A Thank You to All

I have been working in the field of child sexual abuse and incest for several years now. Over the course of time, I’ve met many others who are also working in this field. I would like this blog to be a THANK YOU to all of you who have been so diligently helping to end this scourge. I especially want to thank all of my Lamplighter facilitators/contact people. Without them, there would be no Lamplighter Movement. The month of April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. April was first declared Child Abuse Prevention Month by presidential proclamation in 1983. I’m seeing the Blue Ribbons popping up on Facebook and feel so proud that I can be a part of so many dedicated and caring people. This blog is dedicated to them as well. One day we may make huge strides in ending this enormous world problem. One day we may have all of the perpetrators not only behind bars, but behind bars for good. In the meantime we are a fighting the good fight in deadly earnest.

I’m on many social organizations: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Red Room, Google+, Pinterest, Stumble Upon, MySpace, Plaxo, Flickr, Google and a few others, not all of which I’m active in. Facebook has enabled me to stay in touch with friends and family as well as get my weekly blog posted. I am greatly indebted to them. I am able on Facebook to have a book page on each one of my five published books. Without my social networking, without the crawling around the Internet that I do, I could not possibly have arrived at a place where my dream of so many years, The Lamplighter Movement, today has 96 chapters in thirteen countries.

I have two computers, a laptop and a desktop. I work both hour after hour, my fingers flying, searching for information, reaching out to others, grateful that my typing speed is 95 wpm. At any given moment I may be on Twitter, following the many tweets, adding a few of my own. With Twitter I am able to track all that is happening in rape crisis and human trafficking. Twitter now has a new way of helping me reach even more people. They email me several Twitter sites who are working in the same field I am, who have something to say that I want to get out to the public. That way I am able to, in the space of a few seconds, retweet a dozen or so tweets. With Google I can travel around the world looking for people in other countries to start Lamplighter chapters. It’s amazing stuff!! Without the Internet, I would never have been able to do this. So I am deeply indebted not only to those working in this field but to all the brilliant people who created everything on the Internet.

I’ve seen and heard many stories in these last few years. I’ve received emails and phone calls from so many both recovered and still on the edge. Every time I think I can’t possibly hear one more story worse than the others, along comes one that brings tears and anger. I receive daily briefings on my Webmail of articles on child sexual abuse and incest. From these and from my daily Google Alerts I see what is going on in the world regarding these two horrendous problems. Every time I see another post on Facebook or on Twitter showing a young girl raped and murdered, another child in Pakistan who was sexually abused, another trial in one of our states where a perpetrator goes free my soul agonizes over the pain that some young child has just endured. There must be a special place in heaven where children who were murdered and abused go. Harming the innocent is the worst crime that humanity can do.

And so, one more time, THANK YOU: to all of you who are working to eradicate child sexual abuse, to all of the authors who have written books to help others, to all of those who have websites dedicated only to helping people who were sexually abused, to all of you who write regular blogs, poems, articles for us to see what is going on in your world, to all of you who communicate with others so that we can keep alive the need to get rid of child sexual abuse and incest. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

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