Gleaning the Harvest- Silvas Family

[Caxpax]

Is anyone familiar with this family? I occasionally check out the GtH website- I was obsessed with A Dusty Frame for a bit. Something about taking charity from strangers so you can stay home and home-school your kid while Daddy is in the pen for something icky, but not acknowledging what it was or DIVORCING HIS CRIMINAL ASS just pisses me off.

Anywho....

Now they are supporting a new family- mom Bridgette has 8 kids, all home-schooled- Daddy is in jail. Funny, no mention WHY......

gleaningtheharvest.com/?p=1559

Some digging led me to the eldest daughter's website (She's over 18 so I don't feel bad snarking on her)

buttonsnwoodenspoons.blogspot.com/

Daughter Tessa has some prayer requests up for her family, no explanation why...and a whiny post about gossip. Oh, and a link to their GtH chip-in. Hmmm...gosh, what could Daddy have done?

After much, much digging, I found out Daddy (Peter J Silvas) is incarcerated for Sexual Misconduct with a minor

http://www.in.gov/apps/indcorrection/of ... arch1.y=20

Looks like he should be out by now. Based on my reading, looks like Daddy had sexual relations with a 14-16 year old. NIIIIIIIICE.

SAHD Tessa, of course, is a firm believer in the joys of homemaking and being quiverfull. Her blogging actually reads more like a mom of many than an eldest sister of many (not that there is that much difference). Sounds like she's essentially raised the youngest baby- "Zip" (short for Zipporah--- oy vey). I can't imagine having the gall of having 2 grown women sitting on their asses asking others to support them and the children without perhaps considering getting a damn job and education.

Any other fj'ers familiar with this family or can get me more info? I've done some searches for news from their part of IN and can't find anything about the conviction, nor can I find Papa Silvas on the sex offender registry yet.

I'd love to find more details on this family- or enjoy the snarktastic commentary from the rest of the FJ community.

[GenerationCedarchip]

From what I can tell googling around, it looks like Silva was "returned to court authority upon release". This can mean anything from him being out and on probation to him being transferred somewhere else to serve another sentence/deal with immigration holds/deal with previous probation issues, etc...

Also, since his release date was less than 30 days ago, the local authorities may not have him uploaded into the system yet. I don't know how long the lag time in IN is, but it takes a few months in the states I've dealt with.

That being said, I actually think it's kind of good that the gleaning site doesn't go into detail about the offender's history. I think it would simply add to the humiliation for the children to have their parent's crimes trotted out in great detail. I have less (make that next to no) sympathy for the mother who would stay married to and presumably expose children to a guy who had sex with a 14-16 year old, but I do feel bad for the children.

[Caxpax]

If mom/daughter got jobs and supported themselves (or availed themselves of TANF or WIC), no one would need to know why their "head" was incarcerated. By asking for funds, they are opening themselves up to those kinds of questions. They are blogging about their lives, encouraging others to follow their ways, and allowing GtH to solicit funds on their behalf. That's inviting humiliation.

[GenerationCedarchip]

If mom/daughter got jobs and supported themselves (or availed themselves of TANF or WIC), no one would need to know why their "head" was incarcerated. By asking for funds, they are opening themselves up to those kinds of questions. They are blogging about their lives, encouraging others to follow their ways, and allowing GtH to solicit funds on their behalf. That's inviting humiliation.

As I said above, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the mom. However, it's not the minor children's fault that any of this happened and I don't begrudge them some bit of privacy. I don't plan to give them money, but if their mother apply for family aid from the Christian community online rather than applying for aid from the government, I don't think it necessarily follows that the children have to be publicly humiliated by having every gory detail of their dad's misdeeds put into the public eye so that they can then be judged for criminal actions in which they took no part.

[Childless]

How is it Christian to have sex (presumably while married to someone else) with a child? How can these people pass their husband/dad off as any kind of Christian?

Also, how can the mom allow this man back into a household with minor children? She's just asking for abuse.

[doggie]

where in the bible does it say sit on your ass and let strangers support you?

[bananacat]

How is it Christian to have sex (presumably while married to someone else) with a child? How can these people pass their husband/dad off as any kind of Christian?

Also, how can the mom allow this man back into a household with minor children? She's just asking for abuse.

I'm no longer a Christian, but I do know that someone's Christian status is between them and God only, and also that Christianity says you can be forgiven for anything if you ask. I consider anyone to be a Christian who claims they are Christian. The fundies try very to hard to claim that others are Real True Christians, and I wouldn't like to see our commenters start doing the same thing that fundies do. Can we just agree that bad people are part of every group and let people define their own religious identity?

[deelaem]

How is it Christian to have sex (presumably while married to someone else) with a child? How can these people pass their husband/dad off as any kind of Christian?

Also, how can the mom allow this man back into a household with minor children? She's just asking for abuse.

He didn't "have sex" with a child, he abused and raped the child. And what does his marital status have do do with it? Like it would have been ok if he were single?

[VVV]

where in the bible does it say sit on your ass and let strangers support you?

Funny, in my Bible I find this in the third chapter of 2nd Thessalonians:

10For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

11For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.

[duplessis3]

" The fundies try very to hard to claim that others are Real True Christians" Catholics aren't real Christians, liberal Christians aren't real Christians...

[activespinster]

Actually, in reading through the blog, Tessa does appear to work at the Creation Museum. I don't know if it is fulltime. She has another post where she mentions some sort of landscaping, where she must have taken an odd job.

I feel bad for the children. It must be really difficult to live in such a closed community and have dad convicted of a sex crime. They apparently feel the accusations were the work of Satan and God is working to bring them back together. It's a difficult situation, although she's still pretty know-it-all and snarkable.

[doggie]

right it is all a lie he did nothing or the debil made him do it. hopefully he is prevented from being around children and has to register as a sex offender.