How NTM is the Perfect Hiding Place for Child Abusers

Warren Kennel

As yet another child sexual abuse scandal emerges from a New Tribes missionary, my mind is whirring with questions. For example, how does a large organization like New Tribes Mission, with such nice people and such a clear focus, become the perfect hiding place for abusive people like Warren Kennel? Why does this keep happening? I can only speak from my own experience, but we left NTM two years ago, immediately after graduating from their Missionary Training Center. I have given this a lot of thought ever since, and I’m sure I’m not done thinking about it. I want to open up my thoughts in this post so that other people who have knowledge of NTM’s structures can chime in and let me know of their perspective.
To write this blog post, I’ll be referencing the example of Donna Beach. If you would like to know all the ins and outs of this problem, feel free to read the GRACE report, but here’s a quick summary: She is a statutory rapist. She committed her crime with a student at NTM’s boarding school in Senegal (aka Fanda). NTM chose to keep her on staff after the GRACE report was released.

So how does something like that happen? Here we go…

1. Bear with me through the technical jargon of this point, but I was told that Donna Beach is not with NTM-USA (Update: Ten minutes after posting this, I checked to see if this was true. I am not entirely sure, but I now believe she may be an NTM-USA missionary and I'm not sure why I might have been given false information while in training.). NTM is divided by country. Each country has different leadership, but works together. If I was in the remote jungle, I could have co-workers from NTM-Australia, NTM-Germany, etc. NTM-USA might have fired her (They actually had full knowledge and decided to keep her around, including Paul Wyma, who instructed everyone to “leave the lid on this,” during NTM’s first “investigation.”), but by the time the report was released, they had no authority to. Her sending country’s board decided that they disagreed with GRACE’s recommendations and kept her around. Is that NTM-USA’s fault? No. But it does point to a problem. An NTM-USA missionary who has a problem with Donna Beach has no say. Their hands are tied. The abusers have power. 
2. Why would any leadership, USA or no, decide that Donna Beach could stick around as a missionary? A missionary?! There are several leadership committees in the NTM world that are ok with her because child protection knowledge varies from country to country, and it seems that Donna Beach’s leadership believes that she has changed and is now capable of mission work. Willful or not, blindness ties up their hands. The abusers have power. 
3. Some  people in NTM plow over individuals for the sake of their end goal, so if a missionary speaks up with a problem, they risk being shamed, silenced, and ignored. Don’t believe me (and I don’t recommend that everyone read this part; it involves the death of an infant. Skip to part 4 if you think this subject would be hard for you.) When I sat in classes at New Tribes Bible Institute, I listened to a missionary tell the story of how he let an indigenous baby cry to death for 3 days in the jungle because he didn’t want to risk tarnishing his reputation by going against the cultural guidelines of superstition. He told the story as an example of his faithfulness to the goal and to God. What kind of organization would let someone like that stay on the mission field? What kind of organization would allow this missionary to teach other missionaries what it means to be faithful? One that prioritizes goals over individuals. The victims’ (like the MKs and that little baby) hands are tied as long as they submit to NTM leadership. The abusers have power. 
4. Many NTM missionaries disassociate themselves from the evil side of their organization. They know they can’t do anything, so they shut up, keep the end goal in mind, and keep working. After all, the very structure of the leadership defies change, but tribal people are dying without Jesus. They do their best to separate their own ministries name from the names of the abusers, as they build their life’s work inside of the organization they verbally distance themselves from (“NTM has done more good than bad,” or “That was a different missionary. My team is different.”). They do this instead of standing up actively to fight the abuse. They tie their own hands. The abusers have power.
5. NTMers can be unaware of this continued problem. Like I said, this organization has a lot of nice people in it. They assume the organization is inherently good and that they now do their best to keep up with child protection. I know I was shocked when I pushed and pushed to find out whatever happened to the GRACE recommendations. First, I didn’t know who to ask after we left the organization, so I wrote on NTM’s Facebook page asking where the recent Fanda updates could be found. They deleted my post and private messaged me (I found out later that what they said privately wasn’t even entirely true). This smelled funny to me. So I wrote to an MK who sent me to the Fanda forums. That was when I discovered NTM’s communications with MKs concerning Donna Beach. If you are with New Tribes today, I beg you to read this. Then I beg of you to make a stink. Throw rotten tomatoes at your leadership for their shameful response to the recommendations given by GRACE. Leave in protest if you have to (You don’t need New Tribes Mission in order to be a missionary). Anyone who supports NTM missionaries, write to the organization and tell them you will do so no longer and tell them why. Tell your churches’ mission boards this story. The monster will only stay alive if we all keep feeding it, so do whatever it takes. Your hands are not tied. Abusers should never be given power

Part 14B – Leaving Behind The Cookie Cutter Missionary

The list of opinions that I hid from other New Tribers grew substantially when I went to the New Tribes Missionary Training Center (MTC). I learned not to talk about women in leadership, how I choose to parent, the hurt I received at the hand of a staff member at MTC, and my changing outlook about New Tribes in general.

For example, in our course syllabus for our parenting class, we were informed that the

One of our required reads at the NTM MTC

reason for the class was that there was a lot of conflict on the field surrounding parenting; missionaries can’t get along with their co-workers who discipline differently than they do. Instead of teaching a class on giving others the freedom to parent differently than oneself, they lumped everyone together—singles without children and married couples with or without children—to teach us all the “right” way to parent children.  Sitting in class, I heard day in and day out about the importance of spanking my daughter. If you’ve read my older blog posts, you’ll know that I was abused through spanking. I personally can’t use this discipline method because of my past. Timeouts were criticized in our homework assignment one day, and I marveled at the idea of the organization dictating my life down to this minute detail of how I could and couldn’t discipline my child.

Sadly, if I did get the courage to speak up about any of my problems, I was met with one of three answers.

1.    “A ship takes a long time to turn around.” This analogy was often used to excuse inaction. When I or my classmates brought an issue to staff, this was the typical response. I witnessed and experienced it many times. Sure, it takes a while to turn an organization around, but they will never get there if they simply quip this line at people who want to be the voice of change.
2.  “If you think this is bad, consider it as preparation for the field. You’ll have conflicts much worse overseas and you need to learn to submit here and now.” This answer, given by both students and staff, usually meant ducking your head and ignoring problems as well. The correct response to conflict seemed to be to have a “godly attitude” which meant to suffer in silence and be unrealistically positive. I should have seen that conflicts that were much worse on the field meant that I didn’t want to be part of this organization. Sure, there’s no perfect organization, but there are organizations with leadership structures that don’t invite abusers in and protect them, then expect a “godly” response of submission and positivity from their workers.
3.  “If you think this is bad, you should have seen MTC 20 years ago.” I think it’s great that MTC has improved, but again, this is not a reason to stop improving and silence those who want to see more improvements.

Unfortunately for New Tribes, I discovered the Fanda Eagles forums and became irreversibly informed about how patterns like these played out on the mission field. I’ve written before about a report that was released when I first arrived at MTC. When the GRACE report (If you follow that link, please understand that it is full of accounts of graphic child abuse. This is your trigger warning!) was released, I believed NTM leadership really had the desire to come alongside the MKs their organization had physically, sexually, emotionally, and spiritually abused. I braced for change and expected everyone to care long enough to change NTM from the inside out. The devastation for the MKs seemed to die down, though without sufficient action. Someone even said to me, “How sad that this report might bring down our organization,” without any mention of how sad it would have been for a missionary’s child to be molested night after night at boarding school. It broke my heart.

One of the main contributing factors to the callousness was that NTM’s work was seen as vital. New Tribers believe that all people who never hear about Jesus will burn forever in Hell after they die because they didn’t get a chance to believe in him. They believe their organization is especially critical because they insist on teaching chronologically through the Old Testament, while other groups typically start in the Gospels. In that system, some people (not all!) seem to subconsciously land at the conclusion that the abuse of MKs ends up being the lesser of two evils, because NTMers are being specially used by God to rescue lost people from eternal fire. I no longer believe that people who don’t hear about Jesus have no choice but hell, but some who do believe that operate in a way that values both MKs and minority people groups at the same time. I believed NTM would make it right and work to discourage the remaining callousness.  As the school year progressed, less students and staff members at MTC were discussing the Fanda survivors (excepting Andy Kline and the fabulous Child Protection department—which has since been totally relocated and restaffed with new people), and it seemed assumed by the general student body that NTM was on the right path. I continued to follow up and found the opposite. New Tribes did not follow all the recommendations from GRACE. They even kept a statutory rapist on staff.

New Tribers and the churches that support NTM, if you’re reading this, what have you done recently to hold NTM accountable? Do you feel helpless? Is your leadership set up in a way that any abuser in your organization, from anywhere in the world, would be fired for their actions? These are the types of questions you need to be asking. The reputation of your organization is not your primary concern. Do the right thing, continue to push back on this, and your reputation will take care of itself anyway. And in the end, you may even refuse to line yourselves up with an organization that does not prioritize protecting their own children. Wage war on this or your inaction will cause further devastation.

Dale and I at a Soulation retreat

By the time graduation came, it was clear that my husband and I needed to take a break and think things through. The more I lived a normal life (outside of the missionary community for the first time since early childhood), the more I realized I couldn’t go back. At first, it was scary to think what people would say about us and to completely start over with our lives, but the thought of continuing on under an abusive system was far scarier. Then, it was a sweet relief to know that I didn’t have to dedicate my life to a work that I simply wasn’t gifted for. I relished getting out of a community where scoffing at my beliefs was acceptable and started to taste healthy relationships where I was offered the dignity and love of being different from my new friends. One such friendship was with Dale, who eased the pain of leaving fundamentalism with great skill, because he once navigated those waters and lived and healed to tell his tale. Last summer in the Rocky Mountains, Dale brought together a group of us who had all been spiritually abused and named us “glass warriors." Dale told us “If we do not think we are loved, we cannot be open to the truth. We cannot trust. That is why mistrust reigns in abusive communities.” 

Love is why I can share who I am now. 

Our Colorado Soulation Gathering

Part 14A – Training To Be a Cookie Cutter Missionary

Free and full of life, one year after
saying goodbye to my parents. This
was taken in the Rockies, at a
Soulation retreat for survivors
of spiritual abuse.

I’m struck, as I write about yet another institution, how many abusive environments I’ve been in. People who are abused go back to abuse. It’s been shown over and over. Each institution I’ve joined since I’ve left my parents’ home has been gradually less and less abusive as I’ve tasted and loved freedom in increasing amounts. I just turned 24, and I’m happy to say that I just finished my first full calendar year with no abusive treatment from my parents. Cutting contact continues to be a beautiful thing that I treasure and celebrate. I’m hoping 2014 will bring my first full calendar year without allowing abuse from anyone. It’s been hard, painful work to cut toxic people, institutions, and communities out of my personal life. It’s even been lonely here and there, but I’m slowly building my life around people who love health. May New Tribes be the last installment of my long list of abusive institutions to process and write about. I’ve found a church, and I think my eye will be on the door for a long time, keeping in mind that no one can trap me in there. I might have too strong an instinct to bolt, but my short time there has taught me much about health, about God, about healing, and forgiveness. 

Now, on to NTM.

I chose New Tribes Bible School (NTBI) because my high school education was so sloppy that I was afraid of going to a regular college and Moody Bible Institute didn’t accept me. It was affordable, which was another big perk. I didn’t know ahead of time that they didn’t accept loans, and they blatantly stated (more than once!) that finances indicated who was supposed to be there and who wasn’t. If God provided, that meant the poor kids got to stay. If not, then it wasn’t meant to be. The rules were easy for me to navigate. They were a breath of fresh air, actually, after my upbringing. I had choices! I could go out when I wanted. I could study whenever I wanted. I could sleep in on Saturdays without being called lazy. Heck, my roommates were doing all the same things, and I quickly felt a deep sense of belonging. I didn’t understand the select few who left (or got kicked out) because they stumbled over rules because, to me, the world had opened up in a way I had never experienced. Of course, now I wonder why college students were given a curfew, not allowed to dance publicly or drink alcohol unless they were married (Yes, single people were really the only ones who couldn’t have it!), and forbidden from physical contact beyond holding hands with the opposite sex!

It wasn’t long before I knew that I was going to be a “tribal” missionary, because New Tribes teaches their students that it’s not an individual calling—it’s a commission. I was already strongly leaning towards this work already, thanks to my church in South Africa and uncountable hours spent listening to John Piper. I learned shortly after getting to school that they weren’t Calvinist. I didn’t exactly hide it at first, but by my second semester I was doing damage control since I’d told a few people about my beliefs. I tend to be bent toward the unfortunate belief that, if people could only understand me, they would be ok with me, so I tried to explain myself one too many times and started getting burned by people’s reactions.

One teacher in particular, Dave, taught classes intended to cover God’s sovereignty. I felt like he severely misrepresented Calvinist beliefs, and he seemed to have a particularly good radar for picking out and picking on Calvinist students in the class. He made my sophomore semester rough, and I was trying too hard to be submissive and avoid “gossip” to get help. I wore a t-shirt about God’s sovereignty one day, only to have its slogan ripped apart in class the next day as I worried about my classmates noticing that it was my shirt he was shouting about to the point that he was red in the face. I never even directly challenged him, and it crushed me one day when I raised my hand to ask a question, but was told to put my hand down. He humiliated me by taking a question from another student moments later. Immediately after class, he approached my table and told me in front of the surrounding classmates that “now was the right time” to ask my question. He even told our class once that we weren’t allowed to discuss a concept about Jesus outside of class, because he was so afraid of the students disagreeing. I did secretly go against that rule. Gladly. And angrily. That was a matter of conscience, too, and I valued my conscience over being penalized further. The day that he wounded me most, he wrote in reply to my honest test answer, “Does [your boyfriend] know?” as his only reply to my beliefs, as if no one could want me in their life unless I held Dave’s beliefs.

That teacher combined with the stigmas around Calvinism were the first things at NTBI that made me feel unacceptable and only conditionally loved, but for so long they were the only things! Remember, I was coming from an atmosphere where the list of things that made me feel unlovable was long and I was more allowed to be myself than ever at school.

To be continued…

Part 13 - Birds of a Feather

My father and I in Cape Town

When I first started writing this blog, I thought it would be great to have my story all in one place. I could just send the link if I needed someone to know about this part of me and I could remember the order of certain events years down the road. I didn’t think I would need to keep adding to my story of abuse after writing the installments 1-10, but the more I unravel and dig through my history, the more I see abusive organizations and individuals that I need to process. I wrote about my parents first because their abuse affected me more than any other abuse, but along the way, I unknowingly suffered from constant institutional abuse. Any abusive institutions my parents chose for our family were chosen because they reflected our family. We were not drawn in and changed as gradual brainwashing occurred. Instead, we very easily jumped into the deep end and my father would always quickly gain access to leadership wherever we went because he chose places that were exactly like him. Even where minor (very, very minor) theological differences were present, the spiritual competitions and lack of boundaries made us all feel right at home. This was very true of our church in South Africa.

Healthy churches exist everywhere. It’s something I’ve been astonished to learn as an adult, actually! I always saw the other churches in the States as less-than because I was trained to think that way, but when we arrived in South Africa, my parents’ church selection confused even me! It felt odd, but I chalked all the uncomfortable moments up to cultural differences. I could see that other churches in town seemed more vibrant, though, and a visit to another youth group had me longing for that type of community.

To this day, I have no clue how my parents found this church. It’s tiny and meets in a garage. There’s no sign out front and no church website. My introduction to the church was a Girl’s Retreat in the gorgeous green mountains, within two weeks of arriving in the country. I noticed right away that the pastor’s wife would get within inches of my face as she spoke to me, hugging me in a very matronly way, and I felt like she would be hurt if I told her to respect my space. I could see that she treated everybody this way and it was a new culture so I went along with it. Multiple times, she forced me and my sister to sing for everyone. By forced, I mean insisting over and over until I gave in. She had huge problems when people said no to her, asking until it became clear that it was a demand—all done with a smile. Sometimes during the retreat, the pastor’s wife discovered that me, my sister, and one other girl on the retreat had no problems with contemporary Christian music, so she concluded the retreat by having us all watch a ridiculous and inaccurate movie called, “What’s Wrong With Christian Rock?” I had no idea it was such a big deal to her before then, because the very songs we were singing in our songbooks were contemporary Christian music. We only lacked the instruments. From that point on, I began to hide myself and my opinions out of fear of being called out.

By the time I came home from the retreat, my parents were set on their decision to stick around, and within a month, my dad was preaching on Sundays. They loved him. I consider this a great example of how, in the fundamentalist mindset, it barely matters what you believe—it matters how you believe it. The pastor’s wife once told me, “There are no gray areas,” and I think my dad would agree. He at least behaves like he does. Unlike the rest of the church, my dad was secretly a staunch Calvinist who loved Christian rock and smoked an occasional cigar. It makes sense as I think about their similarities. The church leadership and my dad were both appalled that people would sin differently than they did. They both shamed people who disagreed. They were both male worshippers. They both made me feel like I couldn’t be me and had to be them. I could go on, but you see my point. They got along fantastically, since my dad wasn’t necessarily open about his true beliefs or behavior.

The pastor at this church obsessed over two things—“dying to self” (a phrase that he used so frequently and in a way that eventually made me feel like I wasn’t a person anymore) and tobacco. I remember him sharing from the pulpit on a regular basis about a new convert’s battle with giving up cigarettes, asking us all to pray as he shared specific weekly instances about the man’s failures. Once, during a sermon, he turned to me and asked, “Savannah, is it ok for a Christian to work for a tobacco company?” I’d been doing quite well at flying under their radar, but I felt flustered as I chose between honesty and feeling safe. I care as much about smoking as I do about fast food—both are terrible for you. Where are all the sermons railing against the evils of McDonald’s?  I don’t get angry at the McDonald’s employee working for minimum wage. With ALL those thoughts running through my head, I didn’t answer fast enough. Shocked, the pastor turned to my father and exclaimed, “Allen? Is it ok for a Christian to work for a tobacco company?” My dad paused long enough to take a deep breath, pursed his lips, and answered,

“It would be hard.”

“Absolutely not! Absolutely not!” the pastor indignantly cried, launching into a rant that I barely remember as my mind worked through what had just happened.

In Tugela Ferry

As I reflect back on my years in South Africa, this is the time that I feel like I became a robot that cried a lot.  My parents had just made the biggest move of our family’s life, one that was obviously not in my best interest, and justified it by saying that God wanted them to treat me that way for the sake of the greater good. I was very lonely for months, I couldn’t be myself in church, and I lost myself in John Piper sermons about giving up what you want now so that you could get rewards in Heaven. Really. I was listening to John Piper on an almost daily basis and I kept thinking that if I could just get through this life making every sacrifice I could possibly make and bending myself into submission, I would eventually find sweet, sweet relief when I died. I don’t know that person anymore. She finally had her behavior, if not her will, totally in obedience to the idea of being a missionary for the rest of her life in a remote location, not because it was her gifting to be away from modern conveniences, but because she thought that sacrificing her desires meant God would be pleased.

It was through this church that I first heard of New Tribes Mission, an organization that deserves its very own blog post! When I was barely 18, I packed up and left my parent’s home in South Africa to attend New Tribes Bible Institute in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

With the exception of a few friendships, I wasn’t very sad to leave the atmosphere of “my” South African church behind.

Part 12 - No Attempt to Understand

In the summer between semesters of missionary training, we went “home” to Wisconsin for the summer. The break as a whole was difficult, though I did find a lot of rest in being back at Redeemer. One event does stand out as a negative Redeemer experience, though, and it was the day I opened up to Pastor P about the abuse I had started to process while in training. I started crying and confessed that I’d been having a very emotional pregnancy, but what I was trying to say was that I had learned our baby was a girl, and I was terrified of having a relationship with her similar to my relationship with my mom. He assumed it was hormones, because his wife had a lot of hormonal sadness during her own pregnancies. After that, he didn’t ask my story; he assumed that the abuse I was referencing would have been my father being angry. Again, this was because his wife’s father was that way. I explained some of what it was through tears, but he has yet to understand the depth of what I went through in being raised by a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or the spiritual wreckage I experienced as a result of my father and the cults he forced me to attend.

Fast forward to the summer’s end and our senior semester. My daughter was born 1 ½ months before graduation came, and the pregnancy depression lifted, but I still had my plate full with things I needed to work through. I had started to wonder why God had given me the parents he did, since it was his job as a “father” to protect me. I looked down at my dear, sweet baby and felt that I would never willingly allow her to be abused like I was. I knew that it was my job to be a mama bear, so I was confused. We knew, at that point, that I had too much to heal from to continue on with the mission. I was filled with guilt and relief at the same time when we made the decision. Pastor P said to just stay with him and his wife until we were back on our feet, and that’s what we did.

We spent a few months at their house, and during that time, I became an agnostic. David and I wept together; on my part, because I knew he never would have married me if 1) he knew I wasn’t going to be a missionary and 2) he knew I wasn’t the same religion. He told me that while those things were true of him at the time we wed, they were because of his own immaturities and misunderstandings, but I didn’t care. The two most important things to him while looking for a wife were gone now that he had one, and I couldn’t pretend otherwise. We have always been best friends, so faking it was never an option. I was always taught that people who walked away from Christianity were compromising and weak, but considering that it was the hardest thing I ever did, I see that this is a brainwashing technique, used to scare people from thinking for themselves. I still showed up at church sometimes, because of all the pressure I felt.

After we moved out of Pastor P’s house, I saw that I needed to start weeding out triggers of abuse in my life. As far as my parents went, the only questions were when could I find the strength, how would I do it, and how would I survive the repercussions? I’ve written up that story elsewhere. I did it and I’m relieved of the stress that relationship brought to me, and I also saw spiritual matters much more clearly after that. I am no longer an agnostic. I follow Jesus, plain and simple. But then there was the matter of Redeemer. The church I loved so much still triggered a lot of memories of past churches. So I decided I needed to take an indefinite amount of time away to heal. I decided to continue participating in “church” outside of the boxed church building and services on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, my parent’s cult (which, at first glance, appears as just a very conservative church), an institution in which my father is an associate pastor, began to contact Redeemer about “conflict resolution” with my parents and what they saw as my unhealthy spiritual state. I was quickly understanding that my dad was using them as backup to his bullying ways. They decided to get Pastor P involved, and he bought it all without asking me my side of the story. Pastor Brian, my dad’s boss, ignoring my multiple requests to contact me through David only, asked Pastor P to do a counseling session with me and pass back to him any information he wanted. Pastor P called to schedule; David picked up the phone and I could tell what was going on. I almost threw up. David set up an appointment, hung up, and came to tell me. I reminded him that this was a serious, serious violation of the boundaries we had set for Brian together, and David called Pastor P back to inform him. Pastor P said ok, and that he would ask Brian why he never mentioned the boundaries. Brian’s side of the story is that we misunderstood, but he never clarified what he did mean by that. Pastor P still didn’t understand what happened there, as far as I know (remember, their cult looks like just a conservative church), and I’m not sure how it would be appropriate under any circumstances, but he asked if he could meet with me anyway to see how I was doing. I agreed.

The meeting was a disaster. Up until that point, my healing was progressing well. I was seeing God more clearly, journaling prayers, and able to read my Bible without triggers. When I tried to explain to Pastor P that I was doing well and taking a break from box church, he told me that I was “reacting instead of responding.” Let me remind you that this man has never even asked about my story. To this day, I still believe that he has no clue as to the depth of my prolonged childhood trauma being anything more than having angry parents. I have PTSD, but apparently taking a break from my triggers was not a wise decision. The meeting itself became a trigger, and I began to cry so hard as I tried to explain my decision to him that I couldn’t even talk. He continued on as if I could talk, and started asking multiple questions that I was too choked up to answer. I squeaked out “I’m sorry; I can’t talk,” but he continued to expect an answer from me. I looked at David in desperation, knowing that Pastor P simply misunderstood but that David knew exactly what I was thinking. Pastor P saw me look at David and said, “No, you can’t expect him to help you. You need to answer me yourself.” I continued to try to calm down enough to where I could speak, but it was clear that was not going to happen. I finally managed an apology and rushed to the bathroom, where I sobbed in the fetal position on the floor until David entered and told me that Pastor P had left. I asked what they had talked about, and wasn’t surprised that Pastor P had made another comment about my hormones. Let me be clear. Hormones do not result in me being delusional. They make me feel even sadder than I already am. That’s all. The wounds were reopened that afternoon, perhaps made even deeper than they were before, and I knew that even if I could go back to church again, it would never be that church. It wasn’t anger that caused these feelings, but a deep feeling of being unsafe. David continued to go, and Pastor P asked how I was doing whenever they talked. Apparently, he also made a remark about how he knew people who had recovered from sexual abuse faster than I was able to get over what had happened to me—despite never trying to understand what that really was! At the time David relayed that to me, I was crushed. Now I just feel like it is absolutely pointless to still try to go to him.

Similar to how I denied that my parents’ abuse, I have denied until recently that I was abused at Redeemer. It all boils down to the fact that, other than the way he has treated my recovery, Pastor P is such a nice guy. I was protecting him because he had good intentions, but I know now that protecting abusers isn’t my job. I also can clearly label him as a spiritual abuser after his recent sermon on women, not for his opinions alone, but because of how he presented his opinions as God’s opinions. However, I think if someone were to point that out to him, he is a perceptive enough person to change that pattern. If you want to try, feel free, but I’m finally ok with the fact that I am not responsible for his behaviour. I’ll continue doing what I need to do to recover.

Part 11 - Surrounded by Toxin

The following portion of my journey is something that I had no idea I would write and haven’t shared before because I was still afraid. It’s about the church we left last year. It’s time for me to stop being in total denial about that church and call a spade a spade. If you know me, you’ve figured out that Parts 1-10 were written in the summer of 2012. I waited an entire year before I was ready and felt safe enough to publish them to the blog. This post is new, written this month. I still didn’t feel safe about this subject until recently, and even then, this post and the next one make me just as nervous as the others did, even though the abuse was not as prolonged and wasn’t as severe.

I would like to add some reminders to the members of this church before they go on reading. Again, this is where bad reactions come in. If you feel like I shouldn’t have shared this publicly, trust me, I thought I shouldn’t either. Chances are, I thought about this much longer than you. However, what I am about to share is facts. If you don’t like the facts, do something to change the church’s environment. I don’t like the phrase “airing dirty laundry,” but I think it sums up how some will feel about me sharing this. If you feel like I am airing someone’s dirty laundry, instead of feeling negatively towards me for it, perhaps you should think about the following instead: Feel negatively towards the people who made the laundry dirty. This is my story. I shouldn’t be required to remain silent about things that have influenced my life. Also, keep in mind that it is not my job to reconcile with abusers. It is their job to change and I’m not responsible for them. I’m done going above and beyond for people who know they have been hurtful and haven’t made any attempts to meet me halfway. One more thing. This crushed me a lot more than it did you. I lived this. These pastors and this congregation were dear friends to me. I recognize that they had and still have good intentions throughout my years at Redeemer Evangelical Free Church, but good intentions amount to squat when it comes to abusers.

I started going to this church fresh out of high school as a Bible school student. I loved how healthy the church seemed to me. Looking back, that is highly questionable, considering my own condition. It felt healthy compared to the cults I had just traveled away from! There are good things about this church, and compared to what I knew, man that church is alive and kickin’! Having not known what spiritual abuse was as a college freshman, I wouldn’t have been able to catch the red flags like I can now. I also wondered for a while if it was just me—if all these religious organizations I had been a part of could be so wrong. It eventually made sense to me that I, being a toxic person, had put myself into toxic environments because health bothered me. My communities were reflective of who I was.

Soon before I started taking control back and setting boundaries in my life, this church become more than I could emotionally deal with. I felt frozen, utterly frozen, when I walked through the doors. I was grateful to have a new baby that I could take out of the service at any whim, and I often spent entire services outside of the sanctuary simply because my heart was hurting too much. Speaking of having a baby, I was sick of the breastfeeding criticism I faced from certain people at the church. Multiple people at Redeemer have said publicly that it is immodest and compared breastfeeding to urinating or defecating—“natural, but so is urinating, so please do it behind closed doors.” While the overall congregation was probably fine with it, a select few made me highly uncomfortable as a new mother, so that even if I did want to sit in the service, I was often hiding in a room that appears to be a former closet that was converted into a place for mothers to breastfeed. I found it extremely hot sitting in there on that little loveseat, with a cinder block wall a few feet from my face. To spruce it up, someone had added a picture of Jesus welcoming the little children for me to stare at while I hid the way God created my child to eat from his church. I missed many a sermon because no audio or video of the service is provided in that tiny space.

When the service was over, I couldn’t wait to leave, and upon arriving home, I was completely sapped and often needed to sleep the afternoon away to recover from the feelings I was burying. I didn’t know it, but I was being triggered. I had grown up being abused in a pew, and, much like a soldier could be triggered by the sound of fireworks after a dangerous deployment, being in that environment again set me off. Not going wasn’t an option to me, as that was accompanied by a heavy weight of guilt and shame. And tears. Lots, and lots of tears.

My own worldview was rapidly changing, and I began to understand that certain people there loved to bash people like me. It had (wrongly) never bothered me before because I was yet to move outside of their fences of acceptable opinions and feelings. But as my list of disagreements with the general congregation grew longer and longer, I began to feel like I could no longer use my voice without fearing the backlash. My Facebook posts got comments about how I was focusing too much on love (and how worldly that apparently is) and when someone told me I was turning to the devil (for saying the American church needed to show love to homosexuals better), instead of being called out, his comment got supporting likes from a few church members. Then I would be back in the pew with the same people the next week, who never said anything to me in person about their or my behavior on social media. It made me wonder if they knew it was me they were talking to, a human being, not a keyboard or a computer monitor or a phone. When I tried to set boundaries with one woman, she protested that she was concerned for the people who read my posts. Overall, whenever I used my voice on social media, the shaming caused me to never dare use it when I went in to the church fellowship.

The church’s attitude towards women was positive on the surface, but the underlying sexism eventually became very obvious to my free self. The senior pastor recently (a year after I left) gave a sermon on the role of women in the church, stating that women cannot challenge men in an upfront way, like a man could challenge a man, because men have fragile masculinity. He openly said that he, like all men, cannot handle it when a woman boldly approaches them with a disagreement. It’s somehow hurtful to them and crushes them. I asked my husband after listening to the sermon if he felt that way when I woman approaches him and he said no. I think that means my husband must be female. But in all seriousness, if that were true, I think the more important issue there is that I am not responsible to maintain someone else’s weakness, nor am I required to be silent when something important needs to be said. He also explained that the church let women teach in Sunday School, but they were not permitted to speak from the pulpit because, in the SS context, the woman can be quickly corrected by a man if she’s wrong, whereas in a sermon, they don’t want anyone calling out the speaker during the service. Is it just me, or does that kind of imply that all women are less likely to speak truth than all men? I also do not believe that it makes sense to the culture of Jesus’ day, so it doesn’t seem to be the intent of the original manuscripts. The worst part for me, though, was the opening to the sermon. The prayer, led by the youth pastor, was full of phrases like, “There are a number of passages of your word that are challenging to us. And God I know that there are some of us, even in this midst of a family who want to refuse that these words even exist from Paul. Or perhaps we are squeamish…And I pray that your Spirit would lay on our heart a spirit of submission. I pray that each of us today would not hear what we want to hear, but hear what you want to say. Lord not every passage is easy…and so we ask for open ears and open hearts…” implying that people who disagreed only disagreed because, though they knew God was teaching something else, they were squeamish and couldn’t swallow it, so they went ahead and made up their own theology outside of God’s teaching. Then the senior pastor came out wearing soldier’s gear and staged this little introduction with the message, “Don’t shoot the messenger!” Then he went on to pepper the sermon with phrases like, “God’s word is absolutely clear on this.” He wouldn’t say it was just his interpretation and he did not encourage people to go to other resources and see for themselves. My personal opinion is that pastors are not God’s messengers and need to present their interpretations as their own, not God’s. Anything more is spiritual abuse. When I finished listening, I was glad that someone had finally and blatantly articulated all underlying the sexism I had felt under the surface, as well as the attitude of bullying towards Christians with different beliefs. 

At the end of the day, especially when I added my son and daughter into the equation, my husband and I agreed that it was best to leave. But what I’ve described here was only the tip of the iceberg of hurt. More abuse was occurring behind the scenes, in counseling sessions with the senior pastor, as I sorted through the abuse I received from the hands of my parents.
To be continued…

Part 10 - The Involvement of Christ Community Church and Brian Sayers

I have, no intentions of ruining my parents lives or getting them fired. If I wanted that, I would have contacted their employers, Christ Community Church, myself during this whole process. I did not do this. My father immediately brought them in, and I received a phone call from them a day or two after my initial conversation with him (I was too busy dealing with my brother's illness at the time to respond). Here, in his words, are his reasons for doing so:

"Dear children,

One of your siblings informed me that they believed that as a father, I was abusive. The categories of that abuse are emotional, physical, and spiritual. It was also said that I enabled mom to be abusive.

This is a highly serious accusation that I desire to consider carefully and give the proper attention it is due. I am willing to accept the full consequences, penalties, and outcome that my actions deserve, if I have truly been abusive. I desire the truth to come to light.

I have on my own volition informed the elders of Christ Community Church of this accusation. Together, we removed my name from consideration for the position of elder effective immediately (it just so happens that the church was meeting on this Sunday to affirm me as an elder during the annual meeting). I say this so that you know and understand just how seriously I am considering this matter.

In discussing this matter with the elders, we agreed that an investigation is appropriate and necessary. The elders of CCC will be contacting you (they may have already). I want you to know that both mom and I desire that you cooperate with them fully.

I also ask that you treat this matter with confidentiality. If this matter is true, it will come to light and will receive the public disclosure that is necessary. If it is not true, your confidentiality will help prevent undue damage to all involved.

We have been wanting to call some of you since our return from China, but we did not want to, in some way, influence this process. Please understand that our lack of contact is related to this and our hope is that we can get this behind us very soon and catch up on life.

My hope is that this process will strengthen rather than weaken our family, unite rather than divide, and bring peace rather than conflict. I know you hope the same.

Love,

Dad (and Mom)

Cc: Elders of CCC"

It sounds nice, but it makes no difference that he was up for being an elder, because he's already a paid member of their leadership staff. The title of elder may as well be trashed if their associate pastor is a child abuser.

I responded with the following: 
"I didn't mean to confront you last week, but it made me so angry that you can't figure out why [my brother] wouldn't want to speak with you. I am working on writing a letter, as I do not feel emotionally safe around you and would rather not meet face-to-face (or have any phone calls). I was obviously dealing with a lot this past week with [my brother], and I did not have time to write the letter. I will as soon as I get the chance. Although....I did write one years ago and never sent it. [At this point I talked about an unrelated and private family matter, then continued.]

In the meantime, I know you are anxious to hear at least one example. I already told you over the phone that the family meeting about my faded jeans and how I dressed like a prostitute was spiritual abuse. An example of enabling mom to abuse me is as follows:

We were getting in the car after school at CCA, and Sam couldn't close the door to the Astro van and took about 30 seconds to do it. As you may recall, that door was broken and was difficult to handle. Mom started berating him, and we were all walking on eggshells to keep her happy. I couldn't let her speak to Sam the way she was, as I have a protective instinct. I tried my best to be very careful and respectful and said, "Mom, that door is really hard to close." I was not rude, sarcastic, or rolling my eyes. I said it carefully and softly. She slapped me in the face. Later that night, we were eating dinner. The subject was apologies. I asked if parents were accountable to apologize as well. You said yes. Then I asked for an apology. At this point, mom began crying and ran to her bedroom. You gave us a lecture about how mom has been through some very hard things in her life. Then you led us children to the bedroom to comfort her. I stood in the doorway of your bedroom, where mom was sobbing in the bed, and watched everyone in the family comfort her (talking soothingly and putting their hands on her) for slapping me. I never received an apology. She was obviously the manipulator in that situation, but you enabled her.

Pinning Andrew to the wall is an example of physical abuse. Although you have apologized many times, he has the right to forgive you but not continue a relationship with you.

When abusers abuse, they forfeit their rights to any relationship, whether it be emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.

I have many more examples. But that should help with your church situation for now.

Please do not respond. I do not want to hear from you."

Yes, he has apologized for that one instance of physical abuse, but never for his other abusive behaviours. I brought that example up because it was one I knew he could not deny. Whether he apologized for it or not, it still disqualifies him to be an elder of a church, and that was why I used that example.

His response:

"to Brian, Jon, Eric, me

Elders of CCC,

I just received this email from Savannah. I did not solicit this from her. I am sending this to you as I want to have full disclosure as you conduct this investigation.

I do not deny the examples she has provided have happened, though I don't remember two of them. The only example that I actually remember is when I 'jacked up Andrew' against the wall. I did do this. He called me a jerk, but this does not excuse the anger I felt nor my response. I did not, however, cause any bodily harm nor did I strike him anywhere on his body and I did put him back on the floor. I did spank him on the buttocks afterwards, but made sure that I had calmed down as my anger actually scared me as I am sure this shook him up emotionally as well. I doubt he would say he received physical harm (except on the buttocks) from my putting him up against the wall.

In my 27 years of parenting, this is the only time I can say that I may have been guilty of what may be deemed physical abuse, even though he was in the end unharmed.

Savannah makes a statement, ' When abusers abuse, they forfeit their rights to any relationship, whether it be emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.' I vehemently deny any sexual abuse and I ask that Savannah confirm this immediately.

In Christ,

Allen"

My response, typed angrily, I confess:

"I never said you sexually abused. Although, any abuse is extreme, and physical/emotional abuse are not to be left off the hook. I read the book "Mending the Soul" in my quest for healing, and a girl in that book who was both emotionally and sexually abused. She said the emotional abuse was more harmful to her. I am not saying this was always the case, but do not take other forms of abuses lightly. They are ABUSE.

How dare you say that you did not harm him! You TERRIFIED him. Don't try to make it sound like this did no harm to him. There is a such thing as emotional safety. Physical safety is not all you should strive for in raising a child.

You DID solicit this from all of the children.

And I'm not surprised that you don't remember the other two instances. They were common occurrences in our house. I could sit down and try to write all such similar circumstances, but it would be exhausting and pointless, as we are trying to determine whether or not you abused. One example would be enough. I have spoken to other siblings who do remember these two instances.

'And I did put him back on the floor.' ??? Of course you did. You couldn't keep him there forever. The fact was that he got there in the first place, not that he eventually touched the floor again."

At this point, the responsibility of the leadership at CCC was to remove him immediately. His own words were incriminating enough! They have a thing that they do while they "evangelize." If a person says they're a good person, they say something to the effect of  "Have you ever lied? Then you're a liar. Have you ever stolen? Then you're a thief. Have you ever thought bad thoughts about someone else? God says that's as bad as murder. Have you ever lusted? Then God says you may as well have already committed adultery. So you're a liar, a thief, a murderer, and an adulterer." Why isn't my father held to the same standards? If you abuse, even once, then you're an abuser.

After this, there was silence for about ten days, minus a few emails that I didn't have time to answer. I thought they had listened. I wondered what the would do, but I didn't care. Not my business. Finally, Brian Sayers spoke with my brother on the phone. Once he learned I was present, he tried to get my brother to ask me questions for him. It was a waste of effort and time, so I grabbed the phone to answer his questions faster (sneaky, btw!). In very smooth tones, he asked me if I was getting the help I needed and if I had received their emails. I told him I was disappointed that he was brought into it so soon. I was trying to work things out with my parents first. He replied, "He [my father] had to." I said I was working on my letter and that's all I could do. "Are you doing that?" he asked. Of course I was. He said they had waited two weeks (I think that's how long it was?), then asked if I knew my father had heart surgery that Friday, clearly trying to hurry the process up. I wanted to probe a little more, because I wasn't liking everything I was hearing! I asked him what his definition of abuse was (there were three facets. I don't remember all of them, but two of them were "repeatable" and "intentional." Both are nonsensical, as there is no need to repeat abuse, and some abusers, like Al-Qaeda, think they have good intentions.) I told him that he should look up the definition of child abuse according to the laws of his state and adhere to that. Next, I asked him if his church had a child protection policy. "We do, but it's probably not good enough." My last question was just seeing if there was anything else he needed from me. He said he had one more thing to say, and started telling me how sad my parents were and how they desperately wanted to reconcile with me. Looking back, I should have seen the red flags. He was not trying to help me at all and was already on my parents side.

Again, there was silence for me as I tried over and over to write my letter. The day I finished it, I got the following email from Brian:

"Savannah,

I wanted to touch base with you in follow-up to our conversation of some weeks ago (after I spoke with Andrew). You mentioned at that time that you were preparing a letter to be sent to your father regarding the allegations that you had discussed with him (and myself). Is this still your plan, and if so, is there a time-frame that we might expect it? We are still engaged in a process of investigation and evaluation here as leaders, and reviewing the content of this letter was our next step.

I also wanted to enquire if there is a clear goal that you desire to accomplish as a result of this confrontation? Perhaps the letter will clarify this. In other words, are you seeking repentance and reconciliation, and assuming so, what do you foresee this looking like?

We (the elders here) want to help in whatever way appropriate and necessary.
We also desire that the process is not delayed longer than necessary.

Please let me know. Thank you.

Your servant,

Brian"

I had just finished my parents letter the day I received this email. I was deeply hurt. My response to Brian was typed up the next day. My email read as follows:

"Brian,

I finished the final step of letter writing yesterday, which was to get it proofread and approved by my husband and 3 qualified friends. However, I felt your rushing of the writing of this letter (twice now) is inappropriate and insensitive. Never rush a survivor. It is not your place. The psychological effects of my parents’ abuse slows my ability to respond quickly and without fear. I should be allowed as long as necessary, even if it takes years. They abused me my entire childhood. I think they can wait half a summer. This letter has nothing to do with you and is between me and them. I prefer for it to be for their eyes only, but if they choose to share it with you, I can’t stop them.

As far as your elder dilemma, my father is already in a leadership position at your church. The title is all he needs to act as an elder. If your motivation was to investigate him to see if he qualifies for leadership in your church, you would have listened to the three examples I already gave you, as well as more closely noting the response from my father. If you no longer have these emails in your records, I would be happy to have my husband forward them to you. For now, I will assume that you have kept them and can refer to them as I do. His reaction was incriminating for a few reasons. First, and most importantly, he admitted that abuse happened. This should have been enough for you. Then he said, 'Jacked up Andrew against the wall.' Notice that he misquoted me. This could be telling his true perception of his actions, as I did not state it that way. Also, notice that he immediately feels the need to clear his name in one area, one in which he was clearly not accused of. 'I vehemently deny any sexual abuse and I ask that Savannah confirm this immediately.' But he did not 'vehemently deny' the emotional/spiritual or physical abuse. In fact, he felt it was appropriate to investigate. Lastly, notice that he spanked Andrew after terrifying him. Does this seem like a reasonable way to handle the situation? The child had already received more than his due.

 When I poked around on your church website, I found many detailed sermons, doctrinal statements, and blog posts, all of which had to be very time consuming in the both the amount of study required and their delivery. Yet, you have admitted to me that your Child Protection Policy (CPP) is weak and 'Probably not good enough' (your words). I want to express to you that if you either a) truly had all your doctrine correct or b) were practicing all the good doctrines you have claimed on your website alone that are important to your church, then you would not delay in putting forth a better policy to protect the children under your care. You would start yesterday. You might even plan to host a CP Sunday, to put your studies into practice and educate your flock on how you intend to follow your updated and improved CPP. Children are important to the One I follow and to me. Are they important to you and your congregation? Important enough to spend half the time improving your church in this area as you have in perfecting your doctrine? I assume the preliminary answer is yes, but your actions show that you need to show you value protecting children.

Lastly, when we spoke on the phone, you had come up with your own definition of abuse. I believe it included the word 'Repeatable.' Perhaps that is why the 3 examples I listed for you have not been enough for you. I find that very sad and defying common sense. Why would one need to repeat abuse to be an abuser? I would encourage you to look up the definition of child abuse in your state and adhere to it in the future, as well as do some research on the meaning of the term spiritual abuse. My parents did repeatedly emotionally, spiritually, and physically abuse me, but I feel no need to list further examples when you will not acknowledge the ones I have listed.

I had hoped you would notice the details of my father’s response and they would speak for themselves. The fact that you did not (if you truly noticed them, that would have been enough for your investigation of his qualification for eldership), coupled with your insensitivity , your poor CPP, and your flawed definition of abuse lead me to believe that future dialogue with you will be fruitless without more training on your part. If you need more information from me, you may address your inquiries to [my husband's email], and my husband will determine if your questioning is sensitive and appropriate. I would also suggest looking into a qualified organization to equip your church to deal with other abuse that may arise (and if you don’t update your CPP, it surely will. Abusers target religious circles where they may become easily trusted.). I know of one good organization, called Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE). They may be able to point you in the right direction.

Thank you for your time.

Savannah"

After sending this email with clear boundaries for the elder board and Brian, they did not stop their insensitive intrusions. They have never once contacted my husband. Instead, they decided to call my pastor. When we got the phone call from our pastor (who had apparently gotten a strong impression from Brian that I had not tried to reconcile with my parents, and that I needed counsel in the area of forgiveness) asking to meet with me on Brian's behalf, I sobbed. I felt like I would never escape from their intrusions. Brian had asked my pastor to meet with me and pass on information to him. I was stunned. David and I talked about it, decided that it very clearly broke our simple boundaries, and called our pastor back to explain the boundaries we had laid out for Brian. Our pastor decided to ask Brian why he had never contacted David, at which point Brian backpedaled and said he would not need information from our pastor,as he had just read the letter I had written to my parents (not sure what that had to do with it, or why he read it so long after they received it). Apparently, he wrote me off for some reason after seeing my very personal letter. How could he have thought he did not have enough information to conclude whether or not my father was abusive? Did he really think it was appropriate to ask my pastor to pass on confidential information from a counseling session? Why did he drop the case after reading my letter? I am left with so many questions about Brian's conduct that I will probably never know the answers to. It felt safe at first to be so far away from my parents during all of this, but Brian was doing his best to extend his power and interrupt our daily lives.

I am not writing any of this out of hatred or unforgiveness. Instead, I believe this needs to be public information to those who currently and may in the future attend this church. Once their leadership became aware of abuse, they sheltered it and coddled it. Their own words, not mine, demonstrated that their atmosphere harbors abusers. Let it be known.