MK forum

No, being a missionary is not in my books. I have lived on the other side of that fence and had closer ties to the people of PNG than most MK's and even missionaries.

I understand you don't like the job offer don't take it. But you also have to realize that many of the young people going in didn't have that option. they were recruited by NTM and sent to camps that kept them away from the world as they trained them to be who they wanted. By the time you and your family are overseas in the middle of the jungle and have no money and the mission always kept you passports for "safe" keeping, well you might feel a little stuck and better do what gods army wants of you.

Were the natives given a far exchange for their land and help? Hell no, not at all. they are still being ripped off. But when you think you are morally advanced and bring them the truth of the real god, you tend to think that is a priceless gift that they should be grateful for in itself.

Did some get a nice income? Yes many did and they were also very well liked by the mission and the mission took care of who they liked.

Yes the Australians were treated very bad by most as well as other countries. I saw this my self many times.

Dear Yunker,

I do very much appreciate your post, you have courage in raising some very uncomfortable issues. Wonder if you'd mind taking this tread a little further, I'm interested in what you saw and experienced. I'm a Kiwi (not an Australian) and I saw what happened to my own family and other Kiwis at the hands of those in power in PNG (both in the school system and the management of the field). My era was the late 70's and early 80's. My parents lived on the base for my entire sojourn, every day I lived with the knowledge that I would quite possibly end up in a physical conflict with another MK and that when it happened no one would stick up for me. MKs and their parents would suddenly look the other way, so I kept my own company. The problem started at the top with the principal, he hated my father because my father spoke up against his rascist crap (yes he prattled on about how black people had parts of their brains missing and so were inferior to us good white people) and I think his hatred spilled over to my fathers son, namely me. But the field comittee was in on the act too, they made sure that the minority groups got the jobs that no one else wanted and if they complained they were thrown out. But why did no one speak out, after all weren't we all there for the same noble cause? Or were the majority to gutless to speak out and just let the minority wear the unfairness. My parents came home broken and destitute people and their church didn't really want to know them. It was only when I intervened that NTM refunded some of the money they had stolen (o.k. I used a bit of strong persuasion, but it was for a good cause).
So assuming that we were not on the field in the same era, why were the Australasian missionaries still being treated badly and no one speaking up in your era? And has anything changed? Is Crossview (the renamed NTM Australia) still sending unsuspecting missionaries up to PNG to be used and abused, to do exactly what their real masters tell them too?
This wasn't some big dark secret that no one in New Zealand knew, I remember being privy to a New Zealand "home committee" meeting where the four leaders met and discussed the second class treatment dished out to Australasian missionaries, yet they seemed to think it was acceptable because of the noble cause.
Did those who did this and those who just turned a blind eye not think that one day there would not be consequences for their actions? NTM took a gamble that this part of the whole sorry saga would never see the light of day, it was the wrong gamble to take.

Hey Bemused,

I don't have a problem telling you more. I was in PNG from about 84 to I think end of 99. Went over when I was around 5. So years before that were at the different training camps ntm has around the country.

My family was in the beloved Mouk tribe with the almighty lord Jesus himself mark zook. Yes, the guy from the video about saving an entire tribe all on his own. That moron waited till we left for our leave and filmed it after that. They don't talk about the people being scared of him and thinking they had to agree to be saved to make him happy. Or his "come in if your black stay out if you're white" jokes. All around low IQ in the ethics and morals department.

My story was at one point all over the web. I was in this fight hard but ended up being a one man show do to my atheist views.

It seems if you never did believe in the bible or ntm and have a problem with it, you are just doing the devils work. I am not for revenge or retaliation. If I wanted that it would have been had by now.

I have made it clear that I wan't justice and all views of the world to be respected by ntm and it's people. you cant force a person to be a christian and when you do, you are doing nothing but damage to your religion. I truly believe that abuse of all kinds has not been dealt with on a realistic nonpartisan way that doesn't involve religion. You can practice your right to religion and whatever you wan't all day long, doesn't bother me, but once you start destroying kids lives in the name of your religion and take away basic rights, that's when I have a problem. And when you go against the very own morals and teachings of your doctrine, I have no respect for you or your claim of bringing salvation to the world as valid over the many many life's that have been ruined. As they call it in the military Collateral damage and to me this is unacceptable.

Hi Yunker,

Many thanks you make good sense. I wondered as a teenager how we (that being us in NTM) could be the only ones who were truly right and 99.9999999% of the world population were wrong, it struck me as arrogant at the time to have this message repeated over and over again in the school and at home. Then I reached the conclusion that if it had to be repeated so often, then it's credibility as a fact was in serious doubt. Now I find it pretty much comical the there are those, including some in my own family, who still believe that the NTM way is the only way to Nirvana, Utopia, Heaven or whatever and given what is now transpiring, it is less a comedy but a sad deluded tragedy.


I have considerable admiration for the faith of MKs who despite being to hell and back still have the courage to believe. For me there is much wisdom to be gained by recognizing the good in others, no matter what faith, colour, background or part of the globe they inhabit, for there are many who are far wiser and better individuals than myself from whom I can learn and be the better for it.
The NTM experience and it's aftermath for me, destroyed absolute faith in anything and made me wary of joining any particular religous persuasion.
I have been lucky to find a partner who is well balanced and understanding, who listens to my wrestling with the questions and doubts raised by my past and loves me anyway.

What I keep coming back to is how was this abuse was allowed to happen on such a scale in the first place and why was it covered up so deliberately? It just doesn't make sense to me that on one hand to claim the NTM way is the best way to get a good gaurantee of an eternal life and yet be responsible for so much pain, suffering and the cover up of so much criminal activity. It just doesn't add up.

I think some soul mates have found each other.
And I am so sad for the reason why.
Welcome back, Yunker.
There are so many questions
And some have some answers
And some have others.
I hope we get ALL the questions answered
That lead to healing and justice.

Just noticed that was supposed to be "come in if you're white stay out if you're black". Get aggravated just thinking of those people.

I've heard this sort of line also as a teenager. Imagine being on the receiving end of this and being "black", the credibility of a loving God who loved us all equally would have just taken a bit hit and you'd be wondering "if you think that way, what are you doing living amongst us".

Perhaps you could ask the sayer of this, a question for me. When Bemused and Mrs Bemused comes to visit him, does Mrs Bemused have to stay outside or in the lobby? Because Mrs Bemused is not entirely white!!!!!!!

I'm not sure we are soul mates as per our friend Mosquito Bite, because I'm not sure if I have a soul, but I think we are both people with a conscience who have dared to raise an uncomfortable issue from our past. For this I am very grateful, for it is something that bothers me still.

As for Mrs Bemused, a truly wonderful person, who is incredibly intelligent. Thanks to the work of Mrs Bemused, air travel on Boeing aircraft is safer than it used to be. Wonder how many missionaries have flown to their mission fields on Boeing aircraft? White, Black, Green or yellow, it didn't matter to NASA what colour their brilliant engineers were and the world is more technologically advanced because of it. God has been done no favours by the nonsense of missionaries who didn't treat their neighbours or children as they themselves expected to be treated.

This is what we were never allowed to do in the fundamentalist environment in which we were raised: ask hard questions that don't necessarily have clear answers.

The need to have everything figured out and stuffed into a tidy little box is so important to fundamentalist Christians, and I would suggest tends to be a need for most westerners (are Aussies considered westerners, Bemused? How does that work?).

This leads to arrogance, judgmental attitudes, snobbery, prejudice, and over-confidence. People become so sure about themselves and their views, they actually begin to worship themselves as superior and infallible.

I have found that this attitude thrives not only within fundamentalist religious circles, but also in other conservative world views ... I see this occurring in politically conservative people as well.

My tidy little box split wide open in 1993 when I learned that my daughters, who are more precious to me than my own life, had been violated years before by a man who was not only a Christian missionary, but someone I considered to be a close and trusted friend.

Questions? Oh yes, did I have questions! They tumbled around in my sleepless head, ripped holes in my shattered heart and poured out of my mouth like a raging flood.

Questions, questions, questions!!!

Twenty years later, there are still no satisfying answers to those questions that tormented me.

People who want to throw trite answers at me are not my friends.

My friends are fellow travelers on this long, weary road of suffering. Friends who also have questions to which there are no answers. Together we have learned that even when the heart is broken, it continues beating, somehow we keep breathing, keep living, and as the tears diminish, we notice that in the midst of our terribly broken world, there is still joy to be found, love that holds on tight, and things that still make life meaningful.

I hope this forum will always be a safe place to ask hard questions. Many times we need to ask these questions aloud, not because we expect any answers, but just because it feels comforting and reassuring to hear someone respond in a validating way.

It is meaningful to know we are not alone. There are those who hear our questions and resonate with our pain.

No more tidy little boxes. We don't live in that world anymore.

But that is okay.

(If you wonder what sort of point I'm trying to make, there is no point here. Really. Just the ramblings of a weary sojourner who is still breathing, still walking, still loving, still listening. And still smiling.)

From Raz (If you wonder what sort of point I'm trying to make, there is no point here. Really. Just the ramblings of a weary sojourner who is still breathing, still walking, still loving, still listening. And still smiling.)

Raz So glad for the last paragraph. I sometimes get very down when things don't happen for twenty years and more. Thanks keep it up.

Yunker and I will now join together and sing:

We welcome you
To the PNG thread
We welcome your ramblings
Tumbling from your head


ahhhh maybe not

No seriously, your points are excellently made. The world we live in today is not the tidy little boxes of decades ago and those who have made their world so. But I think our world is better for the searching questions and the conversation between us.

Now to answer the question are Aussies Westerners. Well they are 3 hours flying West of Kiwiland, which is about right, as we don't want their flies, crocs, flies, snakes, flies and did I mention flies? Most Kiwis would probably think the term Westerner is more applicable to the European and U.S. sector with the east being the old Soviet bloc and Asia. We are more of a South Pacific country, although the last stop before Penguinville if one is going South and a long long way from Chile if one is going East (not forgetting 3 hours flying from Flyville if one goes west).

So tonight I shall have for supper, a nice Thai takeaway which the lovely part Chinese Mrs Bemused will bring home and I think we might just have a slice of good ole apple pie as I remember my MK friends in the West (who are actually mostly North East of us). However I will show my prejudice by not having a bit of horse meat that is pretending to be beef, as the Europeans seem to be currently experiencing .

Bon Apetite and happy rambling