Looking For A Church
We
rented a small Airbnb with a bedroom for Kristin and a long couch in a working class neighborhood of the nearest city, bought a 20-year-old car,
and began searching for a church that may be able to help Kristin. I looked up
the churches in the area online, eliminated those that obviously contradicted
the Bible, and then listened to the sermons posted online by the rest to further
eliminate those that were unbiblical. We visited the remaining churches during their Sunday morning or Wednesday evening services,
and if
the first couple of sermons were ok, I slipped in a general question or two about
spiritual warfare while chatting with the pastor to see if
he had any experience or interest in it or knowledge of
dissociative identity disorder.
The churches with Biblical sermons invariably were the conservative ones, including many Baptists, but they had neither experience nor interest in spiritual warfare and had no idea about dissociative identify disorder.
At the first Baptist church we visited, a nice couple took an interest in us and asked us to join them and another couple for dinner, and asked us about sharing the Gospel in China and in southeast Asia. While I was visiting the restroom after dinner with the two men, their wives peppered Kristin with questions about the engagement ring she was wearing and how long we have been married. When she replied that we are not yet married, the women's demeanor immediately and completely changed. Kristin could have tried to explain our predicament and the fact we are in the midst of spiritual warfare, but these women were Baptists, so she said noting. The women got up to leave as soon as we returned to our table. I didn't know what had happened but saw the women staring at me with anger, and later heard from Kristin what had happened.
We were between a rock and a hard place. If we tell them that we are not yet married but traveling together, they think we are fornicating and reject us, but that rejection at least is aimed at both of us. If we tell them that we can't marry yet because we are casting demons out of Kristin, who also has alters, they reject just her and treat her like a leper, which would be worse.
Kristin began to wilt from the weight of the rejections. I tried to encourage her and reminded her that they simply do not know, but she couldn't deal with the rejections anymore. There simply had been too many for too long from too many people.
I tried to direct her attention to the positives of being back in America. The sky in China had always been brown, its air toxic and smelly, while the air in southeast Asia had been hot and humid. The sky in America was bright blue and we could breathe lungs full of cool, clean air, something we had tried so hard to find for her and been unable to find in Asia. She no longer had any acne or breathing issues. I took her down to the picturesque river nearby and walked with her along its bank, pointing out the ducks. Yet all she talked about was her "lack of marriage."
After service at another church, a large group invited us out to lunch. In the middle of the conversation before our food arrived, Kristin suddenly burst into tears and ran to the restroom. All of us were shocked, two of the women chased after her into the restroom, and everyone else looked at me as if I had been mistreating her. Again, I didn't think they would understand spiritual warfare, so held my tongue and simply absorbed their stares. After a while, a puffy-eyed Kristin returned with the two ladies, but the rest of the lunch was subdued. She explained to me afterward that she had looked around the table and realized that all of the other women are married, and again demanded that I marry her to remove from her the scarlet letter of a loose, fornicating woman.