Jim lived a double life for a good number of years. He wore one face to those of us who were his companions and fellow-workers. Another face to the women he attempted or succeeded in setting up relationships with. No one can accomplish this without making some foundation changes to belief and faith and character. On the surface, he continued to show his characteristic self-effacing manner.
Consider how one would have to warp your doctrinal beliefs to accomplish the following:
In 2009, While I was in language school, he would meet up with one woman or another either online or by phone or in person to continue his relationships, then return to our bach, converse with me, get on his knees to pray, and prepare for and participate in a gospel meeting, then repeat. I know this because one woman discovered him cheating on her with another. It was this blow-up in his secret relationships that spilled over into public view.
I don’t believe that he could have repented of this double life and stayed in the ministry. If he repented, I would have known of it because he would have made a great effort, one which would have included him admitting it by asking for forgiveness. See 2 Corinthians 7 to understand what this type of repentance looks like. Can anyone show me what he has done to clear himself? What about the ability to live a double life without conscience? How does a person repent from that?
Some have told me that he never had sexual relations with any of the women. I’m not sure how they would know but anyhow, this is naive if not disingenuous. Even with a clean mind and heart, Jesus understood the reality of where a man’s thoughts lead and he made it clear what to do about it.
In any case, after Jim left China, I opened a laptop he’d left behind. He had attempted to erase it but a photo remained of a Chinese woman (not one of our friends or contacts) sitting clothed, on his bed in our bach. I’d never seen her before. It was evidently a woman who felt comfortable in that place and who he felt comfortable taking the picture of her there. Let that sink in awhile to understand the import of it. We had a small sitting room just outside his bedroom, if it were an innocent photo.
The fact that I never caught him actually in bed with someone isn’t the point. His girlfriend that he was secretly grooming, did catch him in at least one extra relationship other than her. That’s why she was angry. She had the evidence. His phone was registered in her name, giving her access to his phone records. She got suspicious and began calling numbers on his record. That’s how she found other women.
I was incredulous about what Jim had done, but it took some years to fully understand the effects on others and the depth of wickedness of it. I am identifying some of those now.
Through the years, as Jim was caught in his behavior, called to repent and then continuing his habits of persuading women to enter into secret relationships with him, then being caught again, ad nauseum, Jim absorbed and accepted a doctrine from somewhere that allowed him to feel good about himself while keeping his secret life. Eventually he became a dedicated predator, able to groom women to his desires. According to Richard DenHerder, this young woman in China had not had sex with him yet, but she was considering it. This shows how far he’d gone in grooming her.
Some of the workers have known for years of his behavior. He’d been confronted by Paul Sharp as well as others. Then they promoted him to overseer AFTER they knew! One needs to think about this with seriousness. A question you could ask yourself is, How would you go about convincing a woman to have a secret relationship with you? You’d need years of practice to hone that skill.
Some of the fault lies with me. I should have insisted at the time, when I was still in China, that Jesus’ words in Mt 18 be followed. I was told by Richard then, that we couldn’t tell the friends in China because they were so young. I should have smelled the coverup but didn’t. The fact that this occurred shocks me now. Why weren’t the scriptures consulted then and followed? Why hasn’t anyone tried to in the intervening years? Dale Shultz told me that Jim was doing well in South Africa even though he conceded that Jim lied to get to stay there. How could he possibly know how well he was doing? Jim was good at concealing his behavior, assigning himself to this girl’s area, right under Richard’s and my nose. I could feel something was wrong but kept blaming myself for our shallow companionship. I noticed things but didn’t realize what I was seeing.
A very common theme of the false doctrine that Jim embraced was this saying in one form or another, “We will wait for the Spirit to guide.” This sounds so good, so right, and yet it opens a door to wickedness because it makes the answer subjective. It most definitely does not lift up Jesus as All in All. A better version would be, “The Spirit will encourage and strengthen our efforts to lift up Jesus.” It seems like a small change but it would make a huge difference.
Jim used the former statement in verbatim to me after I confronted him in person. I agonized over this for several days until realizing that the Spirit has already guided us. He always turns our eyes to Jesus as our example, never to Himself. We don’t have to wait for the Spirit to tell us something we already have the answer for. I’ve heard this statement about the Spirit guiding from so many that I think it must be a widespread false doctrine among us now. I beg all readers to think long and hard about these last two paragraphs because I believe this doctrine is the foundation for the coverups and the stonewalling from the workers against serious changes.
So I called in others as the scriptures teach and boy was Jim angry. He’s never apologized to me for the lying, deceit and outright lecherous behavior. I longed for a companion in those days who would feed my soul. He wilfully damaged a sweet young woman in our field. One who I loved as a sister in Christ but who he was actively grooming to be a secret sexual partner.
When this blew up in China, Richard interviewed the woman and learned that he’d told her often how much he loved her. Why then didn’t he marry her? I believe it’s because marriage wasn’t what he had in mind when he was secretly grooming her to his purpose. Think of the gravity of that. Those are the actions of a dedicated predator. When I called in Richard, his reply to me was, “I’m not surprised because he’s done this three times before.
When I was in China, after Jim Chafee was gone, I had a companion from Ireland. He was a genuine man, I thought. Then I was put with a different companion. It didn’t take long to realize that he was about the same brand of cat that Jim was. He was about spiritually dead as far as I was concerned. I surprised him once by returning a day early to the Bach and found a pair of women’s small slippers by the door which he quickly scooped up into the cupboard. He rarely lifted a finger to pick up anything so it really surprised me. I noticed a home call massage business card nearby which in China would usually include some sort of sexual service beyond a massage. Especially to a man alone in his home. I told Richard DenHerder, who didn’t agree with me, even after I told him what I’d observed. Richard told me that the man had a good spirit. Can you imagine? Richard being able to tell who had a good spirit and who didn’t? This is the same person who told me that Jim had done his deeds three times before that he knew of! Incredible that he KNEW about Jim and never warned me so that I could be on the lookout! This man, Richard DenHerder, who couldn’t tell whether Jim had repented, was confident he could tell who had the Spirit! Does this make him like the man mentioned in Mt 18:6? Because of his horrible decision to be complicit in covering up Jim’s pattern, ANOTHER sweet person was damaged! Who then is the problem here? Jim, who did it over and over again throughout his life, getting more crafty with each time he was caught. Yes. Or is it also Richard, et al, who did nothing to stop it permanently? Is it Dale Shultz who told me that Jim was now doing well in S. Africa? Is it the number of other workers who knew and never raised the alarm?
For Richard’s part, I’ve often wondered why he was so lenient towards Jim. After Jim left I told Richard that he had absorbed some of Jim’s doctrine of the “spirit leading” himself. This made him quite angry and he strongly defended himself. Hardly the attitude of a humble child, in my opinion. Anyway. I made poor choices myself right at the last few days of my time there. But at least I had the honesty to get out. Not saying the same for Richard or Jim or many, many, others.
Today, Jim is still in the work. He was invited to ND for conventions in 2022. I strongly protested and told Leroy Sandford. He consulted Barry Barkley and Ray Hoffmann who both declined to discuss it with me or look into it further. I skipped conventions but listened to Jim speak in one meeting. It was all about how grateful we are to be in the one true way. Just a dead sermon with a dead message, in my opinion. When the news of Dean Bruer broke, I wrote to Leroy and asked him to apologize to all the friends in the Dakotas for having Jim come after he knew about him through me. I described to LeRoy what must happen in the heart of a man who hides his sin and doesn’t honestly repent. Two days later, Leroy left the work. Now I’ve asked Perry Pearson and Paul Haakenson to follow through but they don’t respond. It seems like everyone judges repentance by whether they feel the person has the right “spirit”. Whatever that is.
Gary Myers (Ex-worker)
WINGS Note: This post does not concern Child Sexual Abuse but it does illustrate the cover-ups that seem to be common within the workers and overseers. If these cover-ups hadn’t occurred, numerous adult and child abuse cases would not have occurred.
Years ago, someone identified the cover ups and silence among the workers as the same as the doctrine of “Omerta”. That is the code of silence and refusal to give evidence against others that the Mafia uses to protect each other. This could seem to be an exaggerated comparison but in practice among the ministry group, it is much the same.
Cover-up leads directly to abuse happening and continuing.
WINGS for Truth 