New Tribes MK Goes Public with Abuse Account

On March 26, 2014 Lori McAlister publicly told her story of abuse by Gary Earl, a New Tribes missionary. Lori is an MK who attended a New Tribes boarding school in Numonohi, Papua New Guinea. She has been writing her story in a series of posts in the forum of the Fanda Eagles blog.

In the early 1980s, when she was a ten year old living in the dorm run by Gary and Anne Earl, Lori was severely beaten by Gary Earl with a wooden board. The reason for beating a 10 year old girl until she was bloody? It was all over whether she did or did not sweep a floor, her chore for that evening. Read the details about Lori’s experiences that night and in the following years on the Fanda Eagles forum at the link above.

In February of 2006 Lori reported the abuse to New Tribes and had almost four years of correspondence with Scott Ross (lawyer) and Bing Hare. Effectively no action was taken against Gary Earl during that time. In fact it was over a year before they even confronted Earl about the abuse. During the same time frame the girls from the Fanda school reported their abuse, culminating in the GRACE investigation. The Fanda boarding school was in Senegal, so these were incidents from two different countries where New Tribes operated.

In 2013 Lori was contacted by Pii, an investigative group now being used by New Tribes. They were conducting an investigation into Gary Earl. She discovered that he had physically and sexually abused others besides her. The findings of the Pii report were not made public by New Tribes, and Gary Earl still continued to receive support through New Tribes Mission, according to an Earl family prayer letter posted on the forum.

New Tribes did eventually send a letter just to the Papua New Guinea branch of New Tribes to announce that Gary Earl had been “forced to retire” because he had violated the Child Protection Policy. However at the end of March he was still living in Papua New Guinea, at the same location where the abuse took place, and planned to stay there until May of this year.

Lori McAlister is very clear in the course of action she would like to see New Tribes take. She states “I have asked for only two things from New Tribes Mission: 1) exposure to Gary Earl’s supporters and all NTM missionaries through a statement from NTM, and 2) termination from being a New Tribes Missionary, no longer able to accept support as an NTM missionary. That’s it. It’s that simple. I don’t want money; I don’t want to see a therapist; I don’t want a retreat; I don’t want revenge; I don’t want an apology from anyone; I don’t want a meeting. I only want someone in Sanford, Florida, to write a statement that explains Gary’s termination and I want someone to click a delete button on the NTM.org website. It’s easy, really.”

I want to note that there is a big difference between a missionary being terminated and a missionary retiring, even if he is being forced to retire.

New Tribes Mission continues to protect Gary Earl from even these consequences of his actions.

It has been over three years since the GRACE report revealed the shocking abuse that went on in the New Tribes Fanda boarding school. Since that time there have been at least three lawsuits filed against New Tribes by abused MKs, New Tribes missionary Les Emory confessed to assaulting girls in the Philippines, New Tribes missionary to Brazil Scott Kennell was arrested and sentenced to 58 years for pornography and sexual assault, and investigations are ongoing into abuse at several other New Tribes boarding schools. Lori’s voice joins a growing crowd of MKs who have suffered abuse at the hands of New Tribes missionaries.

Let’s weigh the lives of these MKs, and all of those abused MKs we don’t yet know about, as well as the nationals who suffered abuse by these missionaries. Is the work of New Tribes Mission worth the pain and suffering inflicted on all these individuals? New Tribes is still trying to protect their organization and keep these accounts silent. Do you still cling to your belief that this could never happen in a Christian mission where men and women profess to doing the Lord’s work? They have been infiltrated by the Enemy, and the wolves have been running rampant among the sheep and the lambs for many years. If you are still giving support of any kind to New Tribes Mission you are contributing directly to this cover-up, which protects and enables child molesters and abusers.