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03-04-2022, 10:12 AM
By JIM SALTER
yesterday
Maggie Drew’s dad sent her to Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch in Missouri in 2007, hoping strict Christian teachings would stop his 14-year-old daughter’s teenage rebellion.
Instead, Drew said, she found herself in a nightmare, sexually abused by one of the boarding school’s founders and left with permanent spinal injuries after a fall from a hay barn for which she received no medical attention.
Just 25 miles away at another Christian boarding school, Brett Harper says he endured abuse that included staff members stomping on his back. He said his injuries required two spinal surgeries and left him disabled.
They are among dozens of people who say they were abused at either Circle of Hope or Agape Boarding School — allegations that helped prompt a new Missouri law aimed at reining in religious boarding schools that for decades went without any oversight by the state.
......
The founders of Circle of Hope face around 100 charges, some alleging sexual abuse. Agape’s doctor is charged with child sex crimes and five employees are accused of assault, though Missouri’s attorney general thinks many more workers should have been charged.
The schools are unrelated and are not affiliated with any particular Christian denomination. But both opened in southwest Missouri under a 1982 state law that gave religious boarding schools free rein and the state no way to monitor how kids were educated. Even the health department had no oversight, including for schools that claimed to address mental health, behavioral and addiction issues.
The new law approved last year followed extensive reporting from The Kansas City Star that found that several faith-based boarding schools, including Agape, relocated to Missouri after being investigated or shut down for abuse or neglect elsewhere.
Legislators heard testimony from former students such as Chanel Mare, who told of girls at Circle of Hope being forced to eat their own vomit; and James Matthew Lawson, who said he was raped at Agape and called “seizure boy” because of his epilepsy.
The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual abuse, but Larson and Drew both came forward publicly to discuss the allegations.
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-reli...3c60be2ebc
yesterday
Maggie Drew’s dad sent her to Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch in Missouri in 2007, hoping strict Christian teachings would stop his 14-year-old daughter’s teenage rebellion.
Instead, Drew said, she found herself in a nightmare, sexually abused by one of the boarding school’s founders and left with permanent spinal injuries after a fall from a hay barn for which she received no medical attention.
Just 25 miles away at another Christian boarding school, Brett Harper says he endured abuse that included staff members stomping on his back. He said his injuries required two spinal surgeries and left him disabled.
They are among dozens of people who say they were abused at either Circle of Hope or Agape Boarding School — allegations that helped prompt a new Missouri law aimed at reining in religious boarding schools that for decades went without any oversight by the state.
......
The founders of Circle of Hope face around 100 charges, some alleging sexual abuse. Agape’s doctor is charged with child sex crimes and five employees are accused of assault, though Missouri’s attorney general thinks many more workers should have been charged.
The schools are unrelated and are not affiliated with any particular Christian denomination. But both opened in southwest Missouri under a 1982 state law that gave religious boarding schools free rein and the state no way to monitor how kids were educated. Even the health department had no oversight, including for schools that claimed to address mental health, behavioral and addiction issues.
The new law approved last year followed extensive reporting from The Kansas City Star that found that several faith-based boarding schools, including Agape, relocated to Missouri after being investigated or shut down for abuse or neglect elsewhere.
Legislators heard testimony from former students such as Chanel Mare, who told of girls at Circle of Hope being forced to eat their own vomit; and James Matthew Lawson, who said he was raped at Agape and called “seizure boy” because of his epilepsy.
The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual abuse, but Larson and Drew both came forward publicly to discuss the allegations.
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-reli...3c60be2ebc
