MK forum

I consulted the ever wise Mrs Bemused before writing this, seeking her opinion on what to post for the auspicious number 3000 post. It is almost 2 years to the day since "Bemused" joined Fanda Eagles.
Mrs Bemused suggested that I write a review of my journey so far, so here goes:

Two years ago was a world away, a world that had gone into recovery mode after a disastrous earthquake that had ruined the city where we lived, destroyed our house and left us living as "refugees". Yet that seemed to be just another event to pick up the pieces and move on from and certainly not as traumatic as dealing with the aftermath of spending my preteen and teen years as an MK within the confines of NTM.
My parents had "discovered" Christianity when I was five and my father being a very driven man, embraced it with undying enthusiasm. By time I was 10 we were off to Australia for Boot camp and for me the warning bells started to go off. I felt uncomfortable with what I saw and experienced, the control exerted and the invasion of personal freedom, as well as the way the overdose of religion was just accepted as being perfectly normal. I felt I was having an allergic reaction and no one noticed.
Eventually we ended up in PNG and things got very weird. There we were in a third world country living with fellow missionaries, some of whom quite openly expressed bizarre and offensive opinions about the people they were supposed to be serving and yet it was tolerated and even embraced by the majority. I lived a solitary life, at the bottom of the pecking order, lower than the neighbours dog. I learnt to fend for myself and to trust few people.
Then I got back home, finished a year of education and went into a medical career, essentially getting on with life. Religion left me cold, so I just dropped out of the church scene.
My parents did a further term and then were blackmailed out of NTM. They had their house and possessions stolen and yet they seemed to accept this discrimination as some sort of trial, all the time backing NTM. I intervened and gained some payout for them on their house, but instead of gratitude, they expressed great disappointment that I had done so and I was sworn to secrecy (I don't keep promises extracted under duress, hence it is mentioned here). Psychologically I coped. I dismissed my bizarre childhood as the result of my parents making a bad choice and ending up in a rightwing extremist religious group, that had more than it's fair share of strange and evil people. Then David Bain was jailed for killing the rest of his family (parents and 3 siblings) and the whole of their families dirty laundry came out and I began to wonder how many NTM families had similar dirty laundry, because the rumours had started to flow that sex abuse had occurred in the school I attended.

So I arrived at the doorstep of Fanda Eagles two years ago. I was horrified to read just how much abuse was perpetrated in NTM and even more horrified to find that almost none of the offenders had been prosecuted. In fact NTM had gone out of its way to destroy evidence. And I got my first insight into how evil this organisation really was. Then I found out the man who helped recruit my parents into NTM and was the head of the New Zealand branch had been jailed for sex offences and that NTM Australia had deliberately covered this up. No attempt at all had been made to contact other potential victims, which included myself and other members of my family. They replied to no inquiries, only the New Zealand rep replied with a "it was all handled appropriately". Shortly after joining Fanda Eagles I confronted my father about his involvement in the child abuse scandal and I realized what a despicable, evil perverted little man he was, when he said he did not care what had happened to other MKs. That was the last conversation we had and probably will remain that way. Although we are genetically linked, that is where the similarities end, for at that point our paths split. He chose to defend NTM and its long list of pedophiles and atrocities and I embarked on a path of exposing the truth. My father resorted to his usual acts of aggression, with rambling strange letters in the mail, strange objects being deposited in my mail box and attempts to undermine my credibility with his poison. As I moved away from my fathers strange world, I began to get an insight into how much of a psychopath he really is and what lengths he will go to, to control the minds of anyone who will let him into their lives. I felt some compassion for my mother, who had had her life completely taken over and was just a shadow of the monster. As for my siblings, they had the opportunity to speak out and they made their own choices. Without elaborating to much on the privacy of my siblings, let us just say that I stand very much alone.

And so I rambled my way through copious posts on Fanda Eagles. Sometimes writing humour, sometimes emptying my soul and hoping that I was in someway benefiting others in the same way I was deriving the benefit of clearing my mind of the remnants of a strange and detrimental past.
I was very fortunate to very early on in my ramblings to form a friendship with a fellow MK, who kindly tolerated my non conformist method of dealing with the past and the pursuit of justice and healing. The journey took courses that went to the very top of several countries administration and into the bowels of depravity of organisations that desperately did not want their past exposed (oh that endoscope has been well used). Some of the responses were unbelievably gracious and kind, others were hostile and many never eventuated. And so a picture built up of how big this issue of child abuse is and why it has been allowed to get so big, because those that had the power to stop it, just don't want to know.
The arrest of Scott Kennell was an historic moment on this journey, for on the one hand it confirmed my fear that the abuse had not ended and on the other it proved that there were those who did take this seriously and the small part I had played in the events that led up to the arrest were well worth the effort. All the words of reassurance by NTM and IHART that justice would be served and never again would abuse take place, seemed hauntingly hollow and just more words from an organisation with much to hide, lawyers on hire and little intention of helping their victims.

To my fellow victims of missionary organisations, I wish you the healing I have garnered by being able to express my hurts, triumphs in all these posts of prose, poetry and humour. To those who have politely tolerated the strange humour (I liken it to M.A.S.H.), thank you and for those who have participated with their own, many many thanks.

To the MKs who for their own reasons thought it was acceptable to isolate and humiliate this MK because he was different, the olive branch has been on the table for sometime now, you may do with it what you wish.
To the adults that abused my fellow MKs, you are despicable and your crimes are noted. Leave me to pursue justice on behalf of those who cannot speak, I do not expect your cowardly hearts to offer any reconciliation after all this time. What you have sown has been reaped in far flung corners of the earth and the crop is not good.

To those who's countries we were guests in, I am not sure what to say. I wanted no part of it, I was just a child doing what I was told. My conscience is clear that I did not participate in some of the despicable things that occurred in your beautiful countries. There were many good missionaries who had your best interests at heart, but they too were badly let down by a considerable list of evil doers, who exploited what they could get their filthy hands on for their own strange purposes.

To my mother, I am sorry for the life you have been forced to have. I know that you are happy in your own way, for there is some security for you in being totally controlled and at this late stage there is probably more harm in changing this mode of survival.

To NTM and Crossview. I still vacillate on exactly what NTM is, a large part of me screams "it is a cult", but I modify that opinion by the acts of kindness of one of your members (who must feel like Lot) and the memories of the good people who I had in my childhood. Your handling of this scandal is cowardly and corrupt. Every opportunity has been afforded you to clean up this mess, to extend the hand of healing, yet you have failed to do more than just a few basics. I know not what lies in your future, but it could well be that you will sink into obscurity and if that does occur, I shall not shed a tear. As for Crossview, there is no doubt in my mind that you have evolved into a dangerous cult, that will lie, cheat, threaten and do whatever it takes to keep the truth from emerging.

To my father. You are a despicable, perverted little man, who will stop at nothing to get your own way. You have cheated and lied to achieve what you wanted in life, all disguised under a fake veneer of piousness. Saying that you do not care what happened to MKs that you knew was truthful, for in that instance you told me exactly what you thought of myself. Your whole life is a lie, a running away from your own demons and covering up for your fellow perverts. There will be no reconciliation between us, for you are a stubborn and obstinate man, hell bent on controlling the minds of anyone who will accept your fake friendship. I do not have to tolerate your abuse any more, I am free from you. And I will never come back into your fold.

To Mrs Bemused who helps me maintain my sanity and puts up with my hours of tapping at the keyboard, I am truly a very fortunate MK to have such a force for good in my life.

And lastly to those who have learnt to fly free and inhabit the beautiful skies of this globe as they soar on the unseen tracks of our roller coaster journey, may you always have the freedom to fly where and with who your heart truly desires. Looking back with gratitude that you survived and helping others to also do so, but mostly looking forward to a brighter future, while enjoying the flight of the day.
To those very special fellow posters who have shown exceeding kindness to someone they have never met and must seem to live in a world that is far from anything they have experienced before, a grateful embrace and may every day you truly live and not just exist.

Bemused (Not a Saint, Slight Sinner, Poetic Rambler, Flying Kiwi, Nurse (you can trust me), Endosopist, Comedian and lots of other things, but mostly just me )

Wow, Captain Bemused!

Such an articulate and moving summary of your voyage!

Congratulations on 3,000 posts in two years!

We are so thankful you are here!

And I'll drink to that

Just joking.

Yeah and that Bemused should man up and take his medicine! Aussie prescribes one big hug and you'd better take it, because I'm a nurse too!

P.s. I think you is going to need it when your family reads your 3000th post, that is quite some post, ya told it like it is and that my friend takes guts. So man of courage, who doesn't like hugs, take this big hug.

AWESOME AUSSIE!!!

Family? What family. I am persona non grata, disowned by my own father. I have no real immediate family, just a bunch of people that I am genetically related to, who would prefer I do what they do and pretend non of this ever happened and sweep it all under the Rug of Righteousness.
I act and write as my conscience dictates, which in my family is a novelty act.

I do of course have the strong support of Mrs Bemused, who is immensely proud that I have stuck this out for two years. She is also in great admiration of what has been accomplished and sincerely grateful for the kind support rendered by fellow posters.

WOW, WOW, WOW, Bemused!!! JUST WOW!!! I am so proud of you for being just who you are and taking the stand that you have. You have encouraged, stood up for, stood against wrong, fought for the weak, made us laugh, taught us many things.... You teach us to fly, and when we can't you make sure we know that we are still important. I have tears running down my face. I really appreciate you....and I mean that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for flying with the rest of us and when we crawl, you help us out then as well. I feel blessed to call you my friend. I am happy that you are here. I am happy that you fly free.

Thank you sooo much Bemused.

FLY MR B., FLY!!

_________________
Written by Iwillflyagain!

And that is the whole point of this site and journey for me. Firstly to get myself through the mess of the past and then be able to render assistance to others to help themselves achieve the same, if that is what they want.
Sure it comes at some cost, but the person I can live with is myself and that is important. I can get up in the morning and know I have nothing to hide, that I don't have to tip toe around my father for fear of another session of bizarre personal ministry where he feels he is ordained by the Almighty Himself to say whatever offensive claptrap is crossing his depraved mind and not listen to any reply.
I am free to fly, to truly live and not just exist. And I have found happiness and contentment that I have not had for many many decades.

NTM and my father will never again dominate my thoughts with doubts of my own value. There will be no more Bemused the victim.

There will no doubt come a time when it is pertinent to bid a fond farewell to Fanda Eagles and embark on another slice of the journey, but till then, sorry you'll have to put up with the ramblings a bit longer (and the groans from across the sea can be heard upon the wind )

I LOVE IT!!!!