MATTHEW McNUTT

Ethnos360’s (formerly New Tribes Mission) decision to not list the physically abusive missionaries and the deceased sexually abusive missionaries discovered through their investigations mean that men like Rich Hine, who passed away, have not been publicly named by them, regardless of how many victims he may or may not have had, known and unknown. This is a continued pattern of protecting the mission and the abusers over the victims. It also demonstrates a lack of concern or interest in other potential victims he may have had that would have been empowered to speak up if they were to name him. He is only one of many unnamed known abusers.

My family moved to Tambo, Ethnos360’s former boarding school in rural Bolivia, in the fall of 1990. At the time, Rich Hine was the director of the school, a middle school teacher, and the middle school boys’ dorm parent – an unusual position to be entrusted to a single man in the mission. I can’t speak to Hine’s time before our arrival, but I can speak to how he left.

My parents were the third and fourth grade teachers that year. Al Lotz, the principal, had pressured my parents into placing myself and my younger brother in the dorms despite our parents living at the school; I ended up in Lotz’s high school boys’ dorm, my brother was in Hine’s dorm. Lotz had wanted all of my siblings in the dorms, but my parents drew the line at my youngest two siblings and kept them home.

The middle school boys’ dorm was designed with a separate building for showers and toilets. My parents noticed from their classroom that Hine would spend afternoons hanging out around the middle school boys’ shower building when they returned from the daily work detail, something they saw as a red flag. When the boys were in nothing but towels, it was a strange time at best to be engaging them in conversation.

Hine was known for the severe and merciless beatings he would give the boys. He preferred to beat them on the back of their legs with a wooden paddle rather than their buttocks so that it would hurt more. My brother and others described how boys would compare how black and blue they were with each other.

That Christmas break, while students had gone home for the holiday, Lotz called a meeting of all the staff and announced that Hine had admitted to a sin issue, was being removed as the director, removed as a dorm parent and moved to a house where he would live by himself, and would continue to be a middle school teacher. He went on to tell them that that was all they needed to know, and they were not allowed to discuss it any further, that the matter was solved.

My dad confronted Lotz after the meeting; with the concerns he had already had and my brother living in the dorm with Hine, he was not going to take no for an answer. It was a combative interaction with Lotz finally relenting and telling my dad that Hine had molested one of the boys in the dorm, the victim had told his parents, who told leadership, and once confronted Hine admitted to it. My dad was livid and insisted that Hine was disqualified, needed to be removed from the mission and reported to the authorities. Lotz told him he was wrong.

The leadership at Tambo filed their report to the executive leadership team over the Bolivia mission field, who signed off on it and sent it to the Florida mission headquarters.

In the meantime, students returned to school for the spring semester. While the executive leadership team agreed with Lotz’s decision to not inform staff, parents or students of the nature of Hine’s “sin,” they were concerned enough to check with their own children whether or not they had been abused by Hine. As a result, a handful of students returned to Tambo knowing what happened and whispered to their closest friends the truth. I’ll never forget when one of the other staff members showed up at our house to talk to my dad, confused and furious at what he had heard from his daughter and wanting to know whether it was true and what could be done.

And then the word came down from the Florida headquarters. They had seen the report. Hine’s had 24 hours to leave Tambo, one week to be out of the country and back to England, his home country. Hine was an absolute mess. Lotz allowed him to say goodbye to the students, giving him the microphone during our lunch. Hine was sobbing, saying he didn’t understand why this was happening, he had already said sorry and been told he was okay, it was all so confusing and wrong. Other kids were crying as well, echoing his cries over it being unfair and unreasonable. Meanwhile, his victim(s) were in the room experiencing the whole spectacle. It must have been hell for them to see others comforting Hine.

And then he was gone.

And honestly, as the yeas passed, I thought of him less and less.

Until the fall of 1994.

I enrolled at Ethnos360’s Bible school in England, at the time located in Matlock Bath (it has since moved and been renamed). There was a short list of approved churches we could choose from to attend, and I chose one a few miles from the school that I liked. The pastor had been there for more than a dozen years, was a caring and thoughtful guy, and led a healthy church.

One day he came by the Bible school to visit the students who attended his church. When he discovered that another student and I attended Tambo, he lit up. “Oh, do you know Rich Hine?” We both got tense and cautiously said yes. He went on to explain that his church, the one we had been attending, was Hine’s home church. And while he hadn’t been attending since his return to the country, the pastor still had a relationship with him and would frequently see him around town. He asked if we wanted him to connect us with Hine.

We both quickly said no and made some excuses.

Picking up on our hesitance, he commented that he thought it was strange. He didn’t really know why Hine had returned from the mission field, it seemed that the Bible school and the mission wanted nothing to do with Hine, and Hine wouldn’t tell him why.

I remember thinking to myself, shocked, “he has no idea what happened! They never told his pastor and home church what he did?” I remember feeling furious that there had been no justice, no truth told. I felt that this pastor should be told but I also remember thinking, “it’s not my job to tell him this!”

I’ve always regretted not telling the pastor. I changed churches, though. I didn’t want to run into Hine, so I began attending one in the opposite direction of the school. My 19-year-old self was still too conditioned by Ethnos360’s strict warnings that we were not to talk about Rich Hine to say anything in that moment.

Ethnos360 failed to name Hine when he was discovered. They chose not to name him when he was sent back to his home with no thought to the potential victims in that region. And they continue to refuse to name him despite the healing it would bring to his victims.

These events are described from my personal experience and contemporaneous conversations as a student/staff kid at Tambo (1990–1993) and the New Tribes Mission Bible Institute at Matlock Bath, England (1995).

Find all of my blog entries about Ethnos360/New Tribes Mission here.