Letter Regarding Ross Cook's Abuse

My name is Kayla Nations. Some may remember me in the church by my maiden name, Kayla Mixon. Between the ages of 14 and 19, I was groomed, spiritually abused, psychologically manipulated, and sexually victimized by my youth pastor, Ross Cook. This is my story.

As I am writing this, I am 29 years old. My parents brought our family to Crossroads Baptist Church in Valdosta, GA when I was in middle school. I have 3 younger siblings who went through Ross Cook’s ministry as well that have also been damaged by him. My two brothers are now 27 and 22 and my sister is 20. Our family was at the church almost anytime the doors were open. My dad eventually became a deacon and started teaching a Sunday school class and I have always loved singing. I began singing in church and leading worship consistently throughout my time there. We were all very involved, and it was important to us as a family to be involved in the local church.

However, without uncovering people I love, growing up as a teenager was hard and that made me extremely vulnerable throughout my time at Crossroads. I was often broken, sad, lonely, and felt like I had to grow up quickly as the oldest of 4 kids. Looking back, I probably seemed okay outwardly, but not a lot of people knew what was happening internally. Only few knew what I was going through mentally and emotionally due to circumstances completely out of my control. I don’t think that I had even fully processed it or understood the gravity of it back then because I was still a teenager and in my formative years. As children, we do our best to cope with trauma that we sometimes don’t fully see until we become adults. I tried really hard to bury my hurt and I think I did a pretty good job of it. I stayed very busy with school, church, friends and relationships, as well as lots of extracurricular activities. In 9th grade, I met our new youth pastor, Ross Cook.

Ross came to Crossroads my freshman year of high school when I was 14. I remember meeting him in the back parking lot of the church while walking to the youth building and thinking he was kind and friendly. I was excited he was our new youth pastor. The summer after my 9th grade year of school our youth group took a trip to a Student Life camp. This camp is where I truly met Jesus. When the gospel was preached in one of the services, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time. By God's grace, I finally saw Jesus in all His glory and His love for me. I sat in the service at 14 years old and sobbed asking myself how God could ever love me and how I never wanted to be away from Him again.

One of the first people at camp to know about my salvation was Ross. He was so happy for me and said he wanted to help guide me in my walk with God. He seemed genuinely interested in my life and my spiritual life by asking a lot of detailed questions. We talked about my life and my family, but he was mostly interested in my relationship with my boyfriend at the time. During our conversation at camp he asked a strange amount of sexual questions about our relationship. He asked me about my purity and asked for specific sexual details. I had never been asked that by a pastor or an adult male ever before, and I felt taken aback. He asked me if my boyfriend and I were having sex and I told him we were not. However, even after I said we were not having sex he still kept pressing me and began asking if I had done anything else sexually with him. He kept prying and specifically asked for more information once again. I felt so uncomfortable with him prying into those details, but he kept telling me I could trust him completely and tried to coerce me by saying he would never tell anyone. At 14 years old, there was no way for me to see how inappropriate that was. It was not only inappropriate for him to be asking and pressuring me for that kind of information, but it was also not ok for him to keep something like that from my parents. Even though I felt uncomfortable and pressured, I thought that I could trust him more than anyone else in my life because of his encouragement, reassurance, and his position as my youth pastor. I felt awkward, but I was always honest with him over the years as sexual questions was a regular topic of conversation throughout our relationship. He continued to tell me that it was important to be honest with him, and that he would not tell anyone.

In the beginning, and throughout our relationship, he constantly said he loved and cared about me and wanted to help guide me. He told me he wanted me to come to him for anything. He also told me many times that I was special to him. Coming from the internally hard place I was often in at home, that felt so encouraging. He knew every detail of what I was going through and told me that he viewed me like a daughter. He told me to trust him. He told me over and over again that he wanted to make sure I knew he was there for me and to always come to him if I had any questions, needed any advice, or even if I just needed encouragement. That might sound normal to you, and I thought it was too, but this encouragement/push to come to him for anything and everything wasn't being said just once a month or once a week, it was constant. Some days I didn't have anything new to tell him because he was constantly asking me all week already by checking in. I didn’t have a female spiritual mentor in my life specifically discipling me. There were female leaders at the church over the years, but after I became a Christian, Ross told me that he took guiding and leading me very seriously, and said he felt called by God to specifically disciple me. No youth pastor should be specifically discipling, calling, texting, messaging, and coming to see a teenage girl...day after day and night after night. Parents, this is a huge red flag of grooming.

After Student Life camp, he was constantly involved in my life. He wanted my phone number and began texting and calling consistently. He never stepped back from "discipling me" to lead me to a female leader instead. He constantly told me that he wanted to be that mentor for me. I thought this was strange at the time too, but I trusted him. That summer of 2007, and throughout my time at Crossroads, I was always at the church and went to every event. No matter where we went outside as a group, Ross would always find his way next to me. Whether it was sitting next to me at a Braves game, joking around with me at a pool party, being a leader at Vacation Bible School, or having a lake day. After knowing my struggle internally to feel loved and seen, he told me he wanted me to feel loved and seen and told me I was important to him. This was intentional for what was to come, and this is another grooming tactic. Groomers often heavily insert themselves into their victim's life to find out where they are most vulnerable, and then use that as a way to get close to them.

His behavior in the relationship got more and more blurry and more inappropriate going into my sophomore year when I was 15 and throughout my junior year at 16. Slowly and steadily he began crossing one line after another while continuing to tell me I could trust him and that he loved me. He texted and called me consistently throughout almost every week. He would text me randomly to tell me he was praying for me and that he loved me. He also sent me Bible verses, sermons, songs, and would often say that he hoped I was having a good day or a good week. He would always ask how I was doing and how he could be praying for me. He initiated almost all of our conversations. At the time, I only felt loved. There was no way for me to see it from an adult perspective. This was all I knew and I trusted him.

Over the years we talked about anything and everything. We were extremely close. We talked all the time, almost every day, and would talk about life, God, our families, relationships, ministry, our pasts, our struggles, and different parts of our lives. He confided in me about his life and sins that he struggled with at the time and also in his past. He said we could relate to each other and instead of saying I was like a daughter to him, he started calling me his sister and his friend. He told me I wasn’t alone in my sin, my suffering, and in the relationships and circumstances around me that were out of my control. He said he would always be there to walk through life with me. He solidified my trust and our bond very early on.

These texts, calls, and conversations would happen in cycles. We would go through cycles where we spoke all the time for months outside of and inside church events. The only time the cycles would break were during holidays, trips or vacations, special occasions, big life events, and when I worked away at a christian summer camp as a counselor. Even throughout the summer I was away at camp without my phone, he would still message me on Facebook late at night to check in on me and see how I was doing. We talked about everything, but the common theme was always to make sure I knew how much he loved and cared about me and how much I meant to him. He would always end our conversations on the phone and in-person with “Love you, mean it” and I trusted him. I trusted him more than anyone else in my life. I thought our relationship was good and true…and I did feel loved and seen. He pursued me consistently. The amount of time we spent seeing each other at church or church events, outside of church at our homes, with my family and his family, at my school, as well as the amount of time we spent talking on the phone or texting was immeasurable. He wanted to be a guide for me, and I saw him as a guide in my life. After all of that pursuit and encouragement, I fully believed he was like a father, mentor, and shepherd in my life. We were family. He told me that I was special and important to him over and over again, and I felt so fortunate that he cared about me amid my pain and loneliness. He told me to call him when things got hard at home so I would call him, and him and Wendy would let me stay the night with them. I was grateful.

When I saw him in person it wasn’t the normal kind of running into each other at church functions, it was obsessive behavior and infatuation. On Sundays, he would often go out of his way to look for me and find me before and after services. If he was doing announcements in the sanctuary he would look to find me in the crowd on the stage and would stare directly at me off and on while he talked to the congregation. He would find me before and after services to talk and hug as well as making sure to say “love you, mean it.” He would also take me on church errands with him and told me not to tell anyone because he wasn’t allowed to be doing that alone with me. He told me our alone time had to be a secret. These “secrets” I now know as an adult, was part of the pattern of his grooming. The secret discussions about sex often, and the secret hang outs when we were alone were both part of him gaining trust and building a bond. Even though I had no idea of what his intentions really were at the time, I did start to feel conflicting feelings of awkwardness and feeling loved. I knew it wasn’t quite right or normal, but I didn’t understand what it was or where that was coming from. He seemed constantly genuine, kind, and loving. So I pushed those feelings under the rug and went off of what I thought was true, which was the love and care he said he had for me.

Phone conversations and church events turned into meet-ups or hangouts alone outside of the church. On Wednesday nights it was the same behavior at church until he started coming by my house after everyone went home. It would start with a text or a phone call later in the evening asking what I was doing and if he could come by. Without my parents knowing, he wanted to come by after church usually somewhere between 8 pm to 10 pm. This continued on most Wednesday nights, but over time he started contacting me to come by on completely random nights as well. It was often during the week on school nights. I would get a text or call usually between 10 pm and 1 am on random nights. He always had some reason for why he was out and about during the middle of the night. He would tell me he needed to go to Walmart to get something for Wendy, the kids, or he would say he needed something for himself that made him leave the house. Sometimes he would say he was dealing with some kind of situation that I didn’t know about. The texts or calls would start with him asking what I was doing and/or if I was up. Sometimes it would just be “You up?” After that, there was usually a random reason he would tell me he was out for, followed by asking if he could come by. He would ask me to come outside and we would hang out in the driveway, my parent's garage, or his car.

During these nights is when he started crossing physical lines. After we would say hello, we would hug and the hugging for only a few seconds the first night turned into him hugging and holding me for 5 minutes over time. Over more time and more nights of hanging out, 5 minutes turned into 30 minutes. 30 minutes of him holding and hugging me tightly for very long periods of time, alone. We never talked about it. It went unspoken. It was like we both knew it was happening, but he acted as though it was completely normal and like it was out of love for me. It became our normal, and I started to expect that it had to happen every time we would see each other. There was never a time that we would hang out alone and not have those long hugs. He would hold me standing up towards each other in the garage, in the driveway standing in front of or against his car, and sometimes even in his car. Our bodies were completely against each other and his face was often not even an inch away from mine. He would always end the hugs by looking at me in my eyes, while still holding me, and telling me how much he loved and cared about me. He was not even an inch away from my face when he would say this, and then he would kiss me on both of my cheeks, often very close to my lips, before ending the embrace and leaving. A few times he would also kiss me on my forehead. Looking back, it was exactly the way I hug and hold my husband now. The only difference is that Ross didn’t kiss me on the lips. He did everything but kiss me on the lips in those hugs. His hands would often rub my back and shoulders while he lay his head on top of mine. He would grab me by my waist and hold or caress my face often as well while we held each other and talked, and there were some times that we didn’t talk much at all while it was happening. This was also when he started telling me I was beautiful. He continued telling me that during our alone time together and also at church events throughout the years to come. This began when I was 15 years old and continued for years.

During one of the nights that he was at my house, my parents happened to get out of bed and realized I wasn’t in the house. They came outside around 9 or 10 pm and came through the back door near the garage while we were hanging out standing by his car in the driveway. We heard them come out so he wasn’t hugging me as they came through the garage. My dad was immediately confused and irritated and asked him what he was doing at our house so late. He told him to leave as my mom was also confused and frustrated and said “What do you think Wendy would think about this?” He didn’t say much, sort of laughed, brushed it off and eventually left. When they asked me about it, I told them he was just coming by to say hello as this wasn’t abnormal for him to do even when they were around. He came by all the time to see my entire family. They didn’t know he had been coming over late at night. After that night, they thought it was strange and did not want him there again late at night, but like me they trusted him and his intentions so we left it at that. However, he continued the secret late-night hangouts alone with me as I turned 16, even after this encounter with my parents. He had no regard or respect for them and what they said.

There was another night that he texted me asking to come by and see me while I was at a sleepover. I told him I was at a friends house, who was another student in our youth group at the time. Her family were also members at Crossroads. He did not care at all that I was there, and still asked if he could come by anyway. I felt so awkward that he wanted to come by while I wasn’t at home, but I felt pressured into it and didn’t want him to be upset with me. He drove up on her street very late that night, to a house that wasn't my friend's, even though he knew which house was hers. He also didn’t want to see my friend, even though she was another student in his ministry. I thought that was strange at the time too. He only wanted to see me, so I walked outside to him at his car. He hugged me for a few minutes there. After those few minutes, my friend wanted him to leave and I told him I had to go back in. It was so awkward. My friend ended up telling her parents he had come by. Her mother called my mom the morning after to tell her about him coming by and how she felt it was strange and inappropriate.

Recently, at the end of September 2021, I talked to my friend about this night and found out what she remembered. For the sake of the investigation, I did not reach out to her before or after I sent the letter to the church. On September 2nd of this year, my husband and I sent my letter detailing Ross’s abuse to Garrett Grubbs, the senior pastor at Crossroads. Without ever speaking to me, they hired a defense lawyer to investigate my letter. We found out through an email from their lawyer. I asked my friend what she told him after he contacted her, and her exact words to me in a text message that I have a screenshot of, is as follows: “I told him that Ross always paid extra attention to you and that I had even told you that your relationship made me uncomfortable because of how much attention he gave you. I also shared about the night he came to my house and I made him leave and the phone call he made to me a few days later intimidating me trying to make me think it was fine. I shared how I could see how he hugged on you differently and would sit too close to you on the bench swings and that there were lots of secluded conversations and times where I would walk up to the barn (our youth building at the time) and y’all would be alone. I told him that Ross’s behavior drastically changed towards me as well when I brought up my concerns and that was a big red flag especially with how defensive he was. I told him that in college I remember you coming to my apartment and sharing with me that the relationship for whenever it was came to an abrupt halt but I never pried about specifics just that you had admitted to me that it in fact was not an appropriate relationship.” As you keep reading, you will see in detail what she was referring to.

I have another friend who wasn’t a student at Crossroads, but still witnessed his inappropriate relationship with me. She was often around when Ross came by my house and would sometimes come to Crossroads functions with me. She was also one of the people I confided in about some of what he did to me after I left Crossroads at 19. Recently, after informing Crossroads Baptist Church about Ross and his abuse, I wanted to reach out to her to ask if she remembered anything strange about him back then that I may not remember. I did this for the sake of the investigation and to see if she had witnessed anything he did. She told me that she remembers one day that was particularly a red flag during our high school years. It was a day when her and some others were hanging out at my house, and Ross came by and had brought us all some kind of treat. She said she will never forget him coming back to my bedroom where we were all hanging out and after he gave us what he brought, he looked at my friend and asked her “Hey, do you mind if I have a minute alone with Kayla?” Her and the others left my room and went to the living room while he came in my bedroom and shut the door. She said it was so awkward and obvious that something wasn’t right. She also remembers him laying on my bed when he would come over and how strange she felt it was even back then. She also said there were other students that noticed his behavior towards me and talked to her about us possibly having an inappropriate relationship. I never viewed Ross in a romantic way. I was so psychologically conditioned to love and trust him as a mentor that I never even questioned his intentions, and had no idea other students were making that assumption.

There were other times that he wanted to be alone with me at church as well in secret. Sometimes I would go by the church for different things because I was so involved or he would ask me to come by while he was there working. Sometimes he would take me from his office up to “the barn” to be alone. There was one day we were there and instead of standing while holding and hugging me, he sat on a stool, took my hands, and pulled me between his legs. The hug began and every detail was the same as every one before. These usually lasted from 10 to 20 minutes at the church. He would sit and ask how my day was going and how I was doing while he hugged me. At the time I felt like everything he did was out of love and it was so hard to question him. I tried to see it as just another “normal” day in the life of our relationship.

Over time, these nightly and church hangouts turned into daytime hangouts as well at my house during days I wasn’t at school. They happened the most during the summer when I was not in school and my parents weren’t home. He would come over during the week in the middle of his workday. Sometimes he would stay for 15 minutes and other days he would stay for hours. If my siblings were home with me, he would come by and sometimes want to hang out and talk secretly in the garage, or up in the back of the driveway if he wanted to be physically touching me. There was one summer day that he was hugging me for a very long time in the garage and it lasted 30 minutes or so. My brother Bryce saw us while he was in our breezeway that connected our garage to the back door of the house. He had been playing outside and happened to see Ross hugging me in the garage when he went to go inside. Instead of going in the back door, he got nervous because he didn’t want us to know that he saw us and instead went into our playroom. Our playroom was attached to the garage, breezeway, and the back of our house. He knew immediately when he saw us that it was extremely strange and that something was wrong so he waited for him to leave through a window in the playroom and then finally went inside the house. He still remembers it to this day. It was such a calculated and slow progression of inappropriate behavior over time, so I hardly noticed how deeply wrong it was and how I was being manipulated and groomed while it was happening. At the time it just felt normal. This was all I knew, and I trusted him.

There were other days he would come by when no one was home except me. He would come inside and we would hang out in the living room mostly, but sometimes we would also be in the kitchen or my bedroom. The amount of time he stayed was different depending on the day. Sometimes he would spend hours of his workday with me at my house alone. One day we were on the couch in our living room and when we hugged he pulled me to his lap. My legs were over his. I felt uncomfortable then but he was making jokes, laughing, and talking like he always did. I didn’t understand then what was happening to me. I tried to sweep the awkwardness under the rug again and again because I didn’t know what to say or do. He was always telling me how much he loved and cared for me, and I didn’t want to lose him or upset him if I said anything.

There was one day that he was at my house with me alone and I was crying about something that had happened. I was sitting on the floor sobbing in my room while Ross held me in his arms sitting right beside me. He wanted me to feel that he was always there no matter what. There wasn’t anything he didn’t know about me or my life and he told me all about himself and his life too. He seemed to also share everything with me. As a teenager, I was a child. Young, innocent, and naive. I never once had romantic feelings or intentions for him. I trusted him when he told me he was a mentor, a father, a brother, and a friend to me. He placed himself on a pedestal in my life. He made me feel like I needed him. I didn't go looking for him. He came after me, and inserted himself into every detail of my life. When a child has someone constantly involved in their life, day after day, inserting themselves into everything and telling that child to tell them everything...that child is bound to feel loved and like they can trust that person the most. Teens, still in their formative years, form a bond and are psychologically attached in multiple ways. He told me I could trust him more than anyone. So many years of crossing boundary after boundary, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Inching closer and closer to what he secretly wanted from me. It was such a long, detailed, and calculated relationship. He was constantly telling me not only how much he loved and cared for me, but that he knew God had great plans for me and that there was a big calling in my life to do ministry, to lead worship, and to be a leader in the church. He was always telling me how wise and mature I was in the faith and how proud of me he was, all while having secret sexual and romantic intentions. The flattery he gave to make me feel safe and loved was immeasurable. Constant flattery is also part of the grooming process.

After some time, I did start to feel like something wasn’t right. I couldn’t quite express it in words or understand it, but something felt off. One day he wanted to come by not long after one of his children were born. We were sitting on a large chair in the corner of our living room alone during the summer, and he told me that he was struggling at home. He didn’t elaborate too much, but I remember wondering why he would ever want to mention that to me. That was such a private detail about his marriage, and I felt so bad for Wendy. I was so confused by him being there at all because I thought he should have been at home with her and their new baby. There was another time that he talked to me about Wendy and where she was at in her walk with God at the time. I did not understand this at all, and I felt sad again that he had shared something private about her with me because I genuinely loved Wendy. I thought highly of Wendy and looked up to her. He always shared things with me like I was one of his friends. Sometimes it wasn’t as shocking, but other times he would share things that I knew he should have never been talking about with me.

After I left these strange conversations, I kept feeling like something was off. He came by my house one day to see me during the summer in the middle of the day. I met him in the garage and he went to start hugging and holding me like usual. It lasted maybe 5 to 10 minutes and I started feeling awkward. I backed away from him a few feet and said these exact words to him: “I feel awkward because I just don’t know how Wendy would feel about this.” He backed away from me and didn’t say anything. He just laughed awkwardly, brushed it off, and left. I was so nervous because it was the first time I had ever said anything like this in those couple of years. Even though I felt like I was right to say that, I was questioning it because of his response afterward. He never talked to me about it, never mentioned it to me, never changed his behavior in the long run, and cut me out to make me feel like I was the one in the wrong. He ended up punishing me for it. Maybe in hindsight it was actually just that he got nervous, but his behavior never changed and only got worse after that so I don’t think so. We went from talking and seeing each other all the time and having this deep, close, and personal relationship for years to him ignoring me for a couple of months. During that time he made me feel so ashamed. He intentionally made me feel like I was wrong to have said that to him. I eventually ended up reaching out and saying I was sorry if I made him feel uncomfortable. I was convinced and so manipulated to think that I was the problem. He really made me believe that by acting like I had hurt him. At the time, I just wanted him back in my life again because I felt so bad that I had hurt him. After those couple of months, the cycles started right back to how they were before. I apologized and we started talking and hanging out again all the time. He never brought up what I had said about Wendy.

When I was 16, I started my first job. I wasn’t able to have my phone on me or respond to messages or calls during work and sometimes when I couldn’t respond, Ross’s behavior became more obsessive. One day while I was working, Ross was texting me. Once I looked at my phone, I saw where he had texted me multiple times over the past few hours. I was not able to respond and when I came outside from my shift at work I found him in his car with all of his kids in the parking lot waiting for me. I asked him why he was there and he said he was worried about me because I didn’t respond. It was awkward, but I still couldn’t decipher between feeling awkward and feeling loved. He had blurred those lines so well, especially after cutting me off after the comment I had made before. I want to be clear that there was no reason for me to not be ok. Nothing was going on for him to be worried, and especially not for him to show up at my work. I knew it was simply because I didn’t respond when he wanted me to and he wanted to know where I was and what I was doing. My high school boyfriend at the time even thought the way he inserted himself into my life was strange.

He was also extremely close to my family. He wanted to be involved in the lives of my siblings and seemed to care about all of us. He was always ready and willing to give advice or help out with situations. I wasn’t the only one who trusted him. My brothers, my sister, and my parents trusted him too. He would come by our house all the time, so much so that sometimes my parents even thought it was a little too much. Although, at the time it wasn’t enough for them to question him or to think he had bad intentions. It was just enough to be a little strange but not enough to see his true intentions towards me. There was one year that he actually came by our house on Christmas Day. We all thought it was strange. Why wasn’t he home with his family? Still, he had me and my family trusting him completely. The family trust was an important part of his abuse and grooming. He used my family. He used our suffering and used my younger siblings as a way to get close to me. Once I left the church, he had hardly anything to do with my siblings or my family as a whole even though he had also built close relationships with them for years and gained their trust as well. It wasn’t just me he pretended to care about. They were still youth students when I left and had no idea about what he had done to me. All they knew is that Ross didn’t care about them anymore. They have their own hurt that they have had to process from Ross before even knowing about the abuse he did to me. Tyler, Bryce, and Shelby have all cried and been devastated over what Ross has done. My parents have as well. We were all fooled. We were all blind. We all trusted him. Along with my abuse, thinking about them is one of the things that still, to this day, make me cry. Not only was I robbed of so much and abused by the very person entrusted to love and lead me spiritually, but my family and my younger siblings were robbed of ever having a good and true youth pastor as well. Instead, we were all given trauma at Crossroads.

Throughout this time, when I was 16, people also started to see him favoring me. My parents saw it in how much he was at our house, how much he called me, how often he was around me inside and outside of church, as well as how much he was involved in our lives. At the time, they thought that the behavior they and others saw was such a fine line between him being caring, loving, and intentional vs being too close with boundary issues. He was so beloved by everyone, by me, and my family. It was extremely hard and difficult to ever think negatively of him, even when there were strange and awkward moments. One of the detectives that read my letter in Valdosta told me that sadly, people always say “Oh, he would never do that. He couldn’t possibly have ever done anything to abuse someone.” He said he hears this all the time, and most of the time the accusations are true. People don’t want to believe that someone so trusted could abuse someone, and especially not someone who is put in a leadership position as an example of the love of Jesus. However, almost every claim of church abuse is accurate. Statistically speaking, according to a third party organization hired by churches called Ministry Safe, 92%-98% of all abuse claims in the church are true. Part of the reasons victims don’t come forward is because of the pain of not being believed. Again, we all trusted him and he gained that trust. He knew exactly what he was doing. However, no one had any idea of the depth of his relationship with me and what he did in private, behind closed doors.

My mom specifically remembers a moment where she saw and heard him favoring me to another student. It was during a day at church when another female student came to ask him about leading worship. I was not there for this conversation but my mom overheard it. He emphatically shut this student down by saying something along the lines of, “No, that’s only for Kayla.” She said that he did not even give this student a second thought about being able to also use their gift of singing in the church. She thought it was so strange and thought he was very clearly favoring me. Favoritism is another huge part of grooming.

My friend, who was at the sleepover I mentioned earlier, also had a conversation with me about how she felt like he favored me over her and other students, and she didn’t understand why I got so much special attention. She and others often saw him give me a lot of attention at church, but it was also at places like summer camps, youth trips, and extra events as well. I felt so sad that she felt that way and decided to talk to Ross about it one day when he was at my house hanging out. I told him what she told me and that I felt bad that she felt that way. He told me that he was so close to me because he felt called by God specifically to disciple me. He told me that Jesus only had 12 disciples and that I was one of his. He said it was impossible for him to be intentional with every single student. I told him I understood, believed him, and trusted that he was doing the right thing.

When I turned 17, I was going into my senior year at Lowndes High School. Everything stayed the same as the years before. Our relationship only grew closer during the school year. I was still very involved at church, still leading worship and going to every service and event. Nothing had changed with his behavior, and how much we talked and saw one another. I knew we were extremely close, I knew I was special to him, and I knew we had a unique relationship even though I did not understand it fully. My boyfriend still thought our relationship was strange, but it wasn’t going anywhere. To me at the time, our bond was unbreakable and we were both very important to each other. Ross was always trying to get me to break up with whoever I was dating. He didn’t like me having a boyfriend. I was psychologically manipulated for years. I was so blind to the reality of his intentions and thought our relationship was completely normal. We still had the same relationship as we always did in my senior year, and he continued to walk through my life with me in everything. He continued to come by on Wednesday nights, random nights, and he talked to me all throughout the school year. However, I was getting older and he intentionally kept building my trust and the closeness of our relationship. He started inching closer and closer to eventually tell me his true intentions. He always supported me in my events outside of the church, came to all my shows I did in musical theater at the high school, came to my graduation, and said he wanted to help me in my transition into college. Again, he was involved in everything.

During my senior year I created a Facebook account. Ross mainly texted, called, or saw me in person, but he also used Facebook after I made an account. Compared to our phone conversations, our Facebook conversations were only a tiny percent of our communication. However, he began messaging me late at night on Facebook as well. If he saw that I was online, he would try to start a conversation with me or he would just send me a message saying he was thinking about me or ask how I was doing. He would also send me random songs, sermons, or links. One night after 10pm, he even sent a link to a picture he posted of us. Mostly all late at night between 9pm and 12am. Only once did I initiate a Facebook conversation and it was about a reference for a job. The rest of our conversations were initiated by him. He was more careful on Facebook so he didn’t ever ask to come by to see me on there. He always called or texted for that, but he used it sometimes at home as another way to talk with me.

He was also always commenting on a lot of my posts. It was an abnormal amount after how much we talked already. He was constantly doing anything he could to interact with me. If I posted that I was coming home from a trip and couldn’t wait to see my boyfriend, he would say things like “Oh you just miss him? Come on Kayla, that hurts us deeply.” He always said it like a joke, but I knew it was strange.

I have all of our direct messages on Facebook, and every comment he’s ever posted, saved as screenshots...so I have proof of all of our Facebook communication. He also shared things with me in these messages that he should have never been talking to me about. One of our conversations in 2011 had to do with another youth pastor in Valdosta who at the time was caught having a romantic relationship with a middle school student. He told me who the church was, who the pastor was, and also the name of the victim. He shared extremely private information about these people with me, a teenager. At the time I didn’t realize how wrong it was for him to share that with me, but reading these messages again now as an adult, it is clearly a major breach of confidence. That was how our relationship was though. He was always talking to me about things he shouldn’t have been while telling me to not tell anyone and that it was our secret.

During the summer after my senior year, it was my last summer as a youth student. There were many planned summer events and a summer camp as usual. I started feeling like he was being too clingy to me during these events and I began to feel awkward again. When he would drive the church bus during some of the events, he would often look up in the rearview mirror and stare at me. I always thought people were going to notice and felt nervous because of what my friend had said to me in the past. While we were at Student Life camp that summer I tried sitting a couple of rows ahead of him during the church service, but during the worship part he came up to my row and found me. He hugged me hello, stood and worshipped beside me, and then sat right next to me for the service. It’s not that I didn’t want him there because I thought our relationship was normal, but I just felt awkward with what others might be thinking after what I had been told and what I shared with him. Still, he didn’t seem to care because even after the service was over as we walked into the lobby area he did something that made me feel even more awkward. Our group was all coming together getting ready to leave among many other church groups so there were a lot of people around. It was pretty chaotic, but everything was good. I was with the group, but he started asking everyone around saying “Where’s Kayla? Where’s Kayla?” I replied I was there and we started leaving. To everyone else, it probably seemed like nothing. To me, it seemed like he was being clingy and obsessive again, and I felt so uncomfortable. He wasn’t finding and sitting with other specific students or asking where other students were, it was just me. I don’t know if anyone noticed it and thought it was strange. Looking back I’ve often wondered if anyone noticed anything or thought things about the way he acted towards me, but I think everyone trusted him like we did. To be able to do what he did to me required a severe hardening of his heart as well as a very well thought out pattern of manipulation. My family and I were not the only ones fooled. He fooled everyone. Looking back, it was like he had a secret life with me and a separate facade to others.

I began my freshman year of college in August of 2010 and turned 18. Our relationship continued. I went to school in Valdosta and stayed at Crossroads. I began to be a part of the college ministry and started leading worship for the college services as well. I did start to distance myself some during this year. There were still the nightly hangouts, long hugs, touching, kisses on my face, texting, and calling, but I didn’t see him as much. This was also the year that the photo attached to this blog post, of me and my mom, was taken. You can see how young I really was, even during this last year I was at Crossroads, so you can imagine an even younger teenager for all the abuse in my years prior. At this point in time, I was transitioning in my life outside of the youth group and starting college.

The summer after my freshman year of college I decided to work at a Christian youth camp for girls in North Carolina. He was supportive and happy for me. I was gone for the entire summer for 9 weeks. I wasn’t allowed to have my phone on me during camp sessions due to the camp rules so we didn’t talk much at all. There was one time he texted me to tell me how much he missed me, loved me, and couldn’t wait to hear all about my experience when I got back. He also messaged me a few times on Facebook during the summer, and they were once again all mostly late at night.

When I returned from camp he messaged me on Facebook about coming over to my house and wanted to hear all about my summer. He had gone by my house a bunch of times already to see me, but I hadn’t been there. That summer had truly changed my life so much. I had grown so much in my relationship with God and grown more in those 9 weeks than I had in the few years prior. When he came over, we talked for a while. He also talked about his summer as well with the youth students and said how much he missed seeing me. He went to hug me goodbye and it was shorter than what it used to be. I felt relieved. I wasn’t sure then why I felt relieved, but I did feel like maybe we were starting over in our relationship. However, a few weeks later after turning 19 in August, the cycles started over again. I started going back to Crossroads after being gone for the summer and started my fall semester of college. Although, it started very slow and more cautiously. He started texting me and calling to see how I was doing each week and then started asking to come by at night again. Sometimes it was on Wednesdays after he left the church, but it was often on random nights again as well. I had also gotten a new job in retail at the mall and would often work until 10 pm. Throughout my shifts at work, he started coming by randomly. In the evening he would just show up. Sometimes he would come by himself and other times he would have his kids with him as well.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this cycle had a specific endpoint for him. I had no idea what was coming ahead. I still trusted him. I still told him everything. He still said how much he loved and cared for me. He helped guide me and was there for me in every detail of my life. I fully believed him. That December of 2011 everything changed. He crossed the line and revealed his true intentions towards me.

It was mid-December and I was working until closing time that night. I got off work around 10 pm and Ross wanted me to come over to his house. This was the first time that he ever asked me to come over to his house for a late-night hangout. They were always at mine, but it was never abnormal for our relationship to hang out late so I said that I would. When I arrived, he let me in and the girls were all in their beds asleep. I didn’t know Wendy was gone until after I arrived. She was in Haiti on a mission trip. I immediately felt awkward. There was something different about being invited there, her not being there, and the girls being asleep that already felt different to me than before. We hugged and sat down on his couch. We started having small talk and he asked me how work had been that night. I said it was good and then he inched closer to me sitting right next to me with his legs touching mine. He started trying to tickle me. He had never tickled me before. He kept tickling me in my stomach. I didn’t know what was happening. He then asked if I wanted to watch tv and grabbed me to hug and hold me. He held me sitting on the couch and then he pulled me down to cuddle. I felt like I was in slow motion when he pulled me down. I was so confused so I just froze. We had never cuddled before. He pulled me down to lay in front of him as he lay down behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and my breasts and we were spooning. I could feel him fully erect behind me on my butt. His breath and lips were on my neck and we spooned for a while. I immediately felt violated and sexually harassed. I was in shock. I was sweating and my heart was racing. I was also in a dress so as a woman in that position, I felt he had even easier access to violate me if he wanted to. I was scared as he started telling me how beautiful I was. My heart rate was high and I felt nauseous. I completely froze. I was scared. I eventually worked up the courage to sit up. I can’t remember what the reason was but I said something to get out of the cuddle. Somehow we started talking about music and he said he had a computer in his bedroom where I could show him some songs that I liked. He told me to come in there with him so I did. I was so nervous so I just did whatever he wanted to do. We went into his bedroom and he sat back on his bed with his back against the wall behind their bed, his legs up on the bed, and his hands and fingers crossed together. I stayed by the computer desk by their bedroom door. He told me I could show him some music so I sat at the desk and started playing some songs I had just recently been listening to. I was doing anything I could do to distract him and to distract myself from the way I was feeling. I did not want to be back in that position physically with him. I eventually somehow got us to move back to the living room. I never got close to him in the bedroom or their bed. We sat back down on the couch in their living room and I was feeling extremely confused, overwhelmed, nervous, and also physically ill. I remember feeling like I had to ask him what he was doing and what was happening. We sat on the couch talking and I faced him and he faced me. This time we were sitting face to face about a foot apart and not side to side. I worked up enough courage to ask if I could ask him some questions. He said yes, but I could tell he felt nervous. We had never ever discussed anything about our relationship or what he did physically with me. It all went unspoken for years. It happened, but we didn’t talk about it. I told him I was confused about our relationship. I told him I felt awkward with how he was acting and what he was doing and the only way I was able to get the words out was to ask him these words specifically “Who am I to you?" I will never forget what he said in response. He looked at me, paused for a moment, and then said “My wife.” My stomach dropped and I thought I was going to throw up. I didn’t say anything immediately. We paused looking at each other, and then he told me again saying, “I wish you were my wife.” He also said while I sat there in silence “It’s always been hard, but it’s gotten a lot harder now that you’re older.” I had nothing to say in response. I was in shock, and I immediately felt the strongest urge I have ever felt in my life from the Holy Spirit to run. I knew He was telling me at that moment to run as fast as I could. I told him nervously that I needed to go home. I stood up and while he was still sitting on the couch he pulled me to himself to hug me. He pulled me to stand in front of him between his legs. He put his arms around me and lay his head on my breasts. He sat there that way and said to me “Aww, I don’t want you to go.” He looked up at me and I looked down at him and said that I had to go. He said, “Aww, okay.” I said bye and went out the door and to my car as fast as I could. I drove home around 3 am feeling numb. I never thought of him that way or wanted him in that way.

The next morning I told someone in my family everything. My boyfriend at the time also knew I was over there in the middle of the night and was upset about it. I never told him any details about what Ross did, but I told this family member everything that happened about the night before. They were also in shock. However, they also told me that everything he had done in the years leading up to this made so much more sense to them now. They said that they always knew he favorited me too much and now the reason was clear. I was still in so much shock and trying to process everything so I told them I did not want them to tell anyone. I was scared and asked them to keep this a secret. I didn’t understand what happened to me and neither one of us knew the term grooming or what it meant at the time. All I knew at the time was that he made a huge mistake that night and crossed a line, but due to all the grooming, psychological manipulation, and abuse of his role in my life, I couldn’t piece the relationship together as a whole. I couldn’t see the reality of what he had done fully from ages 14-19. I was so blinded to it. That took me years to see.

Later that morning I called him to see what he had to say about everything. He answered nervously and told me he “had been in the word all morning.” He asked me to please not tell anyone because it would ruin his reputation and his family. He told me that nothing happened and he was so glad. He kept saying how glad he was that “nothing happened.” He said he had been repenting all morning and told me that everything was fine. He never apologized to me and downplayed it immensely, but I was so intimidated and felt like I was under his control so I listened mostly and just tried to agree. I ended up just submitting to whatever he said and we got off the phone. We didn’t talk the rest of December and I didn’t go to church. Submission—that was my survival.

In January, the college ministry had a trip planned to go to the Passion conference. I had already been on the list to go. I still hadn’t gone to church again or talked to Ross as the date for Passion was approaching. I was in the back room at my job in retail one day when he called me. I answered. He sounded awkward but also in control. He said he “wanted to touch base with me” about the Passion conference and asked if I was still planning to go. I hadn’t decided what to do. I was still in a lot of shock, but Crossroads was my church home. I was still very involved and that was my church family, so I decided to still go. I told him I was still planning on going and he told me that was fine but he “wanted to make sure we were good.” He didn’t bring anything up, didn’t elaborate, and didn’t apologize, so I didn’t bring it up and said we were good. He wanted to ignore everything and sweep it under the rug. I still felt intimidated so I stayed silent. Silence—this was another survival mode.

Passion came and I went. It was the first time I had been back to the church or seen him. I was immediately triggered with anxiety and I felt physically sick. He ignored and avoided me the entire trip that I was there for. He acted like he didn’t know me and I hadn’t made many new college friends so I also felt alone. I ended up telling my parents I was sick not long after we got there. I was sick but it was not due to a virus. It was due to the trauma. He and a few other students drove me to the airport and my family flew me home. That was the last time I ever went to Crossroads. I never went back and I never heard from him or anyone from Crossroads. That was the end of our relationship.

For months I didn’t go anywhere for church. I was in such a deep depression. About 6 months later, I was invited to attend CrossPointe Church and they became my new faith family. This was where I found a true community for the first time and where I met my husband, Joseph. This is where I found refuge and safety. It wasn’t until I went there that I could see how dark Crossroads was for me. How dark my life was under that abuse. I was finally somewhere that felt like light.

I tried to forget, and I did for a while. Later on that year in August, I created a twitter account. On August 23rd 2012, I posted my twitter name on Facebook. Ross was still friends with me on Facebook and actually commented on this post saying exactly this: “welcome to 2012. I’m rosscooker. Do it.” I also have a screenshot of this on my phone. He acted like nothing had happened and was still trying to insert himself into my life. It made me feel sick. Looking back on this now, it is wild to me that he even had the audacity to still be commenting and interacting with me after what he did.

The hurt from the betrayal only got deeper as the years went on. I was just trying to survive. After a few years, I started to have questions that I needed answered. I was abused for all of those years, and he left me with no apology and no closure. I was processing the relationship more fully and peeling back the layers to more of his behavior. I started seeing how inappropriate the relationship was as a whole for the first time. Joseph and I were dating at the time I started wanting to reach out. I told him some of what had happened to me and he was supportive of me reaching out to ask some basic questions that I had. So one day I called him. He answered and acted completely normal as nothing had changed. I asked if I could meet with him in person because I had some questions. Instead of meeting up with me in a professional or appropriate setting, he wanted to come by the house that I lived in with my roommates. I told him they weren’t home and he asked for the address because he wanted to talk alone. I sent it to him and he came over that afternoon. The year was 2015. Ross arrived and we sat in our living room on the couch. I asked him if he knew why I wanted to talk to him and he said “yes, I knew it was going to come up.” I told him I had some questions and that I needed some closure. I had been feeling a heavy weight of Wendy possibly not knowing, and I debated calling her many times, so I asked him if she knew. He said she knew. I said, “She does?” And he said she noticed I had left the church and asked him why and that he told her the truth about everything. He said after he told her they had a difficult time, but that they worked through everything and they were good now. I told him I had been thinking about reaching out to talk to her and he told me not to do that. He said they had moved on and it wouldn’t be good for me to reach out. I then asked him if anyone else knew and he told me no. He said only he and Wendy knew and then asked who I had told. I told him a few of the people that knew. He didn’t say anything after I told him this, and he looked at me like he was untouchable. No remorse. No repentance. No feeling. He looked at me like he owned me. He asked if we were “good now?” And I naively asked him if he had done this to anyone else. He said, “no, it was only you.” He said again that he did not want me to tell anyone and that no one else needed to know. He said he and Wendy had healed and moved on. Then he asked me again “Are we good?” And I said yes. He hugged me for a second and left. I told Joseph everything about our meeting and everything that was said right after. I told him that I still had not received an acknowledgment of what he had done to me or an apology for anything.

It’s so sad for me to look back on this moment because at the time I still felt like I needed his approval. I still needed him to care about me because I thought that he genuinely did care about me for so long. It was like I blamed myself for his disappearance and abandonment in my life. I felt unworthy of being loved. It took me many years to peel back the layers of his abuse to even see it as abuse. It took me more years of blaming myself to finally get to the understanding of the grooming and psychological abuse he inflicted upon me.

After that and up until 2017, I trusted what he said to me about telling Wendy, healing, and moving on. I blindly still believed him. If he said he told Wendy and they were good, I was too intimidated to question him. I felt like I was still heavily under his power and control. I wanted to believe he had changed and when he told me to stay silent, I did. I buried it all over again and tried to move on with my life. I never got the closure I needed, but I tried to forget.

In March of 2017, my brother Tyler got married and Ross was the officiator. Even though Tyler had a lot of hurt with Ross that had nothing to do with me, he still wanted him to officiate their wedding. At this time in our lives Tyler did not know about what Ross had done to me, and much like me, he still wanted to believe the best of Ross even in his own separate hurt. I hadn’t interacted with Ross since our last conversation. I prepared myself for it to be normal and really wanted to believe that he had changed, but I was shocked by his behavior once again. As soon as he saw me the day of the wedding, he came to say hello and the entire time we were talking he was staring at my breasts. He would hardly look me in the eye. It was extremely blatant. It was an obvious and calculated decision because when he finally looked up at me in the eye, he once again looked at me like he owned me. All those years later, and he hadn’t changed one bit. I was humiliated. All the trauma, confusion, and betrayal came rushing back. Later that night, I told Joseph about it. He and my family have had to witness me being torn apart by him for years, all while we were trying to forgive him. Joseph was my fiancé at the time of my brothers wedding.

Our wedding date was set for July 2017, a few months after my brother. I had even still invited Ross and his family to our wedding because I wanted to still believe in him. I wanted to erase the bad and try to remember what good I could find, and tried to believe that he still loved and cared for us even in the midst of his mistakes. I still had not processed the relationship fully. He came to our wedding that July alone, and that was the last time I saw him.

After that encounter at my brother's wedding, I started questioning things all over again. I started going back through everything he told me and our relationship with a fine- toothed comb. If he had really changed, why did I never receive any acknowledgment or apology from him? Why did I never see any repentance from him? If he had told Wendy the full truth, why did they not reach out to me? The behavior, the abuse, and the gravity of it all was so deep. If she knew the truth and they worked through what happened, why was he still friends with me on Facebook as well as following me on Instagram? Why was he still trying to interact with me on social media like nothing had happened? If he had changed and told Wendy, why did he want to come over to my home to be alone once again to talk? If he was truly a man of God, why did he not confess to the church about his inappropriate behavior and step down? Why was he never held accountable? My conclusion is that he never truly repented, and if he said anything at all to anyone it was probably a manipulated and false story.

I have one last interaction from Ross to mention. Throughout the past decade, Ross has always followed me on Instagram. I unfollowed him years ago, but I have an app that shows when someone unfollows you and the date that they did it. I got this app because if and when I decided to bring the truth to the church, I wanted some kind of track record for how long he was still on my social media. In 2021, he unfollowed me. He unfollowed me in February, a week after the abuse of Ravi Zacharius was everywhere. I have a screenshot video recording of when he unfollowed me and the date. Why now and why then? It could be a coincidence, but I don’t think it is.

After we got married and moved out of GA, a few months after that encounter with him at my brother’s wedding, I started seeing fully for the first time what he had done to me and how he had never changed. I started to see how the entire relationship and all that “love and care” was a lie. I started to realize the entire relationship was abuse. There were days that I would just completely break down when he came to mind. One day I came across the term and act of grooming. I knew he abused me, but I had never heard of this term before. When I started reading what it meant and also reading other stories of students being groomed and abused by their youth pastor, I knew this was me. I sobbed. I finally had something make more sense to me as to why he would fake so much love and affection and manipulate me for so long. I started trying to heal. At first, I was sad, then angry, and then I would bury it again. Cycle after cycle I would go through those emotions. I tried to come to terms with what happened. The betrayal just got deeper and deeper as I pieced my memories and my story together. The grief has been devastating. I have been processing and seeing this more clearly for the first time in the past two years.

Over the years, I have been in and out of the hospital with chronic illnesses and surgeries. My husband and I have also been grieving the painful loss of his mother when she lost her battle with her mental health. We have also had to grieve the loss of our first child. Life keeps going. The abuse I went through with Ross was always another trauma that I didn’t have the capability to grieve fully and was not ready to grieve, and I was not ready to take it to the church. It is a daunting and scary task to trust the world, and even the church, with the most painful parts of your life. I understand we are people and people are not perfect. However, most of the time many churches do not believe victims, do not do them justice, do not acknowledge them, rope the victim in with church discipline, and often sympathize with the abuser and the abuser’s family before the victim and the victim’s family. Many victims never come forward because the pain and grief is already heavy without having to also bear the reaction and pain that other people will also inflict upon you. It is a messy process and one many victims do not want to bear. It is hard to confront an abuser in any circumstance. For me, it felt even harder to confront someone like Ross, who was an honored, loved, and influential pastor in the church and community. It has also been hard to come forward because even after everything he did, I still love him and his family very much, and I struggled with blaming myself for the pain that coming forward would cause to them. It took me a while to understand that I did not cause this pain…he caused it and I have carried the weight of it in silence for everyone for so long. I also knew he would probably lie and slander me. However, I was willing to take more abuse from him in order to expose this darkness and bring the truth to the light. Unfortunately, many will question me. Many will not believe me. Many will sympathize with him more than they will me. That is the reality, but I am at peace with that because I know God knows the truth and that He is right beside me. I know that even though there is grace for Ross, God is angry with him over this treachery and his lack of repentance. I want to come forward in the hopes of making sure that he can never abuse another girl again.

Let me be clear here. Ross knew then and he knows now what he did. He not only abused me, but he has hurt my family, his wife, his family, and the church as well. There is complete grace for him. I am not better than him. I am as undeserving of God’s grace as he is. However, he chose to lie. Since coming forward he has not only denied every single thing that he did and chosen to not repent, but he is also slandering me and the 11 other witnesses by saying that we are all liars, while still claiming to be a man who loves Jesus. I will not stay silent while he continues to lie, slander, as well as manipulating and deceiving others. His lack of repentance is what scares me the most. I want him to heal and repent. I had already forgiven him before I came forward to the church. For the sake of his own soul and for his family, I am continuing to pray for that repentance. I pray that God would soften his heart to truth, and that he and his family will find healing in Him.

Another reason for not coming forward years ago was because I wanted to believe that Wendy knew when he told me she did. Because I believed she knew, I was able to talk myself into burying it and trusting her with this. Out of respect for her and her family, I continued to stay silent. It wasn’t until after my brother’s wedding and the last few years that I realized she either did not know, was extremely deceived, or was complicit in ignoring me and covering it up. Since coming forward and him being fired, I believe from seeing their reactions that she is either extremely deceived by him or complicit. The way that Ross has claimed to be a victim, and how they have never once acknowledged me or my family is shocking and devastating. The only thing I have received directly from them since sending my letter, and him being fired, was an intimidating and threatening message on Facebook from Wendy. I already had a feeling they were slandering me to people, but this was shocking.

Anyone who has kids that have been close to him have the full right to know what he has done. If you are a member of Crossroads, you also deserve to know. If you are a parent or student that has been in his ministry in the past 15 years, you deserve to know. Crossroads did not give you the option to know. They did not care to tell you or anyone for that matter other than a defense attorney and the sheriff's office. They downplayed his actions and diminished me in the statement they put out, did not care to look for other victims, did not truly do a third party investigation with an experienced organization like they said they would, and have not once ever spoken directly to me or my family other than a weak letter through their lawyer over a month after he was fired. They have acted as though we barely exist. It is truly tragic that Crossroads responded this way.

Jesus loves women. He loves children. He had the most beautiful and empowering things to say about women and children, and some of the harshest and severe words to say about those who hurt them. Why has this community, who profess to love Jesus, minimized and marginalized me? He also loves the vulnerable, the oppressed, and the weak. Those were the very people He came to serve. Where is your service Crossroads Baptist Church? Where is your love and care? In your weak statement that you sent to your congregation you said you were providing spiritual care and counseling to anyone involved yet you have failed to fully recognize me. I do not say this in an effort to cause division. We are one family and members of one another and it is because I love the church so much that I am saying this. When one body part is wounded, we are all wounded. We should be pursuing healing together. I say this in the hope that the response to victims and abuse will change. It has to change. This response is a tragic, grave, and epic failure.

Ross Cook groomed me. He used me. He used his power and position, given to him by God, as a youth pastor to spiritually and psychologically abuse me. He exploited me and took advantage of all of my sufferings and used it for himself as a way to get close to me. He stole my innocence. He was entrusted to lead and love students by God, by His church, by parents with students in his care, and by the students themselves. I was the farthest thing from being truly led and loved. What he did to me was not love, not care, and was not even close to God’s desire and standards for his role in my life. What he did to me was evil. How could he continue as a pastor leading students while knowing what he had done? His heart has to be so hard to be able to do what he did, ignore what he did, and now lie about what he did.

I can never forget the abuse he put me through and how blatantly he has not repented, owned his wrongdoing, told the truth, acknowledged me, or apologized. I can never forget the last time I saw him in 2017, and the way he looked at me and my breasts like he owned me. I can never forget the weight I have had to carry for so long because he didn’t tell the truth. It is a miracle of God's grace that I did not leave the church completely. I want to be extremely clear that the only reason things didn’t get more physical with us was because I ran. It was because of me and my decision to say no and to run. He led me to the door, opened the door, held my hand to pull me through the door, and tried to coerce me, but I did not enter. I fled. Had I not fled, I don’t what more he would have tried to do.

I am coming forward out of my love for God, His church, and every parent and student that has ever been through his ministry and who is in his ministry now. I am coming forward for every possible victim who may have felt too scared and intimidated to speak up or who may not even know they’re being groomed, like I was. Although, I pray there are no others. I am coming forward to let the truth out and for this to finally be in the light because he has chosen to have no repentance, and Crossroads chose to keep this a secret from their congregation. I have carried this weight in the dark for so long. I am coming forward for Ross to be held accountable in his lies to God's church, to his family, and me and my family. I want peace and healing in my life and I want peace and healing in his family as well.

I should have never been the one to have to bring this to light. In our conversations, he spoke to me like I was somehow complicit in this relationship and never apologized or owned his behavior. He still tried to manipulate me by ignoring everything he had done and stating over and over again that “nothing happened.” I want to be clear that I was never once complicit in his grooming, abuse, or sexual harassment. I wasn’t old enough to consent to his behavior as a minor, to begin with, and even though the grooming and abuse continued when I was 18 and 19, that doesn’t make me any less of a child. I was still a kid. I was a child who had been groomed and manipulated for years. Even though this is the most vulnerable I have ever felt in my life, I know there is peace and power in the truth and the truth being in the light. I know I can trust in God and his sovereignty over all. I know there is also grace for all, but we have to remember God is not only full of endless love and grace, but he is also true, just, righteous, holy, and angry over the abuse of children. We should seek justice for the vulnerable and speak up when our churches fail to do so. I forgive Crossroads Baptist Church and Ross Cook. However, the new grief I have from the church is just as painful as the abuse itself. I am praying for reconciliation and change as well as the healing of Christ over us all. He is our hope.