Spirit in Action
Bolton Refuge House
Jerry Wilke, Executive Director of Bolton Refuge House for 22 years talks about the practical & spiritual aspects of domestic abuse.
Music Featured:
Love Is the Only Medicine - Peter Alsop
- Broadcast on:
- 26 Sep 2010
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ And we may hear it as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ And we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, we take you down the street from the Northern Spirit Radio headquarters to a place called Bolton Refuge House, a safe and healing place for those suffering abuse in their primary relationship. We'll be speaking with the executive director of Bolton Refuge House, Jerry Wilkie, who has put in decades working for the safety and rights of abused spouses, paying attention to the many levels of help and healing needed. The physical, mental, emotional, economic, and of course, spiritual parts of the whole situation. Up front, I'll mention that their website is BoltonRefugeHouse.org and you can find this link from my NorthernSpiritRadio.org. We'll go now to Bolton Refuge House to speak with Executive Director, Jerry Wilkie. Jerry, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. Appreciate you having us here. This is only the second time I've been in Bolton Refuge House. How far back does the history with Bolton Refuge House go in? How long have you been involved with Bolton Refuge House? Well, I kind of hate to tell you. I'm going to give away my age, but I guess I can tell you. But first off, Bolton Refuge House is an organization. It became incorporated in 1977, but it even started before that in '76, maybe late '75. When a group of women got together recognizing that violence against women can no longer be tolerated, and they needed a safe place. So it came a grassroots movement from the community. I came on board, oh, it must have been about 22 years ago, 23 years ago. I came on board at a time that the actual location that the shelter was at was needing to move. We developed a facility located fairly close to the University, actually on Broadway Street, and we went what we call semi-public with our location at that time, and then changed the name to Bolton Refuge House, because early times it was referred to as Refuge House. You know, in the year 2010, where we are now, it's kind of hard to remember what conditions were, like back in '77 that you're talking about, you mentioned you went semi-public, that that location was no longer hidden. I guess previous to that, it must have been hidden because you had to worry about someone breaking in, taking my woman back or whatever. Yeah, in reality, it was hidden for two reasons. One that was spoken more publicly was the fact for safety. Trying through the secrecy of location to give battered women and their children a safe place during a time of crisis. So, also in those early times, I can't say that even to some degree after I came on board, the public support was not as strong or at least vocally out there for recognizing what was going on in a number of our homes in our community. It was treated more as a private matter. It wasn't spoken about the fact that abuse was going on in the home. And people were very uncomfortable with kind of opening up their eyes. So, in some ways, we're hiding for safety, and also hiding because there wasn't as strong as community support that has developed over the years. There was pockets of support, religious community, formerly battered women who had experienced it and were able to escape the trauma that they were going through, getting the movement going. This really is a very unfortunate blast from the past back when society would say, "Well, I guess it's kind of between the husband and his wife and if he has to keep her in line." I think that probably really did happen. Are you saying that that happens much less now when women are coming in? Is it less frequent that that kind of abuse has been enduring and has been supported by the, I guess, the society, the people around the woman? I can't say that there is more or less abuse out there. I can tell you now people are reaching out for help more than they were before. I don't think we have any less or greater abuse that happens in our community or other communities. But the bigger difference that you're seeing is people that are in those kind of situations are recognizing that there is support for them to get help and that that kind of behavior is not acceptable. Back those many years ago, for example, right now, you would have never seen two males sitting down talking about domestic violence, an open discussion about it because unfortunately our gender most often is the perpetrator. A hundred percent no. There are situations where the perpetrator could be the female, but it is primarily a crime committed by our gender. We had in those years, and to a lesser degree, still to some, in some pockets, male privilege that we were held in higher regard. All you have to do is look at our culture over time and even our laws that have made changes, still have a ways to go, but you even look back in time on women's right to vote. Do you think women would have got the right to vote had they waited for men to give it to them without stepping forward and pushing for it? I don't think so. So it's breaking that privileged class at male privilege and really beginning to relate to women as equals. I understand that most of the people here are women and their children, and so you being a man, are you part of the enemy? Was that a heavy threshold to walk over or are you maybe seen as a protector? Someone that they can depend on, one of the men who's on their side, just wondering that the emotional intricacies of the coming into the situation, people are coming in with a lot of trauma. Actually, the answer to that is all of the above and it varies greatly. The things that come to my mind is with women that would come here, most don't generalize themselves, that amen doesn't mean that all men are abusive. Now, unfortunately, oftentimes, a lot of their life experiences are some truth to that. It really has its advantages or disadvantages, depending on how you want to look at it or approach it. As a man, working in this field, I have to even be more on guard, not to find myself taking control of their life and telling them what to do. Now, in my heart, I might have a pretty strong opinion on what I'd like to see them do, but it's real important that I demonstrate, just through my behavior, empowering of them. And that can be in itself a very new and gratifying experience for them, having a male respect that they have the power to make decisions, and they're worthy to make decisions, because it might be too easy for them while there's the male, the leader, reach out to him. I have to be sensitive to that kind of situation arising from time to time, but also being a male gives me a golden opportunity to work and be around young people, and they can learn a different kind of model or role model in terms of how I function in a environment that has women present for a young boy to see me carrying in milk and putting it in the refrigerator, those very small things that some of us may take for granted can give a very clear message to a young man growing up, that I can be a man, and I can do things that might have been traditionally viewed as women's work. I don't think there's men's work or women's work, there's work, and if you do that in your day-to-day functioning around the shelter here, that sends a real strong message, sometimes a lot better message than just words. We talked about the fact that in a shelter when we were touring here, I've had my experience with toilets as an executive director, wonderful title. A few times I've pulled a few toilets and I've fished out the legos out of the toilets, that's not women's work, that's work that needs to be done, and we all contribute. So you can show partnership also in decision-making, if you're able to do it in the environment that everybody has an opportunity for their fair say and input, that can send a loud message, a healthy message to the children so that they're not as likely to be the future victims or perpetrators of domestic violence in our community or other communities. Just sitting here, I'm observing how our culture has changed last 40, 50 years, dramatic change. I'm wondering how the demand for the services has changed. You talked about it being hidden or semi-hidden before. And now the societal support is there to a degree that I don't think perpetrators feel free to just pursue what they were doing before. So has the demand for services gone up? Has it changed? What it includes? What exactly are the services that you provide before and now? The demand for services has skyrocketed over the years, and that's for the most part a good scenario. People can mistakenly think that it's getting worse. No, it's not getting worse. We're finally really dealing with what was going on at the root level, not waiting until it comes out in other ways. So people are seeking out services more, and the messages are out there clear that yes, the services are there, and yes, you can seek them, and yes, we'll support them. We'll support them financially through volunteering, and you're right to having privacy. We're strong on confidentiality here, and empowerment of individuals making their own choices, not our choice to make. We'll share in terms of, and that's part of the services of what we do. We sit down with people. We don't tell them what to do. We tell them about options after we hear what's going on in their life, and let them begin to sort that out. We let them know of alternatives and resources that we are, and whatever course a plan that they take, we'll follow behind them as a coach. And we call it being an advocate, an advocate for the individual to achieve what they want to achieve. And sometimes to make those achievements, you have to deal with different systems that you have in your community. Sometimes those systems can be overwhelming if you're strong and feeling good about yourself and all those kinds of things. Well, if you're vulnerable, they can feel like they can suck you up like a vacuum cleaner, and try to negotiate them. As advocates, our role is to try to be experts on how to navigate them, as well as we have something what's called legal advocacy. It's not an attorney, but over time we've been able to get laws changed such that a legal advocate can sit with you up front if you have a hearing, where the lawyer typically would sit. She can function as, or he can function as, a person that can sit with you and have what's called now sidebar conversations with you and say you wanted to tell the judge this, remember? Kind of coaching you to know that you're able to bring you forward the concerns that you have and negotiating all the paperwork that goes along with that. Along with that advocacy, we have what's called a different kind of advocacy, institutional or systems kind of advocacy. The advocacy I just described was one-on-one with a client. We're beginning to talk about how things were in the past and how they are now and how it progressed. Well, that wouldn't have progressed at all had there not been advocates throughout the state or nation advocating for changes in the laws and systems. So, I describe it as a constructive thorn in the side when we see something that's not right, just not ethical, isn't fair. And that might be that back some time ago, a number of years ago, a log at it passed, mandatory arrest for domestic violence. It got passed because advocates spanned together and started pushing on their legislators that said, essentially, it's no less a crime to beat up and batter your wife than it is a total stranger on a street. Why would you treat that differently? That's not right. That's not acceptable. Some mandatory arrest, laws like allowing for an advocate to sit next to the person when appearing before the judge to be a support there. Then, of course, here, sitting here right now, you're at our new location where we have a much better environment than we experienced before, the shelter. They come here from law enforcement, they come here from healthcare providers, refer them for that immediate housing as they begin to sort things out for themselves. In many ways, there are so many more things that we should be doing, but on the positive side, Eau Claire County, compared to other counties, quite frankly, is richer in terms of resources and reaching out to people. A lot of people don't know, but refuge house, now called Bolton Refuge House, was first shelter in the state of Wisconsin. So, we have a long history of developing some of these services. So, when I say these things that we're doing, and I've only mentioned a few of them, don't necessarily happen in all counties, it still very much is a luck of a draw for a battered woman, what county you happen to live in. At least in Eau Claire County, we're pretty good at what we're doing in this county. What's your expertise with this? You've been doing it for 22 years, so I imagine you've built up a wealth of experience in that time. Were you a social worker, or maybe you were a plumber, that's why you're so good with the toilets? Were you a bodyguard? What was the work that you did that prepared you to work at Bolton Refuge House? Well, it's a combination of education prior job experiences and personal life that I was able to go through. I happen to be fortunate from the standpoint growing up in a family that didn't experience domestic violence. I kid my mother who was still living today. She was an activist in women's liberal, long before they called that, just her attitudes in life. So, my life experiences taught me in terms of equality. In terms of my educational background, I served for many years in a residential treatment center as a therapist for adolescents and children. So, during that time, I've seen many children that were affected by domestic violence and sexual assault, and then had the opportunity to work for four or five years in an area working with mentally ill. And mentally ill are oftentimes very even increased vulnerability to domestic violence. From an educational standpoint, my background is a social worker, a licensed social worker. Balanced off with a strong interest and elected on county board for 20 plus years and all those years have served on budget and finance. Well, having a management fiscal background with also a human background, human services background, I think has served me well in the training. It doesn't hurt the fact, even though we're kidded about it, my father was a pipe fitter, so I learned a little bit about plumbing. So, all those life experiences that you have come into play when you work in this kind of environment, because you've got to know a lot of different things, because you don't get to go out there and hire a whole bunch of people to fix the chair or fix the plumbing. And at the same time, do the budget, at the same time, be able to counsel and help individuals with safety planning during an emergency. And what about your spiritual background, religious background, maybe? I'd also be interested in hearing how that relates to the Bolton Refuge House in general. I know the societal attitudes have changed, and there's certainly a whole range of attitudes still present in our society. Spiritually, I think there's been an evolution moving forward in our society. I'm wondering if that's happened with you, too, so you're maybe a microcosm of the macrocosm that you're seeing in the world. Well, first on a personal side, I've come to an conclusion. Originally, I was Missouri Synod. My wife was Catholic. When you mix those two, you get a Methodist. But as far as spirituality, first I should probably say that one of the myths is that within a program like this, it's not that we preach a particular religion, but that's very much a part of all of us in some respect, the need and the desire for spirituality when women come to us. And they come at different stages or have different issues with that, but one of the things that we find that is very much our role. And we have a responsibility not only looking at their emotional, their physical, their financial needs, where they're at as a total person, but their spirituality. Women, when they will come to this, can come and they may be very, very active in their faith, and that faith may have been twisted. And we've seen this twisted by their abuser and used in ways that it was not intended to tell death to us part. Well, in some cases, he carries through as his ultimate control and dominance over her, twisting the scriptures in a way that they were never intended to be twisted, taking them out of context. We find that for those women, it's important that they be able to reconnect with their church in a safe way and not jeopardize them, or any other church if they feel that they want to change churches at that time. We also find situations where women will come to us and they've moved away from their spirituality because the connection with their church was a threat to his control because she had outside interest with the church and going to that lady's aid and those kinds of things. His fear that she might reveal what's going on in her life to her minister or one of her Bible study members, and part of the tool of abuser is to keep an individual isolated. So it can happen both ways. The church can be used in a way as a tool by him, not the church itself, but by him twisting it or fooling the church sometimes. You know, there is one church going on Sunday, and what happens behind closed doors are two different things that can happen, and he can be the pillar of the church doing something behind closed doors, which even makes it harder for her to reveal, especially to her church, are they going to believe me? So connecting her with that. So that is a part of the process, a very important dynamic of all of us as human beings. We have a spiritual side to us that really needs to be looked at, and do we want to meet it, and how do we want to meet it? You are listening to Spirit in Action. I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and this is a Northern Spirit Radio production. Our website is NorthernSpiritRadio.org, and on our site, you can find our programs in the past five years. You can find links to our guests, and you can give us comments, too. We love to hear from you. It helps us give you better programming. We're speaking today with Jerry Wilkie. He is Executive Director of Bolton Refuge House here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It's a refuge, a place of safety for those who have been battered, mostly women. But one of the points is, Jerry, though, that men sometimes are the battered person, and they need protection. What happens in their case? What happens when a man needs to be protected? What do you do with the men, in those cases? We service men as well at Bolton Refuge House. There's a myth out there that we don't. In fact, we do. In the sheltering component, we only serve one or two men a year that actually do the sheltering. We serve many, many more men as well in the other areas as we do women, helping them obtain restraining orders. Sometimes those restraining orders are for themselves, or sometimes those are restraining orders in behalf of their children. That may be against their mother, that may be against somebody else that is endangering their children. So it's the same thing as long as it has those same dynamics that we're talking about where it's about dominance and control. You do have relationships out there that you could describe as mutually dysfunctional, but no one party is more dominant than the other. You have those kind of relationships going on. We don't do a lot in that area. Unfortunately, you have a husband and wife out there that are both making very poor choices in their life are treating each other equally rotten and is causing damage to their children. That's not really our realm. We look in terms of domestic violence from a standpoint when you have somebody that obviously is in the power and the control over somebody. I've found from experience that oftentimes when it is a man, it's usually because they've gotten into a vulnerable situation, maybe because of health. And then puts them vulnerable and the female will take on what's traditionally in society been more a male role. You've got to be careful. You get the O.J. Simpsons of the world that will tell you their victims. Because there will be times when women out of self-defense and re-attaliation, well, strike back. As well as women when they're you have them in a safe environment, they're able to be a little bit more freer with all that pent up anger that they've had so long. And can sometimes be misperceived as boy? She is one mean angry woman. Well, yeah, she's an angry woman. She's had a lot of hurt that she's had a bottle up down there. And again, that kind of brings us back to some of the services we do. One of the things we try to do is spend a lot of time letting her sort that anger through because she's bottled it up. And I've always been fearful of sharing that. And now it's stepping forward. I imagine that there's also degrees of abuse when I saw that list that included financial and emotional emotional abuse. You know, when I was young, spanking was still common. Now I think that would be considered physical abuse in many cases. Certainly not uniformly in our society. But a certain amount of physical and emotional, what we would call abuse now back then was just what was normal. When someone shows up at Bolton Refuge House, do you need to go through a phase where you somehow document that this rises to the level of abuse? Yeah, first of all, I would say on the front end, I would tell you from my experience that most often when women come in here, they don't maximize the abuse. They minimize the abuse. You will get people that will say, "Oh, they're overstating it." Well, you're going to get that rare occasion where you're going to have somebody that does that. But more often is they minimize it. And we just ask them a series of questions that allow them to answer yes or no to. They don't have to at that point get into details. Just very basic questions. You know, while she'll start off by saying, "Well, he hasn't really ever hurt me or physically done anything to be bad." Well, then we start going through the list like, "Was he ever bitten you?" Oh, yeah, back about two years ago, yeah, I guess he did. Has he ever threatened you to do some harm to your family? Well, yeah, he said that he would do some pretty bad things to my dad if I ever told him or went to him. Has he ever pushed you? Well, yeah, but she's not viewing that as physical abuse. And she fell and hit her head. Well, you know, I tripped over something when he pushed me. You know, if that thing on the floor wasn't there, I wouldn't have fallen. So she minimizes those kind of things because you've got to remember it's not like all of a sudden it's a trigger that it jumps way up to this. It's a scale that's worked up. And that's part of the almost programming that the abuser does. It can start off in what one would think is just an off-hand comment. Oh, you're dumb. Oh, that was a goofy mistake you did. We say that often enough and each time it becomes a little bit more harsher to the point of vulgarity description of her character. Now that verbal abuse has gone through a continuum. The same thing happens with physical abuse. It might be that first touch that we've all done at one time or another that we've done a affectionate like pushing our partner. Okay, or a kidding hit with no pain involved or whatnot. Well, he starts there, but each time it's a little bit more. So it's almost like it creeps up on you. Same thing in the sexual area. And a continuum of course with the physical is the ultimate is he kills her and then kills himself oftentimes. So women that come to us, we ask a lot of questions and surprisingly when they're done they look at the checklist and they start little by little to begin to realize, well, yeah, I am a battered woman. I wasn't sure. It wasn't bad enough. The other thing that women have told me many times is the physical isn't as bad as the degrading that they encounter. They lose their self-confidence, the constant messages that they get in day out. I had one woman describe it to me kind of later in kind of her healing process that she described. You know, there were times that he would give me a hundred percent and by that I mean a hundred percent positive and I'd feel so good, you know, and that's the good time. Problem is he'd take a hundred and ten percent away and then he'd give me a hundred percent and take a hundred and ten percent away. So eventually I reached a point. I was nothing. I didn't mean anything and I started believing some of the very same things that he's saying to me that it's my fault. If I just would have not pushed his button or if I would have had that meal ready on time or if I would have. And that also then gives the message to her that somehow this is part of what she has control over, controls his outrage, which it really never does. And she's the cause of it. I'm responsible for it. So sometimes women, quite frankly, feel they are responsible for it. They will come and talk about, well, what can I do for him? And you kind of think to yourself on your own emotional level, what can you do for him? How about yourself? You don't deserve this. Sometimes it's them coming to the recognition that, no, I don't deserve this, that I am a worthwhile person. And it's breaking out of that mold that, no, it's not you. It's him. And he's the one that's got to change. So Jerry, when women finally do come to the realization they come here, what are the general services they get? I don't need too much of the detail, but I know that you have upstairs, I think, 10 rooms, so 10 different families could be here. You do some outpatient services. I saw a small food pantry that you include here. What happens when a woman shows up? What services can be offered? Well, the short list without defining them in detail of the services that are offered here are the emergency shelter. There is what we call transitional housing. There are units in this community that we're essentially the support of landlord for them, where they get a longer time to get on their feet. We also have our own daycare center and another site in the community so that if an individual has a job, they can maintain that job. And also those children can get a special support group that addresses some of the behaviors that they've already learned at a very early age and will affect them when they get in school or are affecting them in school. So there's support groups for their children. The advocacy through these systems that we talked about earlier, legal, justice system, the human services system, the housing system, going with the individual, helping with them. Helping with during that time of crisis, transportation, helping them with job search if they don't have a job or advocating with their employer to keep that job if they have it, or advocating with that employer, give them a week or two off so they can get their life stabilized, but not lose their job. So it's economic advocacy is the larger term for it. The other service that's offered that isn't specifically to a client, but what we're doing right now, a public education piece, we can work with one battered woman at a time, or we can try to change the bigger picture. Us just talking out loud about the issue makes a difference in individuals. Some battered woman will be hearing this broadcast and may have gained some knowledge. So the service we provide, the public education, we're trying to reach out more to the schools, limited resources, but that's an area we've tried to get into because those abusive relationships start sometimes very, very early in those dating relationships. What is a healthy relationship and what is an unhealthy relationship? So it's an educational piece individual at a time or groups. This is Jerry. What's the primary point of contact and how do people actually get into the system? The emergency shelter, of course, is there and that's what people think of when they think of bold and refuge house, but of course that is just one small piece of it. When a woman decides to leave, and this is one of the reasons that's very hard for her to leave, that's when she is at the most risk of being killed. If you look at, and I'm not saying this to discourage women to leave an abusive relationship, they know this. That's the time when the homicides happen. It's not usually when they're in that relationship. They're coping. They're very creative to survive in that situation. It's when they leave. So that's the time when a lot of safety planning has to be done. And judgments made when it's safe to do what and how to do it in a way that really gains her total freedom in independence without the loss of her life. So that's number one. There will be child custody issues. Unfortunately, sometimes what we see, well, not sometimes, a lot of times, all of a sudden, a disabusive man who really has not had much true involvement in the children's lives becomes the father of the year, just remarkable. Now why is he becoming the father of the year? Because he knows darn well this might be one of his pawns that he can use to draw her back into that relationship for fear of losing contact with her children or engaged like she was, as well as fear for the children being with him during that time. Because we know from studies that oftentimes they would domestic violence follows child abuse if they're left in the home. So her fear of the children being alone without her being there to watch out for them, to be that buffer in between. So those are the kind of issues that we work through and try to help with. The services that you describe, Jerry, that you provide through Bolton Refuge House, they're very numerous. Sounds like you must have a budget of $100 million per year, but I'm somehow doubting that you're pulling in that money. I'm not quite sure. I think that Bolton Refuge House is a private foundation of its own, but it's obviously interfacing regularly with the Department of Human Services. You have to connect with legal representatives, the police department and others. And I understand from touring through the building that there's a number of rooms, you know, piece Lutheran donated all the furniture and did all the work on this room. And this other church did this room. You've obviously got churches involved in supporting this too. So what are you, public, private? Are you some kind of a hybrid of those kind of things? We are what I call a true non-profit. We're legally defined as a 501(c). Organization made up of a board of directors of volunteers. They don't get paid the board with a small core of paid trained advocates. But extraordinarily dependent upon the networking with other organizations in the community. Example of what you just said, our major project that we're getting towards the end on now, we embarked on was bringing the religious community and number of churches helping not just in the capital campaign or the rehab here in the sweat equity and the raising of money, but ongoing connections out there for that spirituality we talked about. Because when we formed that kind of partnership, if we have a woman here who needs a ride to church, I can't be hunting around for the next two days to find somebody. And by having a broad base of the religious community, there's somebody always that I can call. While I know from connecting with them, they'll be here in a heartbeat. Same thing with the work that we do here as a non-profit. We're very reliant upon trying to get others to do the good work. We don't have the resources to do it all. But we try to think we're pretty good at trying to enlighten people on where they can make a difference if it's in the medical community. You know, it wasn't that many years ago that the medical AMA discovered domestic violence and realized that a lot of women coming to their emergency ward with the migraine headaches and the supposed injury from falling down the stairs were battered women. So they're into the fall and working more with it. It's law enforcement with mandatory arrest and their training on domestic violence issues. It's the school system. It's all the whole community is really what it takes to address domestic violence. Every facet of our community. I believe that Bolton Refuge House is named after an officer who I think died in line of duty. Why is the refuge house connected with his name? I can't remember the exact year, but it was well before in 1977, Officer Robert Bolton came to then what was called the refuge house to protect a woman and children that were actually in the shelter at the time because the abuser had came there. A struggle took place in the parking lot out there him protecting Officer Bolton protecting us and a gun got wedged under his vest and he was shot and killed. About five or six years later I came on board and I had the privilege of getting to know Lynn Beebel Bolton, now Beebel and her family. They at that time chose to come very involved with our organization Jim and Vi his mother and father who recognized they had to do something to take such a horrible tragedy and turn it into something as positive as they could. They became very involved in the organization I remember Jim and Vi who now have since passed away when we changed the name to Bolton Refuge House obviously with Lynn and Jim and Vi's blessing were very involved in that rehab project 20 years ago on Broadway street. We're going to make a place for better women to come also Lynn Beebel Bolton became very involved in the movement itself. Back she spent many years as board president and worked with me getting the constitutional amendment for victims rights and now people take for granted that constitutional right that was never there. Those are the kinds of things that came out of that tragedy and it also bound us very closely with our law enforcement community. Are there other major successes or maybe failures I mean the ups and downs they're all part of the journey successes failures lessons learned. The lessons learned are many fold one lesson I always will remember is never telling a woman who's in a violent relationship I haven't and I know now very clearly why not to tell her to just leave the relationship. It's not so easy got to leave on her terms because she brisk in her life and we've lost great people wonderful people in our community early roji yang we lost officer Bolton. The lessons learned I know the seriousness of our work that's a sad part of it on the other hand the lesson learns is the work is worth it because you see many many battered women and children that come forward and move forward. And move forward and our life in a productive way I tell the story that well actually to the ideal one is we get a donation every year. Two checks and same envelope from husband and wife they both receive services from us in different areas and they're still to gather and it's a Christmas gift to one another to send to us that tells you something. And also when you have two big adolescents at Christmas time appear at the door well actually three two guys and a girl their brothers and sisters. They that I shouldn't say they're even adolescents are in their 20s to me I guess that's adolescents and they say to you well do you know who I am. No I can't recognize them well when we were little children at eight and nine we're here well and they just wanted to stop in and say hi and thank you and tell you how we're doing. The three of them had very nice stories to tell about their lives and they share that with you and that feels pretty good and then they pull out a donation of a $300 you know $100 bills and they said this is part of our Christmas gift to our mother. They donate this to you so you get those kind of experiences and lessons learned that the lessons learned is the hard work pays off you can make a difference. I imagine this new facility you moved into you had to raise all kinds of money to be able to make this move in the first place and I assume it's not done where are you at in that work. Well the cash just operating budget is around $500,000 a year but of course with this move that was necessitated by space and the needs we've done a capital campaign. We've been very successful in terms of in kind labor and donations which has helped keep the expenses down. We have a goal of $200,000 that we need to raise to pay for things that some things you just can't get donated. We're at $150,000 so between now and eternity we still have to raise another $50,000 but it's kind of slowing down now and it is tough times for people from the economy too. So people are trying to do what they can and we're working on some more fundraisers, a golf outing that's going to happen and all those kinds of things so it's still a struggle but I now am believing it will be achieved. Is there or has there been any particular source of spiritual insight or spiritual wisdom to guide you in your work? I'm sure there's a lot of financial, legal and practical resources out there but where do you get the spiritual necessities for this type of work? When we're talking about spirituality, yes I've learned some from my own personal experience. I've learned from some from my social work training but one of the books that I found that is very relevant for battered women and if any battered women were listening right now one of them that I would suggest trying to get their hands on is keeping the faith. Guidance for Christian women facing abuse by Marie M. Fortune spelled F-O-R-T-U-N-E. What this book does is it really asks the relevant questions there and answers to the questions they're thinking in terms of their own faith. Maybe all the things he says about me are true. I probably don't deserve any better than I get. He's probably right and how would God answer that in the scriptures? It quotes here, "Do you know that you are a God's temple and that God's spirit dwells within you? If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and that temple you are." Corinthians 3, 16, 7, that one was. It has also some other things about many other questions that battered women faced. I am not a very good Christian. I have done some really bad things in my life. Maybe this abuse is God's way of punishing me. Women will think that men come to believe it. What I find in here that the book relates to the Bible, the Bible says that the wife must submit to her husband. Does this mean I must submit to his abuse? Questions like that. And then it relates to the answer to that. Actually, the scripture passage that refers to the husband-wife relations begins by saying, "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ." It's not taking things out of contact. We try also with the churches to ask them to ask themselves some questions that are very important for all congregations to do. If they're serious about helping battered women, they need to ask themselves, "What would we do if a battered woman reveals?" Are battered women safe to reveal? Now, I don't think there's any one answer to that, but those are a couple at the very minimum that they need to ask themselves. Is it safe to reveal there? Well, we immediately go to the abuser and confront him, or will we allow her to make decisions? Is it safe in church? Do you have any materials in your congregations library like this that relates the scriptures truly? I have the done during their Bible studies talking about domestic violence and how does it relate? That's the things we encourage churches to do. That is the thing more churches are doing. Do you find that some churches are very resistant? Are there still churches out there that say the woman should not be complaining? She should just be taking her lot. Do you run into that still? The reality is that still exists, just like there are men out there that say that same thing, and there are other systems that will do that, but less so. I think more and more the churches are on board and are really trying to look at this, but I challenge them to make sure they're asking no self questions within their congregation. And the pastor have to ask themselves, "Now, how are they going to handle a domestic violence if a woman reveals?" That's not very easy, and I know the first thing that they're going to want to do is, "Well, we'll get them in for marriage counseling." I will tell you that is not the prescribed way of handling it. That is very, very dangerous. Any counselor or minister or social worker like myself thinks they can hold joint sessions and balance that power or kid in ourself. That is not the prescribed way of handling domestic violence. They each need to separately get their support, grow in strength, particularly the one that's been battered down. And then, if they independently decide, "Yes, we want to get counseling," after that has all happened and get together for counseling for the purposes of getting back together or separating in a way that doesn't hurt themselves or their children, but not be forced to go one way or another. You've been a presence in the Eau Claire area community for quite a while. How do people find you? Just out of the blue, some people haven't been paying attention to Bolden Refuge House. How do they know how to find you? Two ways. 715-834-0628, 24 hours a day, domestic violence or issues aren't a Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 kind of thing. They can always have an advocate here that will talk to them about issues, and that includes not necessarily just the victims. We have moms and dads that will call and talk about and strategize with us. What do I do with my daughter? I know she's in a bad relationship. How can I handle it? Getting heads together and really thinking it through is one way. We're public as a domestic abuse program. By that I mean our location is public. 807 South Farwell Street. In those days of when we had the delusion that secrecy would give us safety, that's when we lost Officer Bolden. We were a secret location at that time. We're not. We're right here on Farwell Street. It's a privilege to get to know you, Jerry, and hear the work you've been doing for 22 years. It's 22 years well served in our community. I think we're fortunate to have you, and I'm certainly fortunate to have you here today for Spirit and Action. I'm fortunate to have had this opportunity. I thank you for the time, and I hope I was able to share some information that will help somebody or hopefully a number of people out there. Thanks again, Jerry. We've been speaking with Jerry Wilkie, Executive Director of Bolden Refuge House in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and their website is BoldenRefugeHouse.org. I'll send you out for today's Spirit and Action with a song about healing from domestic abuse. It's by Peter Alsop. Peter has been my guest before, and he'll be back with us again very soon. It's "Love is the Only Medicine" by Peter Alsop. When you hurt, you hide it away. You carry the pain where it rains every day. I'm so deep inside, when no one can see. When someone hurt you, you don't trust nobody you need love. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend, yeah, yeah. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend. We suffer abuse from someone we love. We stay even though we know push turns to shove. We hold on to long, sustained injury. We know we should go, but sometimes we don't see we need love. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend. Way down, it's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend, yeah, yeah. It's the only medicine, only love can heal you, only love, love. Love can heal you. If someone is me, we know right away. That one has a wound, yes, that one is in pain, that soul has a wall. Crushing the heart, they pass on the herd, and again it will start, they need love. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the only medicine, love. Makes you feel better, my friend. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World", performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. (upbeat music)