MK forum

You have no idea what atrocities were committed against young innocent children by the dorm dad Les was his first name at the NTM dorm at Aritao in the Philippines starting in 1986 and continued for SEVERAL years. The abused were sworn to secrecy “in front of God almighty” and were made to believe if they were to ever mention these things it was a breach of trust with God and they would burn in hell for telling the truth. When discovered, the dorm dad justified why he did these things and confessed to only minor infractions, and NTM officials only asked him and his family to leave. The abusers that were confronted LIED for him to protect their place in heaven. There was no justice. There are right now, as I am typing this, Adults in their mid 30’s who suffered torturous physical sexual abuse in his office, in the lounge, and in their own rooms, who still have trouble sleeping at night. Who still have nightmares, and breath taking anxiety attacks. NTM knew of these things and offered no councelling, no justice, no… NOTHING!

Dear Former MK,

The following quote is from an NTM missionary in the Philippines. He sent me this information through Facebook in July 2009, when he thought I was still in NTM myself. Once he realized I am now an "outsider" he quit writing me and "defriended" me!

In any case, his comments are from the standpoint of an "insider" in the PI and one very sympathetic to the way NTM has handled things over the years. They are NOT made by someone who has been abused, someone who has any kind of an axe to grind with NTM. As such, they are chilling in their admission:

"Curious as to how you came across the links on the NTM Abuse. Have you ever been in one of Scott Ross' sessions at Refresher Course on abuse? The cases against NTM are MANY!! And sadly the majority of them are documented as being 'true.' We went through it here on our field and we lost a lot of families over it.

"We didn't know specifically about the abuse in Senegal, but we knew about what happened here in the Philippines and when we sat in the session on abuse at Refresher Course, we found out about the MANY cases that had been brought against NTM because of abuse over the years. It is not a new problem. . . "

From my standpoint, the only thing more heartbreaking than the abuse is the cover up. The only thing harder to reconcile with Christian character than the violation of children is the abdication of leadership to see justice done. I say this not to trivialize the abuse. Far from it. The abuse is evil beyond qualification. But, it is to be expected from the perverse. On the other hand, how could the collective leadership of any field or mission fail to report these things to the local authorities in the lands where the offenses occured? How could they agree to keep these things quiet, often to the detriment of the victims? What kind of a person would swear the victims to secrecy? How could this have been tolerated?

I hope the families "lost" to the field through these incidents will come forward and help hold these people to account.

And, I hope you, Former MK, and the other victims will find healing and peace through the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am not an MK nor was I a former MK. My closest friend is a former MK who resided at the dorms in the 1980's at the Aritao NTM station in the Philippines. The dorm parents name was (My friend asked me to remove his name as the victims know who he was), and was a dorm parent there from approximately 1986 through 1993.

Some interesting facts about this. Statistics show that LESS THAN 25% of abused children actually come forward, and those that do often "water down" the truth out of fear.

Several children came forward about him, which leads me to wonder how many children he was actually abusing.

I know of one such young lady who did not come forward, and like the other persons post was sworn to secrecy in front of God.

His own children came forward admitting years of sexual abuse. These children were so messed up, they actually believed this was normal, and believed all children had fathers that did this.

At an extremely young age (pre-pubescent), my friend was forcefully held down, gagged so she could not scream, and sodomized by Him. In my state, one conviction of one count of this is punishable by 25yrs to life. My friend and I attempted to count how many years he would have been sentenced, if he were to have been convicted at the MINIMUM sentence, of every time he sodomized her over his 5 year reign of terror he inflicted on her. It came down to a "best guess" of over three thousand years.

This was ONE child. There were many.

According to my friend, when things started to surface, and he was questioned by NTM officials, he did admit to some things and justified his actions.

NTM officials asked him and his family to leave immediately.

NTM officials did call in a counselor, who never spoke to my friend nor was even introduced to her. She would have refused to talk with him anyway because "he was a male and there was no way I was going to talk to a man about this."

NTM officials knew of the abuse, and did not call local authorities.

NTM officials knew that his children had been sexually abused by him, and let them all leave TOGETHER. Isn't this like saying "OK we know you sexually abuse little girls, and you are a pedophile, and are guilty of incest, and that's OK we aren't going to do anything to prevent you from doing this, you just can't do it here." I wonder how many more children were abused by him because NTM officials failed to report him to authorities. I wonder how many more times his own children were abused because NTM officials failed to report him.

This is, in itself, a crime. It's called conspiracy. Conspiracy is defined as "knowing a crime has taken place and coming to an agreement with the perpetrator as how to avoid prosecution." in this case, the agreement was, if you leave, we will not prosecute. NTM officials are guilty of CONSPIRACY:18 U.S.C. 371 and is a felony.

Point to consider: New Tribes Mission statement is an honorable one. "Motivated by the love of Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, NTM exists to assist the ministry of the local church through the mobilizing, equipping, and coordinating of missionaries to evangelize unreached people groups, translate the Scriptures, and see indigenous New Testament churches established that truly glorify God." But must this be done at the sacrifice of their own children?

From my friend, dated July 9th, 2010

It was after they (the abuser and family) had left. I was still in school. We were ... and as I sat..., the topic was around them leaving. No details were brought up, no names, other than of course his and his family...as I looked around the room, there were tears streaming down the faces of several of the other girls- and I knew immediately which ones had been victimized. The guilt I felt at that moment was overwhelming. My thought was, if i had spoken up earlier, if i had broken that promise of silence, would i have "saved" them (and myself) from the abuse? Could I have prevented them from becoming victims? That is where the guilt stems... I also realized how he had selected some of us...we didn't have really close ties to our parents (they were always so busy with the mission and we rarely spent quality time with them), and he knew that and used it to his advantage.

I remember when Dad and Mom found out what had happened (to the other girls that came forward.), both were crying when they came to me ( I denied everything.) And then when they got that letter from him..., I was allowed to read the letter...and it made me sick... it was more a justification than anything, of what he had done and why...looking back, I wonder how he could look my parents- or any of the others- in the eye and never even show guilt or a hint of anything that had happened.

(years later) it was suggested I write a letter to him, and just write- even if i couldn't send it, write it like i was going to anyway. So I did-I think I still have it, too. I came across it a good while back and read it again...lotsa anger and questions (still remain)...

...Thank you for listening, though, i do VERY MUCH appreciate it.

Oh, brave survivor, reading the posts from your friend and then from you has made me nauseous and grief-stricken. I am sick about this. I am an Aritao Mom, no longer in NTM. I want you to know I would have done anything, anything to save you from this beastly atrocity. The heart-rending regret we will all carry to our graves is that we were so naive and clueless, and did not save a single victim. I will go weep now.

i keep thinking "now that NTM knows about all this they have to WANT to do something about it! Then i remember that they DID know about it all along! i cant comprihend it! they only did something when people started talking and wouldnt shut up! i hope that if they werent 100% sincere when they hired GRACE that they are when they get the recomendations!

This is simply appalling. Is this abuser behind bars? Ignorance by leadership is never a justifiable excuse before the law. The mission KNEW he abused his own kids, too and sent the family home together? Incomprehensible. Where is he now - that is what I want to know.

Interested, this extensive, prolonged molestation of multiple victims was at long last reported in 1993 by a very brave survivor, and that began a chain of responses to the situation. The family was sent back to the US immediately. What we were told at the time was that even though the pedophile was reported both in FL (NTM headquarters) and VA (perpetrator's home state), nothing could be done to him because the crimes were committed overseas and US laws did not allow him to be prosecuted. To my knowledge this man is still not in prison, which is where I think he belongs.

Lots of old photos of NTM station and the dorms in Aritao here. This is a link to the Facebook page called "I've lived in Aritao."

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=30480296308

If NTM is at all sincere in its desire to "learn all [they] can from this sad period of our history so that [they] can better serve in the future" (http://www.ntm.org/news/report.php), they will certainly want a thorough investigation and public report on these allegations.

If we didn't have the Senegal stories as background, few people would be willing to believe that such things could have happened at all and been so inadequately dealt with by leadership. With Senegal as a lens to view other reports, it is frighteningly credible.

We already know that the Philippines "...went through it ... and [they] lost a lot of families over [abuse issues]." Being "publicly accountable for [their] past actions" in their Senegal School while failing to deal with what happened in other schools is futile, hypocritical and just continues the pattern of lies and cover ups.