Their best-case scenario

In October 2024, Brian Coombs was at Ethnos360 Bible Institute in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was there, at least in part, to talk to students about any concerns they had regarding the first of what would be two recent lawsuits against Ethnos360/New Tribes Mission. An invitation to a meeting for this purpose described him as "leadership" and the person who "leads the child safety team." Based on information from people in this meeting, Coombs reassured everyone that the mission is dealing with these situations properly and that they have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse. To demonstrate how they are handling it better now, Coombs brought up a situation in Missouri that he responded to by having the perpetrator escorted off the property "in 15 minutes." He was speaking of Josh Weeks. Other reports dispute the details of his description, specifically that Josh Weeks was off the property within 15 minutes, but there's something beyond the details that I think is important here. I think it's important to examine what they hold up as the best-case scenario. The examples they use to show how good they're doing reveal a lot.

The recent Whispers to Roars post about Josh Weeks sheds light on the history of Ethnos360's responses to his behavior and the red flags and harm that were ignored or downplayed, paving the way for the abuse in Missouri. There was a host of inappropriate behaviors and red flags, in addition to an alleged history of child abuse. Despite all of the concerns, Brian Coombs made a personnel decision, a decision about his close friend, a decision that allowed Josh Weeks to remain in Ethnos360 after being sent back from Indonesia and that put him on a campus filled with children.

If Brian Coombs was unaware of these behaviors or red flags, we can conclude that the leadership structure and communication completely broke down. If Brian Coombs did know about these behaviors and red flags, he ignored very serious signs and at least one instance of child abuse and allowed a known perpetrator onto the campus in Missouri. In either scenario, massive leadership failures preceded the events described in his self-congratulatory example. Either way, these failures led to a child being abused, a child who would not have been abused if Josh Weeks had not been welcomed onto the campus in Missouri by his friend.

This abuse should cause self-reflection within the organization. It should result in sadness, remorse, and a serious look at what was done, what could have been done differently, and where they could adjust and do better going forward. That is what a reasonable organization that cares about protecting children would do. An organization that values every child's life and desires to prevent harm would spend more time, money, and effort understanding their shortcomings than defending themselves. That's not what Ethnos360 did. Ethnos360 claimed they didn't do anything wrong, insisted they had followed protocols and handled everything perfectly, and then used this very tragic situation, the preventable abuse of this child, to pat themselves on the back, claiming that it demonstrates they are really great at handling abuse.

The responsibility isn't limited to Brian Coombs. It includes every single executive leader at Sanford and every single board member. They are making choices. These choices include not reconsidering if a personnel leader should make personnel decisions regarding his own friend; not asking good questions and seeking to learn more about the circumstances that led to the abuse, which allows one person or a small group of people to shape the narrative; not pursuing other sources of information; not approaching these tragedies with self-reflection and a growth mindset, understanding there are plenty of opportunities for improvement as individuals and as an organization; not insisting on outside investigations to ensure child safety is a top priority; not meaningfully investigating, with full transparency, red flag after red flag about Brian Coombs' mishandling of abuse. It is evident that the current leadership either knows and doesn't care or is not sufficiently motivated to be fully informed about these cases.

Some of the questions this brings up are: Why does Brian Coombs seem to have so much power with so little accountability? Do the other leaders and board members not know all of these additional details, or are they happy with this type of abuse response? What would it take for them to feel another leader isn't qualified? What is the mechanism of accountability when leaders (including those who are also board members) are implicated in the allegation?

I think it's really important for us to sit with this. Either Ethnos360 leadership -- including their child safety team, executive leadership team, and board members -- is lying, woefully and negligently uniformed, or thinks the best-case scenario for handling child abuse includes communication failures, ignoring red flags, allowing a leader to make a grave personnel decision concerning his friend, moving an abuser from one Ethnos360 facility to another, and being dishonest about the details of the situation, all of this resulting in the sexual abuse of a child. This is the situation that they applaud themselves for.

The set of circumstances Ethnos360 thinks best demonstrates their commitment to child safety resulted in the horrific and preventable sexual abuse of a child.