MK forum

OT---you can't be "current" and have backbone.
If you demonstrate backbone, you will soon be "former."
Wish I could add a smiley.
But it's not very funny.

Thank you moss key toe for trying anyway. It took courage, backbone, and an open heart.

I hardly see how preaching at & chastising each other about our comments is helpful. It makes me nuts to see how much effort is put in to analyzing everyone else's posts. Are we not all pursuing a common goal - an independent and thorough investigation of atrocities committed against innocents, repentance and true change of a rotted organization?

Yes - OT is being very hard on NTM missionaries. His whole approach on here is so completely the opposite of the soft-spoken, kindhearted guy I knew growing up. Rather than get all snippy publicly with him for "challenging NTM missionaries to hold their organization accountable and speak up for change," try a pm.

It frustrates and saddens me to see posters all biting at each other over what is said. We are all at different places in our pain, in our healing, and in our spiritual growth.

(forgive me, ot for presuming to know your heart - I know I can't possibly - but I can imagine). OT's anger is very natural. He's just recently discovered what many of us (including his own parents)have known for decades - his sweet (and she truly is gentle and tenderhearted) sister was all but destroyed by a sinful, selfish, sadistic, sanctimonious man. And NOTHING was ever done to rectify the situation BY ANY ONE. His reactions and emotions are actually good. Men were designed by God to protect and nourish women, he is doing what he was created to do.

I have never been good at sports. But in high school we had to take phys ed. I remember the class being divided into six teams for volleyball tournaments and a jock was placed as a captain of each team. The captain of my team would become angry and ridicule us who were on his team when we missed a ball. That led to all the members of our team becoming less and less able to do the best we could. As a matter of fact our team lost every game we played. We could never please the captain so why try. Then one day after the coach talked with our captain, he (the captain) changed. When one of us would miss the ball he would say "That's ok - shake it off. We can do this." You know what, we began to win games. We were never the greatest team but we would win. We began to want to work together and encourage each other.

I see some parrallels to what is written about the abuse situation. It is frustrating not to be "winning" and easy to lash out at or ridicule people or even an organization as a whole (Our captain in the begining would always say we were the worse team that ever existed). But in the end that only allienates people and possibly makes them ineffective. Just something to think about.

“Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong: beauty
enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be
defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places,
people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as
it stands is no illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of a night; we wake
up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it
nor dispense with it.” Henry James

At Via, we had chapel first thing every morning. Fridays, however, were special - to everyone else. Fridays were the day that we spent the whole morning singing, and not just any songs, songs that we got to pick! (There's a bunch of you who know where this is going right now... Please read through to the end before picking up your rocks - I'm more interested at this point in having you understand where I'm coming from) Every, every, EVERY Friday, some low-life smart ass would pick the American national anthem. Then someone else would pick another American patriotism song, and on and on it went. Fine, whatever. Except that pretty quickly, people started noticing that I wasn't particularly fond of this trend, and then smirks started. One of these songs would get picked and all the guys on my bench and behind (we were assigned seating by age/grade and gender) would look at me and smile those sick, disgusting, knowing smiles of smug satisfaction (I'm shaking right now...). Then we'd all stand up, one more time, and everyone would belt it out loud and proud.

Friday chapels meant one thing and one thing only to me. Every Friday I had the great privelege of having this message screamed in my face loud and clear: YOU ARE ALONE!!! I had my patriotism, too. I love being Canadian. I could go on and on about it, but that's not the point right now. I could also go on and on about how much I detest all things American. But that's not the point, either.

At this point, as the whole world knows from the thread about studying at Via in the '80's, one person - and ONLY one person - stood up for me. My dad, the person who happened to be the principal and also happened to be a very close family member. This is the only time anyone ever stood up for me in all of my seven years of hell that I can remember. Can anyone say "Conflict of Interest"!! I carried the stigma of that decision over my head all the rest of my days - and in some ways, still carry it.

I hate NTM to my very core, with every fibre of my being, for putting me in that situation. I will equate it to being the only American in a taliban camp right now.

What's in my interest, for me, without getting all noble? I hope that NTM falls from its lofty heights in a great ball of fire and rots in hell.

I'm so sorry, SD.

We kids were cruel.

Now that I'm a mom, my heart hurts so much for the kid that I knew, who was cruelly nicknamed and spitefully disdained.

Stupid silent insensitive adults - why didn't they stand by their co-worker & brother in Christ?! WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH EVERY STINKING PERSON ON THAT LAND???????????????????????????????????????

Why didn't they whoop our asses for something that really WAS a violation of God's Word - and not just a violation of their own personal convictions?

SD, your post brought tears to my eyes. What incredible cruelty.
You may think your story is small in the whole scheme of things, but here is what it says to me:
We were all so broken. By WE I mean NTM, and I say WE because at the time of your weekly torment, I was a part of what I then thought was one of the greatest mission organizations on earth.
People! (NEW TRIBES MISSION!!!) Stop and think about this!!!
The hypocrisy reflected in this memory of a young Canadian in Brasil is burning me like fire!
The mission I was a part of, I thought stood for:
Love
Compassion
Sensitivity
Maturity
Cross-cultural appreciation and respect
Getting to know another person so well you knew how they thought, and how your message was coming across

Gag!!
How horrible that my fellow MKs would treat you this way!
And what is infuriating me far more is that the adults were complicit in this atrocity!
They did not care about you, SD! They had NO love, compassion, or sensitivity for you!
They should be hanging their heads in shame right now, because they KNOW they are guilty.

Dear God, we are all such whited sepulchers! I am in amazement all over again at God's wondrous, amazing grace, because I am being reminded afresh how from His perspective, He sees us painting ourselves with such perfect, gleaming sanctimonious exteriors, and inside we are filled with nothing but stinking, rotten, disgusting dead flesh and bones.

I shake my head at the futility of any of us -- any of us -- ever succeeding at getting even half of the planks pulled out of our own eyes.

But I will not stop trying.

Thanks, XYZ, for your earlier post in response to Sherpa's attack on Ornery (yes, sorry, Sherpa, but it did sound like an attack, to me). I agree with your points, XYZ.
We are in danger of biting ourselves to pieces and losing sight of our commonality.