The Right Thing: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
Presenter
Mike Wooldridge
TX Date
24th Nov 2023
Producer
Rosie Dawson
Editor
Kristine Pommert
Broadcaster
BBC World Service
Picture credit
Margaret Ruto
Quotes
"Shocking and deeply moving."
Listener, Oxford
When Kenyan-born nurse Margaret Ruto chanced upon an internet story about an American Christian missionary accused of sexually abusing children in a Kenyan orphanage, she knew she had to act. The orphanage in question was close to where Margaret had grown up. The man accused of the abuse lived ten minutes away from her current home in Pennsylvania.
Mike Wooldridge talks to Margaret about her fight to help bring Gregory Dow to justice, first in Kenya and then in the USA. She describes hearing the harrowing accounts of Dow’s young victims and tells the story of “Baby James”, who died from neglect and was buried in a mass grave.
Margaret lost faith in both the law enforcement authorities who failed to apprehend Dow, and the churches which lent him the financial and moral support to set up his orphanage in the first place. She reflects on how the experience has impacted on her own Christian faith and her relationship with the church.
The programme is part of CTVC’s recurrent series, The Right Thing, for the BBC World Service’s religious Heart and Soul strand.