MK forum

I did see abuse of Nationals in PNG and plenty of it. Where do I start? Let me start with the incident I referred to on the Red Baron site.

As children on a Saturday morning at Numonhi we walked down the hill from our dorm after doing our "chores", it was a beautiful day. Dorm parent Jim Given had said he would follow soon to unlock the gym for us. I remember that the dorm right next to the gym was usually responsible for the key so I'm not sure why on this day we were waiting for Jim Given to unlock the building.

On nearing the gym we could hear children laughing and a ball bouncing on the concrete floor. By this time Jim Given was 3/4 of the way to the gym. We slowly opened the door to find a group of about 10 national children shooting hoops. The oldest child would of been about 9yrs old and the youngest just 3yrs old.

They had a look of surprise and were waiting to see what the outcome was going to be of having slipped into the gym which had obviously been left open overnight.

Jim Given reached us at the gym at by which time we had all made our way inside. In the minutes that followed I saw what no child or the 8yr old I was should ever see. A man full of such hate yelling at missionary children to stand in front of the four exits. He started to remove his belt while striding across the gym towards the terrified children. One of the older girls shielding what looked to be her 3yr old brother as Jim Given grabbed another boy by the arm next to her. He gripped the boy so as to be able to thrash/beat him with his leather belt across his backside and lower back.

I remember feeling such terror......standing off to the side of the door I was meant to be blocking. Desperately wanting to run and not be a part of such evil....wanting it all to stop. Recalling it all brings such terrible guilt with it. These could have been your children.....how many of us have our own precious children now? You don't have to have your own children to know how evil this whole episode was.

Don't ever think that Jim Givens hate was only for people of color. I'm european and knew his hate first hand but lets leave that for the next chapter.

Told you NTM...."Don't poke the bear!"

Oh, that is just horrifying! The entire event, including the fact that you little MKs felt forced to participate in helping Jim Given to engage in that atrocity.

I am thoroughly sickened.

And I thank you for shining the light of truth onto this terrible chapter in a series of terrible chapters that are finally being told about Numonohi.

Alas this account does not suprise me. Jim Given was a nasty piece of work and made no effort to conceal his attitude towards people of darker skin colour (and lets face it, what was someone who had such attitudes doing in a country like PNG, whether they were hidden or open). This is the man who said "I love blacks, everyone should own one". He is also the clown who physically assaulted myself.
He was in charge of base maintainence at Numonohi, which meant he hired and fired the local people who worked on the base. Strange how paedophiles were appointed as dormparents, rascists in charge of local employment and the headmaster was the spouter of the most incredible crap one could ever hear. Yet Joe average decent missionary plugged away doing their job while their kids were putting up with this nonsense.
I have raised the issue before that some groups of missionaries and their MKs were treated as second class citizens, but Jim made sure that the locals were in third class and he didn't like it when anyone disagreed with him. My father for all his faults told Jim what he thought of his rascist nonsense.

I realise this is very uncomfortable for some to recognise, but some of the people in PNG should never have been there for their views on race alone. The fact they were put in places where they were able to push their views on impressionable young minds of MKs is a travesty.
But then what was the name of the magazine we loved to read? Oh yes, "Brown Gold", why on earth was it so neccessary for the word "Brown" to be used?

This story is hard to believe about these poor little kids, but alas I believe it, there is just too much evidence from this forum not to. This guy "Jim Given" was an actual missionary that went through some kind of training with NTM? What was going on with NTM and their so called wonderful training that we heard about so often when we were young missionaries with ABWE. I say all mission organizations that have any kind of scandal should close their doors and I know 4 (NTM, ABWE, BMM and I would say EBM but they have already closed due to financial mismanagement). I am so glad my children were never around any "Jim Givens" when they were children, I pray none of my 12 grandchildren ever ever have to be around any "Jim Givens." It is beyond me why you would go to a foreign field and treat the nationals so horrible, it is their country and missionaries are invited guests. If those children didn't belong in that building there was a proper way to ask them to leave, but if it was a gym, why weren't they allowed in the building in the first place? I wonder, how long was this "Jim Given" on the field as a missionary (not that I would call him that)? This one incident in itself is enough to want an investigation into NTM let alone all the other atrocities. This business with race is another issue, we are all of one blood. If this "Jim Given" is still alive and since he obviously doesn't know his Bible he needs to watch the film, "Origin of the Races." It is hosted by John Mackay, an Australian who is director of Creation Research. I might try to google him and find an address and send him a copy. This is madness that a missionary would even consider the skin of a person. I think my blood pressure is increasing so I had better just quit. Full stop.

A good point. Some of the things we saw as MKs were clearly not right, speaking out was the correct thing to do, but to who? Therein lay the problem. Some adults were lovely and approachable, but they to didn't want to "let the team down" or "stir the pot". My father was told by the principal that when I spoke out, often I was technically/morrally correct, but it made me unpopular so better I keep my mouth shut. So the attitude of closing a blind eye to what was going on, came directly from the top.
Good on Radioshack for having a conscience, for speaking out. Hopefully giving an account of what happened is theraputic, it has been for me, for which I am grateful.
And what of those poor local kids, what did it make them think of us and our trying to bring them "a God of love", when they saw someone so full of hate. Wonder where they are now and what they think, suppose we will never know.

If you look elsewhere on this site, you should be able to find information on Jim Bou of Venezuela who was dismissed from the mission for abusing native young men.

I've wondered if some of that was what resulted in NTM being expelled from Venezuela.

On the main forum page, click on Venezuela, then Venezuela again, and you can read the entire thread about Jim Bou.

EEk, so Venezuela had its fair share of perverts to. Disgraceful and notice the dates of the last offender, 2007, thats only 4 years ago. Thanks for the link, it is sobering reading. This was a mission that preached "Suffer the Little Children to come unto me"? or was it "let the Little Children suffer"?

Not being particularly bright, I did notice that there are a lot of Jim's involved and a Joel (PNG Jim's 2, Venezuela Jims 1). Thank goodness Bemused starts with the letter "B"!