Prairie Bible Institute Abuse Survivors are standing in support of former missionary kids who were abused at their boarding school run by The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Mamou, Guinea.
Emotional, sexual, physical and spiritual abuse occurred at the school, and it took years for survivors to find their voices and begin their journeys of healing. In 2008 the film, “All God’s Children” was released.
The film follows the story of three families who broke the silence, and after years of persistence, finally got The Christian and Missionary Alliance to to investigate and acknowledge the abuses missionary children suffered.
In All God’s Children, former MK (missionary kid) Marilyn Shellrude Christman (part 3 7:12) talks about being raped by a house parent. Marilyn reported to the CM&A that her rapist was Ron Israel. Her efforts to have him removed from CM&A leadership were in vain.
September 6th, Marilyn Shellrude Christman died of a brain tumour.
Israel has continued to minister freely in the US, with the blessing of the CM&A.
Following Marilyns death last month, Beverly Shellrude asked Dallas Alliance Church to remove Ron Israel from his position as the visitation pastor.
We have been pleading since 1999 for the C&MA leaders in Colorado Springs, in the Pacific Northwest District and at Dallas Alliance to remove him from leadership in order to protect vulnerable children and the elderly from him.
Only recently has he been forced to resign (he was not fired, he was allowed to resign). He is still on staff of your church Monday October 1, 2012.
As of this posting, he is still listed as a staff member at Dallas Alliance.
Marilyn’s sisters petition for justice to the Dallas Alliance on their FB was met with the removal of her comment.
Prairie Bible Institute abuse survivors are adding their powerful voices to this petition to be delivered to Dallas Alliance soon.
Bene:
I have place a few comments at the CMA FB site about the death of this precious soul, and long behold, twice they were taken down immediately. The always put up verses about God and how he loves the world, but I see that these workers of his gospel full of hate and they rape little children!
The death of this precious child is important in the eyes of the Lord. Mamou Children, the Lord has heard your prayers and will do every thing he could to help this cause. Pray that those christians have the courage to live and be the Lord in them and put CMA on the trial until every evil doer is accounted for. Amen.
I think Bene is the only one that has not censored me in any way……
Thank you for bringing this most important information forward for more people to read and see again, how blinded many in the churches are to abuse, rape, and mind control. If we all stand together, whether we went to Prairie, as I did, and whether we are abused by this pastor Israel or the Pastor of our own churches as I was in Valentine Nebraska, our voices can grow from a whisper to a roar. There are still so many abusers and rapist that still have not been uncovered. We keep trying, but after so many try to smother the life out of us, for being forthright and honest about those people who have abused us…..we are gaining strength and numbers. I am encouraged that as time goes on there will be more vigilance and proof that our voice cannot be ignored. Almost daily we are seeing prosecution of men and women who have come out of supposedly godly institutions like Prairie and so many other schools. Someday, we will receive an acknowledgement of the horrible things that have happened here and abroad, by men and women who proclaim to be christians.
The following is an email that I sent to Tim Cummings, who is with the C&MA.
Tim Cummings,
Thank you for your quick response. You seem genuinely concerned about the issue of abuse and trying to prevent it. I did check out your web site regarding your policies and procedures for dealing with and reporting abuse as well as the training that you now give to your workers. On the surface things seem to be very much in order but I have a few concerns that I would ask you to consider.
My first concern deals with past victims. It seems to me that the only real test of a Christian organization’s integrity on the issue of abuse is whether or not the victims of the abuse are confident that everything possible was done to help them heal and to hold their abuser accountable before God and the law. If the victims still believe and feel that they can not trust the organization, then even though they may have made improvements to their policies and procedures, the organization has fallen short doing everything possible to addressing this issue. I have been in contact with many survivors over the past six years and many of them feel they have been abandoned by the C&MA. The children from Mamou still feel abandoned by you. One of whom just passed away still feeling/knowing that C&MA did not care or do enough to help. One of whom attends my church and to this day tears well up in her eyes as she talks about the abuse at Mamou and how they were treated when they tried to get C&MA to do an ‘independent‘ investigation. The survivors that I know and interact with, still do not believe that C&MA cares about them, especially when some of their abusers were kept in C&MA’s employment in spite of knowing what they had done. You said in your email that the C&MA can only take Ecclesiastical action in cases of abuse, and that would be obvious, so what Ecclesiastical actions did they take for the children of Mamou, Quito Alliance, Dalat, Zamboanga Alliance, Sentani Bongolo Academy or the Ivory Coast Academy.
I am concerned about your ‘standard’ of proof. Your website talks about addressing the discipline of those ‘proven’ to have breached the Alliance’s policies. What are you relying on for proof. If it is whether or not they are convicted in a court of law or not, then I would ask “Since when does the church rely on the courts to tell us if we can use our Ecclesiastical authority to exercise church discipline?” The Bible tells us in the Old and New Testaments that “In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established.” There are more witnesses than that who have named their abusers to the C&MA and they did nothing, according to these victims.
I am concerned that many denominations who are finally starting address this issue, are trying to ‘wipe’ the slate clean and just start over from the present on. Washing their hands of their past sins and errors without fully dealing with them. “ Whoever covers their sin will not prosper”. It would be convenient indeed if we could all just pretend like the past didn’t happen and put on a good face from now on, but that is not the way it works.
I know that this email probably sounds like I am targeting your denomination, but this sin is in every denomination and I am trying to raise these concerns with all of them.
Dale Ingraham
Thank you Dale. As I see how C&MA has treated this whole issue, I fail to understand how a church can possibly have lower standards of behavior and comportment than a public school district. As a former school teacher my husband says that they would not even allow a person with such a history on the school campus let alone honor him by having him on their staff.
It again shows you that past MK’s are excess baggage and expendable. Words are cheap, and I notice at the bottom of their page of wonderful policies that there is a large banner requesting donations. That is really what this is all about, isn’t it? It is why we were forced to accept hugs and slobbery kisses from smelly old ladies and slimy old men so that their donations would be encouraged. We were not allowed to have our own feelings and insult them or make them leave us alone. You see the Missions all feel that the children of Missionaries do not have a right to their own feelings. They are an adjunct to the fund raising process.
Beverly, this is for you in this dark hour when Marilyn seemed to have died in vain.
The Lord utters a CURSE on this critter, this filthy and pure putrid trash in the tradition of the CMA, and those who have condoned this man’s past.
Cursed be upon the Jovial, cursed dark prince of God (Israel), whose name is Ron,
He has by his craftiness, escaped the wrath of God, but not for long, cursed be his bones and his damnable soul,
In darkness, you shall live, all the days of your borrowed life,
Your sexual violence will follow you, may your own sins eat you, eat into your flesh
I pity you, for that you live, for a little bit more longer, extending that eternal prison,
God, even you God, will strike you, and destroy what is left, your food will melt in your mouth, as your friends depart from you,
Your end will come, a day will come when your sin eats into your own body, may your denomination fail, those in high places are cursed when they protect you.
Come, and be counted amongst the damned. Unless, you have that courage to face your God?
But rest, Marilyn, thou child of God, rest in that bliss, knowing that thy death is not in vain.
God, even thy God will bear thee, and hold thee, and avenge for thy blood,
For in that sleep of death, we oft knoweth not, may thy journey be swift, be born into this new world, where life giving force be thine.
May the light perpetuate shines on thee, guides thee to thy new abode. Amen.
Thank you, Bene for being a voice of truth and standing up against the hypocrasy in the Christian community when it comes to abuse and cover ups. God help us all…His heart must be grieving in the midst of all this deception. Shame on Dallas Alliance Church and God protect the children within Isreal’s reach. Someday he WILL answer for his crimes against our dear friend!! Parents of Dallas Alliance– hold your children close or else THEY will pay the consequences of your ignorance!!!
The Dallas Alliance Church transitional minister finished up his year Sept. 30th.
Seems the church had (has?) issues.
http://www.dallasalliance.org/Prelim/Pastoral_Blog/Entries/2012/2/22_Progress.html
In beginning to address those issues, the church used Ken Sandes Peacemakers curriculum – there goes any hope for abuse survivors from the ‘outside.’. (I’ve written about how poor Sandes approach is previously).
Parts of it can be helpful for church conflicts between leadership and congregations, but it’s a fairly legalistic and rigid approach and has been proven ineffective for other types of conflict.
This is what the congregation identified as problems with the body:
“…lack of new growth, absence of conversions, leadership not esteemed, conflicts (large and small) either ignored or resulting in anxiety of “oh no, here we go again”, no known direction or vision of where the church was going, a poor reputation in town, and a friendly church but many sadly noting it was hard to make meaningful friends, many in personal pain but not sure if it was ok to share that or not, fear of being judged or criticized.”
I’m not surprised church leaders and membership can’t or won’t handle any comments about Ron Israel’s past and calls for justice. It doesn’t surprise me that survivors are blocked from the Facebook page, or that comments left at the Dallas Alliance website are erased.
This account of child abuse in the C&MA is one of the most moving testimonies I have ever seen! I am grateful to Catherine Darnell for informing me. I am honored to help her remember Beverly Shellrud Thompson and help her get the word out to warn the rest of the Body of Christ. In her memory, it is an honor to help reveal Marilyn Shellrude Christman Film Testimony of Abuse by the C&MA: testimony in the short film at the end of this post. The C&MA is now notorious for both child abuse as well as abusing its own local churches by suing them and then seizing their church properties by force. These accounts and court reports are posted on our website as well. I hope and pray that the C&MA will pay a major financial settlement to the families of ALL the rape and abuse victims. The C&MA may try to quietly put this man away, but silent is NOT golden. Scripture requires us to sound the alarm on His Holy Hill and publicly expose the deeds of darkness, commanded in Ephesians.
http://www.perfectpeaceplan.com/post/child-molestation-and-abuse-ron-israel-allowed-to-quietly-resign-from-dallas-alliance/
I would like to point out the obvious. A trust in the biblical method to resolve serious and criminal offenses is far from this religious text able to do. In short, Peacemaker’s method is crap. It is nothing but crap, and a false sense of hope that abusers are trying to delude the abused. If it works for Jesus, why was he ended up dead? Obviously Jesus could not and is not able to persuade his own people to accept this vision of peace, and why should we? For the abusers reading these words, quit deluding yourselves about a God of forgiveness and love. No, there is none like that. There is only the fire of wrath waiting for you. For you, without the jail time and proper monetary compensation for the abused, is the only way to your salvation. Jesus, Mary and Joseph cannot save you. Not like this. and there is no comfort reading this stone age body of conflicting religious text can offer any hope. For you, the only way is to come out, pay the proper penalty for your crime, and die a proper man, and woman. No, there is no salvation outside this ship of proper repentance, so saith the Lord. Now you have heard the word, and go do likewise. Amen.
Sharing this on the Crying out for Justice Facebook page, and my Not Under Bondage FB page.
Thanks for the blog post, Bene, and the comments and discussion, Ben, Diana, Dale, Leila and Brandi. Well said.