The Road to Recovery, by Elizabeth Vandenburg, Vienna Patch, June 28, 2011

The Road to Recovery

By Elizabeth Vandenburg
Vienna Patch
June 28, 2011

http://vienna.patch.com/articles/the-road-to-recovery

The resignation of a top church official and release of a four-month victim study are important steps that have been a "long time coming" in the healing process for several young women that were sexually abused by a former staff member at the Vienna Presbyterian Church, their families say.

Executive Director Dick Eagan, who joined the church staff in June 2005, stepped down from his position May 31, a move requested by church leadership after it reviewed a four-month study assessing the church's handling of sexual abuse by former staff member Eric DeVries.

The Church will hold a congregational-wide town hall meeting Wednesday night to brief members about the study.

In a letter accompanying Eagan's resignation announcement, Senior Pastor Peter C. James acknowledged mistakes made by both himself and Eagan on handling the DeVries issue but also said "no one factor alone led to [Eagan's resignation]."

James said he did not anticipate any other staff changes as a result of the study.

Cindy Hamblen, a 26-year-old Fairfax County kindergarten teacher and one of two victims to share her story publicly, told Patch that Eagan's forced resignation was "one step of many that the church needs to take to move from a cover-up to an honest and truthful approach to the abuse."

"I am not asking for pity," said Hamblen, whose abuse by DeVries began when she was 17 years old. "I am asking for sincerity and honesty — I'm asking for the truth."

UNCOVERING A SECRET

DeVries, who had worked for a handful of years as the church's former student ministries director, was asked to resign in September 2005 as a result of allegations of sexual misconduct against a 17-year-old female parishioner.

In early 2006, DeVries was charged with a felony and a misdemeanor for the incident, and was found guilty of "contributing to the delinquency of a minor." He was sentenced to 12 months in jail, but the sentence was suspended with the completion of 12 months of counseling and on the condition of no further contact with the victim.

At the time, some church members wrote letters of support to the court for DeVries, said Cindy's mother Sue, a longtime church member, lay leader and current staff member.

After DeVries' departure in 2005, the depth and extent of his abuse became more clear through the stories of several other girls – including Cindy Hamblen – who stepped forward to identify themselves as victims of his abuse. Their stories followed the same pattern: DeVries promised marriage, quoting Scripture to express his devotion to the girls.

The abuse charges and church's subsequent responses were detailed at length in a Washington Post investigative piece in early April.

As the stories came out, some of the church was supportive; some felt that DeVries had been unfairly characterized, Sue Hamblen said. By 2009 some church members realized how deep DeVries' abuse had run and formed a ministry called "NewSpring: Hope for the Sexually Abused." It was created to encourage "a culture of healing, vigilance, and safety for our community and beyond."

Last fall, Cindy said, she was concerned about the future funding for the ministry. So she presented her story to a large group of church members, including the Session, the church's leadership body.

"Some of them were hearing for the first time the extent of the damage," she said. "The details were a shock to the church community — they had only been told what [DeVries] said and what Mr. James told them."

A DISCUSSION RENEWED

That meeting revived discussion about the issue. In March, the church said at the time of the first report in 2005, they thought the situation involved limited improprieties and that accordingly, they had dealt with them appropriately.

"We have since learned that his offenses against our students were far more egregious and extensive than the church had first realized," wrote Senior Pastor Peter C. James on the church's website. A long and detailed letter from the church leadership went to the congregation in March explaining the history and apologizing to the survivors. On March 27, James preached a sermon apologizing to the entire congregation.

In early 2011 the church began a survey to investigate how the DeVries situation was handled. James said five church leaders interviewed the young women and their families, with assistance at the outset from attorneys. But that was "prohibitively expensive," James said, so they decided to return to "an all-volunteer army."

James said the church did not have a number of all of DeVries' victims. Sue Hamblen said she knows at least five, who were interviewed in the study.

The study has been presented to the survivors and their families as well as the church leadership. James said the report findings would be summarized at Wednesday's meeting. The report is not available for the public, nor are copies available to church members, James said, though survivors and their families read the report in its entirety.

"Senior staff people were not the only ones fooled by Eric's abuse," James wrote in a letter about the study and Eagan's resignation. " Our self study reports numerous mistakes by volunteers, staff and parents who believed and loved Eric De Vries."

Cindy Hamblen said she was relieved to read the report and called it thorough, but expressed sadness and frustration that it would not be made available.

"They are talking about truth and light but they are not fully doing it," she said.

Sue Hamblen called the study's findings "shocking."

"The report documents that there were many opportunities earlier than we all knew to help the girls," she said. "But that did not happen."

LONG ROAD AHEAD

Beyond the study, Cindy and Sue Hamblen have been working with others to implement programs that prevent a similarly devastating ordeal from happening again.

This spring, Cindy Hamblen attended two public congregational gatherings to read a collective letter from the survivors describing their abuse experiences and the aftermath.

Cindy says she feels like she's been abused twice: first by DeVries and now by the church.

"I struggle with it daily," she said.

Sue Hamblen also read a statement that was mailed on church letterhead to all of the congregation's members. It's titled, "What one mother would like you to know."

"These have been the most difficult years of our lives," she wrote in the letter. "We watched our bright hopeful young daughters become secretive, deceptive, depressed and in some cases self-destructive young adults, all without knowing why."