Mission Children Abused

The stories have been whispered in the halls of missionary agencies and Christian colleges for decades. The evangelical community was unwilling to admit that it could have happened. But it did.

By David Briggs, Reporter - Plain Dealer
Sunday, March 18, 2001

While their parents were out saving souls in remote African villages in 1974, four little girls were losing their childhoods at the Ivory Coast Academy in Bouake. They muffled their cries then; only now are they and many others like them being heard by evangelical missionary organizations that for so long preached forgive and forget.

Several nights a week, during that school year almost three decades ago, dorm parent Carl Schumacher would lead devotional prayers, then come into the girls' sleeping area, linger over the beds of four youngsters and allegedly sexually molest 8-year-old Annette McNeill, 8-year-old Marcia MacLeod and two other girls.

Stories like this one have been whispered about in the halls of mission agencies and Christian colleges for decades in an evangelical community unwilling to admit that such abuse could occur.

Even after an independent commission of inquiry found in 1998 that more than a dozen children of missionaries assigned by the Gospel Missionary Union were abused from 1950 to 1971 in Guinea, the organization did not offer counseling to the victims. Now, two of the girls abused in 1974 at the Gospel Missionary dorm on the Ivory Coast say they find leaders of the more than century-old mission agency unmoved by their pleas for help.

The Rev. Carl McMindes, Gospel Missionary president, declined to respond to the allegations. "That area is being worked on currently, and I'm not free to give any information," he said.

Church documents and scores of interviews with former missionary kids, their parents, mission officials, researchers and abuse counselors show that the problem cannot be dismissed as isolated or unproven incidents.

Moreover, a growing body of evidence indicates a significant turning point in the way American Protestantism responds to sexual abuse of the children of missionaries.
In a breakthrough study of former missionary kids, 7 percent of a sample of more than 600 missionary children said they were sexually abused.

And some missionary organizations are beginning to listen to their pleas for help.
The evidence of change includes:

* Statements from Annette McNeill and Marcia MacLeod, who say they were molested as children on the Ivory Coast. They agreed to talk after a lifetime of dealing with the effects of sexual abuse and of being ignored, they say, as adults by the Gospel Missionary Union and the international group that requires mission agencies to set ethical standards.
* An inquiry launched in February by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of the largest providers of foreign missionaries. The church is investigating the allegations of at least 20 people, including eight daughters of mission workers, who say they were sexually abused in the Congo between 1945 and 1978.
* Child protection policies instituted by several mission agencies after a Plain Dealer story 2½ years ago disclosed how the Christian and Missionary Alliance found that seven missionaries had physically and sexually abused scores of children more than 20 years ago at a school in Guinea.

Silence surrounding abuse created decades of suffering for missionary children and the parents who cared for them through divorces, attempted suicides and bouts of depression.

Sexual abuse can be most damaging to a child "when it occurs over an extended period of time from circumstances which they can't escape," said Richard Dobbins, president of Akron-based Emerge Ministries.

However, some missionary kids are no longer silent.

"The thing that creates the anger is by saying no and not helping us, and shoving the situation under the rug, in my mind has said to me, 'I'm worthless. I'm not worth caring about,' " Marcia MacLeod, now Marcia Foulds, said of the Gospel Missionary response.

"When push comes to shove, you don't live what you preach."

Parents' sacrifice

No electricity. No phones. 120-degree heat. Sleeping outside on army cots, with the constant threat of their hands falling to the ground and into the path of a scorpion. Those were givens in the life chosen by Kathryn and Larry McNeill, who were married
on the mission field in West Africa in 1956.

But the greatest sacrifice the McNeills and generations of missionary parents made in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s was to send their children to boarding school beginning at age 6. Mission agencies required families to give up their children for nine months a year so the parents could work unimpeded in the fields of the Lord.

Today, sitting at her kitchen table inside a small, nondescript apartment in Wheaton, Ill., Kathryn McNeill's eyes fill with tears at the memory of the rugged two-day trip from Warsala, Mali, then having to say goodbye to her three children at the missionary school compound in Bouake in the 1970s.

"You hug them and say, 'We'll see you,' and when they're gone you cry," she said, pausing to compose herself. "You adjust to snakes and scorpions. . . . The children - that was by far the hardest."

For young girls such as the McNeills' daughter, Annette, and Marcia MacLeod, the dorm parents at the missionary school would become their second fathers, their second mothers. Even today, former missionary kids still call their old dorm parents by the affectionate terms "aunt" and "uncle."

But no one was more vulnerable than a missionary child, separated from their parents by hundreds of miles of difficult terrain.

There was nothing those 8-year-old girls could do during the 1973-74 school year except cower in their beds those nights they heard Carl Schumacher's footsteps coming down the hall.

The Gospel Missionary Union dorm was a separate building in the school compound. Annette, Marcia and two other girls slept two-to-a-room in the simple, tin-roofed building. Neither of the other girls could be reached for this story.

Annette and Marcia said they were taught not to alarm their parents about events at school. "We would disrupt God's work, the work of the kingdom, for our own little problems," Annette, whose married last name is Keadle, recalled.

For months, the two girls said, Schumacher would come into their rooms several nights a week and touch them below the waist under the pretext of tucking them in at night.

"Four of us were molested on a regular basis," said McNeill Keadle. "His hands were always inside our pajamas."

In a 1995 letter to Gospel Missionary board members, the Rev. Dick Darr of Akron, GMU president emeritus, said a third victim, one of the other girls, reported that Schumacher not only put his hands inside her panties, but would also come into the girls' shower room and towel-dry their private parts.

It was not until the girls went home for Easter break in 1974 that one of the girls told her parents. When confronted by their parents, the three other girls confirmed the story.

Three fathers went to the school to confront Schumacher. After initially denying the abuse, Schumacher confessed, said two of the fathers, Allan MacLeod and Larry McNeill. "He broke down and wept. He asked us to forgive him," Larry McNeill said.
For its part, the mission did forgive him. Not only did the mission officials forgive, but they also agreed to his plea to remain at the Ivory Coast Academy until the end of the school year to spare him the embarrassment of leaving in shame, the McNeills said. A woman was brought in from the field to oversee the girls' wing.

It was never to be spoken of again.

"Most of us had been raised in conservative Christian churches. You keep matters like this out of the hands of unbelievers as much as possible," Larry McNeill said. "We were hoping he would be restored to victory."

Schumacher has never been charged with a crime. He declined to respond to the allegations of abuse.

In the hierarchy of sexual molestation cases, this was one of the worst kinds, say Dobbins and other experts.

"It was like incest because it's your substitute father," Annette McNeill Keadle said.

Yet not only did the girls receive no counseling, but the abuser was allowed to remain at the school with them, Annette's parents said.

"It showed how naive we were, how stupid," Kathryn McNeill said.

But it was more than that, the parents said. It was an understanding that nothing, not even the sexual abuse of their own children, would stand in the way of saving the souls of others.

"We were too concentrated on missionary work and getting the church founded in Mali," Larry McNeill said. "We didn't realize what effect this playing around and abusing had on our little girl's soul."

Children's suffering

Two years after the abuse, sexual images haunted Annette. Sometimes, an arm or a leg twitched uncontrollably. She constantly washed her hands; she would spend an hour trying to line up her textbook just so with the straight edges of a table.

Still the fifth-grader could not feel clean, or get her life in order.

One day, Meryle MacLeod, Marcia's mother, discovered Annette sitting motionless on her bed at the Ivory Coast Academy, foaming at the mouth. She rushed Annette to a French hospital, where she was initially misdiagnosed as having epilepsy.

When she was returned to her parents, she would occasionally appear comatose, needing care 24 hours a day.

"For hours I wouldn't be able to speak," McNeill Keadle said. "Sometimes, I wouldn't be able to move."

Her mother remembers that suicide was on her daughter's mind. "She felt so dirty," Kathryn McNeill recalled.

No one, not the missionaries at her boarding school, not the mission agency that was supposed to care for her, not even her parents, would connect 10-year-old Annette's obsessive-compulsive behavior with the repeated sexual molestation she had endured at the missionary boarding school two years earlier.

"In the old days, there was a lot of sweeping under the rug," Meryle MacLeod said.

And the idea that missionaries, held atop the Christian hierarchy as models of lives sacrificed for Christ, could sexually abuse children was almost beyond comprehension.

Instead of addressing the problem, there was a tendency to accept the suffering caused by the abuse as part of the sacrifices missionaries made for their faith.

"You spiritualize the problem, and then you bury it," said A. Scott Moreau, professor of missions at Wheaton College.

What psychiatrists, abuse counselors and victims have learned is that such problems cannot be buried. Left untouched, the anger, the rage, the loss of self-worth from the abuse will surface in self-destructive ways throughout the rest of their lives.

In the cases of physical and sexual abuse from 1950 to 1971 in Guinea, at the Mamou Alliance Academy, dozens of former missionary children told an independent commission how a childhood spent in fear and trembling left them broken adults dealing with failed marriages, addictions, attempted suicides and fearing to have children of their own.

Similarly, the girls abused at the Ivory Coast Academy have become young women who have endured a variety of problems, including divorce, depression and suicide attempts.

"I had the feeling that I was dirty, damaged and soiled - without knowing why. I could not be healed or made whole," McNeill Keadle said.

For most of her life, McNeill Keadle suffered from low self-esteem that led her into a short-lived unhappy first marriage and a deep-seated distrust of men.

Marcia MacLeod Foulds also had a failed first marriage.

Meanwhile, Carl Schumacher would go on to become a field representative for Gospel Missionary Union, visiting churches, conferences and schools as a recruiter for the mission agency. He is retired, living in Arkansas.

Schumacher declined to answer questions about the alleged abuse. "That was taken care of, and I just don't want to get into it again," he said.

Asked whether he sexually molested the four girls, Schumacher said, "I'm not answering that."

When some of the victims at the Mamou and Ivory Coast schools went to the Gospel Missionary Union for help later in life, they said they were told what they were told as children: Forgive and forget.

In 1999, McNeill Keadle went to visit David Osterhus at Wheaton College, an evangelical school where the Gospel Missionary representative was recruiting. Osterhus also serves as a representative to former missionary kids. McNeill Keadle said she went to ask Osterhus' help in getting the mission agency to address the issue, and instead was urged to put the abuse behind her.

Osterhus said recently that he does not remember that conversation, but he said allegations of abuse like those at Mamou and Ivory Coast need "to be put in the past and forgiven."

Being told to forgive and forget made her feel like she was 7 years old again, and all the work she had done to put the pieces of her life together didn't count, McNeill Keadle said. "It's just victimizing over again."

And Marcia? When she saw Annette's breakdown in the fifth grade, MacLeod Foulds said she buried within her the terror she could not understand as a child. After years of trying to forget what happened to her as a little girl in Africa, she snapped.

In February 1998, her husband discovered her in an upstairs bathroom with the windows wide open. She was pouring cold water on herself, yet still felt hot. She was placed on suicide watch.

As she continues in her recovery, all she asks for from the Gospel Missionary Union is an apology and help with her counseling bills. She also dreams about being a voice of conscience to the board of the Gospel Missionary Union.

"Can you sit there in front of me and tell me I don't need any help?" she would ask them. "Why did God allow this to happen? It wasn't God's decision. It was people's decision."

Victims' rejection

While they hoped for comfort and understanding, some abuse victims and their parents encountered only deeper wounds as the mission agencies turned away in their time of need.

No one knows better than the Rev. Darr, who still attends Goss Memorial Church in Akron, where he was commissioned as a missionary almost 50 years ago.

In 1957, while in the French Sudan, the country today known as Mali, his 9-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son allegedly were sexually molested by another missionary.

When he confronted the president of United World Mission, then based in Dayton, he still remembers what he was told: "You know the first thing some people want to do is ruin a man's ministry."

The missionary who was accused of abusing his son and daughter was sent back into the mission field in Africa.

Darr left United World Mission in protest and joined the Gospel Missionary Union, based in Kansas City. He rose to become president of Gospel Missionary Union from 1978 to 1990.

He sent his four children - Dianne, David, John and Richard - to Mamou Alliance Academy in the 1960s. Like other parents, he would begin to learn in the early 1990s about the physical, emotional and sexual abuse that occurred there. As the issues began to be discussed openly among missionary children, the abuse on the Ivory Coast again surfaced.

In a series of letters and presentations at Gospel Missionary board meetings in the '90s, Darr presented evidence about both cases, only to discover "a response of inaction."

The victims fared no better.

Gospel Missionary initially maintained that the organization had no responsibility to Mamou abuse victims, but did finally accept the findings of abuse in the commission's report late in 1999.

McMindes, the Gospel Missionary president, said the board expressed its sorrow and concern for what had taken place. But when asked if Gospel Missionary had offered counseling help to any of the victims, he replied: "Not specifically."

Even when the Christian and Missionary Alliance invited Gospel Missionary officials to a "healing retreat" for Mamou abuse victims in Atlanta in 1999, none participated. "The schedule was full for everybody," McMindes explained.

Ivory Coast abuse victims received a similar response.

From 1993 on, Gospel Missionary officials would hear several reports about abuse at the Ivory Coast Academy, but according to some of the victims did not launch a formal investigation or offer counseling.

In July 1999, McNeill Keadle wrote the mission, asking for an inquiry into the abuse at the Ivory Coast Academy. In August, she said, McMindes wrote back inviting her to meet with leaders of the board. McNeill Keadle wrote back in September to say she would require that a Christian counselor and a professional mediator be present. She did not hear back until May 8, 2000, when Gospel Missionary officials said they had not received her letter. She sent a second letter by registered mail and received a brief note back which said Gospel Missionary was addressing the issue.

"For me, validation is extremely important. It would be a huge step in recovery. To have the mission continue to be in denial is denying what I need," she said.

The apparent lack of response by Gospel Missionary Union illustrates what some say is the vulnerability of missionaries.

There are larger organizations of mission agencies, most notably the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Mission Association, but they are reluctant to get involved.

John Orme, executive director of the Wheaton-based Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, said his organization had ethical and financial standards for members. He also said some churches would not send members to a missionary agency unless they have the legitimacy conferred on them by a larger organization.
However, he said, the mission association only makes sure members have ethics standards in place, not that the standards are followed. When some Mamou and Ivory Coast victims approached it for help, the association offered "continued prayer for all concerned."

Gospel Missionary Union standards, according to the mission association, establish a procedure "for redress, discipline, restoration and healing" in sex abuse cases. For more than eight years, the Gospel Missionary Union provided no counseling for Mamou or Ivory Coast abuse victims, nor did it join the Christian and Missionary Alliance in its investigation of the abuse at Mamou.

However, the board of the foreign mission association said it did not believe "that a violation of the IFMA standards has been established, demonstrated, nor proven in regard to the responses by GMU to any allegations against them." The association receives funding through assessments of members.

"They have totally shut us down. It's horrible. It's absolutely horrible," said the Rev. Richard Darr, the Rev. Dick Darr's son and Mamou abuse victim who has become an advocate for abused missionary kids.

McMindes said there is no dispute that "something happened that shouldn't have" at the Ivory Coast Academy, and Gospel Missionary is working to "bring a proper resolution."

However, parents such as the Darrs and MacLeods and McNeills, who have devoted their lives in service to the missionary organization, cannot understand why, in their opinion, Gospel Missionary has consistently turned its back on their children.

In the Bible, Jesus embraces people who are hurting, and comforts them by his side.

"Christ did that," Kathryn McNeill said. "Why should we do less?"

Breaking the ban

The tattered pieces were in a plastic bag, but Annette McNeill had hung on to the toy kitty she carried with her to the Ivory Coast Academy as a third-grader in the 1973-74 school year. The stuffed animal gave her emotional support after Carl Schumacher left her room, and throughout her boarding school days.

Often during the next three decades, until it was accidentally thrown out after a basement flood last year, she would get out the kitty and hold it close. It is a symbol of survival for a 35-year-old woman who after years of counseling is ready to confront the mission agency she says abandoned her.

"I realized other people needed help, and I'm at the point where I'm strong enough," she said.

The willingness of alleged abuse victims such as McNeill Keadle, MacLeod Foulds and the four Darr children from Akron to come forward has punctured holes in the veil of silence surrounding abuse issues among evangelicals.

The breakthrough occurred in 1996 when the Christian and Missionary Alliance agreed to the independent investigation of Mamou. Calling more than 80 witnesses, the church and commission found seven missionaries guilty of abusing scores of students.
A Plain Dealer story detailing the abuse and the church's response brought public attention to the problem, leading some churches and agencies to make changes.

One of the largest mission agencies, The Evangelical Alliance Mission, or TEAM, came up with its own child protection policy in the wake of the publicity surrounding the Mamou investigation. Counselor Steve Edlin, who drafted the policy, said no one at the agency "argued it couldn't happen, or we didn't need such a policy."

Abuse allegations are taken seriously and an investigation is immediately begun, TEAM officials said.

At The Chapel in Akron, which supports some 60 missionaries in more than 30 countries, the Rev. Bob Schneider, mission director, said he would demand that the mission agency conduct an investigation and provide counseling if an allegation of abuse came up.

Following up on the Christian and Missionary Alliance's work at Mamou, the Presbyterians have set up a Committee of Inquiry to investigate allegations by at least 20 people who said they were sexually abused between 1945 and 1978 in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The church also announced that it had provided pastoral care counselors to the victims and agreed to pay as much as $15,000 per person for individual counseling.

And in the absence of action by Gospel Missionary Union, Conservative Baptist International took on the abuse allegations at the Ivory Coast Academy.

"Although it allegedly occurred in a GMU dorm against GMU missionary children by a GMU missionary, it did happen on the campus of a CBI school. Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to act according to our core values as a mission," said Conservative Baptist Executive Director Hans W. Finzel.

On March 30, professional mediators are scheduled to meet separately with the victims and officials of the Gospel Missionary Union and Conservative Baptists. After they meet with both parties, the mediators will suggest a plan of action.

The Rev. Doug Flood, mission director of Fellowship Bible Church in Chagrin Falls, said mission parents today, unlike those of a generation ago who were taught not to question authority, are more willing to ask questions and act as advocates for their children.

What also gives him hope, he said, is that Protestant mission agencies basically operate on an entrepreneurial basis - with local churches choosing which agencies to support and funnel missionaries toward - and word is getting around about agencies that do not address issues such as sexual abuse.

At Fellowship Bible, for example, "Nobody from this church will be going with GMU."
Nearly everyone involved said there is a lot of work still to be done in getting the evangelical community to confront issues of sexual abuse.

And reminders of the past won't go away for the victims.

At LaGrange Bible Church in suburban Chicago, which supported the McNeills as missionaries, there is now a whole wall of photos of missionaries supported by the church. When he and his wife attend the church, however, one of the pictures they must walk past is a smiling portrait of Carl Schumacher, the man they said admitted sexually abusing their daughter.

Yet the family's faith has never been stronger. That faith that has led other mission agencies to care for abuse victims is what they hope will transform organizations like Gospel Missionary Union.

"If they knew Christ and wanted to express his love," Larry McNeill said, "their reaction would be different."

Published in the Sunday, March 18, 2001 Plain Dealer

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