“Individuals in our organization abused children. People in leadership at the time were culpable through inadequate screening and training, creating an atmosphere of legalism and autocracy, and not addressing the abuse properly.”

The blogosphere has come alive this weekend with multiple reports and rumors about abuse in missionary schools. The Aquila Report has been able to confirm at least one of these stories, involving New Tribes Missions. The children in the school were children of western education missionaries, not local children.

An investigation was completed by a third party –GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment. The Mission of Grace is “to empower the Christian community through education and training to recognize and respond to the sin of child abuse.”

The Official New Tribes Mission web site reports these confirmed details www.ntm.org/:

We are deeply saddened by the extent of the abuse reported by GRACE.

At the request of NTM and with the consent of the former students of the NTM school for missionary children in Senegal, GRACE conducted a review of abuse at the school in the 1980s and NTM’s response. They sent their report to the former students and NTM on Monday, Aug. 23, and scheduled follow-up meetings for each group on Saturday, Aug. 28.

Individuals in our organization abused children. People in leadership at the time were culpable through inadequate screening and training, creating an atmosphere of legalism and autocracy, and not addressing the abuse properly. This means that we as an organization are responsible and have sinned against these students.

True repentance, as the GRACE report points out, will be seen in our actions, and we pledge to act. Our current leaders are reviewing the recommendations in the report, and will meet with GRACE this week so we can fully understand them and move forward in the right way.

NTM USA’s Executive Board has begun implementing GRACE’s recommendations. The first set of these will be complete by the end of the week.

Last Saturday, the Executive Board and the GRACE team spent six hours going through the report together, reviewing the findings and recommendations. We’re thankful for the work GRACE has done.
As more facts are confirmed in the coming days, The Aquila Report will update this story.