MK Survivors,
Those who were abused know firsthand of the pain, the false guilt, the self-doubt and the anger that can be so pervasive in your lives. Through stories and testimonies, I’m learning of it.
It horrifies me that people can abuse kids, justify it and still live with themselves.
I’m amazed that kids can endure such pain and betrayal and still go on with life and then I realize that not all of them have gone on with life. Some abused kids have taken their own lives or have resorted to things that are slowly killing them in order to mask their pain.
I’m more amazed when I see that many have found ways of coping and are leading more normal lives.
But all abused kids carry the effects of abuse with them for the rest of their lives. It will affect them, their parents and their own children. It is not something that can ever be put behind them and forgotten. Effects of that abuse can be dealt with and sometimes issues can be resolved. Often God, true to His word turns these weaknesses into strengths. But the abuse will never be forgotten.
I’ve come to understand that people who haven’t had to bear such deep pain have trouble understanding the reactions of those who have. For some who don’t understand, listening to the cries of the abused is probably just an annoyance to them. But for many others who haven’t had to bear such deep pain themselves, I suspect that understanding it is just beyond what they are capable of. And because they don’t know how to deal with it, they default to what they believe to be true, and that is to encourage the abused to “just forgive and move on.”
What happened to kids isn’t right and won’t ever be right and nothing can ever justify abuse. I’ve come to believe that New Tribes Mission, in fact all organizations in which childhood abuse occurred, has no right to ask for forgiveness. The fact is that NTM is not a person and isn’t capable of receiving forgiveness if it was even offered. But it is also a fact that in NTM there were those, some in leadership and some not, who wanted the issue to go away and who desperately wanted victims to extend forgiveness to the organization so that the issue could be locked away and forgotten. But it can never be forgotten by the victims of abuse or NTM.
The people who haven’t dealt with such pain and are incapable of knowing how to deal with it are often puzzled when victims of abuse react so strongly and so negatively when the issue of forgiveness comes up. In the documentary All God’s Children, abuse survivor Beverly Shellrude Thompson explained it this way,
It’s not that victims are against forgiveness. Victims are against forgiveness as the solution to the problem because then the problem will go on and on and on and as long as every victim continues to give forgiveness, the organization doesn’t have to address the issues.
Is there a “solution” of the kind that Ms. Thompson is looking for? For the future there is. NTM has to be an organization that doesn’t tolerate abuse, screens out potential abusers from entering NTM and safeguards the children in our care. But that’s only part of it. We also need a “response” to what’s gone before. The Vianopolis investigation is concluding and a Statement of Findings is expected in March. The Panama investigation is proceeding and should be completed by late summer. And then there’s Tambo. That investigation is huge and will continue for two to three years. But it doesn’t matter if an investigation is small or large, every abused child is one child too many. Also, if any of you know of abuse that happened outside of the stated years of each investigation, please contact Pat Hendrix. Don’t leave any stone unturned.
A key part of our response is to uncover the truth. There might be those in mission circles who claim that these on-going investigations hurt or profane the name of God. That isn’t true. God’s name was profaned every time any kid was abused. God’s name was profaned every time evil wasn’t dealt with appropriately by those who had the authority to do so. Not proceeding with the investigations, not trying to uncover truth, not admitting what happened and not dealing with perpetrators the best we can – those are the things that profane the name of God. I can’t promise that we won’t make mistakes as we continue through this process but we will do what we can. Besides the sickening thought of what abused MKs have endured and still carry around to this day, I am dismayed that most perpetrators will never be brought to trial because of the location where their crimes they committed. Most will escape justice because of how long ago they committed those crimes. I have to admit that NTM bears blame for that also. But wherever prosecution is possible, NTM will cooperate in full, no matter the distance, no matter the time element, no matter the cost.
Finally, I want to again encourage anyone who was abused as an MK and who desires counseling to deal with the effects of that abuse to contact Tibby Westcott at
tibby.westcott@ntm.org. We want to help.
Brian Shortmeier
Director of Child Protection
NTM USA Executive Board Member
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I will add a few months to Panama and expect it in the fall....just to be safe.