MK forum

D&O: another of so many heartrending stories I've read here.
And to think that God has known ALL our stories, all along.
If my heart is this heavy, how can He bear it?

I just found this thread.

I often tell my girls and Husband how many times I just said "yes, I did it". and got spanked for things I never did. It was easier as my dad pounded into me that I did it and he knew I did it so I might as well confess. It was easier to take the spanking (with the famous belt) than to fight for my rights. Parents were pushed to be harsh.

As my husband and I went with NTM and on the field, My hubby was repromanded for not being a tyrant over the kids. We were plenty strict but according to the FC we needed to be harder. They were an unwelcome guest in our home for 2-3 hours a day trying to get us to "Conform". With the blessing of NTM we left the field and the FC were dismissed from the field and out of the mission.

XYZ and Sherpa...I think to some extent anyone who grew up in NTM can relate to your stories, however, my heart breaks to hear just how harsh your home was. I remember the belt buckle as well, the bare bottom spankings I received at home, and the feeling of a loss of love when mistakes were made. My parents eventually left the mission and have apologized to me so many times for the harshness of our childhood. My younger siblings grew up much different than I and my brother did, and I'm so thankful for the grace of God and for my parents' willingness to learn and change. They have become wonderful grandparents, and we have a much more honest relationship, although conversations about these things are still difficult. My parents were VERY young when they met and married at NTM, and my dad was a brand new Christian, so pretty much all of his Christian training came straight from NTM. My mom came out of a very legalistic church background, and NTM's parenting teachings were similar to what she had grown up in. Although my parents were adults, with the Word of God at their disposal, and are responsible for the choices they made, I do believe NTM has responsibility as well. There was so much pressure to do things a certain way, and people who didn't conform were unspiritual, disobediant, didn't trust the Lord, were "struggling with sin", etc... For new and immature Christians, I can understand why many parents whose desire was to serve the Lord, conformed to what more "mature" Christians told them to do, especially when those Christians were in leadership over them and their ability to do ministry.

For those of us who were born into NTM and grew up in that culture, we didn't really know how to even identify the abuse that happened in the dorm, because we already believed we were less valuable than our parents' ministries, not worth protecting, and that speaking out against the abuse would be self-centered and we would be punished. What's worse, I think many of us would have believed the lie that we deserved the punishment. We were in a spiritually and emotionally (and many times physically) abusive environment before we ever got to the dorm. Praise God you did not allow this thinking to be passed to the next generation. It's taking a lot of counseling for me to recognize that what happened in my childhood was wrong. And I look at my own children and feel so thankful to be learning these lessons now, hoping to give them a gift I wasn't given til adulthood.

So true, Zephaniah ... all true. We your parents were so young, and so earnest and zealous in our heart for God. We accepted and practiced the parenting style taught us not only by NTM, but also by people like Bill Gotherd, whose seminars many of us attended.

It's enough to break your heart in pieces, when you are a grandparent and look back and see so many mistakes .... oh, so many mistakes you made when you were young. God gave us our precious little miracle babies and we broke them.

I know His heart is hurting too, over our ignorance, and the damage that we did to his creations.

On other threads in these Forums we have discussed the environment of the present NTM. I continue to be concerned that there is too much similarity between the present environment and the one I entered as a 19-year-old. I know from experience that when you're IN it, it's very hard to see it for what it is.

May God have mercy on the children of NTM.

(Thank you for your very insightful post, and welcome to the Forums!)

Good stuff, rroym. Good stuff!!

Thank you so much!

Nothing is more scary than admitting you've been wrong. And nothing is more freeing!

I believe it IS shame that keeps us from taking that good hard look at ourselves and seeing the ugliness. But when I let go of that shame, don't let it control me anymore, agree with the truth, and run straight into the arms of my Father who has already forgiven me for ALL my failures ... oh, what comfort, acceptance, and unconditional love await me there!!!

I do hope that we can replicate that safety, love and acceptance here on this website.

The belt buckle thing is just incomprehensible to me. My father 'spanked' us with his belt and that was bad enough. I just cannot understand how on earth NTM would have justified needing the BUCKLE as well!

First, to clarify...it was really late last night when I was typing. My dad never used the buckle, just the belt on us. (and broke a few wooden spoons and arrow shafts across our heinies as well...)

Second...AMEN. One of the best ways our parents can fight for us now, is to protect us from the burden of their guilt and shame by going to therapy, counseling, talking with a pastor, etc and being set free themselves, recognizing what was wrong and dealing with it! Pain can destroy or pain can bring us closer to God. My parents are great, I'm so thankful for them, especially now they are giving me so much love and support as my kids and I go through this divorce. But I wish they were free.

I can't even begin to say thank you enough to the Fanda survivors who started this process. You are all my heroes.

I wasn't abused as a child, but my parents were very young in NTM and learned to b extremely hard on us - more on the oldest, less on the middle and least on the youngest; nevertheless, they basically were pretty hard on us all h trough growing up till teenage years, then things lightened up coming back to the states. Being here and seeing how other children were treated did made me think what bad parents they had because they weren't beated into submission(they were rebellious and bad). My mentality began to change the longer I was here and when I got older I realized it was my parents upbringing and NTM training that made them so harsh with us, the mission AND other missionaries screwtenizing over each other's children's behavior. It wasn't just the parents and the pressure of the mission, it was peer pressure within the missionary families themselves that pushed the parents to be so.
My parents have become excellent grandparents, stellar in fact, they are easygoing, not harsh at all and encourage us not to be that way with our children. They often appologize to their oldest for being so awfully hard and harsh with him, he carried bitterness for many years about that around with him - Thank God he is now healed of that and has forgiven my parents for that. I remember being on furlough and this family told my parents how well behaved we were, my parents almost didn't have to say a word and we got up and RAN! We got that harsh look even and things changed immediately. We were trained that way - to be fearfull of the consequenses and the spankings and also the constant 'talks' that told us we were bad and bad examples if we weren't subservient like that. At the time I was shocked that their children weren't treated the same, but didn't realize it was overboard on our end. Looking back I DO believe it caused a lot of feelings of mistrust and hurt egos.
I thank God that my parents have a different outlook now that they've been out of the mission for a long time. I agree with Sherpa, the mission really needs to start putting children first, in fact this while millenium change with women working all the time and still being expected to take care of the kids and home is insane! Its rediculous to think a mother can work like the father and still cook, clean and take care of children. Who thought this crap up? It is driving women insane all over the country. Imagine being out on the field and having NO ONE to talk to about it....having to bear it all alone. I might run away too.
The expecations for mothers should absolutely not be equalled to that of the father if the mother is going to take care of the children. It is sexist, and wrong NTM - Do you hear me? You are hurting people, damaging them permanently! For a change why don't you emphasize grace? What a phenominon! Grace in NTM!!! - sorry if that sounded a little sarcastic, but I watched my mother go through this, sleep 2-3 hours a night because she had to keep up with everything AND home school us...so she worked 15 hours a day and did it all well. No wonder I don't remember spending a lot of time with her. She did her best, its not her fault, but our relationship was hurt because of the situation NTM forced her into. We still work on things to this very day. Thank you God for YOUR grace!

It must have been the Bill Gothard thing, cause my folks weren't with NTM, but there was an older teen in our neighborhood before we went to Brazil--my Dad took this guy out to the woodshop and they made a paddle, drilled holes in it, shellacked it, named it the "21 Holes of Happiness." They hung it in our kitchen and Dad showed it to everybody. We were so embarrassed. He never hit us hard enough to bruise, but spanked us in an echoey hallway. I think he put it in a barrel for Brazil, and we kept taking it out and hiding it. Can we sue the Gothards?