MATTHEW McNUTT

Honestly, I thought I had said everything I needed to say about the abuse that happened at the Ethnos360 (formerly New Tribes Mission) boarding school I attended. You can find links to all of those posts here. And then I started making TikTok’s of me reading my old journal entries from when I was 15 and the very first entry in my journal was from the day Rich Hine was kicked out of Tambo (no, I’m not making a TikTok about that one).

I think it’s important to share because it’s a first hand look into how Ethnos360 handled the sexual assault by Hine of a child in his care. The words below are my words written in response that day. Minimal information was given to the children at the school, like myself – children who could have been victims as well, but no efforts were made to identify them. You can see the progression in my journal, only releasing the minimum of information at each step. Initially they just told us he was no longer going to be a director and dorm parent, just a teacher, with no mention of cause or sin. Then, on January 22, 1991, they told us he had “fallen into sin,” they had forgiven him, but that the mission higher-ups essentially overrode them and kicked him out because of some policy. It’s notable that my impression at the time (later I would learn what he had done as word whispered around, read this entry for that story) was that it was wrong to kick him out, that he was being mistreated. What kind of climate does that create for other victims wondering whether or not they should say something? Instead of seeing potential support, all they saw were students upset that Hine was being overreacted on. We were left to think it was an overly dramatic response to policy, not an inadequate response to criminal sexual assault on a child.

Here’s my journal entry unedited from that day:

1/22/91

Today is a Tuesday, and some pretty important things are going down around Tambo, so this will probably be a long entry. One of them is that Mr. Rich Hine, a missionary from England, was kicked off the mission field. Mr. Hine was the director, Annex boys dorm parent [5th-8th grade boys], and a teacher of several 7th through 12th grade classes. Then after Christmas break, it was announced that he would give up all of his leadership positions and just be a teacher. Mr. Dupue came and took over being director and annex boys dorm parent. Then it was announced that Mr. Hine had fallen into sin, and that is why he had to give up leadership. They also said he had been forgiven, and nobody had hard feelings, and that the Tambo committee decided he could stay as a teacher. But then it was announced today that the field committee in Miami decided to kick him off the field because of one of their policies. Mr. Hine left this afternoon, and everyone is kind of depressed — especially some of the annex girls.

I’m kind of ticked off, myself, because I don’t think Mr. Hine is capable of doing something so bad that he should be kicked off the field. What ever, I guess New Tribes has its reasons, but that doesn’t make it any less depressing.