They knew, and They Let It Happen

A true story from inside a New Tribes Mission boarding school

As a young teenager, I found myself at a New Tribes Mission boarding school.
I remember meeting him. He was warm, kind, and friendly — tall and fatherly. I missed my parents terribly, and his fatherly presence felt comforting at first. I was so homesick. The only way I could speak to my parents was through a crackly radio, with other adults listening in on every word.
He would seek me out and give me long hugs. At first, I told myself it was kindness. Maybe it was. But over time, his hands began to wander. Just a brush here or there — something I could try to explain away. I hated it, but convinced myself it was accidental. I was imagining it.
I hadn’t been taught anything about my rights, especially when it came to my own body. Growing up in such a conservative Christian environment, we were trained from childhood to stand still and stay silent. If you flinched, cried, or moved during a spanking, you got spanked again — harder. That was our version of obedience: submission, without question.
I didn’t have the language for what was happening. I didn’t know I could say no. I knew almost nothing about my own body, and even less about men. What I did know was that it felt wrong. But he was a missionary — a revered man of God. So I figured the problem had to be me.
Things escalated. He would have these one on one Bible studies where he would sit so close to me on the couch and his hands would wander. I would scoot away and he would scoot closer. I remember him coming into the bathroom while I was showering, claiming he needed to fix something. I remember him peeking into the shower. I remember the fear, the confusion, and the awful certainty that I must have done something wrong. I wanted so badly to be good. To be a good Christian. To please the adults around me. So I stayed silent. I didn’t tell anyone — partly because I didn’t have the words, and partly because I was afraid it really was my fault.
But here’s what makes me the most angry: this man had been caught before. Twice. He had already been known to have harmed girls at the school. And twice, the organization “restored” and “forgave” him. They knew what he was capable of. They knew he was a danger to girls like me. And still, they put him right back in the dorm. Right back in a position of power. Right back into the lives of vulnerable children.
They didn’t report him to the authorities. They didn’t remove him from leadership. They didn’t even remove him from the mission. They let him continue — all under the banner of grace and forgiveness.
Eventually, he became a chaplain at the mission old people homes in Sanford, revered as a spiritual giant. He retired in good standing. It wasn’t until the mission faced pressure that they conducted a so-called investigation — which confirmed beyond doubt that he had harmed children. But even then, they only pretended to retroactively dismiss him. He was already retired.
And he still walks free.
All of it — all the harm — could have been prevented. They knew. And they let it happen anyway.
Recently, I’ve been on a journey of healing. Quietly, I’ve begun to acknowledge what really happened there. I’ve allowed myself to feel the weight of it — to grieve what was taken from me. I’ve come to understand something I couldn’t grasp back then: I did the best I could with what I knew. I was a child, trying to survive in a world that didn’t protect me. And none of it was my fault.
I’ve also come to see that this organization — New Tribes Mission/Ethnos360— has been criminally negligent for a very long time. The harm they enabled wasn’t just historical, and it wasn’t just occasional. It was systemic.
But I’m speaking now. Because the silence was never mine to carry.