The Role of Parents

Introduction:

This series of letters discusses some ideas about the role missionary parents play in the lives of their adult children.
 
Dear Friends:

Recently, my thinking has been stimulated about the role of missionary parents and confronting the issue of abuse of MKs. I want to share some of my thoughts and get your reactions. When missionary parents become advocates on behalf of their children, the church of mission board is more likely to respond. If a missionary parent is able to face the reality that their children were abused during the time that they were dedicated to their missionary calling and felt sure that they were "in the center of God's will," they might be able to be an example to the Church. If the parents apologize to their children, ask for forgiveness and take full responsibility for their actions that resulted in the abuse of their children, the mission board might more readily take responsibility for their neglect of the MKs which allowed the abuse to happen.

Some missionary parents seem torn between protecting their children, protecting their colleagues, and protecting their beloved mission board and the church. At the same time, they want to protect themselves and their own images as good, productive missionaries. (When I first learned that the principal of the Mamou school heard the cries coming from the other classrooms and did nothing, I was stunned. Now I realize that he might have been silent for similar reasons as some parents are now silent!) Silence on the part of parents in the face of reports of abuse further isolates the victims and injures the MKs once again. The cognitive and emotional dissonance for missionary parents has silenced some.

The missionary parents are asked to understand that while they believed themselves to be called to do missionary work, their children were abused in the name of God by the missionary colleagues they trusted. This abuse took place without their knowledge. Now, the revelation of abuse demands a response and for some that response is silence. (For me, this is somewhat similar to the houseparents and/or teachers who were aware of the abuse and did not report it.) If the parents remain silent, often the mission board can follow the patterns of silence set by these "saints" of the church. Some parents have stood up for their MKs but imagine what it would have been like if EVERY parent had written/phoned/contacted the C&MA when they learned of the abuse at Mamou. It would have been a powerful voice. As parents, we did not know of the abuse when it was happening. We know it now. We could not protect the MKs then but we can be supportive in every way THEY request at this time in our lives.
Ann Beardslee
One of the parents

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Dear Friends

I want to address the question of parental silence. I'm sure you know by virtue of Ann's involvement, as well as my own, that we have some very personal knowledge of what is involved in breaking the parental silence! But I want you to imagine for a moment that you have spent your entire life with a theology that is based on "go ye into all the world...." and have devoted your life to that. Now you learn what that cost your children but because of your efforts (within that theological framework) there are now thousands of Christians. How do you deal with that conflict? I'm thinking of our own senior missionaries, where her father was such a force in the above mentioned missionary enterprise. How does she deal with that? That is to say nothing of how they spent their entire lives out there trying to establish a solid Christian church in the tribe they were assigned to.

How about the missionaries to a tribe who spent their years among them who now claim some 6000 to 8,000 Christians? How do you deal with what you have done vs. sacrificing your children for the Church? It can't happen, in my judgment. Were I in their place, I would be in severe mental and psychological turmoil; terrible inner conflict. Indeed, I suspect they are. They would be in a position of saying they were wrong and that all their work was basically in vain because they performed the unacceptable practice of sending their kids into that hellhole, Mamou. I know that the above is a bit simplistic but I think you get what I am trying to say. The silence is understandable, whatever the judgment of it may be!!
As for me, the children are apriori number one. While I sympathize with all the others, there is basically NO excuse and we are guilty of abandoning our kids and committing them to the hands of seriously mentally and emotionally defective teachers and "parents" at Mamou. What is equally disturbing is that this is undoubtedly going on as I write!! What a catastrophe!!!
Howard Beardslee
Parent of Mamou alumni

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Dear Ann,

A couple of thoughts: in "enmeshed" systems and in incestuous systems, individuals lose their sense of identity and get swallowed up in “group think” and group identity. When "group" and group identity obliterates the individual, the individual's power base is eroded and it is very difficult for individuals to speak out against the system. There seems to be a major contradiction built into a missionary subculture whose whole reason for existence is to go around the world and "shout from the rooftops" that non-Christians are sinners and need to confess and repent. Yet when "sin is found within the camp", the response so often is dead silence. As one MK victim stated so well: "my parent's mission board was dedicated to two things: the Great Commission and the Great Cover-up!"

Ann, your perspective as a parent is extremely helpful and eye-opening. What you are pointing out here is that silence on the part of the parents allows mission board leaders to "get off the hook," allowing the leaders to remain silent. Mission board leaders' silence in turn reinforces the silence of parents and other missionaries, MKs, etc. Somehow, somewhere this vicious circle of silence needs to be broken. Silence is the great enemy. In the meantime, we continue to hear reports from around the world that MK's are trying to report MK abuse but get stuck in dysfunctional, broken systems in which their parents have difficulty finding their own voices!

The highly authoritarian subculture of missionary work adds to the whole problem. From my experience, it seems to me as though many, if not most, missionary parents need to actually be given permission to break the silence before they will ever speak up. This is tragic. Why is it that the very same courageous missionaries who can look a so-called "pagan" in the eye and pronounce them sinners wilt when faced with confronting a fellow or sister missionary's sin?

The contradictions between how missionaries relate to "outsiders" and how they relate to "insiders" abound.

This is why we on the Mamou Steering Committee pled with the C&MA leadership (both the President and Vice-President of the Division of Overseas Ministries) to write letters giving both the parents and MK's themselves permission to start talking about the abuse that occurred at Mamou Alliance Academy in Guinea, West Africa. I think it helped when they followed through, but just think of what that says about the state of the missions subculture!

The mission’s subculture itself needs to take a good look at its highly authoritarian structure, its enmeshment, its "group think" mentality that punishes individuals who speak up, its incestuous patterns of behavior. Headquarters staffs and supporting local churches need to become aware of the problems, need to own up to the problems, and start to see how they in turn contribute to these very problems by not fostering open communication and by not requiring feedback loops and accountability throughout the whole system.

Thanks for your input as a parent, Ann.
Rich Darr
Survivor of Mamou Alliance Academy

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Dear Ann:

What you wrote about the silence of parents tapped into many things for me. First, the silence of parents (and the church) is a continuation of what we experienced as children. Almost everyone who hears my story of Mamou always asks "why didn't you tell your parents?" I hate the question because there is an implicit message that it was our fault as children that we had to endure the misery for so long. If only we had told our parents, everything would have been alright. There are many answers to the question of why we didn't tell our parents (I thought the ICI addressed it well in their report), but one of the most salient is that the response of parents and the church would have been no different when we were children than what it has been today. Children at Mamou who did tell their parents were either silenced or blatantly disbelieved. That is how many parents and certainly the church have treated us today as we have told our stories.

I agree with Howard that parents have a very difficult time addressing the issue of their kid's abuse because it means examining the call of God on their lives, etc. I think that therein lies a large part of the problem. Missionaries place themselves apart from rules the rest of the population function under by declaring their careers God-given. Rather than understanding that their paid work is really a career/job they have chosen, just as the rest of the world's populations have careers/jobs, they place themselves in a special category. This has many repercussions, e.g. how many missionaries are fired because they simply are not performing well? It is very hard to fire someone who is in their job because God told them to do it.

Another repercussion, of course, is that missionaries are willing to institutionalize very young children for the sake of their career. Can you imagine this happening in your average Canadian/American family in a North American setting? They would be severely censured by the church for placing career above family, but within the missionary community this is not only tolerated, is sanctioned. It is justified because God called them to do the career/work they are involved in.

I remember talking to an Alliance missionary couple in the mid-1980's. They had sent five kids to the Dalat school. They said that they would do it all over again, regardless of what their kids had experienced there, because it was the will of God, and God was responsible. An extreme example, but that is the underlying principle the missionaries use to justify their decisions. (I have not met any of their children, but I understand most of them do not want anything to do with Christianity.)

I think it is very ironic that our parents did not protect us as children, but that now many parents want their children to protect them from having to face the terrible mistakes they made. I remember a few years ago one Mamou alumni saying he could not talk about Mamou until his father died because it would have caused his father so much pain to have to look at how his decisions impacted his family. There is, indeed, excruciating pain for parents to have to look at their life choices and how it impacted their children (and how those choices impacted themselves as parents, as well). We, as adult children, should not have to sacrifice our own healing in order to protect our parents.

The irony is that when parents are willing to look at what happened to their adult children, and why it happened, everyone's pain is ultimately eased and healing can happen. I am very grateful that my parents were willing to take the risk of looking at what happened as a result of their career choices. I suspect one of the most difficult plane rides they took was to fly up to Toronto in the late 1980's to ask me why I was so angry at them. It was the beginning of a difficult journey towards healing as a family, and one that I will forever be grateful for. The process is very painful, but it is possible to move through it to the other side. However, parents are usually not willing to take the risks. Actually, it just occurred to me that missionaries also were not willing to take the risk of saying "I am choosing this career", so they placed the responsibility on God by saying "God called me". Maybe many of these parents were never willing to take responsibility for their own actions.

Regards,
Bev Shellrude Thompson
Survivor of Mamou Alliance Academy

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