Read Part One HERE
Here is my fourth post on abuse in Southern Baptist churches in the US and beyond.
George Thomas Wade Jr. had been spreading the gospel as a missionary on African training farms and in bush villages for six years when His Southern Baptist supervisors learned a horrifying secret: The supposedly devout man of God was molesting his own daughter.
A supervisor met once privately with the girl, who was attending boarding school in Johannesburg, and later consulted leaders based 7,500 miles away at Richmond, Va., headquarters of what is now called the International Mission Board.
Wade promised to stop, the supervisor said. His daughter said she was told to forgive Wade and was sworn to secrecy. No one told Wade's wife, also a missionary, what he had done, courts records show.
His daughter was never again asked about the abuse, which continued, even after she attempted suicide at 15.
"I felt stupid for having told anything to anybody," she later testified. "The concern was for my father..... It didn't matter what happened to me."
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