An Open Letter to Gayle Erwin

My head is exploding, my heart is full of such bitter sweet emotions I'm feeling so much pain, so much loss, and yet Joy.  So much pain could have been avoided.

On Throckmorton today there are piles of links to documents I have so wanted to read.  Here are 2 that have brought me to tears.

Gayle Erwin’s report to GFA as assigned
Gayle Erwin’s Letter of Apology to GFA Diaspora Spokesperson J.D. Smith

So tonights blog is for Gayle Erwin 

Dear Gayle,
I saw you in the cafe the day you were here investigating GFA. I desperately wanted to speak to you about our pain and how we had been stunned at K.P.'s intrusiveness in our lives. I hung around cleaning things in the Fellowship Hall hoping you would be free from K.P's presence for a few minutes. I finally gave up. Maybe you saw 2 ladies in the parking lot one crying uncontrollably on the shoulder of the other. The one crying would be me, I felt so hopeless that day. My friend K held me but had no answers for me.

Later on you sat behind me while K.P. yelled his prayers for "staff to only follow Jesus, and not him," tears pouring off his face "repenting."  I watched as K.P. never left your side.  I would have loved to pray with you, to get you alone for one minute, but how could I?  I was unwilling to destroy my husbands standing in the ministry at that time.

I hoped you would find that somethings but not all, were true.  I hoped you would recommend an apology. I so desired my beloved ministry to be all it claimed to be, but I feared for it. I feared that the man in charge had a deep trauma that was causing this inability to let go of control, and allow others to take the reigns. I feared... that in and of itself spoke volumes to me. I feared we were in the hands of a master manipulator and that lies and half truths abounded.

I understand your hope for change. I to I hoped for true repentance, for true change, for truth to win out.

You lost my respect the day the response to The Diaspora came out.  I too, liked the reconciliation part, but the rest of it... Oh Gayle it sounded like a petulant child saying "talk to the hand." I do want you to know I never believed you wrote that letter, its voice was a mix of GFA's leadership voices. I was horrified that a lie was published for the world at large about the "services" being a bible study.  It was a confirmation to us that we could no longer be a part of GFA.  Integrity drew me to GFA and it was a lack of integrity that drove me to my knees begging God to give my husband a job elsewhere.

Gayle I read the Jesus Style in my teens, you have profoundly impacted me to see the world with eyes of love.  It hurt so deeply to see your name on a letter I could not believe you wrote. It hurt to see your name dismiss our friends pain.

I want to say how profoundly relieved and glad I am. Your apology to the Diaspora brought tears to my eyes. I want to say I thank you. I want to say "You are Man Enough for God." I cannot thank you enough for bringing to light the truth. For standing up and choosing to be counted, I understand your hope and your desire to wait and see. I too desire GFA to stop, repent and make the changes required, the apologies required. I'm not rejoicing over the PR nightmare this will become for GFA, yet I rejoice that you are standing in the light.  Thank you for being the man I thought you were.
In Christ,
Sara

Requested Voluntary Letters - Ironic? Yes!

The word ethics is meandering though my brain today.  I began to be concerned by the standards of morality that I didn't agree with, stuff that happened to us at GFA in our last year.   I will serve up to you two examples today that made me pause and think.

When the Diaspora letter came in accusing leadership of hurting people, leadership put out a call for staff to voluntarily write the board letters of support. I thought about it, but we were already praying about leaving as we had some concerns, and I didn't think our voice was needed.  We went on with our lives, till' the night before the letter deadline. Right as we were about to go out for a "date night" we got a call from Danny.  In a nutshell, we had not submitted a letter of support and we needed to because it would make "some people" upset if we didn't.  I gave My Knight in Shining Armor the Look.   How many date nights will GFA disrupt in our marriage? Really?  So we sat down and hashed out a letter we could agree with.  I look back and at the time I did believe in leadership, that they would apologize and humble themselves if wrong doing had occurred.  Our letter pointed out that GFA is not a "missions organization" it's not your average non-profit but rather it is a Religious Order.  I felt much of what the ex-staffers didn't understand came from a "this is a mission" point of view not "this is a Religious Order" point of view.  We were not exactly nuns and monks in habits, but to us an Order is not a business and thus will be governed differently.  Our letter also said following your call was not for the faint of heart.  It was not all butterflies and sunshine Oh look a Rainbow Unicorn!  

cliparthut.com

The next example follows the same lines.
As a PR move GFA.org put up a campus life section on the web, full of glowing testimonies of how staff loved GFA.  These testimonies were solicited at a Tuesday night prayer meeting and again were "voluntary."  Again we did not write anything. Again we received a phone call from Danny requesting us to write a bio/testimony but this time we were given instructions on what it should say. The first paragraph needed to state we had collage degree's and had been professionals in the workforce prior to our coming to GFA. I think, but am not sure, they were trying to combat  an accusation they didn't like college educated people. 

My husband and I wrote what we believed, but again it was not all rainbows and butterflies.  The last paragraph really expressed my heart, it was a realistic view of the ministry.  The editor cut down our testimony (we expected that) and what I noticed is she took out all the balance, it became a fluff piece. Worst of all she wholly eliminated the last paragraph. My knight picked up his lance and went to battle with the editor for that paragraph to stay in the testimony in some form, to be included.  I did not want us to be portrayed as starry eyed rose colored glasses "sheeple" christians.  Standing our ground, we did get the realistic part of our testimony put back in.

When the page was up I got a sugar rush as I read through glowing testimony after glowing sugar coated testimony. A few here and there were balanced, but most were rainbows and butterflies.

Ethics come to mind because our letters were in essence coerced from us. We dropped everything to tow the party line for the good of the ministry. I do not know what the board was told about these letters, but GFA at large believed if you sent one in it was voluntary and not required. I worried, did the board know our letter was asked for not given freely?

My husband was feeling empty with no joy in the work. I was noticing rules instead of trust everywhere and although I could continue to justify leaderships behavior to myself and my friends, the patterns were emerging.  Why was trust replaced by a rule but trust never seemed to be extended again after everyone was in line?

Many of the testimonies are gone now as so many people left the ministry since January 2015. Maybe if the letters came about voluntarily more people and Board Members would still be at Gospel for Asia.

Let the shunning commence! (tongue in cheek)

So in typical GFA male dominated mentality, I get an email Thursday night sent to my inbox but addressed to my husband. In a sorrowful tone we are asked (by the groom not leadership directly) to not attend Saturdays wedding because we would be a distraction.  And by the way your wife and kids shouldn't come either... Yet this email was sent to the unnamed Wife's email account. Anyone else see the irony in this? An email sent to the wife account but not even addressing her by name shows so much about the mentality women lived with within GFA.


There is that buzz word "distraction" read "not sanctioned" by GFA. What precipitated this piece of discourtesy? Well this article from Christianity Today where my husband is gentle in his "critique" of the ministry, and what precipitated our leaving.  In my blog here I mention it feels like a divorce.   This is what happens in divorce. Here we aren't allowed to show love to the happy couple because of human immaturity.  I guess "Can't we all be adults about this?" doesn't apply here because my husband decided to stand up and be counted.

I am reminded of the quote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke (I'm not saying GFA is evil, but there is something wrong and it needs to be addressed).

I'm trying to wrap my mind around how much we didn't know, how much my pride was wrapped up in the fruit on the field, of the 100% goes to the field designations.

Throckmorton asked the question in May/ June? (when I was studiously behaving and obeying leadership and not reading him).  How were people within the ministry taking the news of smurfing and the 19.8 million gift.  Well I blogged at the time but didn't make it available to the public.  Here is that post The time of silence is over.  These are my feelings and emotions, of how I was reacting. This is my journey, it was so hard because I Love leadership, I truly care for them. But can no longer live with my choice to follow. My eyes were opened and they could not be shut again.  Our family's therapist took time with me Friday to discuss this bittersweet emotion of being disinvited.  I have to live day in and day out with my choices. If I can't love myself because of shame in my choices I have no one but me to blame. I cannot control the choices of others.

I spent a lot of time alone during the last few weeks at the ministry masking my feelings mainly because I saw those that didn't hide get "publicly shamed." I was so grateful to The Lord for my knight to be essentially courted and handed a job on a platter. Many times The Lord has to be amazingly obvious to me. My heart was so entrenched and that dug out the last root.

I can see why leadership always tosses out exstaff are bitter. As I talked to the therapist she pointed out this action was extremely painful. It will hurt. The beauty of our lives as humanity is that we can feel the hurt, sad for staff, and have compassion on everyone in this mess all at the same time. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We can endure great pain and be compassionate in the midst of it all.  This is the great love extended to us from God.