Sorrow for Survivors Runs Deeper than the Surface Issues of Southern Baptists
Thirty-five years ago, the scene in our living room was like a private funeral for our family of four. Not a soul was there to hear us wail, as we leaned on one another for support. Not only had our children lost their sense of identity and their adopted homeland of Malawi, where we'd worked for more than a decade from preparing to go, being appointed by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, and serving there, bonded with beloved nationals and our Mission Family, with these ties stronger than any we'd ever known on earth. Until 1986, we'd felt a part of the Family. Yet, soon we began to feel more and more like the enemy because Ron and I stood together after stating our grave concerns, as anyone should whenever a group is faced with a sexual predator that had, so far, only had his hand slapped before sending him home for a full medical evaluation. It was as if everyone was buying into Gene Kingsley's "memory problem," thinking surely h