Michelle the Felon

Strange things happen to me. I am not sure why I am the chosen one, but it seems as if God likes to make life interesting.

I decided to volunteer at VBS at my new church this week. For a good 3 weeks I have been planning to work with 4 year olds and diligently preparing lessons with my leader. Saturday morning, we were decorating the room and I look around and find that my leader left the room unexpectedly and the children's ministers assistant comes in and says, "Hey, there is something that I need to talk to you about." Immediately I had this strange feeling that this was going to be weird. She says, "We don't let people with felonies work at VBS". I did not know whether to start laughing really hard, or cry...but instead I immediately got uptight, felt my cheeks get burning hot and my palms started sweating. I was probably making myself look guilty. I said, "Oh no...I have never committed a crime, but I know that there is another person in the US that has my same name and the same exact birthday, however her middle name is different and I know she for sure has a lengthy criminal history." She says, "Well, this background check was looked up by your social security number." I told her that this could not be possible, and if that is really the case that I had a bigger fish to fry than not being allowed to work at VBS. I could tell that she was unsure if she could believe me. It hit me that I am at a new church with no one that has known me for more than a few months. It was a terrible feeling and I was mortified that they thought that of me. I remember telling her in a all jumbled up way that I worked at First Baptist and that one time they pulled this other person's background info by accident. I gave her my driver's license and she said that they would have to talk to the pastor tomorrow to see if I could work at VBS. I thought to myself, "THE PASTOR?? OH GREAT!"

They were really kind to let me work at VBS on Monday and afterwards I went up to meet with one of the pastors, his secretary, the Children's minister and her assistant. I had a huge knot in my stomach because I knew that everyone in there wanted to believe me, but had still a tiny bit of uncertainty. I did not know exactly how the mistake was made but I knew I was not this girl. So we have some small talk and then the secretary is looking at my background check. I said that if it helped at all my maiden name is "X". She said, "Oh I know." At this point my eyes started welling up and I realized that it could be a case of identity theft because I never told anyone my maiden name at this church. After this point, I could tell that I had won most them over with my word and work experience at First Baptist and they got a little worried for me. I am sure that there was a little bit of them that was still unsure of me, but they were willing to help me out.

The secretary asked if I wanted to see it and I was so excited to get my hands on that report! I looked at it and my heart beat WILDLY. It had MY name, MY social security number, the long list of felonies (of the other girl) which included "false personation" and the list of every place I lived in the past 10 years including my current address. It also included MY maiden name on half of them. I went speechless and did not know where to start clearing it up. How in the world does someone go about doing this anyway?

To make a long story less long, luckily it was not a case of identity theft. Evidently because my middle name was left out when inserted into the computer for my background check in the first place, my report came back as half me and half the other girl. I am so lucky to be paired up with such an upstanding citizen! What I found out was that criminal reports are never linked to your social security but to your birthday and name. The address report comes from your social security number. So, if you ever get a background check run, make sure they insert every piece of information that they have on you so you don't run into the same problem.

You know...last week I was feeling like I still did not belong to the church. The funny thing is, God can use the strangest things to make you feel more apart.