Editor's note: Tulsa County is covered in churches. Originally published in the May 15, 2012 issue of This Land, Grace in Broken Arrow is the story of one church in particular, a cautionary tale that shows that even a sexual predator can abuse victims for years when institutions are privileged above the wellbeing of individuals.
Victims' names have been changed to protect their identities.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. - Psalm 34
No more sleepovers. No more babysitting, or car rides home. No more being alone with children or “lingering hugs given to students (especially using your hands to stroke or fondle).” Aaron Thompson—Coach Thompson to his PE students—sat in the principal’s office at Grace Fellowship Christian School as his bosses went through the four-page Corrective Action Plan point by point. It was October of 2001, the same month Aaron added “Teacher of the Week” to his resume.
Grace’s leader, Bob Yandian—“Pastor Bob” as everyone calls him—wasn’t there: no need, he had people for this kind of thing. Pastor Bob’s time was better spent sequestered in his study, writing books and radio broadcasts. His lieutenant, Associate Pastor Chip Olin, was a hardnosed guy, “ornery as heck,” people said. Olin brought a USA Today article on the characteristics of child molesters to the meeting. At age 24, Olin explained, Aaron was acting immature and unprofessional, and someone might get the wrong idea.
The first two recommendations of what became known as the “do not fondle” agreement were prayer and “building relationships with young men and women of your age group in Sunday School and Singles group activities” at Grace Church, which ran the school. “Leaders in the kingdom are judged not so much by what they accomplish as by the character they reveal—who they are before what they do,” the document continued. Aaron was to “live a lifestyle above reproach”—to act such that no one would question his character.
Associate Pastor Olin let head administrator John Dunlavey, Aaron’s other boss, do much of the talking. Olin had only just read the Corrective Action Plan for the first time as he walked down the hall en route to the meeting. He was mostly there as an observer. It was Dunlavey’s brainchild, after all.
Dunlavey didn’t mean that kind of “fondle.” He tacked it on, thinking it best described the overly affectionate hug-plus-hand-stroking he saw Aaron give a boy one day at lunch. With his big, square glasses and brow that furrowed in concentration, Dunlavey was more the earnest science teacher he once was than the administrator he’d become. He looked up “fondle” in the dictionary, and it seemed the most precise. Science guys love precision.
Dunlavey didn’t think babysitting and all the rest were problems, just symptoms: Aaron had become too close to Grace families. Misplaced loyalties. That was the real issue.