LIving Whole

[HarryPotterFan]

3 hours ago, luv2laugh said:

The NASTIEST: “Please do not tell me that paying your utilities and bills somehow keeps you from being able to raise your children....”

Does she think women should choose to be homeless instead of working to put a roof over her kids’ heads??

[Joyleaf]

9 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Does anyone else find it suspicious that the Christians she knew sided with the husband when they divorced? She isn't the most reliable narrator, but it is just odd that the church folks would say the husband was in the right if he really left her for his mistress. 

 

In a different blog post she also claims that the church confronted her husband (after she told them) and that he chose his mistress after which the "church" sided with her while the "Christians" sided with him.

"I must admit that I am not the norm. When my world shattered and the Christians I looked up to turned a blind eye, cut me off, and chose to enable my then husband’s sin, I turned to the church we had called home for the prior three years. That’s the only place I knew to go – the only option I had left. I cried to my pastor, who gathered the brothers to help turn a man from his sin, in hopes of saving a marriage. They confronted my unrepentant then husband. He made his choice, and it wasn’t me. And when he chose sin, my church chose the Bible and walked me through the hardest time of my life; but that’s not the norm."

http://www.meganredshaw.com/divorce-why-the-church-needs-to-wake-up/

[JermajestyDuggar]

11 hours ago, Walking Cat Bed said:

It's just amazing how many time she refers to those children with self-pronouns: I fought for them, they are my children. They're not autonomous little humans, they're HER children that were taken away from HER (even though she left them with other people).

 

I'm not a mental health professional, but I get personality disorder vibes.

I agree. I don’t think she’s considering what’s best for the children. Sometimes what’s best for your kids is not best for you. The children have been away from her for how long now? They’ve been in and out of a few homes now and have had very little stability. If they are currently in a stable foster home, that may be the best place for them now. But I don’t believe she’s thinking what is best for them, but what is best for her. 

[EmiGirl]

I want to hear the ex husband's side. Something smells to me. 

Maybe she forged his name on documents saying he was on board? 

Also, where was this money coming from? Doctor or not, the military does not pay enough for her to be at home and at the same time throwing tons of money to this "orphanage." 

None of this adds up right to me. 

[formergothardite]

4 minutes ago, EmiGirl said:

I want to hear the ex husband's side. Something smells to me. 

So would I. I'm not sure the ex husband is as evil as she claims. She makes herself the victim of every story even when it is obvious that the blame is on her shoulders. 

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

So would I. I'm not sure the ex husband is as evil as she claims. She makes herself the victim of every story even when it is obvious that the blame is on her shoulders. 

 

It sounds like he did leave his pregnant wife for another woman he had been having an affair with. No matter how awful Megan is, that’s a terrible way to end a marriage. So I imagine he’s no saint. However I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t as callous about the adopted children as she says he is.

[tankgirl]

18 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Oh yes, the other family.  Her family members, the "potential adopters" who took the adopted children off her hands but then refused her access, pestered her for money, and dumped the children on DFS telling "lies" about her.

Another possible scenario:  they took the children in, possibly with the intention of adopting them, because she was overwhelmed, but insisted on temporary guardianship in case of emergencies.  She left them there until she changed her mind about allowing them to adopt them.  She never followed through on finding resources for the children, never paid a cent of child support as agreed, and never tried to see them (although she claims she did).  They told her to get her ducks in a row before they returned the children to her.  She reported them to DFS for abuse - and they washed their hands of the whole business and surrendered the children to DFS.

I mostly agree, but as it is a very old, old story, I wonder if these were not potential adopters, but some one who was doing a "foster" type plan as a favour. They would care for them, she would pay, visit and more, while she finds a permanent home for the kids. Then she basically did a runner. I only think this because it seems odd to be ok to have them, then not, if they wanted them they could have tried to establish rights of the kids, and tried to get paperwork for them. Unless they did want the kids, but all her wackadoo, and narcissistic nonsense made them realize the kids were never going to be officially theirs and they bailed.


Girl is all over the place, I can barely understand what she is going on about in the above quoted blog, except while trying to brag, I believe, her less and less. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

It’s ridiculous to me how she goes on and on about how her ex suddenly didn’t want the adopted children any longer. About how he thwarted all her attempts at getting the children from the Congo. How he completely ignored them when they finally got here and he with held paper work from her in regards to their insurance. Yet when she talked about giving up on the adopted children (the exact same thing he did two years prior!), she makes that part of the story very short. Just suddenly it was best for the kids to be adopted by these other people and everything would be fine. 

Why was he painted as the villain when he stopped wanting the children but when she stopped wanting the children, it was what’s best for them? You can’t paint your ex as the villain for something you later did yourself. Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way, Megan. 

[AmazonGrace]

I wonder if he wanted them to begin with. In any case, "we have half a million dollars in debt already and can't afford this", "we don't even get along anymore so we're not going to be able to co-parent in the best interests of two freshly adopted traumatized children who need a stable environment", and "yikes, five kids under five? seriously?"  all seem pretty rational reasons why someone going through a divorce might choose not to adopt at that time in their life. 

[Palimpsest]

 

3 hours ago, tankgirl said:

I mostly agree, but as it is a very old, old story, I wonder if these were not potential adopters, but some one who was doing a "foster" type plan as a favour. They would care for them, she would pay, visit and more, while she finds a permanent home for the kids. Then she basically did a runner. I only think this because it seems odd to be ok to have them, then not, if they wanted them they could have tried to establish rights of the kids, and tried to get paperwork for them. Unless they did want the kids, but all her wackadoo, and narcissistic nonsense made them realize the kids were never going to be officially theirs and they bailed.

Girl is all over the place, I can barely understand what she is going on about in the above quoted blog, except while trying to brag, I believe, her less and less. 

Your guess is as good as mine and that is just as likely a scenario.  I'll just add that none of Megan's  stories ever make sense.  They just paint her as the sainted heroine as she throws everyone else under the bus and runs backwards and forwards over them.

I have no idea how bad a guy her former husband was, but she claims he had an affair.  He has since married a different person.  She felt it necessary to contact the person he had the affair (with when she was marrying someone totally unconnected) to throw shame at her for breaking up Megan's perfect marriage.   Or Megan's own behavior caused the breakdown of her marriage.

She also has a whole post calling her former husband a narcissist.  It sounded like complete projection.  Megan sounds narcissistic  as hell to me.

And please let us not forget that Megan almost certainly brought these children to the US illegally.  And without former husband's consent or support.   He may have wanted to stay within the law and have been willing to support them in the DRC, for all we know.

Again, Megan's ramblings and repeated claims of doing things legally are bull.  The DRC has to all intents and purposes. been closed to international adoption since 2013.  That is why the children were denied exit papers, and why I suspect she took them out of DRC illegally.

The reason the DRC, and other countries, have closed international adoptions was because of rampant child trafficking and abuse by people just like Megan.  Here's a 2014 article about it.  

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-ligtvoet/congo-christianity-and-in_b_5134492.html

Excerpt:  Please read if you are not familiar with K. Joyce's The Child Catchers.

Quote

That reason can be found in a blog by a Christian social worker, who runs a Congolese orphanage, Reeds of Hope. Holly Mulford writes,

If you have followed media reports coming out of DRC over the past four years regarding adoption (for example, through Radio Okapi), you will have read reports of child trafficking, orphanage raids, and illegal border crossings. If you have followed individual stories of adoption in DRC (via blogs and stories in the U.S. media from adoptive parents), you will have learned of falsification of documents, DGM bribing, siblings spilt apart, lost referrals (only to have them referred to other agencies), abuse of children in orphanages, false abandonment reports, coercion of birth parents to relinquish children, and high foster care fees without documented expenses (average of $500/month/child), monthly orphanage donations (average of $300/month/child), and child finder fees/social service referral fees (average of $1000-1500 per referral). If you have followed the embassy announcements and update calls of the past 2-3 years, you will also have found concerns of corruption, false documents, bribery, illegal border crossings, and backdated court documents. All of this information is publicly available, and all of it paints a very clear picture of endemic corruption and fraud in the international adoption business in DRC.

It is a long but needed quote, because it shows how broadly and deeply the adoption corruption is rooted in the DCR. The government doesn’t want to give exit papers for kids who might have been trafficked, who have extended family or even a parent or parents who could take care of them. And it wants to be sure that all kids that will be adopted in the future are ‘real’ orphans or vulnerable kids with no other option than international adoption. It is a difficult situation, but a situation which was by the way forced on the DRC by the demand created by Christian adoption agencies working in that country in the first place, a steadily growing demand since the start of the ‘adoption crusade’ in the first years of this century. The research of Kathryn Joyce in her book The Child Catchers and in her many other publications documents the nefarious effects of this crusade in the ‘donor’ countries.

So let us not fall for Megan's selective and self-serving sob story.  She admits that the children she brought to the US have a living parent and possibly extended family in the DRC.  And how did she get them out of the DRC.

21 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

One more thing that bugs me. Who would have died otherwise? Was no one feeding them in the orphanage? Do the children have some life threatening disease that would have eventually killed them for sure or is this Western condescension and heroine status halo hunting?

Actually the number of, and conditions for, orphans in the DRC are pretty dire.  There are around 5 million children orphaned by ongoing war, AIDs, and other illnesses.  The really lucky ones are cared for by extended family, the lucky ones are in orphanages, and there are many on the streets.  Their life expectancy is very low. 

There are also plenty of good Congolese and NGOs working on the orphan crisis in the DRC.  IMO it is better to support their efforts in finding these children homes, education, and medical care in country, than it is to support evangelical adopters like Megan in illegal activities.

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

 

Actually the number of, and conditions for, orphans in the DRC are pretty dire.  There are around 5 million children orphaned by ongoing war, AIDs, and other illnesses.  The really lucky ones are cared for by extended family, the lucky ones are in orphanages, and there are many on the streets.  Their life expectancy is very low. 

There are also plenty of good Congolese and NGOs working on the orphan crisis in the DRC.  IMO it is better to support their efforts in finding these children homes, education, and medical care in country, than it is to support evangelical adopters like Megan in illegal activities.

 

Yeah but saying things like "would have died" instead of "might have died" still seems somehow off to me.  If their death had been an inevitable certainty they presumably would have needed medical attention when they arrived in Megan's family. 

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Yeah but saying things like "would have died" instead of "might have died" still seems somehow off to me.  If their death had been an inevitable certainty they presumably would have needed medical attention when they arrived in Megan's family. 

Oh, her claims that they would die without her are completely over-dramatic and exaggerated.  She's a con-artist and assumes other people think everyone in Africa lives in a mud huts, in a jungle, at death's door, just waiting for a White Evangelical Right Kind of Christian to come along, teach them the right ways to do things, and adopt their children for Christ. 

I first came across Megan 3 or 4 years ago and read her old (now wiped) blog back then.  Her stories have changed but her defensiveness and inventiveness with the truth haven't.  I had completely forgotten about her until this thread came up,

[tankgirl]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

 

Your guess is as good as mine and that is just as likely a scenario.  I'll just add that none of Megan's  stories ever make sense.  They just paint her as the sainted heroine as she throws everyone else under the bus and runs backwards and forwards over them.

I have no idea how bad a guy her former husband was, but she claims he had an affair.  He has since married a different person.  She felt it necessary to contact the person he had the affair (with when she was marrying someone totally unconnected) to throw shame at her for breaking up Megan's perfect marriage.   Or Megan's own behavior caused the breakdown of her marriage.

She also has a whole post calling her former husband a narcissist.  It sounded like complete projection.  Megan sounds narcissistic  as hell to me.

And please let us not forget that Megan almost certainly brought these children to the US illegally.  And without former husband's consent or support.   He may have wanted to stay within the law and have been willing to support them in the DRC, for all we know.

Again, Megan's ramblings and repeated claims of doing things legally are bull.  The DRC has to all intents and purposes. been closed to international adoption since 2013.  That is why the children were denied exit papers, and why I suspect she took them out of DRC illegally.

 

I 100% agree, that is why I added  in the assumption, that rights to the kids could have been hindered both by Megan's crazy, but also because, she is probably missing lots of important documents, as I agree the likelihood is high those kids did not legally come to the US, which might have become an issue for this first family. 

 

I think her lack of clarity of speaking is one issue, like in the post above about her high potential as a wage earner, then you add the lies and the stories where every one else is mean and bad and the only real picture you get is about the stability of the person writing. Without knowing the other players, all we are left with is the fact, we know Megan isnt telling the full story or even an untainted story.

[Lurky]

Is there any actual evidence for any of her stories?  There seem to be so many inconsistencies, and changing narratives - makes me wonder if it's a huge grift, especially someone else "taking over" her FB to launch her go to me fund rather than start it on their own page, and she just shares it....

[JermajestyDuggar]

17 minutes ago, Lurky said:

Is there any actual evidence for any of her stories?  There seem to be so many inconsistencies, and changing narratives - makes me wonder if it's a huge grift, especially someone else "taking over" her FB to launch her go to me fund rather than start it on their own page, and she just shares it....

I think it’s very likely she has a good sized group of anti-vax and anti-government humpers that would do that for her. Those types of people are pretty easy to swindle if you say all the right things.

[cascarones]

Since she somewhere said "don't even go looking for it" about her old blog, I did precisely that. Even the wayback machine has the telltale "Excluded", indicating she sent them a takedown notice or the content became illegal to show (very doubtful). Almost everything prior to 2014 has donotlinks and we know she sent a intent to sue letter to the lawyer forum. So I'm assuming she took that same letter and sent it absolutely everywhere she could find quoting her and that is mad shady. I don't know why she wiped so thoroughly, if it was content related, rebranding, ex-husband and their braggadocios perfect-turned-sour marriage related (legal or not). Google autofills searches her her husband as second to her name, which is telling on the amount of time she's spent discussing it.

I do hope all of her family has a nice drama and betrayal free Thanksgiving, especially the littles. 

[truthseeker]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

 

I first came across Megan 3 or 4 years ago and read her old (now wiped) blog back then.  Her stories have changed but her defensiveness and inventiveness with the truth haven't.  I had completely forgotten about her until this thread came up,

What was the old blog called?  Hoping some of it is available on the Wayback Machine.

18 minutes ago, cascarones said:

Since she somewhere said "don't even go looking for it" about her old blog, I did precisely that. Even the wayback machine has the telltale "Excluded", indicating she sent them a takedown notice or the content became illegal to show (very doubtful).

Think this must have posted just as I was typing mine.  Damn.  Just made a nice cup of tea and was hoping to fall down the old blog rabbit hole.

[luv2laugh]

GULP... This is some scary stuff guys...

[truthseeker]

6 minutes ago, luv2laugh said:

GULP... This is some scary stuff guys...

I haven't read it all yet, but I think there was something NQR about that poster ... and the regular board members called her out.  Will try and find it.

[truthseeker]

57 minutes ago, truthseeker said:

I haven't read it all yet, but I think there was something NQR about that poster ... and the regular board members called her out.  Will try and find it.

It  seems that she has come up on FJ before!  Sorry mods - I did do a search for her before my first post, but nothing came up ... Do we need to merge them, or just leave it?

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

18 minutes ago, truthseeker said:

It  seems that she has come up on FJ before!  Sorry mods - I did do a search for her before my first post, but nothing came up ... Do we need to merge them, or just leave it?

 

This particular post from that thread made me laugh. Her “better half.” You can say that again! 

It’s also interesting that she claims she has 4 kids under 3 when 2 of those children hadn’t even come to the US yet. Way to deceive your readers, Megan. You had 2 kids under 3 and you were waiting on the adoption to go through. 

[luv2laugh]

Sometimes I wonder if when her anti-vax stance went viral, if it started affecting her ex’s reputation at work. Perhaps, along with other things, he just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I don’t justify his cheating at all though.

[Palimpsest]

32 minutes ago, truthseeker said:

It  seems that she has come up on FJ before!  Sorry mods - I did do a search for her before my first post, but nothing came up ... Do we need to merge them, or just leave it?

Wow, great find!

I had no idea she had come up here before.  I think I originally found her on an adoption board.  Where she was not well thought of, to say the very least.

IMO, leave it.  That was a really old thread and you have linked.

[truthseeker]

The old thread is a very interesting read.  There's a few quotes from her old (now nonexistent) blogs, and some good links.  

[formergothardite]

To quote @Firiel from that thread.

Quote

All to make herself look like a genius martyr/philanthropist/good person. Mark my words-- her marriage will end fairly soon, and she will claim terrible things about her husband.

She apparently was right! How soon after this did the marriage end? And she does claim terrible things about the husband. 

ETA: and one of the posts right after she announced the divorce said that he left her before the adoption went through.