MK forum

Hey guys,

I am new to this forum. I spent many, many years thinking I was alone. I felt guilty for rejecting my parents' religion and philosophy after coming face to face with the "best and brightest" of Christianity (or so I believed) in Rubbish Land aka: Numinohi, Papua New Guinea. (I was incredibly amused when I learned what "Numinohi" meant in Bena).
In 1994, I spent over a year on the Numinohi NTM mission base. I went to high school with the MKs there. I was not considered an MK myself, because I did not live in the dorms. This was because my parents had been sent over there on behalf of "Friends of NTM" (FNTM) as "support missionaries" to carry out support work like construction on the base. As such, I lived with my parents on base instead of being in one of the dorms.

I was not sexually abused, just emotionally, physically, and psychologically abused by a man I have come to understand is probably a narcissistic sociopath, and a woman who proved to be so codependent that she enabled him at every turn. I had in no way a normal childhood. It was already off the rails before my parents dragged us into one "Christian compound" after another, including a "Boy's Ranch" in Blue Eye MO which was essentially a reformatory for hard case boys who would otherwise be in a prison system, and which acted as a prison, where I was locked in with the inmates by virtue of my parents' "calling". I learned to live with being afraid for my life as well as came to terms with literally eating pig slop because that was what we were given. After that particular compound (where my plans to escape at any cost were thwarted by a demonstration of power by basically the cult leader, but we did manage to escape in the middle of the night) FNTM seemed like a nice, happy, and well adjusted reprieve, even if we were living in a broken old abandoned hospital building through a bitter Missouri winter.

By 1993, my parents had fully committed to the NTM propaganda line and arranged to be sent to Papua New Guinea. This involved my sisters and I being trotted out like trained monkeys in front of every poverty stricken church in MO as well as several zig-zag cross country trips in the back of a pickup truck sleeping on the floors of people who were part of what I call the "missionary support underground railroad". I'd find myself on some random family's living room floor for the night wondering how the hell I had managed to end up in this life.

Numinohi was pretty tough for a kid who had grown up stateside. For me, it was just the last straw in a long, long story of abuse and terror which began with my earliest memories. I grew big enough to defend myself and by the time we were forced to return to the USA, I was done with the hypocrisy which I saw as totally rampant on the missionary base. I remember how one member of "leadership" sent his daughter to Australia for an abortion in order to not be embarrassed, all while he talked about how evil it was. I remember how sadistic some of the missionaries stuck on the base in leadership roles were. How they relished inflicting pain on kids. They used the Bible to justify every single thing they did, but I read the Bible too, and I saw what they were doing:
The ancient Israelites sacrificed their own children on the "altars of Baal", and it was evil. I guess they thought it would make them even more holy to sacrifice what was most precious to them, even better than what God had asked. He wasn't pleased. To me, Numinohi was one gigantic altar of Baal where Children were sacrificed to show how "holy" and "awesome" their parents were.

Anyway, it took a long time for me to write down my whole story. I was moved to do it when I had a son of my own (after getting over a fear that I would be in some way like my father, and realizing that I was nothing like him). I wrote a book called Child of Wrath. It was extremely cathartic, and it also signaled the end of my parents speaking to me or seeing their only grandchild.

Anyway, I thought I'd share here because I think it might be helpful to some of you. Maybe it will give some hope, and show how someone can overcome their childhood. Maybe just reinforce that you aren't alone.

For what it's worth, my book is .

Thanks and much love, especially to any of you who were in PNG in the 90s!

-JB

Thank you so much, JB, for adding your voice to the many here.

You are truly not alone. Sadly, tragically, you are NOT alone.

It just goes on and I'm sad to hear another story like this!
But thankful for a place where it can be written.
How easy was it to get your book published, JB?
So much to overcome.
Thank you for writing here.

Hi JB,

I was at Numonohi in the 70s and 80s. So nothing really changed between our times there.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it was little more than a cult, with a lot of strange sadistic men who for reasons I’ve not been able to fathom, liked to brag about the pain they could inflict on children.

In the midst of it was my strange father, who seemed to revel in making others lives miserable with his guilt tripping and interfering. And even when he was thrown out of NTM and almost all he owned stolen, he still sang the praises of this strange cult and lied to stop the truth going public.

Like yourself I don’t hold with the faith of my parents, just can’t bring myself to believe in something so cruel and damaging. Of course the old line gets trotted out, “don’t look at men, trust god”, but then when you hear that missionary pedophiles should be forgiven because they were tempted by Satan himself in his own land” it becomes so warped, how could any rational mind believe in the NTM version of faith?

I look back and wonder if Numonohi did any good for more than just a select few. The locals received little benefit, the fences and white rule saw to that. Females were second class citizens. And children were there to be abused by pedophiles and men who knew exactly what was going on and did nothing.

Sorry you went through this too. But glad you survived and went on to accomplish much.

Cheers

Bemused

P.s. If you had siblings, how are they?