Solary and Westphal's film is sad yet unflinching, and demonstrates what can happen when unsuspecting parents put too much faith in an institution. The tone of the film may be more than just cautionary, however: It could be humanitarian.

For Canadian Beverly Shellrude Thompson, participating in the project was both difficult and helpful. "One of the things that has been my mantra is that the story needs to be told, that there's healing in telling the story," she said from her home in Burlington, Ont. "I've always carried in my head a deep shroud of secrecy that allowed both the pain and the system to go on."

All God’s Children tells a tragic story—one that no one really wants to hear, but one that responsible adults need
to hear. It reminds us that all souls need saving, starting with the ones God has seen fit to put in our care.

Victims of missionary school seek healing through new film. Documentary, which will air in Akron, aims to help the abused move on.

Human Sacrifices - It’s never easy for Christians to look at scandal within the Church. But for the sake of truth, healing, and the integrity of the faith, we must.

'All God's Children': Exposing the Abuses of Children of Missionaries - Marilyn Shellrude Christman of Seattle was only 7 years old when she was sent to a boarding school for children of missionaries in Guinea, West Africa, in 1961.

For eight years, in the remote, isolated school, she says, she was emotionally and spiritually abused. At times, she was also physically and sexually abused — in some cases by a man who served as a dorm parent there, she said.

“All God's Children struggles to find meaning amid grief compounded by decades of disregard and a willful lack of justice. It also serves as a clarion call to organizations that would ignore and suppress the truth rather than drag it kicking and screaming into the light [...]
The tragic implications are clear: All God's Children forces us to ask ourselves, What does it gain a man if he saves the whole world but loses his own children?"

Nearly 50 years after the abuse they experienced in Mamou, Guinea, the silence held by the children of the Christian and Missionary Alliance boarding school is being broken.

"It was the perfect set-up for a pedophile," she said of the school. "You were groomed not to tell your parents what was going on. The staff would tell you that if you said anything was wrong, you were hurting God's work there.

As a film, All God's Children benefits from compelling storytelling and a lack of heavy-handed editing and commentary. There is no agenda here -- the stories speak for themselves and there is no effort by the filmmakers to diminish or "bash" Christianity.

The film's subtle approach makes the stories all the more effective, and all the more difficult to dismiss or explain away: How could men and women that supposedly love and serve God inflict such pain and abuse on children? There are no easy answers to this question, and All God's Children does not purport to provide any.

If you are a survivor you’ll walk away with your heart touched from what happened to the survivors in this story, and knowing someone gets it!

If you’re part of a survivor’s support team, the determination of the people in the movie will help inspire you.

If you’re just curious about the subject this is the most elegantly told story I have ever seen.