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:::Emailed in 2006 to Scott Ross, New Tribes Mission:::
Mr. Ross ~
In 1981-82, I was 10-11 years old and a resident of the Earl Dorm at the New Tribes Mission base of Numonohi, Papua New Guinea. The Earl dorm parents were Gary and Annie Earl, and the dorm was called the Hibiscus Dorm (located in the far right front corner of the base). It was a small dorm: there were 7 dorm children (ages 8-17) and I think by then there were 4 Earl children (all under age 6).
One evening, I was outside playing on the base's swing sets when one of the little children of my dorm came and told me to go back to the dorm. I went into the dorm and was alone in the house with the dorm dad, Gary Earl.
He said that his daughter, a 1st grader, told him I had not swept the floor that evening, as was my work detail assignment. I said that I did sweep the floor, but I admitted that I had not turned on a light to do it (because I was in a hurry to play!).
He became visibly angry at me and told me to go to his and Annie's bedroom. I cannot, because of the trauma of the event, give you a dialogue of our discussion. I remember his red, angry face, his very loud booming voice, how huge he was, and that he began to spank me with a board -about 2' long, 6" wide, and 3/4-1" thick -on my bottom and upper thighs.
After many strikes with that board, I thought the spanking was done, but he told me to stand up and asked me again if I swept the floor. I said, ''Yes, I did. I won't lie." He said I was lying, yelled at me to lie face down, and hit me over and over again.
Again, I had to stand up, answer if I swept the floor or not, and then lie down again because my answer was not right. I remember asking him at one point, in a respectful manner, if he wanted me to lie to him; is this what he was asking for? He told me he was to break my will. He told me that I was a liar, I could not possibly be a Christian, and did I know where the Bible says that liars go? They go to hell.
Over and over again, up and down, up and down. He screamed so loudly at me that I remember his spit. As time went on, I was too weak to get up and down. He grabbed me to stand me up to yell at me, and then pushed me to lie me back down.
In writing this, I cannot make you understand how long this event took, or how hard his strikes were. I remember looking at the digital clock on their bed's shelf, and thinking, "This can't go on forever. It isn't possible for it to last forever." I remember wanting my Daddy, who had given me a good many spankings but never one with a board, and never one that bruised (I had lived with my parents my first 9 years, in the States at language school).
I remember also that there were two occasions when he had to grab me from the bed and physically hold me in order to stand me up. I'm not sure but those two blackouts may have been times when I fainted. I had a heart murmur as a child, and at the time, I would often faint if crying hard.
As time went on, I remember thinking, "I don't think he will kill me. I hope he doesn't kill me."
I remember running out of tears.
It is around this time of despair that I had the strongest spiritual moment of my life even to this day. I felt strongly that I was in a battle of good vs. evil. He was on the side of evil. I was good. I remember thinking, in my childish mind, “He is a bad man.” And I suddenly felt like God was in the room.
The words of a poem began going through my mind. We had spent just one break in the tribe before this event occurred. In the tribe, my mother stapled poems on the outhouse walls. Without meaning to, I memorized one of the poems, and its words were used, I believe by God, to comfort me that terrible evening. I'm writing this from memory; I've never forgotten the words:
Regardless of the circumstance,
Regardless of the fear,
Regardless of the pain we bear,
Regardless of the tears,
Our God is always in control,
Performing as He should.
And He has promised in His Word,
To work things for our good.
But as a loving Father would,
He sometimes lets us cry,
To cleanse the hurt out of our hearts,
To wash it from our eye.
Yet gently gathers He the tears,
Within His hands to stay,
Until He turns them into pearls,
And gives them back someday.
The words of the poem came to me between blows. I felt no more pain.
At one point during the spanking, Gary Earl yelled at me to move my hand "or else." I did not move it quickly enough, so he hit it. The force was so great that my middle finger swelled and later the fingernail turned black and fell off completely. To this day, over 20 years later, that finger is thicker than its match on the other hand.
He quit hitting me when the others returned to the dorm. He never did accomplish his goal of breaking my will into submission to him.
My 11 or 12-year-old dorm sister found me in the bathroom. She tenderly bathed me since I was too weak to do it myself.
My buttocks and thighs were black and hard, crusty. They were sticky with blood so that my clothes stuck to the wounds. Later, as they healed, I had visible scars.
My greatest humiliation was to come: Annie Earl came to the bathroom door and asked me to come see her when I came out of the bath. Trusting her, I obeyed and followed her into the boys' bedroom, where to my horror, Gary was sitting on one of the boys' beds. He said, "Take your pants down." I cannot tell you how frightening it was to disrobe in front of the man who has just beaten you. I was so afraid of him, that I feared for my life. Because of that, I did what he said. He said, "Turn around and take your panties down, too." I did as he said.
Annie's eyes filled with tears, but she remained silent. Gary said, "I'll tell Miss McNally [teacher] that you will be taking a pillow to school." He then told me to pull up my pants and leave.
For the next several days, I carried a pillow to school. Miss McNally never spoke to me about it or questioned me.
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For all of the years since then, until I graduated in 1989, Gary Earl always seemed to have something against me.
He often searched for me around with a flashlight, catching me in dark places. He belittled me, telling me once that I couldn't sing well, and another time that I was not a Christian. He told me I would never be successful. He did not ever strike me again. He did yell at me one time when I sassed Annie. She intervened. In 1988, he kicked my brother, Calvin, and me out of his dorm. There was no explanation given to me. Even if others did not get into trouble, I did from him. This can be verified by many others.
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You may be wondering why I never told anyone. For one, even to this day, I am absolutely afraid of that man. He had been a police officer prior to coming to Papua New Guinea, and he liked to tell his police stories. I had no doubt that he could kill me. He was a huge man; bigger than every other man I remember on the Numonohi base.
The only contact I had at the time with my parents was through a one-way radio, where we could speak to them once a week on an assigned day, but they could not answer back. I was afraid to say anything on the radio for fear of Gary Earl's wrath.
Also because of my fear of him, and because of my parent's frequent expression of love for the Earls (they were friends in Camdenton prior to PNG), I never told my parents when I went back to the tribe on break.
In my older years at Numonohi, I thought about my physical abuse daily but I did not tell anyone, again because I was afraid of Gary Earl. I also did not see any adult that I could trust, since Gary Earl was one of the most popular men on base, and one of the most influential.
After I graduated from there, I put Gary Earl and Numonohi and New Tribes Mission -and my friends -out of my mind, to start a new life.
In 1997, I was in a non-fiction writing class and had to tell a true story about myself. I sat at the computer with a story in mind, but what came out was the one above. 14 pages of it. All in one draft. I feel like this was a "God thing," in which He was helping me heal. The healing was so effective that I was able to forgive Gary Earl and Numonohi. For the first time, I did not think of my abuse daily. It was as if I was freed from it.
I told two of my brothers about it at that time, and that's when I found out that Calvin was outside the bedroom door, crying. He would have only bee 8 or 9 years old. I did not tell my parents, because I did not want to hurt them. I didn't see why they needed to know that by placing me in a boarding school, they had placed me in danger.
In the years since 1997, I have often wanted to do something further with my story, but I have not wanted to contact Gary Earl. He still frightens me. His apology, if he could give it, means nothing to me. Nothing. I don't need it. And I don't want to hear from him in order to receive it.
Why am I now telling my story to you? Because I am now 35 and a mother of four children, ages 10, 8, 6, and 3. It is time for me to admit that my fear of Gary Earl is no longer valid. I am at peace with my abuse, as far as forgiveness (never as far as pain), and I am ready to help others deal with theirs. By writing my story on the [former NCA] message board, others have emailed to tell me that they, too, were abused by different people at Numonohi, and are so relieved to know they are not alone.
I do not know of any good that has come out of my abuse. Let it begin now.
~ Lori McAlister
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People to verify:
Calvin McAlister (my 8-9yo brother) remembers crying outside the bedroom door during the beating. Gary Earl and I thought the dorm was empty.
[Name omitted] would remember bathing me and what my skin looked like. She also remembers the nights after, during which she would reach up from her bunk bed and hold my hand as I cried myself to sleep.
[Names omitted] and many more can verify Gary Earl's attitude toward me in the years until I graduated, even though none of them knew about the beating. In 1989, just before I left PNG, Annie Earl found me near the post office and asked to speak alone with me. She said she wanted to apologize for "everything that has happened between you and us." She could verify everything, from the wounds to the later treatment of me, but I don't know if she would.
:::End of Letter:::
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