CAM Molestation Issue

[Grace]

I expected a reply like that from you.

I thought you weren't going to converse with me.

Have a blessed rest of the day, Aslanhasheard. We may disagree, but you and others here have opened my mind to different viewpoints and opinions. And that is what makes life interesting.

[Judas Maccabeus]

We know that long-term child molestors like JMast tend to be highly manipulative and deceitful personalities. That is their stock in trade. So there is no reason to believe he hasn't acted the same way with his family and that they haven't been subject to the same relentless deceit, grooming, and manipulation for years and years. Anyway, I find this train of discussion to be unfruitful. Clearly we are talking about an utterly dysfunctional family. And he is unlikely to ever have contact with his family for decades that isn't with bulletproof glass inbetween.

The more important discussion is how are AB organizations going to respond to make sure that new JMasts don't creep into our midst and be given positions of unsupervised control over children. And how is AB culture going to evolve to make sure that these problems don't fester in secret like they have in the past.

What kind of counsel you'd give to a wife like this is highly relevant to the discussion of how the AB culture must evolve to ensure these problems don't fester in secret like they do now.

Secondly, the primary discussion should not be "how to keep them out of organizations" but how to nip them in the bud. How to expose and deal with them immediately before they have time to climb the ladder of leadership in their homes, communities, and churches.

So are you saying to make an example of JMast to Anabaptists everywhere by having his wife divorce him?

I hear what you’re saying, but wonder if you’re proposing an opening of the proverbial Pandora’s Box.

I don’t have the proper illustration, but the best I can come up with is euthanasia. If you want to make a single allowance, say for the terminally ill, what would it lead to? Same with divorce, down the road would people recommend it because their spouse is no longer attractive, or exciting?

I think what he may have had in mind was separation without divorce. With no intervention on the churches part, that is likely to happen anyway.

J.M.

[Judas Maccabeus]

It makes me wonder how much say Conservative Anabaptist women have in what happens to them. I don't know if any of you read the Pittsburgh Post Gazette series that was done recently on sexual abuse in Mennonite/Amish circles, but the case of "Kay" and "Shirk" illustrates just how messed up things have gotten in regards to women always submitting to their husbands and church authority no matter what.

I have been in CA churches for 48 years, and three different conferences. What was described in the "Kay" and "Shirk" story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette was an anomaly and not what is normal within the CA culture. Please don't stereotype all Mennonite/Amish women/marriages with vendetta driven stories like some (not all) stories like those in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Over the years I have seen a few marriages, where it appeared the men were very controlling and you had to wonder what went on behind closed doors. But they were few and far between.

You have to realize, Newspapers have to sell their papers, so the stories need to be dramatic, borderline shocking. Our local paper in Lancaster county, will jump on any story that puts the plain community in a bad light.

As an outside observer that became an inside one almost 5 years ago, marriages within the community are far better than those outside. And each and every group has had a few bad actors.

These are not indicative of those of the group at large.

J.M.

[Beeply]

[quote="paulyoder"]This begs the question, if his father-in-law knew about it, did his wife know about it before she married him? Or did she marry him innocently being deceived?

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion on here but Jeriah has repeatedly broken the marriage covenant, I would suggest she should be filing for divorce instead of renewing the vows. The way these things are done, the issues smoothed over and vows renewed, makes a mockery of the marriage covenant. Staying in this type of situation will ensure that she will never emotionally be able to recover and have a normal life.[Chirp Chirp
]

[Ken]

This begs the question, if his father-in-law knew about it, did his wife know about it before she married him? Or did she marry him innocently being deceived?

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion on here but Jeriah has repeatedly broken the marriage covenant, I would suggest she should be filing for divorce instead of renewing the vows. The way these things are done, the issues smoothed over and vows renewed, makes a mockery of the marriage covenant. Staying in this type of situation will ensure that she will never emotionally be able to recover and have a normal life.

She doesn't need our advice and none of us have the slightest idea what went on in their marriage. So this is all just gossip and salacious speculation. But I would argue that a marriage established on a foundation of deceit is not really a valid marriage regardless of whether or not it was consecrated in a church. Were I to find myself in a place where it is obvious that my entire marriage was was constructed on deceit and betrayal then I would have no hesitation at all with filing for divorce and moving on with with my life. That is an entirely different situation from having ordinary marriage difficulties and being unwilling to try to work them out.

[Aurien]

I wonder how the abuse survivors in Haiti are doing? I can't imagine first being sexually abused and then getting death threats when people found out about it. I guess if some of the survivors hadn't filed a lawsuit though Jeriah would still be down there and free to abuse more boys.

[Sienna]

Grace, why are you so defensive regarding the exposure of abuse in the CA community?
Why do you seem to dislike those who speak openly about the sexual abuse they or their family experienced?
Why do you seem to dislike Trudy Metzger so much? She's very passionate about what she does but it does not appear to me at all that her purpose is to denigrate or destroy Anabaptist communities. She and many others want the sexual abuse to stop happening, to stop being covered up, and to see healing for the victims and, if possible, restoration for the perpetrators.

I might ask, why are you so defensive as well? Do you need to go back and reread what I actually said? And why do you insinuate I don't want sexual abuse to stop, and the covering up to stop, with healing provided for the victims when I never said that? Do you believe there is always one side to a story? Do you believe that newspaper articles are always true to a fault? Do you believe objective rational thinking should be abandoned and we go by subjective emotions in reporting on sexual abuse? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, how sad.

Why get so defensive about Trudy ? Why not let her work speak for itself?

And I do not dislike Trudy, she means well, but she either has some serious bias' or she needs a good editor to help her write her blog. An example would be in the last blog entry, she used the word "bonnet" in a snide, sarcastic manner, in reference to the woman's prayer covering/veiling. The woman's prayer covering/veiling comes from an understanding of the Scriptures that many CA women and men hold dear. Why would someone use that term when many of the women she wants to help wear a prayer covering/veil? I know you might say, I need to take that up with her, and use Matthew 18, but she already made her views clear on that. And yes it might seem petty, in comparison to some of her other posts, that she later needed to either edit or back pedal on. But it is those subtle things that are either from biased thinking or just very careless. I hope it was just carelessness.

Grace, it does come across as you defending those covering up. I wondered why myself.

[steve-in-kville]

So are you saying to make an example of JMast to Anabaptists everywhere by having his wife divorce him?

I have seen situations where a separation is forced on a marriage as a way to "punish" a husband. This is wrong on so many levels. The ONLY reason separation should happen is if there is risk of someone being hurt. Not as a fear tactic or to control someone.

[Grace]

Grace, it does come across as you defending those covering up. I wondered why myself.

I am not sure who you are referring to when you say “those covering up”. I will defend an organization like CAM. Do I defend the very egregious mistakes some men in the organization made? Absolutely not. I will defend CAM’s work in helping the poor, needy, giving relief to those struck by natural disasters, around the world. Just as we are to love the sinner, but not the sin, I believe we can defend the work CAM does, without loving the mistakes they made.

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
— Proverbs 14:31
Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses.
— Proverbs 28:27
The wicked go down to the realm of the dead, all the nations that forget God. But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.
— Psalm 9: 17-18

[joshuabgood]

Grace, I agree with much of what you are saying. That said, I'll give you some low inference pieces that seem to give hard evidence that "covering up" is a description people might likely use of CAM's first instincts. In their public statement, released June 11, they said this:

However, since being made aware of these allegations several weeks ago...

This quote is misleading at best...and it appears downright disingenuous at worst. The truth is key leadership at CAM knew about alleged pedophilia by JM since 2012/13. This included the supervisor of all Haitian operations, and it included a key member on the very Executive Committee. So for an institution to make it "sound like," they just found out, leaves a lot of head scratching. And was a very ill advised, lawyer directed statement.

Personally, I think they should apologize for this misleading statement. As soon as I read that document I knew it was written by an attorney with "future litigation" in mind. This was confirmed in the mouths of 3 witnesses, as demonstrated in the Shanker document. The misleading nature of the quote above was also independently verified by the Andrew Fuller statement. It was also confirmed as erroneous by the Stanley Fox statement and the Harold Herr recording.

You cannot have key leaders in your institution know, and then put out a general statement, that you didn't know as an institution. You could say the BOD didn't know (which is what the second statement said), but you can't blanketly make it sound like you just became aware of these allegations several weeks ago. If you do it appears like a "cover up."

Further, the timeline makes it clear, that the two key leaders (now on administrative leave), were not placed on that leave until after the intense public pressure that resulted after the June 11 statement. Frankly, it doesn't take 7 weeks, to find out that an executive committee member, and a site supervisor knew, and then suspend them. That should take no more that 48 hours to 1 week.

All that said, I am cautiously optimistic, that as a result of the public pressure they are going another direction from what their first advisers were pushing them. That is evidenced in the tenor of their second statement, and their HR moves. Ideally, I think they should embrace a third party investigation from a group like GRACE. And I'd like to see a personal statement, of the ilk of Stanley's, from the two members of CAM that have been placed on leave.