Recommendations meet mixed response
Many
boarding school changes already
made, says Alliance
By Debra Fieguth ChristianWeek staff
Recommendations drafted to prevent abuse of children at missionary boarding schools call for the establishment of an advocate for students, a "sensitive issues team" to intervene in cases of abuse and harassment, and stricter policies on keeping children with their parents.
The six pages of recommendations were given to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Board of Managers, along with a report on abuses that took place at Mamou Academy, an Alliance boarding school in Africa.
The Independent Commission of Inquiry (ICI) which drafted the recommendations also asked the denomination to "publicly make unconditional apology for the abuses which occurred at Mamou and, possibly, at other boarding schools," as well as for the "revictimization" that occurred when Mamou alumni first approached the C&MA.
In response to another recommendation, the Alliance is hosting a "healing retreat" in June for Mamou alumni and others who were affected by abuse at the school in Guinea, West Africa.
The commission further recommends that "parental choice, and not denominational mandate, be the crucial factor" in deciding whether children should go to boarding school or stay with their parents. The denomination’s Division of Overseas Ministries (DOM), in Colorado Springs, says the C&MA had already made changes in boarding school policies, and that 60 percent of Alliance MKs now live at home.
A preliminary response to recommendations, written by DOM director Peter Nanfelt last December and obtained this month by ChristianWeek, says "personal family needs are kept in mind" when missionaries are being placed. "On the other hand, the C&MA refuses to allow MK education to dictate mission strategy which is focused on completing the Great Commission."
Wrong thinking
That’s wrong thinking, says Mamou alumni Rich Darr, now a pastor in the Chicago area. "What really gets to us is the C&MA is still willing to allow children to be hurt in order to spread the gospel. We don’t think that has to happen."
Darr says missionaries don’t need to face a conflict between spreading the gospel and looking after their children. "It’s not an either/or [situation]," he says. "We feel that we were sacrificed unnecessarily in the hierarchy of values."
Just to what extent the recommendations will be carried out is still unclear. Richard Bailey, chairman of the Board of Managers, could not be reached for comment, but in an earlier interview said most of the recommendations put forward by the ICI had already been dealt with or were in the process of being dealt with.
Missionary school recommendations leaked to MKs
Call for stricter mission school policies
MKs who suffered abuse at a missionary school decades ago finally have a copy of recommendations made to the denomination which ran the school to prevent such abuse from happening again.
"The recommendations are wonderful," says Beverly Shellrude Thompson of Burlington, Ontario. "They address the issues that we are concerned about."
Shellrude Thompson is a member of the Mamou Steering Committee, a group of alumni from Mamou Academy, a boarding school operated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Guinea, West Africa. "If the Alliance actually implements these [recommendations], children will become safe."
Shellrude Thompson, who lived at Mamou Academy from 1958-68, was one of dozens of children abused by mission staff at the boarding school (CW, Feb17, Apr14/98).
But Shellrude Thompson and fellow steering committee member Rich Darr of Chicago are disturbed that the six-page document didn’t come to them through official Alliance channels. "Somebody leaked them to us," says Shellrude Thompson.
The C&MA had said earlier they would not release the recommendations until after their general council in June. "I think the reason these are being withheld is they’re very hard-hitting," says Darr. "They’re excellent."
The recommendations, which deal both with providing healing for past victims of abuse and preventive measures for the safety of children currently in mission boarding schools, were drafted by an Independent Commission of Inquiry (ICI) appointed by the C&MA. While the ICI always intended the recommendations to be released to former students of Mamou, they did not leak the document, says ICI vice-moderator Lois Edmund, a Winnipeg therapist.
The Mamou Steering Committee, formed a few years ago specifically to press the C&MA to deal with allegations of abuse at Mamou Academy, has since heard from former students at other Alliance boarding schools.
Edmund says the ICI has also heard from former students at other missionary schools. "We received stories from four other schools," she says. The ICI has not dealt with those stories because its mandate was restricted to responding to Mamou. However, the commission is planning to turn those stories over to the denomination before the ICI is disbanded.
–Debra Fieguth
