"The apologies that are offered must sound hollow to the families who bear the scars of this tragedy."

Today I was in a pastor’s office. The man was on the ABWE board at the time of the abuse. He told me that the board was in the dark about the whole situation

I am an ABWE MK, a current ABWE full-time missionary, and parent of ABWE MKs. I’m not a PR specialist, but I’d like to respond to some of the comments here. The leadership at ABWE has repeatedly apologized about how they handled this situation in the past, and I hope that they will continue to apologize and seek the forgiveness of those who have been wronged. I hope they do continue to repair the damage that has been done in the lives of the victims and to do everything possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I am not coldly unconcerned about this situation because my own wife and kids are here with me on the mission field, and I will do everything I can do to make sure that they are safe.

The bottom line is that even after all had come to light, through its Interim President, ABWE was still covering, dodging, blame-shifting, and excusing. It matters not who is slimed as long as the institution is defended.

I don’t see how this statement could be made by someone who has read the full Pii report. Please read pages 166-167 to see how Dr. Cockrell has performed in his responsibilities as Interim President and has fully supported this investigation. Since R.T. Ketcham died in 1978, I don’t know of any way to blame him or defend him for events in and after 1989 - seems to be a moot point. I don’t know why Alan Cockrell made that comment about R.T. Ketcham. Have you asked him, or are you assuming to know his motives? The Pii report does not tell us the context in which that statement was made, why Dr. Cockrell said it, or what knowledge he may have to substantiate it. Perhaps Dr. Cockrell was wrong, perhaps he was sinfully committing gossip, perhaps he was blame-shifting, or perhaps he had a good reason to make that statement. I don’t know, and we can’t know based solely on the Pii report. I’ll write to him and ask him. Perhaps you should do the same.

I read the document—thanks for the nudge, Joel—and it strikes me that ABWE’s efforts to hide what went on involved HR, legal, and a lot more—look at the obstruction around page 140. Suffice it to say that if ABWE wants to be trusted and serve Christ, they have some work to do.

Well, ABWE is not hiding what happened or what the individuals in Admin, HR, and legal did. They fired those responsible (who were still a part of the organization), turned over the documentation to Pii, and publicly posted this report on their website. So, yes, things were hidden before, but are no longer. I also agree that there is still much more work yet to be done to regain trust. This kind of thing cannot be resolved quickly.

Will missionaries be leaving ABWE?

I can’t speak for other missionaries, but I will not be leaving over this issue. In my opinion the present leadership has taken the necessary steps to ensure that his does not happen again. And all of the former leadership (who were involved in the incident and the later cover-up) have been replaced.

Will churches continue to support ABWE and its missionaries?

I can’t speak for those who support ABWE and the individual missionaries, but it has been my experience that those who give financially to missionaries do so because of their connection to the individual missionaries rather that their loyalty to the mission agency.

Will people just say, “I’m glad that’s over. Let’s forget about the past and keep on keeping on?”

I can say that we missionaries haven’t ceased our work while waiting for this report to come out. The gospel is still preached and disciples are taught. But that doesn’t mean we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past. ABWE has made many significant changes because of the failures of the past.

Will anything be done for the victims?

The Pii report states some of what has been done and I hope that much more will be done for them. The website says “the present administration and Board are committed to provide counseling and support to the Victim/Survivors and their families, now and going forward.”

Personally, I bailed on ABWE many years ago over their questionable handling of financial support that was sent to missionaries. I had heard rumors back then but was told that they were false and to “trust us”.

I’m sorry to hear about that. I don’t know what rumors you are referring to, but I can tell you that I and all the missionaries I know must give an account of every penny of ministry funds that comes to us. And I’ve never had trouble receiving support donated to our ministry through the mission.

I can’t defend ABWE leadership’s handling of this situation and their behavior toward the victims in this case. Obviously they were in the wrong, which is why they hired Pii to do an independent investigation. But they have begun to take the steps necessary to change, and if they continue down that path then they will hopefully regain your trust.

….for your well thought out comments on this tragedy. One thing I might add to my comments is that when you have a situation where multiple departments of a company fail egregiouisly (my ISO9001 experience is showing here), you generally need to do a lot of work to not only clear up the working documents (those appeared reasonable at least from my reading of the ABWE document), but you also need to address the hidden culture of the company, something called the “hidden factory” in my profession. More or less, a lot of the messes that people get to clean up anywhere are because there are real reasons people did things a certain way—real reasons that they know and the management generally doesn’t.

I used to figure out the hidden factory by taking my breaks at the smoke shack—probably not an option at ABWE HQ, of course, but that was where people were relaxed enough to talk about everything they hated. So the trick at ABWE is to, rhetorically speaking, “find the smoke shack”, and then provide incentives to do things correctly.

One thing worth noting here is that as angry as we should be that this happened—both the crimes (Ketcham and apparently at least one more perpetrator) and the coverup—we need to be aware as well that this is a blind spot that was exposed for both religious and secular institutions relatively recently and is still shaking out.

One of our BIG responses needs to be a prayer “Lord, help show me my blind spots.” It might be our attitudes towards a particular kind of church, a particular kind of pastor, or a particular thing in our culture that is indeed sinful. But just like the church tolerated slavery for an awfully long time, we will be shown those blind spots periodically and we need to keep our heads about us as we do.

[Jim]

Today I was in a pastor’s office. The man was on the ABWE board at the time of the abuse. He told me that the board was in the dark about the whole situation

Maybe they did not know, but should they have known? I wonder what the board was doing to direct.

[Joeb]

You have got to be kidding me. What you are saying is a total insult to anyone with half a brain. How dare you defend them.

[Joeb]

These guys are an ongoing Criminal Enterprise not doing the work of the Lord.

But who are the “them” and “These guys” to which you refer? When you glibly spew your invective in this unspecific way, you risk slandering innocent Christian brothers and sisters.

[Joeb]

I do have great disdain for the Former Law Enforcement Officers connected to the ABWE ministry Tachtica. These guys did not even speak up. From what I can tell from their website most their personal did not retire as Officers. I maybe wrong. My best guess is these guys were either fired from their jobs or were asked to leave and created this Tachtica ministry to provide them with employment. All Pastors out their don’t let these guys in your front door of your church. They are a total disgrace to the badge. My God how could you be involved with such a ministry and not speak up. Even a corrupt cop by drugs or money would stand up for the protection of children. You are worse than them.

What difference does it make whether they retire as officers? If God leads them to leave their careers before retirement and go minister in this way, what is that to you? And what do you know of what these persons have done individually to make these general accusations?

Your speech to Bro. Ward and generally is intemperate, it recklessly disregards the truth, and it is slanderous. And it is not justified by the evident sin of a number of persons that have been associated with ABWE: two wrongs do not make a right.

Hi Joeb,

I think that you have either misread my post or simply did not read it before writing your response.

How dare you defend them.

If you read my post you will see that I specifically stated that I can not defend them and that they were obviously wrong in what they did. I’m not sure how you could have misunderstood me, or how I could have made myself clearer on that point.

I’m not defending them or mitigating their actions. What I am saying is that they are gone. No one involved with Donn Ketcham and the following cover-up are still at ABWE. So when you say “they” and “them” you are talking about people who have died or are no longer associated with ABWE.

p.s. you also spoke of other things like celebrating Kempton’s birthday, the GARBC, and Tachtica. I can’t respond to those things, because I’ve never been involved with them. I’ve never celebrated Kempton’s birthday nor been invited to do so. I’ve never been a member of a GARBC church and (as far as I know) I don’t personally know any GARBC pastors, nor do I have any GARBC churches supporting me. I don’t know who or what Tachtica is, but there are many missionaries and related ministries with whom I am not familiar.

If you have any questions I’d be happy to respond to them.

.

Joeb,
Apology accepted.