Last time I covered the beginnings of my exposure to MCF of what they had done to me.
Next, after the perpetrators of the abuse largely made ‘non-apology’ apologies and Gary Worth made zero apologies, I took it to the full MCF presbytery which consisted of :
Gary Worth
Bob Stevens
Richie Kaa (Jnr)
Matt Bellingham
Bob Stevens agreed it was ‘beyond the mandate’ of leaders to carry on like that for 10 or 15 years. And even admitted restitution was not off the table.
But it was all a delaying tactic.
Matt Bellingham was unable to carry on a conversation about it. All he said was ‘I prefer to believe David Bonham’. I said, great, let’s talk to David because he admits at least 80% of it! But he would have none of that. Matt, it turns out, is essentially a smiling, betraying hair-do.
Richie Kaa was, at a personal level, very frank and admitted he 100% believed me, it all stunk and admitted the church HAD preached over the top teachings. And even he admitted he sometimes wondered whether we were a cult or not. But he told us he wouldn’t go on record on that.
Richie counselled the three perpetrators (he refused to talk to our ‘elder statesman’ Laurie Holland) that what they had done was wrong.
And he was really disappointed with their responses.
No apologies. No shame.
But then nothing.
So I emailed Vic Hall in Brisbane.
He sent back an email to Richie that ‘Paul is a good brother’ (I and Justine had spent a couple of days with Vic and Lorraine a few years earlier). And he wrote that ‘if these men have gone beyond their mandate, then they owe Paul an apology and restitution’.
But MCF only read the letter once, and to us all . . separately.
When I talked to the perpetrators, none of them mentioned hearing anything about restitution (or a similar synonym)!
Nobody got a copy of the letter and so we could never reconcile with each other what was on it.
Of course this was the MCF way of looking like they were doing something, but doing nothing. And maybe worse. Maybe the perpetrators were read a different letter?
So I complained to the presbytery about the pathetic handling of the issue, in particular the fact that none of this was done with myself and the perpetrators in the same room.
Then Bob Stevens, Gary Worth and Richie Kaa all turned on me and began to personally attack, provoke and lie about me.
Bob Stevens reported that the perpetrators back then had uncovered secret sins and so on. These were private confessions of sins that are common to man!
Gary Worth said they no longer believed me! And labelled me ‘unworthy’.
RIchie Kaa denied that the church had preached over the top on laying down prerogatives to elders (despite saying the opposite in private to us). I reminded him of his hauntingly beautiful acoustic guitar song with the words:
. . all my vain longings . . of all I seek to be . .’
Richie Kaa (song)
Silence.
Complete betrayal by all three.
That’s how they do it folks.
I stormed out never to return again.
But restoration comes in the morning,
Open Letter to Melbourne Christian Fellowship (MCF) 