The Plain People's Podcast

" Something inside of you breaks when you're raped". On today's episode our guest shares her struggles of being adopted and never feeling like she belongs within her church culture. After being sexually abused at a young age by her sibling, and later on raped after her 19th birthday, R was made to publicly confess "her" crimes in front of her church by making confession and has since then struggled to work through the guilt that comes from sexual assault.

Marsela's family joined the Mennonite Church in the late 90s when she was a young girl, along with several other siblings. Her story is one that involves years of childhood beatings, molestation and the church covering everything up under the teachings that Jesus teaches forgiveness. She was sent off in the middle of the night by the ministry to live with the Bishops as she was considered a rebellious young woman, and never returned to live with her parents again. She was quite the scandal for doing what almost no young Mennonite woman would ever dream of doing, and broke off her engagement 2 months prior to marrying into an esteemed family a name.

The story of an Ex-Mennonite woman that left the church to become educated and create her own life despite the odds.