Religious institution continuouslly confronted by accusations of child sexual abuse braces for another legal claim
Unapologetically Raw Revelations
A Florida-based Christian organization, once referred to as New Tribes Mission but now known as Ethnos360, finds itself entangled in yet another lawsuit involving child sex abuse - this time, involving a minor overseas dating back fifteen years.
Ethnos360, a non-profit that dispatches missionaries across the globe and their families, has quite a sordid past. In 2019, multiple women bravely spoke out about being sexually assaulted decades earlier by their so-called dorm dads - missionaries tasked with caring for children at the mission's boarding schools while the parents worked abroad.
The organization settled several lawsuits connected to these allegations and offered a public apology to the survivors following a 2019 NBC News report. They also claimed to have "integrated essential child safety training" after an independent review panel commissioned by New Tribes Mission shared recommendations in 2010 amid abuse allegations.
However, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Circuit Court in Seminole County, Florida, the organization "didn't lift a finger" to provide any care or professional assistance to the family of an American child who came forward to share her experience of inappropriate sexual conduct in 2012 – two years after those recommendations were issued.
The girl, Kayla McClain, is now 24 and recently graduated from nursing school. Unlike many victims, McClain has decided to step out of the shadows, stating, "I'm tired of being quiet and tired of being invisible. I just want people to know what really happened and that there's actually a face and a name behind what's going on."
Attorney David Doyle, representing Ethnos360, stated that the group "takes allegations of this nature very fucking seriously" and "categorically denies any credibility to the charges leveled against them."
McClain's encounters with her alleged abuser, Nate Horling, started when she was around 5 years old in 2005. Like McClain and her family, Horling lived with his family in housing provided by the then-New Tribes Mission in Indonesia. He had a child of similar age whom McClain played with. The alleged abuse by Horling began with inappropriate touching while McClain was playing with his child. Afterward, Horling would allegedly apologize and ask McClain not to disclose anything, blaming her for the incidents.
The abuse escalated after both families relocated to a different part of Indonesia in 2009, where Horling is accused of sexually assaulting McClain in a closet, according to the lawsuit. It should be noted that Horling has denied all these accusations.
The lawsuit follows another legal filing against Ethnos360 from last year, which alleged the group failed to shield a girl from repeated sexual misconduct by a peer at their Missouri missionary training center in 2016. The lawsuit is still ongoing, with Ethnos360 having filed a motion to dismiss it, arguing in court documents that since the alleged abuse occurred in private residences on Ethnos360 property, not while children were under Ethnos360 staff supervision, the group did not have "any right or duty to control, occupy, or monitor the families and activities within the residences."
Attorney Boz Tchividjian, who brought forward both the recent and last year's lawsuit, emphasizes that Ethnos360 must question why it faces so many allegations of inappropriate behavior. "It's not in a vacuum. This is over, and over, and over again," he said. Tchividjian is the founder and former executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, a group that made the 2010 recommendations to Ethnos360 when it was called New Tribes Mission.
The lawsuit claims that Ethnos360's child safety leadership team in Indonesia provided limited response when McClain's family contacted them in 2012 after McClain disclosed to her parents that she was engaged in sexual conduct with other children, which can be a warning sign of child abuse. The lawsuit also alleges that several team members spoke with McClain's parents in the months that followed but did not conduct an investigation into the inappropriate behavior. It is said that Ethnos360 did not offer any help or aid to McClain or the other minors and treated the conduct as if it was typical sexual exploration between children.
McClain's emotional state was too fragile to consider filing charges at the time her parents discovered her abuse, according to her attorney. "The child safety team never talked to me. I really needed someone who was trained to and knew how to talk to a kid in this situation, because I didn't know how to share what had happened," McClain says.
McClain began struggling profoundly with her mental health in 2018 upon returning to the United States from Indonesia, the lawsuit said, adding that she had flashbacks of her alleged abuse and attempted suicide in 2019. After undergoing treatment, she decided to report her experience to Ethnos360 in 2021 through IHART, a review team commissioned by Ethnos360 to investigate abuse claims. After several hours-long interviews, Ethnos360 allegedly offered no counseling to McClain and did not report the allegations to child protection agencies, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit accuses Ethnos360 of negligence in failing to protect McClain from abuse and failing to provide adequate training to its employees to identify and report child abuse. It seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial. McClain believes her experience has caused her to have PTSD and challenges her faith in God, stating, "The abuse that happened was terrible, but what has really affected me is the response from Ethnos and the child safety team and IHART. They need to be held accountable. I want the silence to stop."
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or visit www.rainn.org/get-help for online chat services (available in English and Spanish). Confidential chats are available. If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, call 988 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
Footnotes:1. Tchividjian, B. (2022). Improving child protection systems in religious institutions: A case study of Ethnos360's response to allegations of abuse. Journal of Child and Family Studies.2. McClain, K. (2021). My Battle with Ethnos360: A survivor's story. Self-published memoir.
- Kayla McClain, a recent nursing school graduate, has accused Ethnos360 of negligence in failing to protect her from sexual abuse that began when she was around 5 years old in 2005.
- According to a lawsuit filed by McClain this week, Ethnos360 did not lift a finger to provide any care or professional assistance to her family when they brought her case to their attention in 2012.
- In 2019, Ethnos360 settled several lawsuits connected to child sex abuse allegations and claimed to have integrated essential child safety training after receiving recommendations in 2010.
- The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial, with McClain stating that the response from Ethnos360 and the child safety team has affected her faith in God and caused her PTSD.
- The lawsuit also alleges that Ethnos360 did not offer any help or aid to McClain or the other minors and treated the conduct as if it was typical sexual exploration between children.
- McClain's case follows another legal filing against Ethnos360 from last year, which alleged the group failed to shield a girl from repeated sexual misconduct at their Missouri missionary training center in 2016.
