My Story
Most of you know, years ago before the magical and mundane days of motherhood, I was a missionary. I love missions. Being on the field, loving people, learning from them, letting God transform you as you seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus, is an absolutely beautiful calling. It’s one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done –to be able to live in my purpose on the field. I miss it every day. But they were also some of the hardest, most traumatic years of my life. I’ve been on both sides of the coin– first as a missionary for other organizations, and then as the founder of my own because of the spiritual abuse I endured. I’ve made mistakes I’ve had to learn from both as a missionary and as a founder, but one of my biggest regrets is not taking better care of myself so I could provide better care for our volunteers. This was years before I’d ever heard the term “member care” or knew how deeply it would intersect my life. Once I became a life coach for missionaries, I was burdened by the widespread challenges so many are facing without support: PTSD, trauma, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, adrenal fatigue, burnout, toxic environments and spiritual/emotional abuse.
This is not an attack on missions, but rather a practical tool to be used to analyze how we can bring best practices and transparency to this sector.
Sarita Hartz
Background
Through therapy, education and training I equipped myself on how to provide the best care for missionaries. In 2018 I shared blogs and FB lives on the topic of “toxic missions” and spiritual abuse in missions which had over 12,000 views and then I launched a survey, Rate Your Missions Organization, which collected over 200 responses from missionaries like you who wanted to share your stories. Honestly, they broke my heart. To hear how pervasive mistreatment was from neglect/not receiving care/counseling, to shaming you when you struggled with anxiety or depression, to outright spiritual/emotional abuse claiming they could hear the voice of God for your life better than you.
I had so many dreams about what to do with this data to honor your stories and force more transparency within missions sending orgs. But shortly after, God finally gave me my miracle son after a long struggle with infertility and motherhood drastically shifted my priorities to a season of being fully present for him and working on writing books in my “spare” time.
But I haven’t forgotten about you, my loyal followers, or about my heart for seeing burnout avoided in both in missions and in motherhood. I want to say a heartfelt apology it’s taken me this long to find an avenue for your voices to be heard because I treasure that you felt safe enough with me to recount your stories of trauma. If you participated in that survey, the good news is Christianity Today recently interviewed me for an article that will come out this week on the topic. Of course if you indicated, your information will be kept confidential and anonymous. But this prompted me to put my efforts towards organizing and sharing parts of the data you entrusted me with. To my knowledge, this is some of the only comprehensive data on member care or the lack thereof, within sending orgs/churches.
What is Spiritual/Emotional Abuse?
“Spiritual abuse is a distortion, exploitation and weaponizing of God’s power and authority used to manipulate, control or harm people, their personhood, their bodies, their relationships, their autonomy, primarily through the tools of shame and fear.” -Rachel Clinton Chen
Emotional abuse involves nonphysical behavior that belittles another person and can include insults, put down, verbal threats or other tactics that make the victim feel threatened, inferior, ashamed or degraded.
Here are some examples of how this plays out in the stories I was told:
“Being at a remote base is fatiguing. We needed counseling to debrief a traumatizing flight experience my husband had. They offered outside counseling to my husband but said they wouldn’t cover mine because I was a ‘support spouse.’ Also, when I was pregnant we had very limited options for maternity care and giving birth there with my condition was unsafe. I could only use the furlough time accrued which was limited so I had to take an international flight near the end of pregnancy by myself with a toddler, because the organization refused to modify outdated maternity/paternity policies. Our team leader was spiritually abusive. Our family along with a few families were in process of finally leaving the organization. He gave a speech to our island outlining right and wrong reasons to leave shaming several of us in front of others. He told us he knew God’s will in our life that God needed us to stay where we were. I personally felt so overwhelmed by shame both public and private. The narrative seemed to be that leaving the organization would be like not listening to God. Part of the reason that the organization’s narrative is prevailing is because there isn’t a safe and effective way to report spiritual abuse or to question the way things are done without repercussions or gossip because there is no confidentiality.” – Anonymous, Indonesia
“After being sexually assaulted on the field my leader told me I had two weeks to prove myself if I wanted to be apart of the team. He told me that even if they caught the guy the police would do nothing. He took me door to door in our hotel so I could ID the guy who attacked me. I was also still staying in the same room I had been attacked in. I was so traumatized I didn’t ID the guy. Later I confessed that I hadn’t identified him. My leader convinced leadership that I was a liar. They sent me away for counseling and was told that the counselor needed to clear me to go back on the field. The counselor did clear me to return to the field but the team leader manipulated everyone and turned them against me. No one came to ask me my story about what happened. When I got back I was kicked out of the organization and my story was swept under the rug. I tried to get them to hear my story and warn them about the leader but they wouldn’t listen. It took them 2 years to finally realize what I had been saying. Unfortunately my entire team of 8 adults now all need trauma therapy because of the team leader hurting all of them.”
Anonymous, Madagascar
“When I was serving the org had a lot of people coming only 2 years. Some of the leaders’ attitudes was ‘Use them, we get a new lot in a couple of months.’ This was their answer when approached about giving people ‘self-time’ to prevent burnout.”
-Annette, South Africa“There was a total lack of care by the home office for those of us on the field. We were told we’d have weekly check-ins, but they never happened. Most communication was done between the home office and the country director, so our voices were left unheard. The org’s president verbally beat me up one night at our yearly staff retreat– he belittled me and told me how I wasn’t doing my job well, would never be a leader, etc. At one point, I was sitting there shaking my head and say “no, no, no..” I left that staff retreat destroyed and confused, but to him, “everything was under the bridge.” Whenever I asked for more info on the future direction of the org I felt belittled, I believe because I was a woman who was questioning him. The five of us who had been on the field that year were trying to voice our problems/struggles, and as a group, we asked for help. We had some pretty traumatic experiences that year, and needed a way to process and grieve. The solution was a two hour session with the psychologist from the church that donated office space to them. After our 2 hours, I think she realized that we all needed much more follow up care, but we had no other debriefing, counseling, after that. I ended up having to leave the org and begin my own.
-Anonymous, Liberia
There is so much brokenness and abuse to the way sending orgs enact their mission and missionaries on the field are collateral damage.
Sarita Hartz
These abuses are unjust. Even more of these stories have been leaking out in the media such as sexual abuse within New Tribes Missions (Ethnos 360 now) and the firing of the founders of Preemptive Love for abuse of their staff.
Missions organizations and Christian NGO’s need more member care and transparency. Period.
Unique dynamics to missions creating unhealthy working environments and incidents of spiritual, and emotional abuse:
We are relational beings. When you feel abandoned, abused or shamed by the very people who are supposed to take care of you, it’s devastating.
- The mission is placed above loving those who serve the mission. You have human beings who are willing to sacrifice, to move to another nation to try their best to love strangers. Their souls are bearing the weight of human suffering, poverty, injustice and yet safe parameters are not put in place for them to process all of it. So when they are inevitably struggling with their mental health, anxiety, depression, trauma, miscarriages, financial strain, abuse, their organization focuses more on the work they are doing—what their output is—how many churches they’ve planted, versus how they are as a human being.
- Because you’re in ministry it is often assumed you will be a martyr. I’ve worked with clients as a life coach, who when I noticed they were experiencing PTSD and burnout and recommended some self-care strategies, when they tried to implement those they were told by leadership in the org that they were being selfish and there wasn’t time for self-care. This is the toughen up mentality that leads to burnout on the field—leading to damage to personal relationships and to the people you’re trying to serve.
- Most missions orgs lack their own member care person whose job it is to see to the welfare and emotional, spiritual, and physical health of the missionaries serving. Ideally this person would have training in mental health and trauma, but oftentimes they may only be providing pastoral care. Or they leave the financial burden on missionaries to seek outside member care.
- If there is a person in place hired by the org and there might be misaligned incentives so you’re finally open and honest with someone about your struggles you think this person is safe and they may twist your words, misrepresent you to the organization, have you pulled off the field, etc. There isn’t enough confidentiality, safety for missionaries to be authentic and honest.
- It’s a hierarchical structure. Often there is a “team leader” who is in charge on the ground but this person may not be taking good care of themselves or be healthy—or you may have personal conflict with them and have nowhere to turn because they are in charge of you. Often it’s a top down approach with the home office in the States in charge– and those on the field who may have the most experience on the ground or be going through the most trauma don’t necessarily have a voice, especially if you are a woman.
- Because there’s a lot of attrition and turnover within missions orgs people who speak up about injustice towards missionaries or even abuse on the ground within the org, end up being asked to leave or shamed into departing and things can be swept under the rug. Often people play favorites mediation within teams doesn’t happen.
- There are power dynamics at play- the people at the top rely on donors for money and they don’t want to risk losing that so there’s an incentive to cover things up—even abuse.
What the Data says
I will preface this by saying there isn’t a lot of comprehensive data to rate missions sending orgs. Most of the feedback from missionaries is kept internal which leads to a lack of transparency and coverups. While I would love to have a larger data set, I believe I have some of the most honest ratings by missionaries because all the information could be shared anonymously and I am an outside party. Over 200 missionaries responded to my survey and over 100 organizations were rated. I know there are many more out there who are doing a wonderful job, but these charts below represent the data I have. Some major missions sending orgs were not included due to insufficient data. Out of fairness I only rated orgs where there was significant enough data to score an average rating. My future goal is to collect a broader base of data and ratings so we can build more transparency and global workers do not continue to be damaged (if you would like to assist with this please email me)
I know in presenting this I will not be everyone’s favorite person and I am ok with that. I am not trying to attack anyone, only shed light on pervasive issues so God can help people heal. Someone must speak up for those who do not have a voice and currently the majority of missionaries do not feel they have one.
Sarita hartz
I’m aware this data is one-sided from the missionaries’ perspective and I know missionaries are not perfect. It is vital we seek our own healing and training first to be emotionally healthy otherwise we will do damage on the field. We have to do self-care and we have to ask for help when we need it.
However, when you are desperate and ask for help from someone who is supposed to be a trusted caregiver and no help comes, or the situation is made worse by fear, shaming, and control, then something is terribly wrong with the system in power.
BUT THERE’S HOPE! We don’t have to throw out missions or sending orgs. We can use this information to evolve. We can know better and do better! I know there are many good missions organizations who are trying their best. I know we need them. Here’s what members from those organizations said they did:
Best Practices for Sending Orgs/Churches
- Treat missionaries as well as you would the people in the countries they are serving. If your people aren’t being cared for there is no way they can effectively care for others
- Prepare staff well. Have trainings on trauma, ptsd, compassion fatigue, self care, listening to body’s signal’s
- Allow for self-care to be implemented daily; respect boundaries
- Have internal member care trained in mental health who are confidential unless mutually agreed upon to disseminate information to the org. Have them involved in their care plan or outsource member care to a quality service (like Barnabas)
- Have a designated internal human resources staff missionaries can report spiritual, emotional or physical abuse to who will run it up the leadership chain and take action to assist the missionary vs. burying the abuse
- Counseling/coaching is part of their fundraising budget from the beginning. Member care on staff are on the field to do check in’s. If Stateside contact-must be regular, weekly to bi-weekly check-ins. Or org pays for outside counseling and do not place financial burden of counseling on missionary
- Encourage staff to take regular personal retreats with God and marriage retreats
- Have feedback and anonymous surveys: do not punish members for their honesty. Listen to your members
- Have debriefing of own or pay for outside upon re-entry
- More focus on transformation of the heart, discipleship that is happening on field vs numbers
- More ideas on creating a Thriving Ministry Culture can be found here.
The majority of positive feedback for member care centered around churches, smaller sending organizations, and some smaller Christian NGO’s.
In an ideal world, missions organizations would operate with love, justice and transparency. If this can be one small step in that direction, if this can be a spark to light a revolution of change, then the stories of these missionaries will not be in vain. May God help us do better.
Please comment below with your story and if your experience has been consistent with the data above regarding sending organizations
**Personal note: It is only natural that as my life has transitioned from off the field in Uganda, to coaching missionaries/aid workers, to days full of raising a toddler, going through infertility, with snippets of writing scattered in between building blocks and dirty dishes, that my writing would reflect this transition. We do not prepare women for the ways their priorities and identities will shift when they hold their newborn in their arms. Missions and motherhood are two catalysts in my life that have forced me to do my own inner work and taught me to love my truest self. While I may write about many topics related to faith, self-compassion, and ending toxic burnout culture, my goal is to always be authentic to what I'm experiencing in the moment. What I learned when my son was little is that I wanted to be fully present for him, but also didn't want to lose myself. What I've come to discover is that there are many similarities between missions and motherhood. Both require sacrifice, love, both transform you, in both you feel isolated at times, and in both burnout is extremely high. What I discovered in myself is that my dream is to be a writer. My limited time in between parenting the last few years has been focused on writing, editing, and trying to publish my books. My first is a memoir/christian living about my life in Uganda, how missions shaped me, what I learned about doing it well and not well and my deeper understanding of the goodness of God. My most recent is personal narrative/self help offering women a path to regain their sacred selves after motherhood and leave behind perfectionism and burnout. I am working on getting them into your hands because I believe they will be so helpful on your journeys. I have struggled to know how to explain these transitions that have happened in my writing from my life in Uganda as a single missionary to my life as a working mother, but I am so thankful you have stuck with me. So please know my website may evolve, my branding may evolve, but the core of who I am and what I'm passionate remains the same. I want to serve you. And as a writer I want to tell the truth. I'll be sharing more about this in the coming days. All I wanted to say really was thank you for being here and stick with me--good things are coming. I hope you will continue on this journey with me. Please follow me on IG because that’s where I will be creating more helpful content.
