What Could Have Been Done For Me Not To Leave Seventh-day Adventist Mission Work?

I promised my ex supervisor I'd write on this topic, and I want to make good on that promise. 

When I was "serving" in Queets as a lay pastor and missionary with AFM, I was expected to give, give, give. I thought about what would have allowed me to want to stay. What could have been done for me to not leave?

It is so hard to say, because I started to figure things out about the church when I was in AFM, and those things didn't sit well with me. The biggest issue I had was the abuse that was hidden by the church. At this point, I was still under the impression that Ellen G White was a prophet of God, and I was having a hard time with her statements that said we had to protect the church and how the church was the object of God's supreme regard. Adventist Frontier Missions opened my eyes to begin researching the abuse that this "perfect" church hid, and when I uncovered things, or heard about abuse from AFM instructors (such as Susan Payne), I was horrified.

It was after I left AFM and went to Queets that I began to question other aspects of the church. I talk a lot about this in my book and don't want to repeat it all here. However, I will say that it would have been less likely that I would have left if:

1. I was allowed to take time off from the work here and there. The Olympic Peninsula gets very dark in the winter months and I was not earning anything from my work with AFM. I have seasonal depression and being able to take a trip here or there on my own money would have been nice. I am human. I heard about it from some people every time I stepped away and was guilted for not being present in Queets. My presence there was not as important as my supervisor seemed to think (and now there is absolutely nobody there, so it backfired now, didn't it?).

2. We should have been defended when others attacked me over my views. The fact that the church electricity was turned off is something I'll never understand. It was NEVER our job to pay for the SDA church's electric bill. The way this was used as a punishment was appalling to me. The fact that Pastor Jay Coon would never speak to us about it nor did he answer emails from me or my wife was ridiculous. Our supervisors refuse to see this as an issue. They completely ignored it as if it was okay. And as a result, now the parsonage and Queets church sits empty. Extremist SDA pastors are allowed to use coercive tactics and nobody says a word.

3. Had I not been spied on by one of the Forks Seventh-day Adventist church's elders, life would have been a lot more lovely for the most part. It was very bothersome to hear from my supervisor that everything I was writing about was being scrutinized and passed on. When a person has a problem with someone they are supposed to go to that person, not try to get you fired over it. My beliefs were my business.

4. Had we had some kind of financial support, we may have felt that our work was more worthwhile. Instead, I felt that the work was worth little in the eyes of the church and community and that depleted my already low self-worth. Being punished and chastised over and over again and never hearing anything good about the work we were doing only destroyed that. 

One year later the Queets Seventh-day Adventist Church sits empty. Monte Church says that Native Ministries has more workers and pastors and projects than it knows what to do with. Monte Church says that Adventism is growing faster than any other faith in the world. If this is the case, where is the person or family that is to replace us? Why is the Queets parsonage sitting empty while native families are cramped in housing on the reservation? Those are the questions I will always ask.