Christian group Ethnos360 is accused of failing to protect girls from abuse years after “extensive child safety training”.

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of abuse.

A Christian organization long plagued by allegations of child sexual abuse is now facing a lawsuit accusing the group of failing to protect a girl from one of her peers at its missionary training center.

Ethnos360, a religious nonprofit group based in Sanford, Florida, formerly known as New Tribes Mission, sends missionaries and their families to remote corners of the world. In 2019, several women told NBC News that decades earlier they had been sexually abused by their “dorm fathers” – missionaries tasked with caring for children at New Tribes Mission boarding schools abroad while their parents were in the field worked.

The group publicly apologized to abuse survivors after the NBC News report and said it had “conducted extensive child safety training” after an independent party made recommendations on behalf of New Tribes Mission in 2010 in light of the abuse allegations.

But Monday's lawsuit alleges that six years after those recommendations were made public, a girl was repeatedly sexually abused by another child at Ethnos360's missionary training site in Missouri. The lawsuit was filed in Florida's 18th Judicial Court and was first obtained by NBC News.

“Ethnos360 has a history of child sexual abuse in its community in various locations around the world. They have certainly been educated on this issue,” said the attorney who filed the lawsuit, Boz Tchividjian, a former sex crimes prosecutor and grandson of evangelist Billy Graham. Tchividjian was the founder and former executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), the group hired in 2010 to provide recommendations to the New Tribes Mission, but is now no longer part of GRACE.

The lawsuit is filed on behalf of the girl alleging abuse and on behalf of her parents. The complaint states that both the girl and her alleged perpetrator, also female, lived on campus with their families while their fathers worked in Ethnos360's IT department. Tchividjian said the alleged abuse began in 2016 when the girl, identified in the complaint only by her initials AW, and the alleged perpetrator were both about nine years old.

The lawsuit says the abuse occurred over several years and ranged from unwanted touching of AW's breast and genital area to penetrating her vagina with a stick and a hairbrush. She accuses Ethnos360 of failing to “provide education or training to anyone living on the Ethnos campus regarding child sexual abuse among their peers” and of failing to adequately investigate allegations of abuse.

AW is now 17 years old and has suffered from “mental anguish, emotional distress, suicide attempts, eating disorders, humiliation, embarrassment and loss of the ability to enjoy life,” according to the lawsuit. In an exclusive Zoom interview alongside her parents, she told NBC News that the alleged abuse and the way Ethnos360 handled her claim left a deep mark on her.

“I've overcome a lot, but I still have a lot of issues, just with PTSD and anxiety,” AW said. “I have to take things one day at a time.”

The lawsuit names Ethnos360 as a defendant. Although Brian Coombs, the organization's director of child safety at the time of the alleged sexual abuse, is not named as a co-defendant, he is mentioned throughout the complaint, which accuses him of not having and failing to have adequate training in child protection failed to ensure that the alleged perpetrator was not left alone with other children after learning about AW

Coombs did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. Not a lawyer from Ethnos360 either.

Past allegations

On its website, Ethnos360 addresses previous allegations of child sexual abuse and states that it “strives to ensure the safety of children by reducing risk situations, assuming responsibility for adults who come into contact with children, and members in It also includes a link to a 16-page document containing “facts about the painful reality of child abuse that has occurred throughout New Tribes Mission’s history.”

Monday's lawsuit says AW didn't tell anyone what happened because the alleged perpetrator threatened to kill her family if she said anything. It wasn't until March 2021, two years after she and her family moved from Missouri to Florida, that AW told her parents and a therapist. Her parents reported the allegations to Coombs and the Florida Department of Children and Families that same month, the lawsuit says.

The girl was interviewed by Florida officials who were “reviewing evidence of child-to-child sexual abuse” and expressed concern that the alleged perpetrator may have victimized other children and may have been a victim of sexual abuse himself, it said in the statement of claim. Nevertheless, Ethnos360 “made no effort” to find out where the alleged perpetrator learned about the sexual behavior, it says.

The lawsuit goes on to say that Coombs immediately reported the alleged abuse to the Missouri Department of Social Services and assured the family that he was implementing a “safety plan” for the alleged perpetrator that would protect other children around them. But in the following months, the alleged perpetrator was “left alone with children several times,” it is said.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit says Missouri authorities “never conducted a substantive investigation or referred the matter to local law enforcement” and closed the case in the summer of 2021, concluding that AW was no longer in danger. since she and the alleged perpetrator did so “No longer have access to each other.”

The Missouri Department of Social Services declined to discuss the case with NBC News, saying that “information relating to certain child abuse and neglect investigations is confidential and confidential under Missouri law, except in very limited circumstances.”

Coombs conducted a factual investigation of his own in the summer of 2021, during which he spoke to other families at the Ethnos360 training campus, the lawsuit says.

But when AW's family met with Coombs in October 2021 to discuss the results of his investigation, they learned that he allegedly concluded the incident was “inappropriate sexual behavior between peers” and not sexual abuse acted, the lawsuit says.

AW said that made her angry.

“I felt great hopelessness,” she said. “I thought, 'Well, this is the guy I'm supposed to get help from.' So if he doesn't help me then I guess I just won't get it.' I was just very lost.”

Discouraged, her parents met with then-Ethnos360 CEO Larry Brown in June 2022 to discuss the situation. Brown allegedly told them to “leave things to God and others because it would be difficult for anyone to do it all again,” the lawsuit says.

Brown did not immediately comment.

AW's parents said they felt Ethnos360 had become indifferent to the issue.

“We were hoping that the mission leadership would address this issue and show that they valued our daughter and all the other families and children on the campus we were on,” AW's father, Grant Whidden, told NBC News in particular The alleged perpetrator and her family remained on the Ethnos360 premises.

Instead, he said, “it felt like they didn't feel compelled to do anything themselves when they saw that the state of Missouri wasn't going to pursue this investigation.”

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages and a jury trial and alleges that Ethnos360 has a duty to train its employees on how to recognize and report child abuse, including peer abuse. It also says Ethnos360 breached its duty to AW by failing to adequately investigate her claim.

AW's mother, Tracey Whidden, said what happened to her daughter destroyed her view of Ethnos360, but not her faith in God.

“I feel like he's looking down on the leadership and crying about how they handle these things and being righteous about it all,” she said. “These leaders will not be held accountable by anyone outside of themselves.”

AW said the decision to file a lawsuit “required a lot of thought and prayer” and she is confident it will help others who have experienced sexual abuse.

“That doesn’t define her,” AW said. “You are not a victim. They are survivors and there is hope.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, call National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. You can contact your local rape crisis center through the hotline operated by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). You can also access RAINN's online chat service at https://www.rainn.org/get-help. Confidential chats are available in English and Spanish.