After an earthquake devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, the Obama administration allowed families to fast-track adoptions of children from orphanages in the stricken country – and many Americans flew there as quickly as possible.

What one group of parents didn’t know was that some of their children had been sexually abused, allegedly by a missionary, Keith Lashbrook. Lashbrook volunteered at Michael Brown’s FIRE School of Ministry until Brown fired him in 2008. At the same time, Lashbook was overseeing an orphanage in Port de Paix, north Haiti.

Lashbrook, who has never been charged with any wrongdoing, allegedly tried to force one FIRE student, Christy Scott, to accept massages and “daddy-daughter dates.” If she refused, he told her she’d soon kill herself.

Since Lashbrook’s role included mentoring young women at FIRE, Scott said she reported this odd behavior to FIRE leaders the year it happened—2008. She told The Roys Report (TRR) the leaders, including FIRE’s founder and leader Michael Brown, quickly removed Lashbrook from the North Carolina campus.

But Brown failed to report Lashbrook to Globe, the missions organization that oversaw an orphanage—In the Father’s Hands Children’s Home—that Lashbrook ran in Haiti, according to Natalie Lewis, former volunteer for Lashbrook.

“What (Lashbrook) did was disgusting,” Lewis said. “Of course (Brown) should have gone to Keith’s leadership, but (Brown) didn’t.”

This enabled Lashbrook to return to Haiti where he and staff allegedly abused multiple children, said Lewis, also an adoptive mom of several kids who were abused. The result: traumatized adoptive families whose biological kids were preyed upon by some of the adoptees; at least one broken marriage; and trauma for the Haitians themselves.

Some adoptive parents and now-grown children are calling for Brown—who should have known Lashbrook was a predator and said something—to be held accountable.

“He had someone who was a predator on his campus, preying on young 18-, 19-, 20-year-old girls on his campus who was leaving Charlotte to go back and take care of . . . baby girls, young girls,” Lewis said. “And (Brown) knew I had children in Keith’s care.”

Brown called the accusation “vile” and “baseless” in a public statement to TRR. He added that in 2010—two full years after FIRE removed Lashbrook—Brown told Globe about their concerns with Lashbrook.

“I and my team at FIRE functioned as whistleblowers bringing the very serious concerns of two mothers, both grads from our ministry school, to Globe, which was an independent missionary organization with which we had no affiliation,” Brown stated.

But Lewis and other adoptive parents told TRR Brown protected Globe in 2010 by counseling parents who were FIRE grads not to post about the matter on social media or take legal action against Globe.

But Brown was too late. Shortly after coming to the United States, the adoptive children— sometimes through translators—began telling about the abuse they and other orphans endured while in Haiti. And parents began calling police, the FBI, and hiring attorneys.

Beginning in 2011, four families sued Globe in Escambia County, Florida, on behalf of 17 children, alleging that Lashbook and other staff and personnel at the orphanage had “sexually molested and assaulted” the children.

The parents settled in 2019 with settlements going to abused children, court records show. The mediation process recognized “alleged severe and repetitive abuse,” records show; however, no charges were ever filed against Lashbrook himself.

Keith and his wife, Cindy Lashbrook, are no longer missionaries for Globe and the orphanage, said Lewis.

The Lashbrooks have recently worked with Keith’s brother, Eric Lashbrook, in a recovery ministry, Indiana Dream Team. But the ministry recently removed the Lashbrooks’ photo from its website. TRR reached out to Indiana Dream Team regarding Keith Lashbrook’s current role but received no response.

TRR also reached out to Lashbrook and Globe’s president Doug Gehman, but they didn’t respond.

In a separate matter, a third-party investigation commissioned by Brown’s speaking ministry, the Line of Fire, recently concluded that Brown engaged in “sexually abusive misconduct” with a former employee in the early 2000s. The investigator, Firefly, also found Brown had an “inappropriate relationship” with a second, married woman in 2001 and 2002.

‘A pattern of emotional control’

In the late 1990s, Lashbrook was like a “movie star” when Brown first invited Keith Lashbrook to Brownsville Revival School of Ministry (BRSM), FIRE’s predecessor, said Lewis, a BRSM grad.

“For this young couple with two young children to give up everything to go to Haiti, I just thought that was a beautiful story,” Lewis said.

While Brown denied that FIRE was affiliated with Globe, multiple sources said the ties are strong. Globe shared a campus with BRSM, Lewis said. Josh Peters, FIRE International’s president, previously worked for Globe, said Tom Barry, FIRE’s former pastoral care director. Students often went on Globe missions trips, Lewis said.

In 2008, Christy Scott said Lashbrook took female students out, sometimes all night. Scott said Lashbrook told her that he needed to “re-father” her and required her complete trust. She said he sat close enough for their legs to touch and tried to massage her feet.

“He told me several times that if I didn’t let him go all the way through this process with me, that I would end up killing myself,” she said.

Scott said she reported Lashbrook’s behavior to Barry. Soon other students reported misconduct to FIRE, according to a 2010 letter Barry wrote to the FBI. Lashbrook invited female students to sleep in his and his deaf wife’s trailer, Barry wrote. Lashbrook woke them up by kissing or massaging their feet. In one instance, a woman ran away, but Lashbrook “physically forced her back into the trailer,” Barry wrote.

“(I)t was clear that Keith consistently developed a pattern of emotional control over the most vulnerable female students,” Barry wrote.

Barry said Bob Gladstone, former director of the FIRE School, removed Lashbrook from FIRE. At a student meeting, Gladstone and Brown said Lashbrook had been inappropriate, Scott said.

Barry told TRR he believed then—mistakenly—that Lashbrook was a missionary for FIRE and didn’t know yet about Lashbrook’s connection to Globe.  

Gladstone added that Brown and other leaders brought Lashbrook to FIRE without Gladstone’s input.

‘It’s time for them to know’

In 2007, FIRE grad Kjersti Johnson wanted to be a missionary in Haiti. She said Peters, a senior FIRE leader, told her about a FIRE missions trip to the Lashbrooks’ orphanage. Johnson said she and her husband went. When they returned home, they immediately started the adoption process.

In February 2010, Johnson brought her two adopted boys to the United States.

“It was like a dream come true,” Johnson said.

But soon she suspected the boys had been sexually abused in the orphanage.

She said she called Josh Peters, now FIRE president, who reportedly told her about Lashbrook’s inappropriate behavior in 2008. Frustrated, she asked why this was the first she heard of it.

“He was like, ‘Oh, we weren’t at liberty to speak,’” Johnson said. “Basically, they didn’t want to slander him.”

TRR reached out to Peters who didn’t respond.

Lewis had a similar experience, but with Brown. In 2008, she told Brown she was working for Lashbrook to help FIRE and BRSM grads adopt from his orphanage, but said Brown didn’t mention his concerns to her then.

Two years later, in July 2010, when news of the orphanage abuse spread, Lewis said Brown finally revealed to her the 2008 allegations about Lashbrook.

“How dare you not tell me?” Lewis said she told him. “He said that they never had told Globe what Keith had done on their FIRE campus. But he said, ‘I think it’s time for them to know.’”

Waiting for justice

By the time Lewis talked with Brown in 2010, she and other adoptive families had spent several tense months trying to get Lashbrook and Globe to respond to their suspicions. In August, Globe admitted “abusive activities took place,” but didn’t hold Lashbrook responsible.

“We did NOT find that there was indifference to such things or an attempt to cover up by the STAFF or the Lashbrooks,” Gehman wrote to the adoptive families in August 2010.

The next month, Lashbrook was still fundraising through Globe.

By late October, Gehman hadn’t met with the adoptive parents, Lewis said, so families began informing churches that supported Globe and Lashbrook of the abuse allegations. In November 2010, Brown managed to get a meeting with Gehman, according to an email from Brown. No adoptive families were invited, Lewis said.

Brown, who said he saw himself as the families’ advocate, told Globe they should communicate that they’re “aggressively working to clean up the Haiti orphanage situation,” according to his email. But he also encouraged families not to take legal action or publicize their concerns and to trust Globe.

“I have encouraged grads . . . Do not send out letters or make posts on social networking sites attacking Globe,” Brown wrote. “Believe that Globe is not trying to cover anything up or simply protect its own reputation or that of its missionaries.”

In a private Facebook message to Lewis, Brown chastised her for a post she made about Lashbrook.

“(A)iring things out for the world to see, make it much more difficult for justice really to be done,” he wrote.

But families believed Brown was covering for Globe’s mistakes, Lewis said.

She wrote to Brown, “Globe has had 7 months to do something about this. It is interesting they are doing it now, after we have gone public.”

In Brown’s statement to TRR, he stated he meant for them to stay quiet due to the investigation.

“This is standard counsel to anyone who understands how investigations work,” Brown stated.

However, at the time, Brown said it was to avoid “attacking Globe.”

On Nov. 22, 2010, Gehman wrote to Globe “friends” that Lashbrook would take a one-year “break,” but didn’t mention abuse allegations or disciplinary measures.

Meanwhile, some adoptive kids were acting out sexually on their new siblings, Lewis said. Due to the risk, some parents, like Johnson, disrupted their adoptions, leaving deep regrets and wounds all around.

Traumatized Haitian children who barely spoke English were fragile and angry. Under extreme stress, some marriages, like that of adoptive mom Milissa (Evans) McGavin, fell apart.

“We fought so hard and we have lost so much,” McGavin told TRR. (She and Lewis recounted more details on a March 3 broadcast with Canadian podcaster Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson.)

Since the abuses happened overseas, the families’ struggled to make headway with U.S. authorities. McGavin reported the abuse to agencies in two U.S. states, the U.S. Department of State, the FBI, and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.  

Fifteen years later, no one has been arrested, Lewis said, though an ICE investigator reportedly told her last month the investigation is open.

TRR contacted the investigator a month ago but hasn’t received an update.

Light and darkness

Lydia Lewis, Natalie Lewis’s young adult daughter, told TRR that she’s continued to struggle with the lack of justice.

But she also told TRR about Haiti’s beauty. When she was 5, she played outside her house, admiring the sky and ocean.

“I remember seeing a butterfly for the first time . . . and it circles around me,” she said. “When it flew into the sunlight . . . it kind of turned white and then it flew away.”

Later that day, she said everything changed. Her widower dad dropped her off at Lashbrook’s orphanage.

“Then everything got dark,” she said.

Rebecca Hopkins is a journalist based in Colorado.