here, at this point, and we have not met our goal as of yet to double our membership, but don’t be discouraged.
We have to implement goals in order to achieve results. And we will.
