If you are new to this story I want to tell you WHY I’m writing this story.
Facnana (not her real name), convinced people in my church that she was a wounded veteran, a Marine, who heroically survived a horrific wartime battle and lived to tell the tale. She claims to have “bionic” organs in her body. She has defrauded not only people in our church, but also people online through a Go Fund Me page and also obtaining money from VETERANS CHARITY ORGs.
Personally, she didn’t take much from me, just about $250 worth of books, that she requested because she’s “home bound”, attending seminary, and needs theological books to read. I had some. Some were expensive, from well-known Christian authors. But because I had compassion toward her, I gave them to her.
She also claims to have been in Theological Seminary (post graduate school for people wishing to enter evangelical church/ministry service). She claimed, when I first met her that she was working towards her Master of Divinity degree. Now, 3-4 years later, she claims to have obtained her MDIV and is now working towards her PhD, a Doctorate of Theology degree.
When some of the ladies in my church, who had been helping Facnana for several years (by providing food, transportation and such to Facnana and her famliy/children) found out that I am a Gold Star Mother, they wanted to introduce me to Facnana. With her being a wounded Marine, near to death, and with me having lost my own son who was Killed in Action (KIA), the ladies who already knew her thought we would be good for each other having experienced military tragedies, though different, a commonality.
Because I am AuDHD, I have RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria); I fear hurting people’s feelings, AND I hate the feeling of rejection I feel when someone doesn’t respond in what I believe to be an appropriate amount of time, therefore, rather than simply knocking on her door, I decided to do the “young” thing of not calling, but putting my thoughts in writing.
I wrote her a card, and because the card didn’t have sufficient space for me to fully introduce myself to her, I included a hand-written letter. I mailed that somewhere around November. (see pic).
Later, when I donated some books to her, I just happened to deliver them on her birthday, August 18, 2022. AT that visit, that I made in person to her home, she exclaimed to me that something had happened to the mail and that my letter, mailed WAY BACK in November 2021, had not arrived until the EXACT DATE, the anniversary of her casualty in Afghanistan. Here again, if you are new to this story, you’ll learn more about this later.
I was a little shocked that it took 9 months to arrive, but then again, I’ve sent things through USPS that never arrived, so I wouldn’t put it past them. She was SO APPRECIATIVE of the letter, she pulled it out and told me what it meant to her. Then later, when I started wondering what was going on, I found THIS POST on her IG page. Just in case the photo is not clear above, here is a blow up of the date she posted the picture of the card/letter I sent.
Though I didn’t know this was a lie while I was talking to her, when I really got suspicious of her stories, which all seemed to be a bit exaggerated, I began to look back at her social media, now that we had met and she had accepted my friendship requests.
This was her biggest mistake to date, letting me have access to view her social media.