It’s been years since I’ve written about Ethnos360’s (formerly New Tribes Mission/NTM) mishandling of their members sexually, physically, and spiritually abusing MK’s (missionary kids). You can find my past posts here. Why the delay? Honestly, it takes me time to process and collect my thoughts.
In 2019 Ethnos360 released a statement about the past abuse and history of it on their website. You can find the current iteration of that document here, a pdf document entitled “Ethnos360 and Child Safety.” What many most likely don’t know is that Brian Coombs invited myself and another former MK and outspoken critic to Florida to preview the document and give feedback. Ethnos360 covered our transportation and accommodations, and Brian spent hours with the two of us over the course of a couple days answering questions, receiving our feedback, and hearing our concerns, which I do really appreciate. In some ways it was a good process for me; not just in being heard, but also in being able to ask direct questions about the abuse I experienced and the process that was followed in confronting the abuser. Where I had been deeply frustrated at the lack of transparency in the IHART report on Bolivia and the lack of information given to me officially about how my abuser, Al Lotz, was handled, it was healing to hear firsthand more about how that went down.
But it’s a mixed bag. Yes, it helped me personally in some ways, but still falls short overall.
I still fundamentally disagree with Ethnos360’s limited approach to naming abusers. On the one hand, I appreciate the transparency of much of the document when it comes to the history of abuse in their mission and in particular, their boarding schools. On the other hand, it continues to minimize the amount of abuse that has occurred by listing only abusers who committed sexual abuse and are still living. It also disregards the need of victims to see their abusers named and for unknown victims to be empowered to step forward. There are a few ways it does this:
- Minimizes Overall Abuse: By listing only living sexual offenders, it allows the list to be kept short and creates a perception that in such a large mission there are only 20 former members who sexually abused children (the number currently listed). And by listing the names in a PDF document rather than directly on their website, those names do not easily show up in online searches.
- Minimizes Other Forms of Abuse: It also creates the perception that other forms of abuse are not as bad or not as important to identify. Coombs explained to us that the decision to not list them is based in the idea that while sexual abusers can be predators for life, the physical abusers are most likely no longer doing so because they are no longer in those schools or environments where it would happen, a belief I do not agree with.
- Minimizes Victims & Unknown Victims: Most importantly, it ignores the needs of victims and again puts the mission and the abusers first. Victims who went through the emotional process of sharing their stories are left silenced and revictimized. Unknown victims who have not yet spoken up are left unempowered; there is a great strengthening that comes in seeing your abuser named, empowering other victims to step forward and find healing. It enables them to move past the gaslighting the abuser may have given them or that they have given themselves to recognize that it was real, that that offender was wrong. If the mission was genuinely interested in helping victims, they would name all abusers for the sake of every victim, known and unknown.
And the list has changed over the years. The current 20 names of sexual offenders listed in the document and the year they were removed from the mission are:
- Dave McLaren (1975)
- Robin Slade (1978)
- Ann Lotz (1979)
- Terri McCall (1989)
- David Brooks (1990)
- Robert (“Bob”) Fisher (1991)
- Dennis Mead (1992)
- Harold Bracken (1993)
- Les Emory (1993)
- Mark Ertl (1994)
- Jim Bou (1998)
- Steve Armour (1999)
- Reginaldo Goulart (2002)
- Peter Thiessen (2002)
- Phil Gates (Resigned 1994) (Retroactively terminated in 2010)
- Paul Gess (2017)
- Kim Cooper (Resigned 1996) (Ineligible for rehire post PNG IHART Inquiry 2022)
- Rand Burgett (2022)
- Dan Jennett (Abuse occurred prior to membership.) (Resigned 2007) (Ineligible for rehire)
- Josh Weeks (dismissed 2024; added to list upon close of legal case)
This list no longer includes the following names that were originally on it in 2019, I assume because they have passed away [EDIT: It’s been brought to my attention that Roger Bailey III and Dawn Canright are both still living, which is concerning that they would have been removed]:
- Dean Grindstaff (1983)
- Roger Bailey III (1996)
- Dawn Canright (1997)
Reading through these names is gut-wrenching. Each represents stories of shattered trust and wounded children, yet many more remain unnamed. The list has never included names like Rich Hine, the former director of my boarding school, Tambo, in Bolivia, who sexually and physically abused children, and when caught was initially given a slap on the wrist before eventually being sent back to England where his home church was never told the reason for his return because he has already passed away. It doesn’t include names like Dave Wood, also deceased, but possibly because the sexual abuse he committed was against Manjui children (he was removed from the mission towards the end of 1991 and my parents replaced him). He should have been reported to Paraguayan authorities for his assaults on Paraguayan children. How many other sexual abusers have not been named because they’ve passed away? Does it matter that they still have victims who are alive? No.
And what about the significant number of physical abusers Ethnos360 has identified? Men like Al Lotz who they have never publicly identified, now the Senior Vice President of Surge International, a mission dedicated to children’s ministry through soccer. After I named him on my blog, other former MK’s reached out to me to thank me for doing so because of the abuse they also suffered from him.
I don’t enjoy doing this. Writing these kinds of posts is painful and scary for me. But if Ethnos360 won’t take responsibility for naming the abusers they have identified, the burden falls back on victims. I pray that the day comes that Ethnos360 will finally complete the process and take that final step of identifying abusers.
It’s decades overdue, but it’s not too late.
Leave a Reply