MK forum

Thank you, yes I understand and agree with everything you have said. Appears more than 3 pedophiles on base so far...and counting.

Thank you all again for your prayers. Dad is home now and doing better. The Docs had to readjust the dosage of cumerin(sp?).

Mary and her little lamb
Were skipping stones one day
Watching them bounce on the water
A great little game to play

"Just like reaching out" said Mary
"You never know where each will land
For once you press the send button
It's no longer in your hand"

"Some skip lightly
Clear across the other side
Some are to heavy
To make it across the river wide"

"And the real flight path
One will never know"
Replied the little lamb
"Unless the stone you let go"

I've been pondering all sorts of things for the last couple of days, mostly to do with my own family.
But I've also gone back to basics and I still keep drawing a relative blank on the big question, how did all this happen?

I don't have a complete answer, but I a lot more comfortable with what I've formulated from communicating with others involved in the matter. Alas the people who really could provide insight are either dead or not talking, so it comes down to talking to other victims and those who were involved by association.

NTM isn't the only mission to have such a high rate of child abuse. I've seen the movie "All God's Children" and there is ABWE, as well as numerous other missions, who have had similar paths. The common denominator seems to be the type of people who are attracted to such organisations and the lack of checks and balances once they got in.

What I keep coming back to is the "Big fish in the small Pond" syndrome. Predominantly a male psycological phenmenon where Joe Average Christian Citizen is offered the chance to be a hero by a "Higher Calling" and somehow gets hooked on the feeling of power. They learn they have control over women, backed up by their interpretation of the Bible and they interpret "spare the rod, spoil the child" as a command to beat their children and if they are in the boarding school, other peoples children. And lines get crossed, so that sexual crime is committed. There is no accountability, because blind eyes are turned, or eyes are never opened, so the crimes get worse and to keep the victims from speaking out, minds have to be controlled as well.
But even when victims speak out, they are not believed and that raises another set of questions. Just how big a scale was this. From my own experience, the men that I came into contact with on a regular basis had a high incidence of offending, it wasn't just one or two, it was quite a few. Add in those who it can be proved knew and the numbers become disturbing.

But the most disturbing part of this theory of it all being about power, is that these paedophiles and those that covered them up, have not changed. Some still vehemently deny that they did any wrong, some minimise their involvement or reiterate they didn't know. And they delude themselves and their supporters that somehow they were doing "God's Work", so mixed up does this become that we are asked to accept that their sin was justified by the achievement of "the saving of souls" and that any effort to discredit these individuals somehow makes the victims the sinners.

And so we see the old guard slowly shuffling off the mortal coil, one by one, taking with them their criminal secrets, never relinquishing the power that they thought they had over their victims. Never answering the big question "Why did this happen?"

A little depressing perhaps? Possibly, the answers to the big questions "how" and "why", we may not fully understand in this lifetime, as complete healing may not come in this lifetime. But on the positive side, the exposure of these crimes will go a long way to making sure that this never happens for future generations, for awareness is power for good. And the glimmers of hope we attain by being proactive and speaking out, are much better than wandering around in the dark thinking "I was the only one!"

Reach out to each other, to those still wandering alone and lost, and also reach within yourself to find the power to walk tall and never again be a victim of those who were just "big fish, in the small pond".

Jerry Sandusky convicted on 45 of 48 counts!!!
Does that encourage us???
Where are the stateside victims of the (at least) 2 pedophiles we know of who are here???
This could get interesting.

I've been pondering all sorts of things for the last couple of days, mostly to do with my own family.
But I've also gone back to basics and I still keep drawing a relative blank on the big question, how did all this happen?

I don't have a complete answer, but I a lot more comfortable with what I've formulated from communicating with others involved in the matter. Alas the people who really could provide insight are either dead or not talking, so it comes down to talking to other victims and those who were involved by association.

NTM isn't the only mission to have such a high rate of child abuse. I've seen the movie "All God's Children" and there is ABWE, as well as numerous other missions, who have had similar paths. The common denominator seems to be the type of people who are attracted to such organisations and the lack of checks and balances once they got in.

What I keep coming back to is the "Big fish in the small Pond" syndrome. Predominantly a male psycological phenmenon where Joe Average Christian Citizen is offered the chance to be a hero by a "Higher Calling" and somehow gets hooked on the feeling of power. They learn they have control over women, backed up by their interpretation of the Bible and they interpret "spare the rod, spoil the child" as a command to beat their children and if they are in the boarding school, other peoples children. And lines get crossed, so that sexual crime is committed. There is no accountability, because blind eyes are turned, or eyes are never opened, so the crimes get worse and to keep the victims from speaking out, minds have to be controlled as well.
But even when victims speak out, they are not believed and that raises another set of questions. Just how big a scale was this. From my own experience, the men that I came into contact with on a regular basis had a high incidence of offending, it wasn't just one or two, it was quite a few. Add in those who it can be proved knew and the numbers become disturbing.

But the most disturbing part of this theory of it all being about power, is that these paedophiles and those that covered them up, have not changed. Some still vehemently deny that they did any wrong, some minimise their involvement or reiterate they didn't know. And they delude themselves and their supporters that somehow they were doing "God's Work", so mixed up does this become that we are asked to accept that their sin was justified by the achievement of "the saving of souls" and that any effort to discredit these individuals somehow makes the victims the sinners.

And so we see the old guard slowly shuffling off the mortal coil, one by one, taking with them their criminal secrets, never relinquishing the power that they thought they had over their victims. Never answering the big question "Why did this happen?"

A little depressing perhaps? Possibly, the answers to the big questions "how" and "why", we may not fully understand in this lifetime, as complete healing may not come in this lifetime. But on the positive side, the exposure of these crimes will go a long way to making sure that this never happens for future generations, for awareness is power for good. And the glimmers of hope we attain by being proactive and speaking out, are much better than wandering around in the dark thinking "I was the only one!"

Reach out to each other, to those still wandering alone and lost, and also reach within yourself to find the power to walk tall and never again be a victim of those who were just "big fish, in the small pond".

Bemused, remember back when you were young, the critical attitude of those in NTM leadership in PNG toward one mission group in particular? Ah yes, the reviled Summer Institute of Linguistics! Oh dear. What a bunch of liberal modernists those people were! They were so sneaky, they even had two names! To their donors they were known as Wycliffe Bible Translators! But they went abroad under the guise of being linguists! Can you imagine! (This is very tongue-in-cheek, Bemused ... you many not know that many mission organizations now gain access into non-Christian countries under all sorts of creative pretenses. Missions now including NTM.)
SIL was so liberal they had women in positions of prestige and power, and some of their members were even - gasp! - members of churches that were members of the World Council of Churches! How ungodly can you get? SIL's members were required to have a college education before coming into their mission. And as one NTM Executive Committee member advised my husband years ago, when he was longing to get more schooling, "Education makes man a god unto himself." The NTM of that day shunned all forms of education, and instead trained their recruits themselves, thank you very much. Training which was often more psycho-social-religious than cerebral. (Well, exceptions were made to the anti-education stance, for teachers, pilots, mechanics. Anything requiring a skill. Like lawyers too, of course. But not dorm parents.)
I could go on demonstrating my obviously critical spirit toward NTM-PNG for their attitude toward SIL. We on other fields read the policies coming out of that field about "separation", and some of us could not relate to that stance at all. But it was a very influential attitude at one time.

Forward a few decades .... I just did a Google search for "MK abuse in SIL" ... "MK abuse in Wycliffe" ... hmm ... interesting. My search doesn't seem to lead me to anything.

This really DOES relate to your above post, Bemused. I'm just connecting some dots and pointing out some differences between two mission organizations. Both of them had families posted in remote locations. Both of them had children growing up in those families. Both of them offered schooling to those children, including boarding schools, with boarding homes and house parents.

Hmmmm ....

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN???

Re "Reaching Out":

There are 22 people listed under "Australia" on the NTM website (just click Australia under sending country). All of these people have been informed re IHART, I'll let you know how many replies are received, you are welcome to speculate.

Interestingly, when I clicked New Zealand, hundreds of profiles came up. Considering that Australia has over 5 times the population of little New Zealand, this seemed rather odd. Then I looked at the names and I'd hazard most of them have never been to New Zealand, some may not have even heard of it, or perhaps they would all like to be Kiwis .

Please, if you wish to be an Honory Kiwi, apply in writing stating your good reasons, to Bemused@wannabakiwi. Enclosing a large checque will help your cause .