BANNED! But Still Qualified?

I learned this week that a church, in response to a man who said some disturbing things about his interaction with a baby in the nursery, banned all men from the nursery. All men....banned.

Let's get this straight....instead of dealing with the man who has the problem, this church put all men in the category of being a danger to babies and banned them all, even the fathers of the babies who stay in the nursery.


Yet, even though all men are banned from the nursery, men in that church continue to serve in other leadership roles in the church. Wait, what?

Again, let me get this straight. The men are all deemed to be a danger to babies, yet the men are qualified to serve as deacons, pastors, teachers, trustees and supervisors of other ministries? Uh, no. No they are not.

This is a good example of a church refusing to deal with sin. One man has a problem and instead of dealing with that problem, the church put all men in his category and declared them all a danger to babies. They brought down all their men to cover the sins of one (really two in this case). How can the other men, the men who didn't have a questionable interaction with a baby, allow themselves to be aligned with the one who did?

When the pastor and his wife were given the opportunity to know who the guilty men are in this situation, they refused to listen. Instead, they want all their men to be thought of as potentially abusive to babies. Every single man in the church is banned from the nursery. Get that. Let that sink in. If you are a father in that church and you take your baby to the nursery, you are NOT ALLOWED to enter the room where your baby is being held. How can there not be legal ramifications to a man not being allowed in the same room as his own child?

This is all so deeply disturbing. What else are they hiding?

If you are a father and you go to a church that will not allow you to be in the same room as your baby or toddler, get out of that church as fast as you can.

If you know the men in a church are not allowed in the nursery but are allowed to "serve" in other ministries, get out as fast as you can.

Men who are not qualified to serve in the nursery are not qualified to serve anywhere.

How can the moms of these babies and toddlers tolerate their husbands being aligned with abusers? How can they stand by and let their men be dragged through the mud of abuse without speaking out against it? Oh, wait, I forgot.....women in church are rarely allowed to speak out. So, churches like this get to make rules that turn all men into abusers and the women have to sit down and shut up about it.

Aly Raisman, Olympic gymnastics hero, recently addressed the judge and the court in her victim statement in the sentencing trial of her abuser, Larry Nassar. You can watch that statement here. She is brave and heroic for speaking out, as are all the victims speaking out. She pointed out that her abuser served on the very committees designed to keep athletes safe, yet he was the biggest perpetrator all the time! Think about that.....this is also true in your church. The men are the leaders, the men make the policies, the men have the voices, yet the vast majority of the time, the men are the abusers!

Don't you see? The male dominance in your church is part of the grooming process used to keep abuse alive. In this particular church, all men are deemed unsafe to be around babies and their wives sit back and quietly let this happen. I would not. If I had ever been in a church that restricted my husband's access to his own children, I would leave immediately.

Jesus was trusted with children. If the men in your church are not, they are nothing like Jesus.
Choose your servants wisely.
~Tricia

How to Make Me Stop Blogging about ABWE

Abuse is never isolated. If someone abuses one person, they will likely abuse another. No pedophile has been found to have only one victim. There are always multiple victims. Some of those victims are too hurt to tell anyone about the abuse. Other victims wait until a good number of other victims have spoken out, then they find strength to do the same. Others are first to speak out and pave the way for more.

Because victimization is so personal, each victim has to find their own way and work in whatever time frame they can in their process of healing.

Because many of us know this, either through surviving victimization ourselves or by working with those who are healing, we know that each victim takes their own, very private, very personalized path to healing. But, we also know that many need a boost. They need an outlet for their voice. They need a safe place to voice their experience.

That's why my blogging about ABWE continues, and will continue. We, my husband and I, have received many messages from people who want to tell their stories but are still too afraid to be known by name.

Victimization can take different formats. While the direct victims of Donn Ketcham's pedophilia are dealing with healing from sexual abuse, there are other victims, too.

There's the ABWE missionary on another field who saw the way ABWE handled Donn Ketcham's abuse in 1989 and realized they were handling "problems" and "potential problems" on other fields in the same, wrong way and he spoke up. And ABWE administration told him to "Shut up" about these problems.....and he did.....and he carried the weight of this alone....and he had a heart attack.

Another hard-working missionary realized he could not stay with ABWE in good conscience not only because it was his friend and co-laborer who was hushed, but he also saw how wrong they were, so he actually left ABWE. His conscience could not allow him to continue. He could not work with a mission board that was covering up sin on "various mission fields." The problems were not isolated to Bangladesh. They were/are widespread. They continue. I wonder how long before victims from other mission fields will come forward.

The culture of abuse within ABWE has to be recognized before any real changes are going to take place. Some current ABWE missionaries are treating this like it needs to go away now. They are weary of the continuation of blogs like this one and comments on Facebook groups and other social media sites.

I'll tell you what. Just as soon as we stop getting private messages from various victims and just as soon as those victims are properly vindicated and just as soon as ABWE recognizes the culture of abuse they continue to operate in and fix it to our satisfaction, we will stop. Until then, I will blog in hopes of giving more and more victims the courage to come forward and break out of their silence.

To the victims: You are not alone. We are praying for you. We are here for you. We are aware of your pain. You are the reason I'm blogging and continuing to speak out against abuse. Your private messages are empowering.

~Tricia

Pedophile in the Pulpit

This article in the Austin Daily Herald shows that justice has finally been served to a horrid pedophile who got away with his crimes for decades. He not only got away with them, he stood up each week in the pulpit, his congregational leaders fully aware of some of his crimes before they even brought him there. By looking the other way, they are guilty of allowing a pedophile to defile the children in their own ministry....their own children! Do they think it can't happen to them?

We knew he had issues and when some of his other sins were found out, we begged and begged the state Baptist leadership to look into him and do their own investigation. They would not. Instead, they actually accused us of "always stirring up trouble." We were not stirring up trouble; we were warning of the trouble already stirred up and worried sick about his victims. I still am worried about them.

Our warnings and pleas for independent investigations went unheard. No one would listen when we told them he had some questionable behaviors that needed investigation. Turns out, many of them already knew and didn't care! They continued to praise him and give him ministry responsibilities.

There are a few other men whom we suspect in that town. We've only had enough solid evidence to warn about one specifically and I'm happy to see that the current leadership of Grace Baptist Church, the church this pedophile was pastor of, has kept this other man out of their nursery so far.

Click here to read the entire article.

I will never be afraid to speak out about pedophiles, even if I go unheard.
I will continue to tip newspapers and get these things in print.
I will continue to warn people so that I might prevent just one more victim.

To his victims, I'm so, so sorry for what he did to you. We did try to stop him. They would not listen. We were stopping him for you. I hope you all feel some relief knowing he's in prison. I hope this gives you a sense of vindication. This is all for you, so that you know he's locked up and can't hurt anyone else, so that you no longer have to fear him in any way.

~Tricia