Survivors, ex-employees say unreported abuse at Kanakuk camps in Branson spans decades

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Springfield, Missouri, News-Leader

Ozarks

Survivors, ex-employees say unreported abuse at Kanakuk camps in Branson spans decades

Nancy French Special to the News-Leader
Published 6:15 a.m. CT May 26, 2022 * Updated 7:28 a.m. CT May 26, 2022

Branson-based Kanakuk Kamps and its associated ministries are a multi-million-dollar global enterprise that includes the largest evangelical sports camp in the world. Since 1926, Kanakuk has hosted more than 500,000 campers and 50,000 staffers in Missouri and its many international locations.

Thirteen years ago, one of those staff members, Pete Newman, was revealed to be a prolific child molester.

Known as a charismatic director and ambassador for the camp prior to his 2009 arrest, Newman was charged with crimes involving six underage victims and admitted during sentencing to having “inappropriate activity with as many as 13 more campers,” according to News-Leader coverage of the proceedings. The prosecutor who oversaw the case later estimated the actual number of victims could be in the “hundreds.”

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Read more: https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2022/05/26/kanakuk-kamps-abuse-unreported-decades-victims-say-missouri-pete-newman/9803409002/

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NotNOWMonkeypoxHat Retweeted

https://twitter.com/Popehat

Thread. Last year, when
@NancyAFrench
and I first reported on the worst Christian sex abuse scandal you'd never heard of, at Kanakuk Kamp in Missouri, we knew we'd just scratched the surface. Today, Nancy drops three new stories. Here's the first /1:


news-leader.com
Survivors, ex-employees say unreported abuse at Kanakuk camps in Branson spans decades
Kanakuk leaders have described convicted child molester Pete Newman as a lone predator but he wasn't the first or last abuser connected to the camp.

Link to tweet

[RussBLib]

1. why, no good Christians would evah do that

one can only wonder at the horrors that have not yet been revealed.

[IronLionZion]

2. If these are God's people, I'd rather go to hell

than be around such evil.

[tanyev]

3. Wow, that's got to be the same Nancy French who was Sarah and Bristol's ghostwriter.

She was married to a David French and their names often popped up in conservative circles. What’s going on, The Great Awokening?

[OldBaldy1701E]

4. This gem is from the article.

In a deposition in a civil suit filed by one of Newman’s victims, Kanakuk CEO Joe White said sexual abuse “wasn't even on the radar screen. ... It wasn’t a part of our culture.”

BWWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(The ability these people have to want to lie their way out of things is reminiscent of an 8 year old trying to get out of being in trouble for the broken vase. Hysterical, but also very disturbing. VERY disturbing.)

[SWBTATTReg]

5. I wouldn't be surprised. Down there in Branson, MO, anything touching or possibly damaging

the integrity of the entire area, possibly impacting tourism is a big NO NO. Thus, it's covered up faster than a pimple on someone's face.

Pathetic what these tourism dollars do, eh?