MK forum

Dear New Tribe Missionary,

I am sorry to read that your children were abused this is very bad and not good
image for the mission.

But my people did not invite you into our village, you sent your missionarys and
take our best land. You teach us about a different god and tell us he love us,
but you do not love us because you tell us we dirty and that your country is
better because it is not third world. Your children go to good school, ours
not. When your children come home they ride their motorcycles through our land
and gardens. They tell our children that if we are educated we can be like
them, but there are no schools.

Yes we like the medicine you give, but not like the diseases you bring. We hear
that some of your missionaries are not good people, they beat people and they
take what not theres. Your missionarys say they are going to stay a long time
to help us, but they go away and not come back. You live in nice houses that
we help build, but then the people only paid small. When the catholic priest
come you say he evil, but his god the same as you have.

We did not ask for you to come and now you tell us that your children are
abused, what about us. Stop sending missionarys, stay in your country, then we all happy.

Dear AF I am so sorry for how you have been treated, there is no excuse for it. The Africans I knew where much cleaner than the white missionaries. The love and respect I saw for children I have never in the US. People were valued above things. I am sorry your village had to suffer.

Dear AF,

It is hard to know what to write in response to your sentiments and unusually for me, I'm stuck for words, for I can't disagree with what you say and I know that is going to upset more than a few people.

We were guests in many countries and I don't think we can say that all we did was for the best for our hosts. As an MK I grew up with the mantra that we were bringing real happiness to those who could never be truly happy because of the fear that they lived in. I personally found it hard to share the happiness I had, because there wasn't a lot of it then.

Forgive us if we trespassed perhaps not where we should and some were led into temptation, so that what happiness we did attempt to bring was obscured forever and ever.

Sorry.

Dear AF,

I too am sorry and at a loss for the right words. I know my parents for all it is worth truly did sign up to be missionaries to help and spread the word of God. As a child in Panama and shunned by my own, I went into the town to spread my word. At 10 I couldn't do much but learn the native language and play with the Panamanian children. I made every effort to become part of the Panamanian culture instead of be the "better".

I know that doesn't make it better for the ones who did wrong......only to help by knowing there were some good intentions.

What have we done? God weeps again

Heather

I'm still thinking about this. Not sure what the set up was on other fields, but Numonohi was a big base and despite the pics and stories to the contrary, the locals weren't that welcome to come on. In the end a large fence was made to keep them out (as documented in some of Numonohis websites) because of some incidents. It seems a bit sad, spending 6 years in a foreign country and really having not a lot to do with the locals. As younger teens we weren't supposed to go off base unescorted (certainly not females) and with few locals coming on to the base, it became a world in itself. Of course the tribal areas were completely different, but my time in tribal areas was limited to a few visits.

I get the impression that Numonohi was a bit different than other fields, as we really didn't mix with anyone. The base was large and the religous politics of the time frowned upon contact with anyone who didn't think pretty much as we did, which was a very small group. In hindsight that was a good breeding ground for the paedophiles who came to prominence, there were no prying independent eyes. Maybe that fence should never have been built.

Ironically I now have quite a few Filipino friends, but know no one from PNG.

Thank you for your kind words. At Christmas I take my family back to the village. The missionary house still there and my people still remember the missionarys who came many years ago. Now the logging company come on the road they build. The airstrip we build for the missionarys has grown over with bush.
Hope you get blessed at Christmas.

Terrible, terrible questions to have to ask.........

Of course.

Given that we have established there is a long list of paedophiles that were/are with NTM, we can then reasonably assume that the majority were not single men with no children. Which means there are a lot of MKs who have fathers (and mothers too), who are guilty of criminal acts.
Now most posters on this site have/had wonderful fathers, fathers who loved and protected their kids. Fathers who had no idea about the amount of abuse going on and when they found out backed their MKs.
And a few of us didn't. But of those who had parents who were involved in the abuse, the cover up or the lack of care when being confronted with the facts, there are not that many of us posting. Not every MK in that position wishes to put their family history in the public eye and that is their perrogative.

At the time when we should be picking a nice little resthome for our parents and worrying if they are comfortable and clean in their final days, some of us are finding out how much of this mess our parents have on their hands. And no amount of detergent and air freshener is going to erase what is on those hands and worse still it turns out that some parents refuse to wash.

If you have lovely parents who you can reminisce with about the good times and cry together about the bad, you are truly blessed.
If you have a parent who becomes abusive when any of the evils of the past is raised, then welcome to my world, it isn't pleasant, but it is what for the time being I have learned to put up with and I'm not alone.