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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.