MK forum

MK in the USA, what a touching story! I'm sure many of us here can identify with you on many levels. I'm glad you've joined the forums, and I think that you've come to a good place to find the support and validation that you need.

Your honesty is refreshing and challenging. You leave my head spinning, but I think it's in a good way!

MK, I think you are describing exactly the kind of shame rroym was referring to, that he hears about all the time in his therapy groups.

I am so sad that you end each day with shame, and wake up with shame.

I long to see you get freedom from that. That is the kind of shame that I believe comes from our Enemy, our Defeater. It's all based on lies.

I am not a therapist, but if I could address just one sentence in your poignant post, it would be this, "I think the worst thing for me is getting my parents kicked out of NTM.

I don't know anything about what you did, MK, but think about this: I really don't believe there is anything any adult child of an NTM missionary can do that could "get their parents kicked out" of NTM. YOU did not cause NTM to kick your parents out! NTM used you as a reason, an excuse, to kick your parents out!

Andy and others in NTM, are you seeing this? Here is an MK who lives every day blanketed in shame and guilt because someone in NTM wanted to get rid of her/his parents, and used this MK as a scapegoat to accomplish what they wanted!

This is so wrong, so unjust, so unfair ... I could scream!!!

Do you need me to make a list of NTM missionaries in high positions over the years who have committed sins, and/or whose rebellious teenagers and adult children have made poor choices and made their parents "look bad" who were FORGIVEN, and NOT kicked out of the mission???

What are you going to do to make this right??? Who is going to have the courage to tell this MK that they were used as a pawn in a slick maneuver of blatant spiritual abuse, so that this MK can find some healing? What a crushing burden for them to be carrying all this time! For this MK to go through life believing that in a blink of an eye, they took away from their dearly-loved parents everything that was their whole life, everything they lived for?

I know that's not true! You know that's not true, NTM!

This is an atrocity!!!

MK, I can relate to your feelings. I always felt like I was never going to be good enough, like I was a disappointment. Now as an adult, I know that's not what my parents wanted me to feel. They thought they were being obedient to the Lord....but whether or not it's what they WANTED to teach me...it's what I learned! I learned that having needs was selfish, that it was not okay to not be okay. I was told that I represented my parents ministry, when we went to visit supporting churches, etc...and that is a LOT of pressure for a child. Every mistake I made felt like the weight of the world. I felt responsible for things that are an adult's responsibility.

My parents left the mission when I was a teenager. We went home on furlough and never went back. I always thought it was my fault, because of the abuse that happened in the dorm, and I just "couldn't get over it" and needed help. Just a few weeks ago, I was finally able to share with my Mom that burden of guilt that I had always felt...and what a relief to discover how wrong I was. My parents hadn't even known the weight of responsibility I had felt, didn't even realize that it had been communicated that way. There were other reasons they left the mission, and me needing help was NOT the burden I always perceived it to be.

I wish I could say I came to these brilliant deductions about my childhood on my own ...but I have been very blessed with a fantastic counselor who has helped me learn so many things that I believed that weren't true. It's such a hard process, but it feels like freedom to me!

Can I recommend a book? I like to read, and the book Boundaries, by Cloud and Townsend, has been SO helpful to me.

Praying for you.

USA there is no shame on you. David tells us in Psalm 51 that when God washes us we are whiter than snow. No shame no guilt and no punishment. Often it is more difficult to forgive ourselves than some one who has wronged us. The shame belongs on those evilly arrogant Fightin Fundies who have damaged so many souls!!!

Thank you everyone! I appreciate your replies and encouraging words! This is definitely a place of healing and encouragement! Thank you Jerry for recommending this forum to me!

Thoughts on the cycle of spiritual abuse:

As I have read your painful stories over the past months, I’ve realized what an advantage Noel and I had in dealing with the conflict with our NTM leaders and the aftermath.

We were already adults in our mid 30s with non-NTM life experience when we joined the mission. Our situation was not complicated by having parents or other relatives who were NTMers, or loyal to NTM. Our sending church pastors supported our decision to resign and our sending churches continued to support us financially for the rest of the year. So validating!
But even with all these advantages it’s been a painful time. Kind of like suddenly running into a brick wall. We were dazed and confused for a while. “What just happened? Why did this happen? Was it our fault? Did we deserve this? If only we could, in good conscience, follow their demands and make all of this pain go away.” But as we all know, life doesn’t “stop” long enough for our brains to clear before we have to put the “car” back together somehow and had off in another direction, still bewildered. Is this an emotional concussion?

I am not writing this in order to garner sympathy. I am writing this to validate the exponentially greater damage that is done to the heart of a child who is in a spiritually abusive system. A child cannot draw on life experience outside the abusive system. A child does not have the option of leaving the system. When an abused MK is old enough to leave, they may find that leaving isn’t as easy as it sounds. It may mean severed relationships with parents, relatives and the only friends they’ve ever known, in order to go to ….. where? How can they make a decision like that when they’ve had no exposure to anything outside of NTM? I can see why adult MKs might stick with NTM even after bad experiences in their childhood.

Unfortunately, a few of the MKs who stuck with NTM became the leaders who were spiritually abusive to us. They met with us 3 days in a row to question and analyze us in order to determine what our “sin issues” were, ignoring our own testimony as well as that of our co-workers. They dictated what we must do in order to be “restored to the Lord”. They informed us of the “can’t talk” rule. “If you tell people [NTM co-workers who asked why we were being sent home] that you disagree with our decision, you are sowing disunity,” i.e. if you talk about the problem, you are the problem.

Reading the stories on this forum of growing up in NTM has really helped me understand where these men were coming from. No doubt the spiritually abused became the abusers in our situation. When I think of our leaders in this light, I feel only compassion for them and longing for them to see themselves through God’s eyes of grace, rather than eyes of scrutiny. That feeling of needing to perform makes it so hard for us to admit when we have done wrong. I really think that is a core problem here.

How can we extend grace to others if we do not own it for ourselves? How many of us have operated under the notion that “Grace + X (certain behaviors) = God (as represented by the Christian authorities in our lives) is pleased with me”? Tragically, it seems the “X behavior” for Christian leaders (including parents) involves not only their own behavior, but also the behavior of those “under them”! So they micromanage and manipulate those under their “care” to get them to cooperate with the performance plan. I am guessing that most children grow up to perpetuate the cycle, or they end up rejecting God/Christ completely because they have been so beaten down by the feeling that they are never good enough.

I will confess – I grew up to be perpetuate the cycle! (I am not an MK, just a well behaved church kid.) I grew up listening to preachers, SS teachers, AWANA leaders, Christian school teachers etc, who told me week after week what I needed to do in order for God to be pleased with me. I really internalized this teaching and became focused on doing my Christian walk “right”. When my husband became a youth pastor, it was completely natural to extend my personal vigilance to the teens. I am horrified now to see that I have said some spiritually abusive things. When one of the teen girls became sexually active as a junior higher I beat her over the head with Heb 10:26-27 which I will paraphrase as “if you sin on purpose God will turn his back on you”. This girl had no father and an alcoholic mother. What was I thinking? Now I deeply regret alienating her from God that way. It took my own recent experience of being a Bible-beating recipient for me to realize what I had done to this girl.

I thank God that he has helped my husband and I get beyond this performance mentality. I thank God that now we understand the difference between grace and law for living the Christian life. When we screw up all we have to do is say, “Yes, I screwed up. I should not have said/done that. My attitude was wrong…” Then we remember that all our sin is already forgiven – past, present, and future. We thank God for that fact and we start over with doing what is right. That might mean going to someone and apologizing for what we’ve done. It is so awesome to be able to freely admit when we have done wrong. No shame, no blaming others. “Just I was wrong. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Yesterday, I actually followed the Spirit’s prompting and called this girl! I apologized for what I had done 10+ years ago. I am so glad I did it. Nothing amazing, just wanted her to know that I am sorry. Feels so good now! I am not saying this to toot my own horn. I just want to encourage those of us who know we have perpetuated the cycle of spiritual abuse, that it is never too late to do the right thing. God’s grace is for real. Grace + believing it = God is pleased with me! The “abused” CAN become the “healed”, and the “healed” CAN become a conduit of healing to others. The cycle of spiritual abuse CAN be broken.

God, may it be. Let it start with me.

Anybody with me?

Very well stated! It communicates the issues. Your tone is very inviting. I will extend the invitation to others. And be reminded myself.

Right on, Kathy!
With you, definitely.
Thank you for thinking thru this and taking time to post.
Now you have been freed to be part of the healing process.
I guess it takes knowing what it feels like.
But PTL!

Wow, thank you Kathy, for your deeply insightful and gracious post! Thank you, Holy Spirit, for giving Kathy a tender and forgiving heart toward those who spiritually abused her! As an adult MK-turned-missionary who DID grow up in that environment and became a spiritual and emotional abuser herself, I am humbled and grateful to hear you say you DO understand how that environment we grew up in contributed to our twisted theology and shameful behavior and words. (I relate to the lecture to the young girl, because I am guilty of similar much-regretted judgmental actions.)

Your graciousness has actually moved me to sorrowful and healing tears. I know my Heavenly Father understands why I have been such an idiot, but it means more than you can know to hear someone like you say you understand too.

And you forgive.

Grace, grace, grace ... I always need it, and I pray I will always extend it to others ...

Grace that is greater than all my sins ...

Thank you Kathy for sharing that with uys. I`ve spent all my 56 years living under those same conditions. I think that God is gently laughing at me today saying " Oh, Jerry, if only you would quit taking back what you have given to Me I would give you so much more peace. But that`s ok I`ve still got it." Thank you Lord for your mercy and grace and peace.