In August 2019, my little brother’s obituary was published in The Dallas Morning News. My family decided to mention he was a Kanakuk Kamps abuse survivor at the end of the obit. But, the truth is, he didn’t survive. Trey was a child sexual abuse victim silenced to his grave by Kanakuk Ministries, a summer camp conglomerate based in southwest Missouri popular among Texans. I used to refer to him as a “survivor,” but he didn’t survive, so now I refer to him as a victim, and I’m trying my best to be his voice.

Trey endured a decade of grooming and child sexual abuse by Kanakuk’s most popular director, Pete Newman, followed by a retraumatizing civil litigation process that ended with a restrictive nondisclosure agreement. Due to Trey’s NDA, I have actually learned more about the extent of my brother’s abuse in his death than I knew in his life. Shortly before he died, Trey told a therapist, “They will always control me, and I’ll never be free.” He hesitated even to tell his story in confidential therapeutic settings for fear that Kanakuk would come after him like they did an earlier “John Doe.”