The Confessionals - 34: The Cursed Church

Episode Date: September 9, 2017

Tonight Matt shares his account of dating a girl in high school who decided to play with an ouija board while he was visiting. He describes what occurred and how the event got personal very quickly! Later he brings his wife on the show to share the time she experienced a haunting in a church they attended. When she confronted the pastor about it, he confirmed that the church was indeed cursed! Website: www.theconfessionalspodcast.com Email: [e-mail] Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcast Twitter: @TConfessionals Tony's Twitter: @tony_merkel Tony's Instagram: tony_merkel Tony's Facebook: www.facebook.com/tbmerkel

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See store for details. You feel like it's out until it's bright out. Just another lonely night to sacrifice your life. They're staying in the shadows. It's called Froleting. Fair for the rest of the night. You guys hear that? Welcome to the show, everybody.

I am your host, Tony Merkel, and I am really glad that you're here, and I'm really glad to be here. If you've had an encounter or a story you'd like to share with me on the show, go ahead and email me at the Confessionals Podcast at G. email.com. That's the confessionals podcast at gmail.com. Or you can go to the website, the confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the connection section and you can reach me that way as well. Tonight I have a great show coming up. I have Matt coming on and he's going to share his experiences with his girlfriend from high school when they experienced some things while she was playing with

a Ouija board. And then a little bit later, Matt brings on his wife to share an experience that she had at a church that the pastor says is cursed without any further delay. Let's bring on Matt and his wife, Leslie. Okay, tonight I have a special guest coming on. His name is Matt, and he contacted me on Facebook after hearing the show. And he told me he had some stories he wanted to share with me. And Matt, I thank you for your patience waiting for me to get back to you because right now I'm getting a lot of emails from people.

And sometimes just emails fall through the crack and it takes a while to get back to some people. But how are you doing, man? I'm doing good. I'm doing real good. I mean, I'm living the dream. So I'm excited about hearing your story tonight. You talked to me on the email about a story, actually two different things that happened to you that you'd like to talk about.

And the first one, you mentioned about a Ouija board incident when you were, I think, 17 years old. Why don't you walk us into what was going on there? As I'm going down, I find the dad's name and the telephone number. Wow. And I'm getting freaked. I thought, they're just, they're just playing a joke on me. And so I thought, okay, this is, there was, uh, that my grandpa, um, I believe the way I worded it was, my grandpa had a farming accident.

I'm going to know that at that point, the way, turned lights on, I think something bad came. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, I've never been around one because I was, since a young age, I was, told that you don't play with those. And one thing with my family is my mom was never shy about telling me the truth. Like, ever since I was a kid, she was just very honest with me when it came to this kind of stuff or just real life scenarios, anything. She just was, she never lied to me. She was just very upfront and honest. And I remember her telling me not to mess with these things. And she told me, you know, some things that she experienced throughout her life. But I wanted to

ask you, when you went over to the house with a pizza, it was the mom, your girlfriend, and the sister, correct? Yes. Was the mom actively participating in this, or was she just observing as you were? As I was. She was... Okay. Now, when they flipped out, I'm assuming you mean the mom flipped out as well, right? Yeah, she did.

Believe it or not, not as much as what the two girls... Yeah. No, I absolutely understand that. I just, you know, I just, I'm curious as to what the mom's, um, knowledge was when it comes to Ouija boards. I mean, was it something that she wasn't real familiar with or, you know, was it something that she was very familiar with and testing the waters to see how the new boyfriend reacts to the family hobby?

You know what I mean? I just, it's very curious to me. You know what? I'd never thought about it. Because when you say that the girls were freaking out and the, mom was like, uh, like she was maybe reacting, but not reacting like the girls were. Uh, it makes me feel like maybe she kind of expected something like this to happen eventually. Maybe not every time they play with it, but maybe she's experienced something. I don't know. I'm just drawing a picture

with no real facts to support it, but it just, I'm just saying what it makes me think of. Um, because then when you're saying, put that away right now and you're demanding it, it's like she flips it from one extreme to the other where she's not, flipping out with with her daughters like they're flipping out to when you say put it away it's like she went to the other extreme is like yeah girls put that away now you know I mean it just it just it just it just it just finds uh it strikes me a little odd you know yeah yeah I hadn't thought about that way maybe because I'm thinking yeah what do you think your girlfriend and her sister they're the ones that flipped out what do you think they thought was going on before

the seriousness of what was going on actually took place. Like, they're, they're participating with the Ouija board, and they clearly thought it was something that was fun up to that point. Did they ever, did she ever mention before this all happened as to what she thinks is actually going on here? You guys, you guys. Wow. I said, look my time and I said, you don't, yeah. He's not going to do that. I lied to you. Yeah. I mean, those are, those are some good points, you know, and even back to when they were asking the questions. and or when you told them to ask a certain question, it was very direct and to the point with the response.

It wasn't, you know, like you were reading into things. It was very direct answers. And it does make you wonder, you know, if you want to accept the fact that it is a five-year-old boy that died in a car crash and, you know, the town over, how does that five-year-old boy know those things? It's almost what I think kind of happened. here. Yeah, well, I mean, that experience is something that I would carry with me the rest of my life, man, that definitely sounds, it sounds like an eye-opening experience, you know, like I'm sure you probably don't look back at it now and you get terrified out of your mind and you think about it, but I'm sure it was something that educated you for the rest of your life. It did. It did. I mean,

I grew up in the church and I still go to church. I understand that. Well, I mean, speaking of church, you did tell me that you had an experience with you and your wife at a church that, well, it just really shouldn't have happened at a church. And I would like to see if you want to share that. I would love to, but... Yeah, absolutely. Actually, that would be perfect because it actually happened to her, right? Great.

Hello, Matt's wife. How are you? Doing good. This is the first time I've shared this story. Okay, well, we're eager to hear it. So what happened? Well, I think it sort of helps if you can hear a little bit of the background to that particular day. We were going to an old church that's in our town.

I want to say it was probably maybe started around the 1800. Because our town was founded like in the 1830s. So it's one of the original, we live in a really small town. So you kind of know everybody that's there. And that morning, I had taken our boys to church, a swing show. schedule. So I think he was on midnight that day. But so anyhow, I had taken him to church that morning.

And the reason I mentioned that is because this door that I'm going to tell you about here in a minute, I was actually opening that door. And I went through that door that morning. So we were at the service, and our youngest son was months old at the time. He was maybe to where the nursery was. So during the service, I had walked out of these doors and they were the old, like, have you ever been in an old church where there's the, like, ten-foot-tall kind of accordion type of doors that can open?

The ones that kind of, like, divide rooms? Yes, exactly. Yeah, because it divided the sanctuary from sort of like a little fellowship hall. And so anyhow, during the service, I had walked out that door and then went back in a beach meeting. So I knew that we were going to be staying there. But since Matt was on midnight, I didn't want to bring the kids home and deal with lunch and those kind of things. So we laughed for a little. And the important thing is when we got back to the church, we were actually the only people in the church.

And since we were the first ones there, I said, well, you know, let's go ahead and get things set up for the meeting. Because I knew, you know, the way the advisor, like the chairs arranged and those kind of things. Since our youngest was still in a car seat, like the type that you could carry, I didn't have to worry about him going. anywhere. So we probably got there 20 to 30 minutes before the meeting began and got some things set up. But it was about 5 till 2. I can remember that because the meeting started at 2. So it was about 5 until 2 and I was starting to get a little concerned because I thought, you know, why isn't anyone here? I knew there should have been other, you know, 4-H members and a lot of kids showing up. But you can ask Matt. I'm notorious with getting dates and times mixed

up and I thought, oh my gosh, you know, I showed up on the wrong day of the meeting, and there's probably not a meeting today. So what I decided to do was to walk back sort of like through the fellowship hall to where the sanctuary was because there was a little table, like where they set out the program of the day, you know, that has come like the hymns in it that you're singing and events that are coming up for the week. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Like a schedule almost. And so anyhow, I knew that if the meeting was that day, that Sunday, I would see it on the back of the... So I left the boys alone, which I wasn't just... It's not like I had just walked away, but I just left them there for a tiny bit, and I was the foyer area to get the program. And when I did that, I heard a noise. and when I tried to tell this to Matt, I said, you know, I heard the noise, but the noise didn't scare me because I had just, I literally had just reached the paper. So I had it in my hand, but I didn't have a chance to flip it over. And right at that moment, I heard this noise, and I thought, oh, someone's coming in, what would be, like, the front door of the sanctuary?

Because the church you could go in in lots of different ways. and I thought, oh, someone has just been dropped off in the front of the church, and they're going to walk through the sanctuary and come through those accordion doors. So I wasn't startled at all when I heard it. And then as I looked over, I could see the door start to shake. And like what was so weird about it was it reminded me if you've ever tried to open a door and you like almost take your shoulder and bang into it. Just like you know that the door works, it's just kind of an...

Even when that happened, I wasn't scared because I thought, oh, you know, I just walked out the door, those doors in the morning, and I know the top of the doors can stick a little bit. They're huge wooden doors and they're heavy. So I didn't think anything of... So at this point, hearing the noise, seeing and hearing someone hit it really hard repeatedly, and knowing you at the 4-H club, you have kids from third grade up through high school.

So it could have been a younger kid kind of coming through or an elementary kid. So I actually reach over to open the door to help whoever's on the other side. I wasn't scared at all. And as I kind of fight with the door just a little bit and I jerked the door open, there was nobody there. A complete silent second, and I thought, you know, what? Where is the person? What just happened?

Because, again, I wasn't initially scared until I looked and I kind of stepped through into the sanctuary. And I realized there was nobody there. And I did it so quickly that someone, it's not like someone could have done it and ran out of the back of done it. It just, once that hit me, there was nobody there, that's when like that motherly. instinct kicked in and I thought, oh my gosh, I've got to get to my kids. I was really, really scared. Not to the boys and then someone from the 4-H club had actually come in. And I knew at that point I couldn't leave because it happened. He had been with Frozen a little bit and didn't hear anything, didn't see any. Wow, that's some story. Now, when you were in there, you said the door

was shaking, right? Yes. Yeah. Now, the door that was shaking was the accordion door? 10-foot doors that for the sanctuary from like a all kind of area. Okay. Now, when this thing was shaking, was it like a swaying or was like a vibrating like somebody was like shaking it violently? No, it was like if it wasn't swaying at all, the door was completely closed and if you were on one side of it, like if you were on the sanctuary side, it was like you would have turned the handle or the knob.

and I can't say for sure that I saw the knob doing anything as much as like the top of the door. I could just, in my brain, I could just imagine someone just bumping it with their shoulder and just trying to get it open. Because you've seen like Oldwood doors that, like if it's a really hot summer day, they might swell. That was kind of what it was doing. but so it was the banging, the bumping of it a little bit, but like repeatedly, and not for long. I mean, just long enough, like, for a person to go, oh, there's someone at the door and they just can't get it open because... Okay, but there, so there was definitely some kind of activity around that door in your church. Absolutely.

...was unexplainable because, I mean, you did open the door. There was nobody on the other side. Yeah, and that's when I realized, you know, that's when I realized, you know, that's the door. Whoa, something is off here. Because had I opened the door and a kid would have been standing there, I wouldn't have thought a thing of it. I mean, not a thing. It was just a person trying to come through the door.

But when you open the door and it's dead quiet on the other side, the pulpit, there was a wound. Wow. So this happens to you. I mean, obviously you're shucking up. Right. What did you do after the meeting was over and things like that? I mean, did you ever tell anybody at the church what had happened?

Did you ever ask a question about that? You know, it's really strange because, like I said, I was, had we not had that meeting and had no one shown up, I would have been out of there immediately. I mean, I went to get the boys. I wanted to leave, and that's when, you know, would come in. So as soon as the meeting was over, and then the whole time the meeting was going on, husband up, and I eventually talked to the pastor about it, but I didn't do it immediately. Maybe even a little longer.

It might have been close to a year because that happened. We had moved here. Yeah, so maybe around a year or so. Well, and something to say about that, too. I've been, like, in our house now that, you know, it's the great spring days where there's a breeze going through. It wasn't anything like that. It wasn't a one-time noise. It wasn't one knock.

It wasn't something like that. It wasn't just a noise that I heard. Now, one thing I do remember... I don't know, I just can't... Knowing that it didn't scare me initially, that's what I keep coming back to. You know, it's not like you just heard a noise and jump. And weren't you the one who encouraged me to talk to the pastor about it? Yeah, I said, you know...

Wonderful people. You need to talk to the pastor. Which is what I did. Schedule some time to go talk to him. It's not funny, but I said to him, I said, hey, you know, I was at church on this day, you know, that morning for the service. and the afternoon for a meeting. And this is what happened. He was not a bit of anything.

And he said, well, that's just because there was a curse put on the church. And I was stunned because I'd never heard any leader of faith might kind of be the best way to describe it, ever give credibility to know that he wasn't joking. What do you mean? And he said, well, yeah, you know, many years ago, So there was a group of women. It happened. I don't know if there was a disagreement of some sort.

I don't know all the details, but these few women, I thought that was weird. And I don't remember a whole lot more of the conversation because I know I was in a lot of shock about it. Someone who I just, she was a wonderful woman and said, you know, have you heard anything about this? And if that makes sense, and they were like, yeah, this is why we. pray all through this church and the prayer walk, it wasn't just crevice and just all of that. And it kind of ruined me going to that church because I'm not the type of person to talk about this stuff. I mean, I don't go when it comes to that and I just, I don't look there.

You're talking to me. You made me feel better being next to me. I know, you know, speaking of that, needing me with her. And once you can sit and you start looking at them. We're looking over at her. like two young kids. They take our youngest into the nursery, and sometimes I would leave him in there, and sometimes I would stay with them, or a lot of times he was in the service with us.

They're going to be away from me. And he was little enough. Being in a small town, you want to go to church with your neighbors, and, you know, you want to do those events together. We came down to our community, Matt was very, whatever you want to do, and that's when we left the church. Wow. That's incredible.

Uh, Matt, when you felt those, I guess, hands or you felt something tightening around your neck, uh, did you ever happen to see any markings on your body after that? Uh, no. I was looking at you for, like, to be able to say to me, you know what, it's okay. You just, um, you just thought you saw something or you thought you heard. Like, I guess I was looking for him to explain it away for me a little bit, but he couldn't because I knew, he knew how he felt, I knew the fear that, you know, there was one more thing I was going to say, well, I know, because it sounds stupid. No, it doesn't sound, no, it doesn't sound stupid.

I mean, like that could have, come out of a church. Evil could get into a church. I just, I assumption that it was protected because Christian. Yeah, I mean, if you think of it this way, and I, I'm going to, I'm going to start chombing in here because you guys are giving me so much ammo to talk about. But if you start thinking about it as not a church, I didn't know a church could be cursed kind of thing, but rather if you think about the individual, how even though you're a Christian and your faith is in Jesus Christ, you still get spiritually attacked, you know, just because you're a Christian and you're claiming Jesus Christ as your authority in your life, it doesn't mean that bad things stop happening to you. In fact, that's when things get vamped up because now there's actually a fight going on. Before you were just going along with the flow of things, whatever, whatever. But once you start actually choosing a side and you're siding with Christ, now there's an enemy there that wants to vamp up its attacks on you as an individual. And so when you think of it on the micro level like that, it makes sense. And then you expand your perspective. to the macro level of a body of Christ, a church body coming together to worship their God, it's natural to think then that, yes, that would be a target for somebody who does not want

this church to succeed in its mission. Does it make sense? I think back about that verse in the Bible that talks about, well, he can't devour anyone here because, you know, we're all already protected. But in the years since then, that's not over. I mean, that's 1st Peter chapter 5, verse 8 is what you're referring to. And that's such a powerful verse. And it's a verse that I really think that many, and I'm not trying to bash Christians, all right? I really not. But I think that a lot of Christians gloss over certain things in their Bibles, whether it's because they don't understand it or makes them feel uncomfortable.

And I think that's a verse that a lot of them kind of glosses. over. They don't want to acknowledge the fact that their enemy is like a roaring line seeking to devour them. That's scary, you know? And there's this philosophy that I heard a couple years ago that I really, I really adopted in my own mind. And this guy, he said, if you don't understand something in the Bible that you say you believe in, then you're not supposed to just gloss over it and pass it up and go to the next verse. You're supposed to dive into it. You're not supposed to. to make the verse fit around your mind, but rather your mind fit around the scripture verse. And so the verse isn't broken. It's your mind, and you need to fix your mind. And so when it comes

to that stuff, even all the stuff we're talking about tonight, I think there's a lot of, and like I said, I'm not trying to, you know, go after Christians or anything, but I think a lot of times, I think we have a case where Christians need to start waking up and realize is that there is, you know, an actual spiritual warfare battle going on for their very souls. And they need to start, start arming themselves and go on the offensive with their walk with, you know, their God. You know, you said about earlier about how the church was cursed and you weren't, you weren't aware that a church could be cursed. And that's news for so many people. I'll tell you, now I listen to, I don't know if Matt told you.

you, but I mean, I'm a truck driver, you know, so I listened to tons of podcast during the day. I listen to tons of different interviews. And I've heard so many interviews. I think, I maybe exaggerate there, but I think I've listened to at least five interviews with somebody who was an ex-satanic priest of some kind who willingly comes on to a show for an interview and talks about how they actually go into churches. They actually focus on infiltrating Christians. Christian churches to break them up. And one of the things, there's, the one guy said there's three things that they will do to try to break up these churches.

And the topic of money, so they'll usually try to create some kind of money discrepancy in the church to break it up, gossip, they'll start a gossip ring that will help break the church up or a sex scandal, usually including some kind of minor in the church, something that's really emotional. But he said those are three things that they will try to do to split up a church. And he said that this guy, the one guy I'm thinking of, he said that he's been, he's done this over a hundred times of churches. Over a hundred times, one person. So he went into these different churches. pretending to be, to be somebody who was, who wanted to be involved in the church, only to try breaking it up. And he said he's broken up hundreds of churches, him personally. And so

what I just said there is mind-blowing for so many people. People are going to say, how's that even possible? Well, here's the thing. There's satanic covens out there. And if there's a satanic covenant out there, they're naturally against what you believe, you know? And it's just natural. There's that gridlock, you know?

Does that make sense? It does. It does. Okay. And that people fixed almost. store. I've heard it said so many times talking about, you know, sometimes people, they compare like a church to a hospital,

and you've probably heard that before, where, you know, waiting to, like, clean your life up to go to church, but I think a lot of times people in the church don't want to look at themselves as a hospital, but instead they want to look at themselves more as this pretty club or, like, a group of people who have things together. And I think it would be easy for someone to break that up, I guess. Yeah.

And especially if there's an actual group of people out there with a mission to do so. I'll tell you an example story. This is a story that it was actually told to me by somebody in college. I'll leave their name out of it. But when I was in college, we were sitting around talking, and this one guy mentioned a story. And I believe he said it happened to his dad. but I'm not exactly sure. It's been a while since I heard this story.

But he said that there was a pastor. I'll just say there was a pastor. I'm not sure if he was dead. There was a pastor of a church. And there was these two brothers that were coming to their church who were warlocks. And this guy, the pastor of the church, didn't seem to have a problem with that as long as they weren't trying to create a problem. He wasn't going to kick somebody out of his church just because of their faith or their belief

systems. If they're earnestly coming there to seek truth, he's okay with it. So I guess this happened maybe a few times. And at one point during the service, these two men stood up during the service and started walking around whispering into people's ears. And so he kicks him out of the church, and that made him upset, obviously. And because they, you know, they're up to no good. And he saw that. So he kicks him out of the church. Well, I guess maybe that week or a week later, I don't know how long it was, but he got a phone call. He was at the church. I think it was late at night, working on whatever, and he got a phone call in his church office. And the other person on the other line said something like you need to get home to your family right away and made it sound real urgent.

And then he, whoever was on the other end of the line hung up or something like that. he goes to get up out of his chair to go home and he feels like these hands all over his body like holding him into his chair or at least like touching him all over his body like he knew there was something going on in the spiritual realm and this is inside of his church and so he sits there and just is praying because he doesn't want to go home with whatever's on him you know and he's praying and I think he actually went into his car drove around for a while trying to get this whatever it was off. He finally goes home

to find police at the house and his front windows smashed in. And it turns out that these two brothers, one brother beat up the other brother with a baseball bat, and they went to this guy's house, this pastor's house, and tried making it look like

he did it to the brother to try getting him put in jail. Oh, but he wasn't there because he was... Right. He wasn't there. So the plan was to get him at the house and then when he's there, do this whole conflict or whatever to try get him put in jail. But it didn't work because he was not there. And so, I mean, that story I just shared, I mean, just kind of shows you the elements that people will go to when they don't

want you to succeed to succeed in your mission with whatever you're doing. Right. But yeah, I mean, that's just some things that, you know, I was thinking about when you're telling me, that story. When you mentioned about the door, did you, I can't remember, did you say the door was held shut? Like, it felt like it was being held shut? Some way. So, like, when I went to, but again, I didn't think a whole lot of it because I had used the door that, that morning, but that door could get stuck a little bit, just like an old, it was more. That's when there was nobody. Okay. I'll tell you, like, there's so many different aspects of this story that you're sharing tonight that kind of just sparked these memories in my mind because when I was a kid,

I grew up in a trailer park out in the middle of nowhere. I literally grew up between two cornfields. And when I was in this trailer park, I just remember there was this one girl who said that her trailer was haunted. And as a kid, you're like, oh, okay. So we go down to her trailer and I think me and my buddy, we walk in and like we're there for maybe, I don't know, a minute or two. I'm like, oh, nothing's happening. I'm out of here. And I was probably scared anyways. And we walked out and she wasn't behind us. I guess she was doing something. And we closed the door behind us. And I remember we walked off her porch. And all of a sudden we hear her yelling, screaming, kicking the door. And I ran up on the porch and I just put my hand on the doorknob and the door opens up. And I was like,

oh, the door gets stuck. And she's like, no, didn't you open it? I'm like, no, I didn't open it. And so I don't know what happened there, but something was holding that door shut for her that she couldn't leave. And as soon as I touched the door, it just opened up. I guess she had let go of the door. And it just kind of opened up. And it's like, it's just kind of incredible how like you hear these different stories. And there's just little pieces that actually kind of relate to other people's stories. It seems like whatever's going on.

It's like the same trick, you know? Right. some kind of a similarity. Well, and for me, this was the first time. My first thought was like, well, I'm not smart enough to go to church on Sundays, and I raise, I can't do something. Women were. It has got me thinking about it ever since, and I find myself now being,

I almost say a little more open to it because that almost sounds, dismiss it as quickly, that if someone says, oh, my house is haunted, I thought too much about it, but now, have you asked your pastor to come and pray? or have you prayed, have you walked through, either been given? I've just, I've really, pretty is what I had hoped. It's like you said, about skipping. It's not for me. And we have friends who are missionaries in Africa.

Some of their stories, what they hear when they're over there, bigger. Yeah, absolutely. And what you just said about the whole thing's possibly attaching to something. I just had a guy on the show earlier. it was episode 23. I titled the show, A Church's Baphomet. Do you know what a Baphomet is? Yeah. Okay. So this church, his parents, his parents were in the ministry, and they had a unique ministry. And they were working with their own pastor and pastor's wife. They're dealing with something. I can't remember the details. But through the process of this counseling and trying to

work with the couple, the church, his pastor, and his wife. The pastor woke up one night with this just this word in his head, Baphomet. And he didn't understand where that was coming from. He didn't even know what a Baphimet was. And so he went to this guy's parents and told them about what he was hearing, this word Baphimet. And right away, his parents knew exactly what this was. they told him the pastor what it was and they said have you brought in anything to the church that could be you know bringing this on to you or the church or whatever it was and uh he didn't think of anything and so he's walking around the church and looking at different things and trying to figure out what could be it and i guess when he first became the pastor of the church

or early on in his career there somebody had visited the church as a guest and she brought a gift it was like, I think it was like a hand-drawn picture. And I think he said it was like a picture of Jesus on the cross. And so this pastor's looking at this picture of Jesus on the cross. And he's looking real close and he pulls the picture off the wall and he flips it upside down, I think. And there in Jesus's beard is a picture of a Baphomet that somebody drew as, like, you know how in pictures you can have, you know, two pictures and one. if you look at a certain way, you'll see something. Right. Kind of like hidden objects.

Right. Well, that's what this was. And so he immediately, you know, told these people that he found it. He got rid of the picture. Like a week later, the church gets a letter in the mail from the local satanic coven. Now, the pastor didn't even bother opening the letter. He just, you know, threw it out. But for me, relating that back to you, there's definitely things that can

can be attached to, you know, objects. And somehow, somehow that satanic coven knew that they found that picture then and threw it away because that week they sent that letter. And so, I remember during the interview, he suggested that, you know, maybe it was some kind of portal where they were astro projecting into the church or something like that. But either way, yeah, objects can definitely have things attached to it. not in a mean way, but once you go with anything dark, you don't, I don't look at it, I don't read about it, and if it can happen to me and our children and us as a thing, and that's the only reason. I didn't want to scare anybody, being anybody else, and they're churches, and we can't pray enough.

I totally agree with you. Absolutely. I wanted to ask you, brought the pastor, you know, after he told you that the church was cursed. And like you said, I mean, he was very just kind of matter of fact about it. Do you know if he was actually doing anything himself for, you know, to better the church away from this curse? I mean, was he participating in these prayer walks? Do you know if he was doing anything actively pursuing getting rid of this curse? I'm not positive one way or another, because like I said, when I talk with a secretary and the other lady, they seem to be the two at the church.

So I don't know if either he was joining them and praying or leaving it in their hands a little bit, like he did other work at the church. But I do know he had stepped in to help who were having some issues at their house because I can remember a conversation about some experiences that they had to pray in their home that he was, especially if he was either sensitive enough or supportive enough of this, one particular family, I hope that he did. But I don't know if he were. Okay. Yeah, I was just, I was curious because, I mean, if he wasn't active in pursuing this, I mean, it would make sense that the curse would continue if the leadership wouldn't even

touch it. But, you know, I don't know. You did say that the church had this curse on before this pastor came to the church? Yes. Yeah, that was my understanding. It sounded like it was something that happened. I mean, I would even go, so 50 years ago, women should. I know that it was not. Okay. All right. When you were in this church and this whole thing happened, you heard a noise.

What did the noise sound like? It sounded like thumping, not knocking. You know, not a typical. It didn't. The thumping did not scare me. There had to been like a... Okay. You know, you mentioned earlier about how you were the first one there, right?

There was nobody else in the church? There was no one else besides me and our children. Okay. And at what point did people start showing up? Was it like right when it was time to be there? Yeah. Yeah. So the meeting started at 2 o'clock.

We were probably there, 1.30, 140, probably more like 140. And it had to have been, because I remember the only reason I walked over today, area was because I thought, where is everybody? This meeting starts, I do. So it was kind of a joke of, oh, great. The one time I'm on time, we were leaving meeting where the meeting was. Now, hearing that makes me wonder, do people at that church make it a habit to not show up until it's actually time to be there so nobody's actually alone at that church? Oh, that's an interesting. Yeah, that is weird. I hadn't thought of that at all. Well, and knowing that the people that were there were not necessarily church members, with it being a local 4-H club meeting. Now, it does tend to be.

Okay. After we had left, we want to say, now that you'd say that, too, I don't think either one of those ladies would be at the church by themselves. That was like they were ruling there when the secretary of Lindelma was saying. One secretary left and never came back. Even the pastor? The pastor's now gone, too. That's really interesting. graduated, yeah, I want to say it was a few years. Wow.

That's quite an encounter you've had, and I guess it's definitely an eye-opening experience for you. Oh, it changed everything for me. And it's funny because the things that you do to protect yourself, I think we can put ourselves in a situation more easily. You know, I may have, had we not had children, I probably would have stayed. Maybe that was just the mother's care if it's true. possibility that there was a curse that was really, and even to this day, we're building, because again, being in a small town kind of stuff, so you do find the paths that's going to

keep me. I do, and then we want them to be scared. Well, guys, I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing this stuff. I mean, it definitely opens up a door of conversation that isn't really held very often and is very uncomfortable to hold, because nobody wants to talk about churches is being cursed and the possibility of these kind of things happening within a church building. But the reality of matter is it is just a building. Really, it is. I mean, the Bible talks about the body of Christ and how Christians coming together is the body. But the church building is not the body of Christ.

And it can, it's just a building, just like any other building. And when it's empty, it's empty. You know, so I mean, I know that my, upset some people for me to say that, but it's just true. I mean, they're all built the same, you know, so do you have any parting words before we get out of here? The only thing that I can really think of is I just hope that other people, if they go through a similar experience, and that it's real. I think that's the other. If someone does, options, and if you can't help them, because you said it's a subject to talk to them, they should go to,

God is with them. You can tell you running from it doesn't change what happened. Doesn't it say something? I pray that that's what I've done, that by sharing my piece of it, and I know Matt feels the same way with all been made up and use these words to reach someone else. Right. And that we keep.

That's the other really big fig. Well, let me ask you, right before we get out of here, you're saying all this and just made me think, I want to just ask you this one question. Now that you have told me this story, now you told Matt when it happened. Now, I'm the first one you've actually told outside of your marriage. How do you feel after telling this story? It's kind of a combination of things.

I feel a little free, like I'm not grit anymore, and then a little, I don't want to say scared, because that's not the right word, but just confirms. I also feel like I need to learn a whole lot more. I need to, you know, like when I see those scriptures, okay, yes, I know it's true. Now I'm going to go to a scripture that makes me feel good about something that I've got some growing to do. I have some learning to do.

And I don't want us to stick our heads in the sand anymore. So maybe empowered more than anything. That's awesome. Yeah. And how easily the world realizes a whole, I kind of use our kids as, you want to be good examples. Right. You're absolutely right in that.

And, you know, you said something earlier about how, you know, seeking help and going to your pastor and stuff. And, you know, even with that, I would say this. And it's because I speak from experience, I've talked to people that have felt this way, that they go to their pastor for help. And their pastor really doesn't help them very much. And I want people to understand, don't hold it against your pastor that he didn't have the answer for you. a lot of times this kind of stuff is, and now you're talking to somebody who did go to Bible college. Now, I practically failed out of Bible college because I hated some of the classes they had me going to.

I love the Bible classes, but when they had me going to these fine arts classes and medieval ancient world history, I had no interest as an 19-year-old kid. But as somebody who did go to Bible college, these are topics that are not taught in your Bible classes. There is no preparation. I mean, there might be a little bit here and there, but unless you're sitting down with your professors and actually talking to them about these kinds of things to learn about this, it's really not covered in the classes. So I want you to have some grace for your pastors, too, because they may not have the answers that you really actually need. But if you could go to your pastor, let them know what's happening, and together you seek for answers, that's the ideal thing.

So don't go to your pastor thinking he's going to have the answer, and it's going to be like a light switch. He just flicks off for you. It could be a process, and he may not be totally sure. You might be the first person he's ever come in contact with has had a problem like this, and it'll be a learning experience for him as well. So don't go in there with high expectations thinking that your pastor's going to turn to Jesus Christ himself, and everything's going to be great, you know. I'm glad you said that because the church that we switched to,

I did have one conversation with that pastor, and I said, you know, I have, you know, even though he told you that I wouldn't put, and I think that he didn't mean to be so dismissive of me as much as it was he saw a young woman who was scared. I think he wanted to set my mind easy. Wanted from him was him to tell me absolutely everything and why it happened and why it would never happen again. And he just, and I moved past it, but again, it doesn't change it. and doesn't keep it from entering your mind sometimes. Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, the Bible and this whole thing, this theological realm,

I mean, it is so deep and very complex. And, I mean, you got the basics of the gospel and things like that. Because I know there's going to be Christians out there to hear me say that. And like, oh, but what I'm saying is there's so much to learn. And your pastor, he could be in the ministry for 40 years. And if he's not waking up every day trying to look for something new that he hasn't known before, then he's kind of dropping off a little bit because there's so many mysteries and there's so many things to learn about all this stuff. And the whole paranormal supernatural aspect of the Bible and what we deal with here is just a small fraction of what these pastors are actually trying to study and learn and teach other people.

you know, so I don't know why I felt compelled to say that. I just, I guess I'm just trying to stick up for the pastors, because I know there's going to be people out there that, you know, do pursue talking to a pastor, and the pastor may not have the answers, and that's okay. It really is. I don't have the answers. I also forget that our pastors are just human. They've had their training. They've learned so much that they can learn, but they're still human too. And I think sometimes we expect them to be the walking, you've got to know it all and tell me exactly how it is, and that's not the case. So we're just trying to be helpful. I think, and I know I'm babbling on about this, but I do think that a lot of times people

think that their pastor, they may not mentally, you know, actually go there and say this to themselves, but just the idea of it, I feel like they treat their pastors like their pastor has the ability to translate the Bible from the original Hebrew, and there's some kind of scholar. most pastors have a bachelor's degree in pastoral ministry, and they're given a church to preach every Sunday and lead. And that's the extent of their education, four years of Bible college, and the rest of their education comes on their own of being self-taught and studying themselves for the rest of their lives. And most pastors don't have a doctorate in front of their name, and they can't say that they're a Bible scholar. There are some out there that are Bible scholars,

and they literally can, you know, translate the Bible from its original writings. But most pastors do not have that ability. And I think a lot of times people think that their pastor is just some kind of person that has just infinite knowledge of the Bible. And it puts the pastor in a bad spot, too, because the pastor starts thinking, I can't say I don't know to these people because they need the answers. And it kind of creates this environment where the pastor feels this pressure of needing to be the guy all the time.

And that's just not the case. I mean, they're human too, you know? Well, and I don't know about you, but I know sometimes when I do meet that person, that sometimes even if they do have all those, I just may not understand them. You know, I just, gosh, all I wanted was to know is it true or not, or, you know, or whatever they get it. Yeah, I totally get it. And I'm like, no, no, I'm good. Absolutely.

I totally get that. Well, listen, I really appreciate talking to you guys. I think you guys had some incredible experiences that will enlighten other people. And I really appreciate you coming on. Well, thanks for having us. It was a good experience. Yeah, thanks a lot, Tony. Absolutely.

You guys take care, okay? Okay, you too. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, please go ahead and give us a rating and review on your favorite podcatcher. That could be iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, tune in, Podbean. It doesn't matter to me what bean it is. care that you gave us a rating and review if you enjoyed the show. Also, subscribe to us if you

haven't done so already. If you've had an encounter or a story you'd like to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email at the Confessionalspodcast at gmail.com or go to the website, theconfessionalspodcast.com, hit the connection section, and you can reach me that way as well. I hope everybody has a great week and I hope you enjoyed the show. I'll see you next week right here on The Confessionals. I don't know.