Gospel for Asia HQ, Wills Point, TX
Last night, Phoenix Preacher posted audio of Bill Gallatin, a pioneer in Calvary Chapel circles, rebuking the hand kissing rituals of Believers’ Church recently brought to light here and by former staff of Gospel for Asia. At the Northeast Senior Pastors Conference going on now in upstate New York, Gallatin said during a speech:
and you got a man in India who says he’s a Calvary Chapel and he’s wearing robes like the pope and he’s even having his own people come up and kiss his hand…and no ones even blinking.
You can hear the full audio at this link (at about 30 minutes in).
Those familiar with Calvary Chapel are telling me that Rev. Gallatin’s statement, while brief, is significant. As this kind of sentiment bubbles to the surface, it makes me wonder how long GFA will remain silent, even in response to donors and supporting churches.
In May of this year, I posted a video of a Believers’ Church ordination service which appeared to show ministers kissing the ring of Gospel for Asia Founder and CEO K.P. Yohannan. Yohannan has denied allowing anyone to kiss his ring during rituals of the Believers’ Church. The following video makes it clear that those being ordained are doing something in the vicinity of Yohannan’s hand. If they aren’t kissing his ring, I think any observer could be excused for believing they are.
In an over two hour staff mega-meeting held on May 14, 2015, Yohannan again denied that ring kissing has any place in the church. This meeting took place before the video became available but the audio where K.P. offers a full-throated denial of the practice has not been made available before.
Here is the audio followed by the transcript.
David Carroll: There is one question that I think is on many of your minds and has been I think batted around a bit among us and that is, it’s asked a lot of ways but I’ll just ask it from this question plainly: Has ring kissing ever been a part of the Believers’ Church clergy ordination ceremony? Or I’ll just add: or any, is ring kissing is it required anywhere or is it still part of any of those things? Has it ever happened and if it has, if it used to be something that we did in some ceremony, are we still doing that? Kissing the ring?
K.P. Yohannan: What’s wrong with you? (Laughter) I kill you! (more laughter) Danny, I asked you, what is the meaning of kissing the ring? I thought about finding out what it actually means and obviously there’s submission to you or whatever. Now, if somebody said, ‘I saw somebody kissing the ring of our bishop or my ring, I would not tell that person, you are a liar. But if somebody asks me in your conscience and knowledge, you had taught or asked or has anybody kissed your ring, I would say as God almighty is my witness, it never happened, I never allowed it.
As a matter of fact, the most common, when this rumor started spreading, some Calvary Chapel pastors supposed to go to India and met some disgruntled person who left our ministry and started telling, you know, they’re teaching about kissing the ring. I remember that story came to me and immediately I contacted the field and said, ‘please, you know, we don’t want to be seen as belonging to some other church teaching, please don’t do it, if there is any like that.’ They said, ‘no, we never teach or practice that.’ But then I started wondering why somebody think this. So my thinking is you know the most common thing in China, India, all these countries when you see elders, especially spiritual leaders, what they do basically is they touch the feet, you can see that. And then I basically walk away from that. It has nothing to do with Christianity. It’s just culture. But then what the answer is, no, we don’t practice that, we don’t teach that, we teach against it so that we don’t get labeled by some other denomination but even today when you go to the mission field (unclear), what happens is when you meet the Metropolitan or the bishops and what they do is basically and they start doing this, they take the hand and do like that, and it’s not typically everywhere be like that, in most places, the actually touch the feet and express their honor, their respect.
When people are ordained, this the standard thing and by the way, let me say this to you. I fortunately, unfortunately, I like or not, I’m two human beings. I’m brother K.P., hi, K.P., yo, dude, all that here, people call me by all kinds of strange names. But you know when I bought the flight and land overseas, many have seen me a million times, I don’t look like this, I have a cassock, and I’m the Metropolitan of the church and the spiritual father of 2.7 million baptized believers right now. And when you ordain people you whether I like it or not I just submit to the church; that is, there’s a chair, the Bishop’s Chair, that I sit on. If it’s not me then it’s Bishop _______ or Bishop ____________ and then people are ordained they come and they kneel to get the blessing, and they’re anointed by oil and make the sign of the Cross, and I tell them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit now you are ordained minister of the church and that is done, that always be done. There’s not going to be any change in that; all cultures do that, I don’t know how it is done here, but they don’t fall prostrate before anyone or anything like that.
There is an odd near admission at the beginning (“I wouldn’t tell that person, you are a liar”), but then he clearly denies it and provides a narrative that makes the idea seem very far from the church. Given his description of the ordination at the end, I wonder why he didn’t explain what the newly minted minister was doing with Yohannan’s hand. In any case, no explanation has been given for the video.
It is hard for me to imagine how staff at GFA can watch the video in light of this denial. Clearly, some explanation is needed for this.
Recently, I posted audio of Gospel for Asia founder and CEO K.P. Yohannan promising staff that GFA would not take out a loan in order to build the new Wills Point, TX headquarters and living compound. Eventually, Believers’ Church in India (K.P. Yohannan was managing trustee at the time and he is also the Metropolitan Bishop and spiritual leader of the church) gave GFA in the U.S. $19.8 million toward the project. The church had to borrow money to make this donation. Furthermore, I asserted that an $11.5 million loan was taken in 2014 with the money used for the project.
Today, I post evidence for the 2014 loan. Below are images from the 46 page Deed of Trust.
GFA borrowed $11.5 million.
GFA May Have Kept Some Information Back
The agreement was based on the use of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and pledges that all material statements are correct. This pledge may be in conflict with the audited financial statement for 2013 which failed to disclose that GFA made related party transactions to Believers’ Church, Love India Ministry and Last Hour Ministry.
Furthermore, the bank (City Bank) was not informed that $19.8 million toward the building project came from a loan taken in India by a related party (Believers’ Church). Speaking as a non-accountant, this seems to be a significant and material omission. City Bank did not know that an entity related to GFA had taken a loan in order to provide GFA with funds. If City Bank took the audit at face value, they would have considered that $19.8 million to be a gift with no relationship to GFA anywhere in the world. City Bank might have reconsidered if they knew that an affiliate of GFA (and recipient of millions in U.S. donations) had to take a loan in order to keep the construction project going. The Bland Garvey 12/31/13 audit was completed in June 2014 and the Deed of Trust signed in July 2014. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine City Bank, an FDIC-regulated institution, making a $11.5 million loan in July 2014 without relying on the Bland Garvey audit report on the 12/31/13 GFA financial statements. That audit report included the misinformation on the source and nature of the $19.8 million previously raised and spent on the project.
In May and June, I wrote posts about cash smuggling on the part of staff and students affiliated with Gospel for Asia (link, link, link, link, link). GFA leaders gave individual travelers envelopes of cash containing $4500 which was to be carried in personal belongings and then given to Believers’ Church headquarters in India. Since the travelers traveled in groups, the total amount of unreported cash was often over the $10,000 allowed by law. Travelers may take any amount of cash out of the country but any amount over $10k must be reported to Customs and Border Protection. Breaking up the total amount into smaller portions carried by individual travelers in a group to avoid detection (sometimes called “smurfing“) is illegal and can result in seizure of the cash and sometimes criminal charges.
After my reports on the practice, GFA leaders said they stopped sending cash to India via student groups, telling staff they were told by their auditor (Bland Garvey) that the practice was legal. Bland Garvey referred me to their attorney who refused to confirm or deny GFA’s claim. Inexplicably, GFA has remained publicly silent about the reasons for cash smuggling or how the donations were used.
In the mean time, U.S. Custom and Border Protection has aggressively enforced laws on cash smuggling. On the U.S. CBP website, numerous press releases detail enforcement actions related to cash smuggling. For instance just yesterday, USCBP reported the following activity:
LAREDO, Texas – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and agents at the Laredo Port of Entry seized $266,000 in unreported currency in an outbound enforcement action this weekend at the Gateway to the Americas Bridge.
“Our outbound team maintained their vigilance, utilized their keen inspection skills and seized a significant load of unreported currency,” said Port Director Joseph Misenhelter, Laredo Port of Entry. “Seizures of unreported currency like this one remove the profit potential from possible illicit activity and help advance our border security mission.”
From the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website
The interception occurred on Saturday, Sept. 12 while CBP officers and Border Patrol agents conducting outbound (southbound) inspections at the international bridge referred a 2007 Chevy Equinox driven by a 22-year-old U.S. citizen from Dallas, Texas for a secondary inspection. CBP officers conducted an intensive secondary examination of the vehicle and discovered packages within the vehicle that contained $266,000 in unreported currency.
CBP officers seized the currency and the Chevy Equinox. The driver was turned over by CBP officers to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents for further investigation.
Individuals are permitted to carry any amount of currency or monetary instruments into or out of the U.S., however, if the quantity is more than $10,000, they will need to report it to CBP. “Money” means monetary instruments and includes U.S. or foreign coins currently in circulation, currency, travelers’ checks in any form, money orders, and negotiable instruments or investment securities in bearer form. Failure to declare may result in seizure of the currency and/or arrest.
CBP seized $50,510 in unreported U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan from a family that arrived Saturday from China after the family reported possessing $3,000.
CBP seizes $650,117 in undeclared or illicit currency every day. There is no limit to how much currency travelers may bring to, or take from the U.S. However, federal law requires travelers to complete financial reporting forms for any amount that exceeds $10,000 in U.S. dollars or equivalent foreign currency.
Since I last reported on cash smuggling, CBP has reported several other actions relating to smuggling (list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, list, and smurfing (list, list, list, list). In GFA’s situation, some groups carried over $100k in cash without reporting the cash to U.S. Customs or Indian Customs.
In May 2010, Gospel for Asia’s CEO and founder, K.P. Yohannan, told GFA staff that GFA might move from Carrollton, TX to Wills Point, TX. A month later, GFA acquired 350 acres which would eventually become the site of the current compound. As reported previously, GFA began building the project without sufficient funds in hand to complete it. In April 2013, GFA leaders realized they were very low on cash and approached City Bank in Lubbock for a loan. According to GFA COO, David Carroll, the City Bank was willing to loan the money but before that happened, a board under the control of Believers’ Church in India took a loan there and then sent almost $19.8 million as a gift to help GFA complete the office buildings (link).
I have since learned that GFA borrowed $11.5 million from City Bank in Lubbock in July 2014.
In May and June of 2010, GFA staff were informed that GFA had initiated a process of acquiring land for a new headquarters and compound. During these meetings, staff were told that the move would save millions and be cheaper for staff living expenses (neither of these claims appear to be true which will be addressed in future posts). In addition, staff were told that GFA would not divert money from the field nor take loans to help construct the headquarters. However, as we have seen, GFA did both. In October 2013, nearly $19.8 million was wired to GFA from a source in Asia (later disclosed to be Believers’ Church, headed by K.P. Yohannan). In India, GFA is an arm of Believers’ Church. According to GFA’s David Carroll, Believers’ Church took a loan which allowed them to give the $19.8 million to GFA in the U.S. to complete the headquarters. In one act, it appears that GFA reneged on the earlier promises to staff. Then another loan was taken by GFA in the U.S. in 2014.
Below listen to Yohannan’s statements to staff in 2010.
One of the main complaints from former staff is a feeling of betrayal over the policies portrayed by GFA leaders and that which actually happened. The story that is emerging about the move to Wills Point is quite different than what was described at the time.
What might be more serious even than misleading statements to staff are the the misleading statements in the 2013 audit conducted by Bland Garvey. The $19.8 million payment from Believers’ Church in India to GFA was clearly a related party transaction with financial repercussion both in India and the U.S. However, the “anonymous” gift was reported in a different section of the audit:
This description does not alert potential donors or potential lenders (e.g., City Bank in Lubbock, TX who loaned $11.5 million to GFA) that the cash to help build the buildings actually came from a related party (Despite his claims to the contrary, Yohannan is listed in legal documents in India as the managing trustee of Believers’ Church). Some donors might wonder why funds are so urgently needed on the field if a beneficiary of GFA’s work can turn around and give such a large gift with assurances that it can be repaid very quickly. A bank might view the credit worthiness of GFA differently if it is known that an anonymous donor is really a related party.
The ECFA review of Gospel for Asia is supposed to be completed by October when GFA is supposed to answer all outstanding questions. Looking forward to that.
