MK forum

I would like to hear from many of you as to how you feel you are employed and what definition of your time serving with ntm, has/is defined as?

Do you know the laws that regulate these terms and how they apply to ntm and you?

I see no one wants to get into this? Could it be because you know that you all are ridding a thin legal line on the claim of being self employed?

Yunker, I think the silence reflects the fact that almost no one in NTM ever posts here. Ever.

I left NTM a dozen years ago. I think you pose a very valid question. I am sorry to say I never thought much about this issue, one way or another, while I was in the mission. I believed what I was told, did what I was told, and tried not to rock the boat, for fear of being kicked overboard in disgrace.

That feels like a long time ago now.

Interesting how much trust people had in ntm down to something of this nature.

Yunker, I am an outsider looking in but we were told we were self employed clergy when it came to our income tax and we were solely responsible for all schedules. However, we still had to use ABWE's address when they were in Cherry Hill, N.J. as our address. However again, that is the only time we considered ourselves to be self employed as we were totally under their ownership outside of tax reporting. My husband was a firm believer we were responsible to our sending church but that wasn't really the case at all. At the end of the day ABWE was our employer and they were our boss, we just had to do the hard yards by raising our own support. Is this what you are looking for in your question? Full stop.

I know the answer to this question and am not trying to get on anyone nerves. It is a point that needs to be talked about and brought into the open.

yes I know exactly what they claim to the government and how they screw you out of retirement or wage matching. Now how many kids like myself have wondered what the hell we are going to do with our parents who have slaved away to a mission that offers them a home in fl for all their years of service?

This is a HUGE legal problem for NTM if in fact people paid attention to the law and listened for once when I spoke instead of thinking I am some pissed off kid out with a vengeance.

Lets face the facts, the abuse cases are really doing nothing for many of us and ntm is lacking in any kind of accountability, the only place to hurt them is to have the government brought in over taxes.

Another mission we applied to told us that NTM was borderline illegal in the way they handle our money.

There is a discussion on another thread about a widow who was told by NTM that she was never employed by them after her husband died. Even though the women are worked very hard---they are supposed to be equal in the work. Or she did not get any benefits that she should have------you'll have to look it up. It could be the Philippines thread.

HandlED our money.
It's all in the past for us.

I am pleased you are querying this retirement situation with mission organisations. When we tried to resign but got terminated instead we decided we were going to get our retirement out of ABWE. The main reason being my husband wanted no connection with them in the future. We did have some pastors help us plus an organisation in Washington, D.C. helped us. They rang ABWE and was not impressed with their handling of retirement money. This man did ask us if we left this company amicable and my husband just said we left (well we tried to). He was shocked at how little we got out comparing the amount we put in and the years of investment were good years. He said some of the reason is we were guaranteed $10 a month for every year we served and that is the reason they could release so little. Another interesting point is if a spouse died then the retirement reverts back to ABWE. ABWE depends on Social Security and continued church support (a percentage anyway) to help finance retired missionaries. At the end of the day the churches trust these mission organisations to do whatever they see best. I have no idea if what these mission organisations are doing is legal or not but seems they have been doing it for a very long time and the man we were dealing with certainly thought they were questionable. Full stop.