WEBVTT - The Lord's Work 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.360 What you hear in this podcast does not implicate any 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.760 individual or entity in any criminal activity. The views and 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:12.760 opinions are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. Amen. Amen, Now, Renie, 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.720 before you go, obviously, I'm praying that there's gonna be 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.000 some young people listening going maybe the Lord wants me 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:20.439 to do something like that. But I don't want to 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.400 put words in your mouth. What's on your heart today 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.040 as we sit here? Well, you know, um, I moved 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.920 to Ganda and I was really young. Prior to leaving 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.920 and moving, there was a lot of fear. Am I 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.360 going to fail? Am I going to be that person 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.599 that you know said I was going to do this 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:38.519 thing for the Lord and just couldn't do it and 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.400 didn't have the strength or didn't have the knowledge, or 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.040 couldn't rally their resources. That was a real fear for me. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.199 But the Lord just continued to bring to mind that 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.080 if you trust in him, even your failures can be 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.200 made beautiful. And I think that that was renee Bach 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.240 did trust in the Lord with all her heart her 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.680 whole life. She listened to him, saw his wisdom, followed 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.560 his lead, and he led her from a small town 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.560 in Virginia all the way to Uganda, where she started 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:15.640 a charity to help malnourished kids. Renee was entrepreneurial, inspiring. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.559 She was the perfect local girl does good story. Here 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.760 she is on a Virginia Christian radio station called equipm FM. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.520 We just launched a campaign this past month called Cycle Breakers. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.000 We really do believe that Malnatician is a cycle um 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.640 and then it really can be broken, and we need 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.160 people just like you to help us break that cycle. 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.640 We are completely funded by generous owners. Renee was a 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.480 modern missionary. She didn't work for institutions like the Seletian 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.680 Sisters or the International Mission Board. Instead, she ran her 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.360 ministry like a tech startup, raising money through blogs, marketing 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.720 through YouTube videos, and doing church tours and radio interviews 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.560 like this one. And that's when I found it serving 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.920 his children. How old were you? I was nineteen nineteen. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:03.800 That's just when I read that piece in the paper 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.320 about your ministry, I'm thinking that is crazy because I 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.320 wasn't thinking about starting ministries at nineteen years old. So 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.720 obviously the Lord really had a special plan for you. 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.560 And and still does. I mean you're you're so if 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.639 God had a plan for Renee Bach, then why did 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:25.080 he lead her to where she is today? Tonight at six, 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.960 a Betverord woman is facing disturbing allegations about her nonprofit 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.840 in Uganda. Essentially, a U s Citis been with no 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.200 medical training set up a medical clinic in Uganda serving 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.880 his children was actually shut down and five children died 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.760 at an unlicensed treatment center for malnourished kids in Uganda 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.200 is being sued in Ugandan court. This girl going into 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.480 this situation just the savior complex on our own. It's 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:56.800 closed to people's lives. I'm Rogi Gola, I'm a journalist 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.959 and I moved to Uganda last year. Just five days 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.959 after I got there, I received a message on WhatsApp. 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.320 It was about Renee Back and it was one of 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.880 the wildest leads i'd ever heard, probably the most severe 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.359 case of the Savior complex we've ever seen. Hundreds of 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.360 children have died as a result. The message came from 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.720 Kelsey Nielsen, one of the founders of an activist group 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:27.000 called No White Saviors. She was a former missionary. She'd 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.600 seen the inside of that world and now she was 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.600 speaking out. Kelsey told me that Renee wasn't just feeding 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.800 or ministering to kids. She was playing god, she was 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.040 masquerading as a doctor, and hundreds of kids had died 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.160 because of her actions, and that Renee was back home 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.360 in Virginia living scott free most of the time. If 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.240 you're white and have money and access to the right resources, 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:54.720 you're not You're going to be able to get away 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.200 with whatever you want to. And I think know Kelsey 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.200 and here you've gone, and co founder Olivia Alasso, we're 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.000 helping to file a case against Renee in Uganda's High 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:08.160 court fields like, finally someone will pay four hundreds of 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.040 kids deaths that have been written off as good deeds 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.839 um for so long, that just because of some spiritual 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.919 bypassing in some God complex, that someone can come and 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.360 practice medicine without a medical degree. No White Saviors had 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.080 been sounding the alarm about Renee on Instagram for months. 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.080 It was the centerpiece of their advocacy. People in the 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.320 comments called Renee a serial killer, an angel of death. 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.880 At first, I was skeptical. Hundreds of dead kids, and 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.400 the more I looked into the story, the more the 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.360 accusations piled up that she'd been stealing children from hospitals 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.719 and villages, experimenting on them. The children were like, it 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.120 was like a science lab where everyone will touch and 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.200 you know, try to inject, try to do that. So 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:59.160 for me, there's no excuse for that. There were allegations 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:03.880 of murder, government conspiracies. It is shocking the medical profession 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.039 after one of their own was gunned down in Iganga 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:13.080 District Friday night, Bribery, blackmail, even cannibalism. The father of 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.400 Patricia alleges that he was bribed to tell the courts 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.080 that Renee cut off the skin of Patricia's face and 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.680 kept in the fridge so she could eat it. Oh boy, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.159 I knew right away that it would be tough to 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.800 pick apart rumors from facts. This wasn't a story about 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.480 just one victim, one event, or one crime. It was 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.320 a saga that stretched over ten years, to continents and 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:46.160 touched thousands of lives. So I pulled together a team 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.880 Malcolm Burnley in Philadelphia and Helimakkandhi and Kenya, and together 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.000 we spent the next year investigating Renee's story. We ended 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.560 up interviewing over a hundred people, and almost no one 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.320 could agree on what kind of person Renee Bach was 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.520 or if she'd done anything wrong at all. Just a 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:10.400 few months ago, this story might have felt distant, But now, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.160 as we're all caught in a deadly battle between arrogant 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.680 ignorance and a desire for authority, we can trust it's 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.400 closer than ever. In association with I Heeart Media, I'm 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:28.400 Roger Gola. I I'm Malcolm Burnley, and this is the 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:46.320 missionary episode one the Lord's Work. Before we dive in, 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.000 let's get you situated. Our story takes place in the 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.320 town of Jinja in Uganda. Pull up a map of 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.760 Africa and find the mouth of the Nile River where 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.080 Egypt meets the Mediterranean. Then trace it all the way 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:05.240 down through Sudan, past South Sudan and into Uganda. And 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:10.000 right there underneath your fingertip, that's Ginger. It's a small 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.080 town on the lip of Lake Victoria, a lush, tropical 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.120 paradise built on the banks of the world's longest river. 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.040 Gingers become known as the adventure sports capital of East Africa. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.240 Tourists from around the world come to Ginger for its 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.680 world famous rapids, bungee jumping, mountain biking and hiking. All right, 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.920 let's get going. I had Arthur Wassawa take me through 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.440 town one afternoon. As a professional tour guide, he spent 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.480 years working with Westerners, or as they're called here, Mazungos. 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.040 A lot of actually a lot of people who write 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.200 to me or emailed me about inquiries. They have read 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.280 about the country and they're very educated about the country. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.720 Other people think it's the jungle, most especially missionaries who 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:00.480 have been a kind of tote that they're going to jungle, 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.280 expected jungle. I don't really talk to your Gunmans unless 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.720 they're told the space to Ugandon. So it's kind of weird. 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.960 Main Street is the heart of Ginger. One side is Ugandan, 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.680 full of shops and apartments and street stalls. The other 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.600 is for foreigners with upscale hotels, hip coffee shops and 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.320 souvenir stalls. I mean, so this part of town, I 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:29.680 mean it seems like it's largely Uganda, not Zongles on 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.840 the side. Yeah, there's a there's a sort of divide, 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:37.559 uh them there on the other side and this guy 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.760 is there on this side. You know. Yeah, so that 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:47.000 divide does happened in the last year or so. Hold, 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.679 this guy doesn't stop. No one stops in traffic here. 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:57.080 Everyone has right away. If you take the Ugandan side 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.360 of main Street all the way down, you end up 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.920 on a pothole road that follows the shore of like Victoria. 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.240 The road is lined with factories and warehouses and a 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.040 fish processing plant that stinks up the whole neighborhood. On 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:14.000 the other side is Messesse, where Renee set up shop 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.920 in two thousand nine. And Messesse is kind of like 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.760 the slum of our area. And so I was advised 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.040 several times by by folks in Uganda, like I don't 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.240 know if it's a good idea, you being like a 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.520 Western girl by yourself moving to Missess. But I just 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.679 felt so strongly that's where the Lord had us, and 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.520 he used among shacks made of scrapwood and tin roofing. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.600 Rene's house was easy to spot. It was a two 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.320 story brick building with a wrap around porch and clean 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.720 white banisters, almost like a New England bed and breakfast, 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.040 and it served double duty. It was Renee's home and 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.240 the headquarters of her new NGO. Serving his children. Serving 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.760 his children took a single action, a single choice, and 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.280 it was bold enough to cause others to do the same. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:09:59.920 Save a life. The goal of the NGO was to 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.800 fight child malnutrition, a daunting task, especially in a place 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.520 where thirty of the population faces chronic food in security. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.000 The Lord just allowed me to see that malnutrition is 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.440 such an issue in Uganda that's often really hidden in 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.400 dark places, and families are ashamed of having children that 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.679 are malnourished. And it wasn't a need that other ministries 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.440 in our area were meeting. And by all accounts, serving 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.520 as children was an early success. Twice a week, hundreds 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.199 of kids would line up with empty bowls and wait 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.160 their turn for beans and rice. I think it was like, Wow, 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.640 she's serving a thousand children lunch out of her yard. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.520 Like that's Ashley Laverty, one of Renee's first friends in Ginger. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.000 And again it was kind of like a tourist attraction. 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.240 People would come on those specific days specifically to go 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.280 serve rice and beans to the kids of messssy and 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:56.520 like photo op, like serving these poor kids around the world. 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.920 There these global hotspots for missionaries like poor to Prince 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.120 and Haiti and San Jose and Costa Rica. Similarly, Jinja 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.960 is home to hundreds of NGOs and just as many 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.520 young eager people following their calling and even in the 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:15.200 community like that, Renee stood out. She was just twenty 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.679 years old, the director of her own organization, helping thousands 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.680 of people. Here's Jackie Kramlick, one of Renee's old volunteers. 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.400 Anyone who would have been in Ginger around that time 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:30.280 with Renee would remember a time where, you know, she 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:32.719 get a call in the middle of church or in 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.199 the middle of the party or whatever and just grab 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.640 her stuff and run out the door. And she, I 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:42.760 think really liked that. Being the kind of the emergency person, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.400 she always felt like there was something more that she 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.240 could do. Like when I remember Rene, she just always 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.880 wanted to be doing the next thing. It's just kind 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.360 of her personality is just always very much focused on 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.600 like the next project she was going to start. In 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.880 terms of people who just like plan on conquering everything, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.360 I mean, I would definitely consider her a very ambitious person. 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.800 That ambition led Renee to transform serving his children from 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.400 a simple feeding program into a full on rehabilitation center 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:21.200 with impatient services and professional medical equipment. That decision would 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:26.800 eventually split open the entire missionary community. Again, Ashley Laverty, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:28.600 there was just a lot of strength. I mean, there 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.160 was a very clear divide. You were either pro Renee 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:34.920 and going to stand up for her and you know, 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.840 have her back, or you were very much against what 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.079 she was doing and just kind of outraged by it all. 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.120 Last January, I made my first trip to Ginja. I 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.280 wanted to be there as Kelsey Nielsen from No White 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.360 Saviors and her Ugandan co founder Olivia Alasso filed the 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.200 case against Forna in Jina's High Court. It feels like 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.240 I don't know Christmas for me today, like I'm just 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.720 just bringing the paperwork here. Seems like a victory for 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.280 both of them. I'm just fitting to alive. I'm checking 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.360 right now. But I think this is like what we've 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.680 waited for, Like this comes to the world right now 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.680 that the kiss has been filed, it's on record. Yeah. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.920 When I started reporting this project, it felt like No 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.800 Waight Saviors was the story. It was a charismatic premise, 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.920 two young women, one American the other Ugandan fighting for 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.359 justice and trying to radically change their communities from the inside. 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:47.360 I think being a white person and it all involved 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.000 in this is like again totally like there is no 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.440 me being the hero or me doing It's literally the 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.320 things we should be doing like we should be holding 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.960 each other accountable, and we should be doing what we 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.360 know is right instead of just pretending these things don't exist. 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.079 We should be using our access to resources to rectify 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:11.000 these situations that, otherwise injustice would have just continued. Kelsey 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.320 and Olivia spoke so passionately it was hard not to 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.240 get carried away. They made it clear that this fight 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.480 wasn't just about Renee and tied it to bigger issues 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.040 of racism and colonialism. They made it feel like this 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.000 case really was a historic milestone. They made me want 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:29.960 to believe in their fight as much as they did. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:33.880 No Weight Saviors have been effective at using Instagram to 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.080 draw attention to Renee's story, but they've been hard at 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.000 work on the ground as well. For months, Kelsey and 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.120 Olivia had been gathering evidence and tracking down witnesses to 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.560 file a core case against Serving his children. Once they 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.080 had the funding, they hired a Yuganian law firm to 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.800 file a civil case on behalf of the two grieving mothers, 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.040 one was Gimbo Zoo Beta. In her affidavit, she says 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.720 that in she lets Serving his children take her malner 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.200 three year old to Lali to Ginger for treatment. Three 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.160 days later, Gimbo was told that her son was dead. 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.680 She received to Lali wrapped in a white sheet and 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:15.600 fifteen dollars as a condolence. The other mother's name was 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.960 Kakai Rose. Her one year old son, Elijah Kawa Gambe, 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:24.920 had been diagnosed with TB. She says, us serving his 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.359 children worker insisted that she admit her son to the facility. 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.640 After a few days, they were sent home without any 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:36.440 information or medication. Elijah died three days later. Those are 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.560 our future leaders in this country that died, future lawyers 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.600 and doctors. She shut at their gems by not giving 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.320 them a chance to live. The mother's demands are simple 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.000 compensation for their loss and the permanent shutdown of serving 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.520 his children. For Kelsey, a former missionary with her own NGO, 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.120 there was something personal about the moment. It's a civil 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.480 rights case, and I think for me, being a white 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.680 person who has done work in this town for several years, 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.200 being a recovering white savior, as I say myself, this 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.640 is going to go down in history. We're definitely not 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.040 the heroes of the story. The families who have stood 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.160 up and said I'm going to fight for justice for 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.960 my children. It's an honor to even be at all 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.360 part of this and to to see them and their courage. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.240 After hanging around the courthouse all afternoon, the court registrar 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:42.480 finally gave us a hearing date March twelve. Over the 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.600 coming months, that date would be pushed back again and again, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:51.280 first to January, then to February, then March. But I 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:58.680 jumped into my investigation right away. The cornerstone of the 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.640 case against Renee is a handful of her Yugandan employees. 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.800 They worked with Renee for years but were fired in 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:09.720 twenty seventeen over a pay dispute. In their affidavits, they 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.640 claimed to have seen hundreds of dead children, gross medical malpractice, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.600 and that they suffered from racist and discriminatory treatment. We 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.000 are recording this for a radio documentary. Kelsey set up 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.080 a meeting for me with some of the former employees 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.359 in Ginger and the information you provide. We met at 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.000 a hotel early in the afternoon and took seats in 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.600 the sunny courtyard away from the other guests. They sipped 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.239 cokes and fantas and told me their stories from their 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:39.280 years with Renee. My name is Lana Jays, I worked 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:43.080 with serving his stidren from two thousand thirteen tooth and seventeen. 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:48.119 Asa Joyce Alana worked with Renee for four years, and 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.520 she was proud of the work she did. I was contented. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.000 I loved what I used to do. I was like, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.720 if I'm to leave this work, is there someone who 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.280 is going to come and do the exact thing I'm doing? 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:04.160 How was like, let me be ready. Toself Joyce told 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.800 me that Renee performed medical treatments on children, but she 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.840 assumed Renee knew what she was doing. In fact, I 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:16.880 thought she's a nurse or a medical expert. Also where 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.760 because I saw her she introduced that myself to me 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:27.600 as a director and I saw her doing medical practices, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.359 doing other things, So myself I concluded that she's a 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:37.199 medical expert. Yeah. But the longer she was there, the 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.520 more trouble she became. The thing which which had me. 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.560 Most children dying all of a sudden, you find you 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.320 reach home, they call you this one has died. Even 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.640 in the morning. At times you come and you find 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.320 the bad is empty, as what happened to this child? 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:59.359 They will tell you that the child has died. Sometimes 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.840 I used to take the dead buddies to dead villages. 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.440 Charles Alwaeny was the oldest of the crew, and he's 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.720 in his early fifties, short and bald, and has the 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.399 leathery hands of a farm worker. At different points he 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.200 worked as a driver, program manager, and security guard for 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.960 serving his children. In his affidavit, Charles wrote that he 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.360 would see anywhere from seven to ten dead children every 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.520 week now as I take the dead buddies, I was 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:34.400 always given the task of explaining how these children were daying, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.200 and it was really hard for me. I couldn't explain 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.600 anything because one, I'm not a medical doctor, and I 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.600 don't know what caused the death of the child? What what? 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.600 It was something that I had for me. And I 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:55.359 was almost seven to ten a week. If that was true, 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:57.960 the death toll would get into the thousands in just 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:15.840 a few years. I hunt Buffalo, so I brought my 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.359 rifle into the country with me legally, and I kept 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.159 it at the police station. Elizabeth Nicholson was one of 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.600 the older missionaries in town. Were chuffed this this silly 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.640 little woman went this big giant rifle. I had heard 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.080 that she was the wild white lady in Ginger. When 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.840 I finally met her. I wasn't disappointed. I go hunting 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.919 when I want to kill some person, then I go 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:48.200 out into the bush and get out my aggressions. Elizabeth 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.080 was a real estate agent in California in a previous life, 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.400 but she heard God calling her to Uganda ten years 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.600 ago and she hasn't looked back since. She saw a 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.919 place with institutions that were struggling to keep up, and 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.560 she wanted to support them. Children and the children's hospital 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.400 now La Fania were three sometimes four to a bed, 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.360 or they were on the concrete floor in the corridor. 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.440 The children of malnutrition are very vulnerable, so I ended 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:21.400 up building another mini hospital on the government hospital grounds. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.719 It was an attritional unit. You had a free place 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.480 for the malnourished children to be and to stay as 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.200 long as they needed. Elizabeth and Renee were both dealing 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.919 with malnourished kids, which means Elizabeth ran into Renee at 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.879 the local hospital on a regular basis. At first, she 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.320 thought Renee was just another young, pretty missionary. But then 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.960 something strange started happening. I noticed that well, there would 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.840 be malnourished children and then one day they'd be gone. 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.960 What happened? Why? Each time this happened, Elizabeth assumed the 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:02.720 worst that the child had died in hospital, or maybe optimistically, 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.399 that the kid had recovered and gone home. But it 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.719 turns out it was neither what I was told. She 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.760 was paying a couple of the nurses to let her 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:19.680 know every time a malnourished child came, and then she 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:21.639 would come to the hospital and she would talk to 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.840 the parents into signing out and then taking the child 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:30.200 to her, which I thought was wrong. It was something 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.440 the former employees had written about in their affidavits as well. 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:39.679 Renee called them referrals. Others called it kidnapping. I'd begun 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.080 to get nervous about all the children that were ending 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:46.080 up with her. She didn't make sense when they had 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:50.120 the government free hospital and free food. So I decided 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:52.720 that I would least like to go and check and 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.280 see what it was like. When I went there, Renee 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.880 wasn't there. She was in America. She had I think 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.399 three volunteers who are about eighteen years old, weren't trained 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:08.879 in anything medical, and they had like children. I found 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:13.680 it appalling. Elizabeth had good reason to be frustrated. She'd 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:17.560 been fighting child malnutrition for a decade. In her mind, 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:20.600 she's been doing it the right way, following the rules 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:23.719 and letting doctors take the lead. I mean, my understanding 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:27.239 is she has her high school g e d. She 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:30.919 didn't even finish regular high school. She didn't at the 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:35.640 time have any medical I think now she only has 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:42.280 um like Red Cross stuff. And she was doing things 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:47.920 that we're not only out of her capabilities, but we're painful, 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:55.200 not nice easy things, um, taking jiggers out of toes okay, fine, 0:23:56.640 --> 0:24:03.240 but emptying somebody's kidneys with a long syringe no, I'm sorry, 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:07.120 and slitting their chest to get into their lungs. There's 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:08.560 a lot of doctors that won't do this and know 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:12.639 we need a specialist for that to be clear. Elizabeth 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:16.320 didn't actually see any of this firsthand, but these were 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:19.080 the rumors that have been floating around Ginja for years. 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:24.720 Eventually Elizabeth would even get the police involved and try 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.800 to get Renee shut down. I heard a lot that 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:31.440 she was stubborn, She wouldn't listen to anybody. She looked 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:35.760 down on yuganden professionals, didn't take advice from anybody. What 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:41.480 leads Renee to go down this path? She thinks that's 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:47.040 what God wants her to do. Although the idea that 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.199 God would want her to operate on children which she 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:54.280 has no training, and there's a hospital ten minutes away, 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.760 it's a little hard to swell. I don't know, I 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:02.720 don't know. It's incomprehensible to me. It was such an 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:11.040 outstandingly evil thing. So many children were dying, and it 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:25.639 was getting bigger and bigger. Honestly, from the get go, 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.399 I had my doubts about the case of success. Holding 0:25:29.400 --> 0:25:32.879 the filing in my hands, it was flimsy, maybe a 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:36.760 hundred pages, front to back, printed double sided. Yes, there 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:40.320 were strong affidavits from Ashley Jackie and the former employees, 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:45.040 but the evidence, that's where the trouble was. It was 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:49.199 mostly anecdotal. There were a few photographs of malnourished children 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:53.640 and some Health Ministry protocols and registration documents, and sure 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:56.720 there were a couple of photos of Renee inserting IVY lines, 0:25:57.440 --> 0:25:59.560 but that's a procedure anyone could be trained to do, 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:03.520 and didn't speak to the more severe allegations of medical misconduct. 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:07.040 Without much more, it would be difficult to keep this 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:10.440