MK forum

We started looking for them a couple months ago, and yes we have already found them. Thank you. Hoping we will get a few to join us not only in prayer, but on this forum as well.

HELLO my dear beloved friends. At this website - I am home!!... I want to know who you all are yet, I understand that you may want to remain unnamed. If you would be willing to contact me privately, PLEASE do, I beg you to!!! I NEED you guys!!! I want to encourage all of us to be willing to expose ourselves.. our names - so that others will not be afraid to speak up - yet I understand that for safety sake and other reasons it may be better to wait.

I just have to first thank Jesus, thank you God that I have finally found you all. I am crying and shaking and full of unspeakable joy and relief to find you. I want to thank GRACE and the media for getting this out there. When I felt too weak to do this, God has been working behind the scenes and using all of you. I just have to say that I believe God is going to blow all of this wide open and use it in a way we won't even believe. I just have to choose to believe this. I have big dreams because we have a BIG GOD. My first dream is see the END OF BOARDING schools within the next five years for EVERY mission and ministry- not just New Tribes. If we can set the example now, the rapidly multiplying Missions in the East (Korea and China - which sadly I know of some boarding schools, so we must help to STOP this) will not follow in the horrible track record of Missionary boarding schools. We must STAND and prevent further abuse and educate all mission agencies and ministries that God gifted OUR KIDS to US to love, protect, and train - and this will only heighten their impact on the world. PLEASE !!!!

My family arrived in the Philippines in 1990. Much to my parents dismay, they left my younger sister and I in the dorm with Les Emory. (I just have to say that as I write this, I keep wanting to replace Les with the word "Satan") I was 11 years old and my sister was 9.

(I have to stop right here because my own daughter is now 9 years old and when I look at here and I see my sisters beautiful face and blonde hair and quiet sweetness shining back at me... I think, God - why? how...? my precious sister, just like my own daughter.... and my parents felt forced to leave my sister and I. (with a child molester) .... all in the name of Jesus.... so they could focus on their ministry - all I can do is put my head down and cry and say, "Oh Lord, have mercy."

I learned pretty quick in the dorm (my new home) that Les Emory had is favorites and I WAS NOT one of them. (Now I see how lucky I was) But at the time, it made me feel like crap, unpopular, ugly, unwanted...just not cool. One of my friends and I would walk up and down the airstrip and talk about why he did not like us and we tried to help each other through that confusing pain.

Les made comments to us like "I pity the many you'll marry." One of my friends had high moral standards about what movies we would watch - and she would take a stand and walk out, Les would call her a "prude".

There are countless other little things like that, that went on for the two years I was in his dorm.. here a some...

There was the walking into our rooms when we were dressing, and I remember once quickly laying my pants on top of my legs to make it look like I had pants on as I was sitting on my bed.

He passed me a note once in Bible class on my birthday (yes, he was our Bible teacher) that said something like, "You need to watch the way you are sitting with your skirt going up too much." I was expecting a birthday card.

And in the middle of the night, I woke up to see him sitting on a chair next to my roommates bed with his hands on her chest. I sat up in bed and said, "Oh, my gosh, you scared me!" He stood up, picked up the chair and put it back under the desk where it belonged and left the room." I was in 7th grade at that time and did not even think about it the next day, I didn't know what child molestation was.

And this is about the extent of what happened to me....as far as what I experienced in the dorm that you could label abuse. But I could literally write a book about the aftermath of my sisters pain and my whole families in dealing with the broken pieces of shattered lives from (1.) Les Emory and (2) New Tribes Mission. In some ways I can't figure out which ones crimes were worse. New Tribes Mission protected Les Emory from the due justice he deserved and placed him in a new town to repeat the heinous crimes.

My Dad went to the field committee to complain about Les yet he was told that Les has a great ministry with local believers and why would they pull someone away from that. (Later I learned that his "ministry" was to some local woman - its hard to not suspect this)

...So my WAS one of Les's favorites... but I will have to wait to let her tell her story...when she is ready...

I will now tell some of the things I know from other abused girls and boys.

There was a family that left the year before we arrived and I found out they left because of "health problems". Later I learned that their daughters were on The Molested List and then it made sense that Les Emory often talked about them and seemed to miss them so much. (When I read some of the other testimonies from Aritao, I think I have a pretty good guess as to who they are and am beyond horrified to see how awful Les really was, to see it in black and white and know my sister and brother and I and so many of us lived with such a man)

One of my close friends was his number one favorite. I found out that Les had kissed her on the lips and told he "If I was younger, you would be my girl." I strongly suspect there was much more he did to her.

Another dorm mate suffered from horrible nightmares at night while at home on school break. She repeatedly said she did not want to go back to the dorm. Thank God her parents listened to her and spared her further abuse. Yet she has told me that Les did all kinds of sexual things to her but she was so confused because she liked the feelings.

Three girls in the dorm have suffered from FMS (False Memory Syndrome - replacing the face of the perpetrator with a safe face, in these cases it was their own fathers and/or husbands) So they accused their Dads or husbands of molesting them and/or their own children. (You can google FMS - its pretty common among abused children)

Another dorm mate found out in her early 20's that her brother was also molested by Les. I have heard that other boys were molested as well and that one of the older boys was teaching younger boys how to masturbate.

My sister and I were not on The Molested LIST from the field committee. My parents DID question my sister and I but we did not have anything to say. I was in shock on that rainy day in Lada, Palawan, I remember being under my mosquito net, getting ready for bed and my parents came in and told us. It was several months later that the memory of Les in my room in the middle of the night came back to me and I put 2 and 2 together.

More to come...

Rochelle - Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Your story is a voice crying out and you are heard! I will be praying that this account of one family and the atrocities gives permission to many more. it is life giving water to the thirsty dried up spirits who thought they were all alone in this.

I admire you! You have found God to be the loving gracious God He truly is in spite of the horror you and your family experienced.

I don't know you but I love you!

Rochelle! Yes, you are HOME! Yes, we do believe you, love you, support you! Thank you for your great courage!
Raz, an Aritao Mom

Rochelle,

I have seen first hand the amount of courage it takes to post these things on public forum, and applaud your openness, and am so thankful that you have posted here. We thank you for sharing your story. I can only imagine the rush of mixed emotions and feelings stumbling upon this. You have so much to offer here, and I hope that being able to share these things with other survivors will help in the healing process of all those that are involved. God bless you for sharing your story. Our prayers are with you. Your voice is heard!

Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.
-Ezra 10:4

I wasn't sure if I should be concerned or not but now I am. We were at Aritao in 1991 only for one year. Our daughter was born at Makati Medical and we had a son who was 3 at the time. When my wife and I went to Manila to deliver our dear daughter guess who offered to watch our son while we were away. After returning to Aritao from the hospital Les would come and offer to watch our daughter so that my wife could get some rest in the afternoon. (wasn't that nice) She had some pretty serious yeast infections off and on that lasted for some time even after we left and went to PNG. This is in no way 'evidence' but it brings us into this as very concerned. The only saving grace for my children is that our daughter was for sure to young to know or remember anything and I think as well our son would have been too young to remember anything, but I don't know at this point and will have to talk with him about this. He is now 22 and out daughter is 19.

Talk to them...I would suggest therapy...too. Repressed memories are just as dangerous as ones we remember.

Whether someone is "too young to remember" I don't know. I remember a lot from when I was two.

I don't know much about it, but I have heard that trauma that occurs pre-language can still affect the person as traumatic, but isn't accessible in the same way. Or something. I would think though, that the person would still have some sort of symptoms. However, like I said, I don't really know.

I do think it isn't always necessary to remember, and that God allows us to remember only when we are ready. Perhaps some people are never ready. I also wonder if something that is traumatic to one person may not be traumatic to another, for example if one is an infant and would have no idea. Like I already said though. I don't know.

I have symptoms that seem indicative of early childhood trauma. I have no memory of anything. Of any huge thing, that is. I keep telling my counselor that maybe it could be just a pile of lesser things that I reacted to. I think I sense that she still thinks there is more. But she could be wrong. I also tell her that.

Greetings fellow MK's. I have only this morning joined this forum, however, I have been following this issue on and off for quite some time and until just recently I didn't think that I had any reason to say anything.
My family was in Aritao for one year. I was born there in July of 1991. I heard about the abuse that occurred in the dorms about a year and a half ago, and my heart went out to all of the girls and boys who were physically, sexually, and emotionally violated. It wasn't too long after when I found out that as an infant L.E. would watch me and my brother (see cbcsturgis's post earlier in the discussion-it is my father) when my parents were away or needed a break. I don't feel that I can in any way relate to the trauma that the other girls have suffered, however, I did a fair bit of research and have discovered that many of the long term effects present in individuals who were sexually abused as infants are in fact evident in myself, leading me to wonder whether or not I should consider this as a possibility...and whether or not I really want to know after all... At this point, reading about his other atrocities, it would not at all surprise me if this was the case. However, I do not want to jump to any conclusions until I know if there is anyone out there who is aware of L.E. ever abusing infants at Aritao. I know that it is a difficult thing to validate as the victims were too young to be able to vocalize any of their recollections, but perhaps somewhere, someone knows something.