Believers Eastern Church and K.P. Yohannan Use Indian Law to Attack Critic

While using a defamation lawsuit to attack critics didn’t work well for Harvest Bible Chapel, it may have a different result in India for K.P. Yohannan and Believers Eastern Church.

According to this The Hindu article, The Believers Eastern Church is behind a charge of defamation which led to the arrest of a longtime critic of the church and Yohannan.  Anush Solomon Joy, aka Solomon Samaritan was arrested and then posted bail after being accused of defamation and attempted blackmail. Over the years, Anush has contacted me as well as GFA former employees with various concerns about GFA. He has published a rather fantastical booklet alleging satellite and microwave attacks.

My impression has always been that the gentleman isn’t making serious or credible attacks  and that he shouldn’t be considered a threat to Yohannan. That the church is taking on someone who has no following and isn’t taken seriously is surprising and disturbing.  Microwaves aside, perhaps Mr. Anush has stumbled on to something and should be given a second look.

Gospel for Asia is Encouraging People to Donate Settlement Funds Back to GFA

As a part of the settlement in fraud case Murphy v. Gospel for Asia, GFA agreed to set aside $37-million in a Settlement Fund to provide relief for donors as well as cover court costs and attorneys’ fees. GFA also agreed to have plaintiff Murphy join GFA’s board. Murphy and GFA will also work together to designate a replacement for K.P. Yohannan’s wife who will go off of the GFA board. GFA agreed not to appoint any other relative of Yohannan to the board.

The mission organization also agreed to comply with Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability guidelines and seek readmission to membership. GFA was kicked out of the ECFA in 2015 and has never requalified for admission.

Read the Settlement Agreement

In the mean time, GFA is seeking to get some of the settlement money back via donors. The email below comes from a current staff member who asks supporters to seek the funds and redonate them to GFA. Although this is meant to sound spontaneous and individualized, I have gotten word that the same appeal has gone out from several staff members. I can’t corroborate all of the claims in the email except those which are a part of the settlement. Here is the appeal:

Dear friends,

I come to you this morning, not in any official capacity or representing anyone else, but expressing my own thoughts as someone who loves and supports Gospel for Asia. I am writing to you about a matter of tremendous importance, for which I request your prayers.

I am sending this communication to all those on my regular prayer email list plus a few others that I thought would benefit to hear this.

As you may know, GFA has been embroiled in a class action lawsuit for the last three years alleging that the ministry has misdirected funds that people donated to the mission field. If you donated to the field any time in the last 10 years, then you are part of the class and you should have recently received a notice from the court informing you about the settlement of this lawsuit and your part in it.

So what does this settlement mean to you and to me? First, some background.

For over three years now, GFA has been in a legal battle to survive this lawsuit, and yet it has not even come to trial. In addition to the immense burden on GFA of carrying on its defense, paying for legal representation, and supporting the onerous demands of the court and plaintiffs for information, the lawsuit has repeatedly been used as fodder for a far-reaching negative public relations campaign which has greatly damaged the reputation and ministry of GFA.

As a consequence, despite having the evidence to demonstrate that “all funds designated to the field were sent to the field and used for ministry purposes” GFA has agreed to settle the lawsuit out of court. As GFA says in its official statement here, “The agreement to settle was, in part, precipitated by a concern that the ministry could continue to bear the weight of defending itself.”

The settlement means that, in return for the lawsuit being dropped and never renewed, GFA must pay 37 million dollars. There is a bit more to it than that of course, but essentially it comes down to money—1/3rd of which (about 12 million dollars) goes to the trial lawyer. You can read One donor’s analysis of the GFA Class Action Settlement for a summary of what the settlement means, or read the 45 pages of legalese in the settlement itself here. GFA also has an official FAQ.

You might well be asking, “If GFA is an organization which primarily exists to connect the American church to the work of believers in Asia, how does it have 37 million to pay this settlement?” The answer: GFA doesn’t have it. GFA’s field partners in Asia have decided to use their locally-raised funds to cover about two-thirds of the settlement cost, and GFA has twelve months to raise the remaining 11 million, none of which will come from donations to the work on the field. If GFA doesn’t come up with the 11 million before the end of that twelve months, it forfeits it’s security collateral—GFA’s International Headquarters campus in Wills Point, TX.

So what does the settlement mean to you and me? The 25 million dollars that remains of the settlement (after the trial lawyer’s cut) is where you and I come in. This money is designated for what is called “Settlement Relief” of the class members. Each of us in the class may claim up to 100% of the amount we donated to work on the field through GFA. Or we can claim nothing, and none of that money will come to us. Any money that is unclaimed after the claim deadline will be divided up by the court between five ministries: Samaritan’s Purse; Friends of Israel; Global Training Network; Heaven’s Family; and Christ for All Peoples. Regardless of whether anyone makes a claim against the settlement fund, GFA will still have to pay the full amount of the settlement.

This brings me to my decision about my response: Because I strongly disagree with this lawsuit and what it represents, because of the great burden it has placed on GFA without any determination of wrongdoing, and because I want to do what I can to help God’s work continue in Asia, ______ and I have submitted our claim in this settlement for 100% of what we are eligible to claim. I plan to take all the money I can from my claim, minus an amount I will need to set aside for taxes, and donate it back to GFA to their general fund to help cover the 11 million dollars it has to raise for the settlement.

If you are also part of the “class,” will you ask God whether He would have you to do the same? And whether or not you are part of the class, will you please join me in praying that God will work a mighty deliverance for His people and for the work of the gospel?

To make your claim, all  you have to do is go to this link and fill out the online form. You don’t even have to know how much you are eligible to claim, the settlement administrator already knows that. You will need your “Class Member ID” which is in the settlement notification that you received by email or by postcard.

Regardless of what you decide to do, I hope this information has been useful to you. If you have questions, feel free to email or call me and I will answer to the best of my ability. And if you have found this email helpful, please forward along to anyone else you know who has donated to GFA and you believe might benefit from the information.

And finally, please pray that God will be glorified in this situation, and His will be done. I know that God is mighty and is in control. Many of the Psalms have taken on fresh life and relevance for me over the last couple years.

Those who hate me without reason
outnumber the hairs of my head;
many are my enemies without cause,
those who seek to destroy me.
I am forced to restore
what I did not steal.

(Psalm 69:4)

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.          Selah

(Psalm  62:8)

If this was written by a staff person, I would guess they work in public relations. I suspect more that this was written for staff by someone hired by GFA.

Clever strategy but I doubt that this is what the court intended. I should add that the settlement isn’t final as yet. It won’t be until June 13 when the Final Settlement Hearing is held. I don’t know if this kind of action by GFA could put the settlement in jeopardy.

It is obvious that GFA’s leaders are unconcerned about any of the issues raised by the ECFA in 2015 or Murphy v. GFA. Despite being chastised multiple times by a federal judge and having to settle this case with a monetary settlement and by giving up a board seat to Dr. Murphy, they have taken no responsibility and show no humility or contrition.

Right now, there are food pantries in every town in America which need funds to keep going. If you donated funds to GFA, consider recovering those funds to help people who need essentials.

If you want to give to something more exotic, consider the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. The SCI helps protects children from parasitic worms which helps to decrease rates of malaria and HIV transmission. Benefits include improvements in neurological function and overall health. Survival chances increase dramatically when simple and cheap treatments are implemented.

Whatever you do, ask questions. GFA spins and promotes well but they don’t answer questions. For instance, numerous times I have asked, as have others, how they are getting funds into India since they lost their registration as a charity. The only answers given to others have all been false or misleading.

Gospel for Asia Class Action Suit Claims Process is Now Open

I just saw the following notice which is relevant to donors to Gospel for Asia. The claims process for the $37 million settlement in Murphy v. GFA is now open.

Pursuant to the proposed class action settlement with Gospel for Asia (and the individual defendants), the claims process is now open. Class members should have received individual notice by mail and/or email from the Settlement Administrator, Heffler Claims Group.

Filing a claim is simple – either:
1. Complete and return the Official Claim Form included with the Notice; or
2. File your claim online at www.gfaclassaction.us

Both ask you to agree or disagree with the list of donations (provided to the Settlement Administrator from GFA) on the website. To review the list, click on the “Donations List” tab on the website and insert your Class Member ID (found on your claim form). If you cannot find your Class Member ID, you may contact the Settlement Administrator using the appropriate prompts on the website.

Importantly, the claim deadline is July 11, 2019.

Should you have any questions, you may contact the Settlement Administrator at (844) 367-8894.

Funds may be recovered via this action and donated to another organization. If you need a reminder of the problems at GFA, please see this post (and this one) and re-read the report of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Remember that the ECFA removed GFA from membership in October 2015 due to multiple violations of financial standards. GFA promised to seek reinstatement. However, it is now 2019 and GFA still has not done so.

Gospel for Asia’s Headquarters Funded by Canadian Donor Funds – Guest Post by Bruce Morrison

Bruce Morrison is a pastor in Nova Scotia, CA and a former Gospel for Asia supporter. In recent years, he has actively sought to bring to light GFA’s practices regarding fund raising and spending.

In this guest post, Morrison documents and describes the path of funds from Canadian donors to India and then the Wills Point, TX where they were spent to complete the GFA headquarters. The routing of money from Canadian donors who thought they were spending money to help poor India people to the Wills Point campus should be of interest to Canadian authorities. It makes me think that the source of funds to pay the court settlement will likely come from Canadian donors. Thanks to Rev. Morrison for this analysis.

…………………………………………..

Bland Garvey CPA, from Richardson, TX, was the accounting and auditing firm that prepared the financial statements for GFA-US in 2013.  In their audit notes they stated that $19.8 million was received from an anonymous donor to help fund the construction of the new GFA head office complex in Wills Point, TX. Later, it was disclosed that this money did not come from an anonymous donor, but instead came from Believers Church in India.  Apparently, the auditors did not research the validity of what they had been told by GFA as one would expect, especially given the large amount of money involved.

The idea that money sent to India designated to spread the gospel and help the poor was later returned to the US for an expensive building project was disturbing to donors who learned of this.

Three years passed.  In a US federal court hearing with plaintiffs Garland and Phyllis Murphy versus GFA defendants, a new and surprising revelation came to light. The $19.8 million for the US building project did not come from India – it came from Canada!

The court hearing took place on May 16, 2017.  On Pg. 32 of the hearing transcript, Judge Timothy Brooks referred to the $20 million that came from GFA-India and the plaintiff’s claim that this money was donor restricted, diverted away from donor’s intents, without donor’s knowledge, and was therefore used fraudulently.

In response, to assure the Court that US funds were not misappropriated, Robert Mowrey, lawyer for the defendants, on page 32, lines 4-19, stated:

The documents – – your Honor, this gets a little complicated, but the documents we have provided to the plaintiffs show that the $20 million did not come from any US donors.  This was $20 million that GFA-India had.  It was their money.  It was sitting in an account in Canada.

There were Canadian donors who had given this money to GFA-India to be used in various purposes.  GFA-India directed that money to be given for the campus and then GFA-India fulfilled requests, the specific requests from internal money in GFA-India to replenish the Canadian account.

The bottom line here is that – – and I don’t know if the Court followed that but the bottom   line here is that none of the $20 million came from any  US donors.

To this the judge replied:

Well, it says in the second sentence that GFA staff confirmed that the funds relating to this donation were originally received by GFA as gifts restricted for the field.

Thus, Mr. Mowrey attempted to avoid allegations of fraud by saying that US-donor money was not used to help fund the new GFA head office. The judge did not agree and contended that even if the $20 million came from Canadian donor-restricted funds they were still – donor restricted!  In other words, fraudulent use by GFA-US of Canadian funds was equally as fraudulent as if the money came from US donors.  For the judge, the country of origin was not an issue.

As incredible as it seems, the lawyer for GFA implied that GFA-US did not defraud US donors, only Canadian donors – as if to say Canadian donors didn’t matter – it’s OK to cheat Canadians!

It is amazing beyond words that unsuspecting Canadians gave close to $20 million USD to help build an elaborate GFA complex in the USA, all the while believing their donations were spent in India.

The idea that GFA-India money sent from Canada was later replenished by GFA-India in India is absurd.  Why not send the money to the US directly from India in the first place?  Even if GFA did replenish the Canadian fund, it would still mean that Canadian donor money was not used as donors intended.

More Evidence of Possible Canadian Violations

Later, at a February 16, 2018 hearing, evidence was given that GFA World in Canada possibly breached laws set forth in the Criminal Code of Canada on many counts and might also be guilty of non-compliance with several CRA regulations.  (GFA World was formerly known as GFA-Canada.)

On page 62, reference is made to GFA’s Indian bank account. Deposits to this account were made from GFA-Canada’s main bank account at a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in Hamilton, Ontario, and from there large sums were transferred into an “Indian account” which, in fact, was not located in India, but was actually just a separate account in the same RBC bank.  GFA falsely led donors to believe that their donations had gone to India and were used for the reasons the gifts were given.  The truth was exactly opposite to their claim – the money was still in Canada.

Also on page 62 of the transcript, reference is made to a letter sent by David Carroll from GFA-US to Sarah Billings of the RBC in Hamilton, requesting that she transfer $20 million from GFA’s Indian account to GFA’s head office in the US.  On page 63, Mark. Stanley, lawyer for the plaintiffs, referred to a document showing that this money was received at the GFA head office in Texas.

Apparently, money sitting in the GFA-India RBC account grew to tens of millions of dollars and sat there for an undetermined number of years.  These massive amounts of cash undoubtedly earned interest that aided growth.  No one other than KP Yohannan and a few of his confidants knew of this. Apparently, even Canadian board members were not informed

A search of FC-6 sites In India FYE 3/31/2015 and FYE 3/31/2016 shows that for the first time, GFA entities in India reported that they received money from Canada

CANADA TO INDIA FYE 3/31/2015
From To INR USD CAD 
GFA-Canada Ayana (GFA) 658457500       10,798,703    12,247,310
GFA-Canada Believers Church       933660000       15,312,024    17,366,076
GFA-Canada Last Hour       109840000         1,801,376      2,043,024
GFA-Canada Love India       110393900         1,810,460      2,053,327
Total     1812351400       29,722,563    33,709,737

This is the first year that GFA entities in India reported receiving money from Canada. For the year that ended 12/31/2015, GFA-Canada stated on their T-3010 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) 2015 Registered Charity Information Return, that they sent $11,105,054 to India.  However, the amount reported as received by GFA entities in India from Canada for the period is vastly different – approximately three times the amount.  Such discrepancies are common practice for GFA.

      CANADA TO INDIA FYE 3/31/2016
From To INR USD CAD
GFA World Ayana (GFA)     219660000         3,294,900      4,393,200
GFA World Believers Church   1953422565       29,301,338 39,068,451
GFA World Last Hour     614395950         9,215,939    12,287,919
GFA World Love India     695898469       10,438,477    13,917,969
Little Hills Believers Church       44077968 661,170 881,559
Total from Canada   4027454952 52,911,824 70,549,099

The following year GFA-Canada, on their 2016 T-3010 Registered Charity Information Return, did not report to the CRA the huge $70,549,099 that was sent to India. They made no mention of their secret Little Hills Corporation. To say the least, their misstatements to the Canadian and Indian authorities are startling.

Follow the Money

In a recent article in the Christian Post, Francis Chan defended Gospel For Asia against allegations of fraud due to misappropriation of finances.

I have great respect for this man of God. He is a gifted Bible expositor and motivator to love and good works.  Bible study groups in my church use his study materials and benefit greatly from them.

I described to an elder in my church the position Francis Chan has taken regarding GFA.  He thought for a moment and then spoke of the gifts of the Spirit as described in the New Testament, comparing ministry gifts to gifts of administration.  He indicated that there is no doubt that Francis Chan is a gifted minister but added that this does not mean he has the same strength when it comes to functions of administration.  Discerning the true nature of GFA’s troubling practices, particularly those by KP Yohannan, cannot be made by one whose eyes are blinded to key facts, regardless of the esteem in which that person is held for other reasons.

I spent three weeks as a guest of GFA in India.  I spoke in Kerala at their seminary and later to their head office staff. I toured with some of their leaders and spoke at their Bible training centre and at some of their churches in Tamil Nadu. I travelled to Sri Lanka to speak at their Bible training centre in that country. My daughter, Sharlene, attended the GFA seminary in Kerala for two years and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in the year 2000. The teaching staff were well qualified and spiritually minded   Sharlene, along with two others, were the first students from the West to attend the seminary. Prior to this she served as a volunteer at GFA’s head office in Dallas, TX, for six months and after graduation she worked at GFA’s Canadian office. My church supported GFA for twenty years.

Nothing in our experience indicated that anything was wrong.  I was a strong supporter of GFA and an avid advocate of their ministry encouraging others to support them. As far as I knew there was every reason to applaud voices such as Francis Chan’s in endorsing GFA.

However, the day came when I began to learn that things might not be what I had thought they were.  I began to enquire.

Where Is The Field?

My first letter to GFA was dated March 27, 2015 and was followed by a series of letters.  When I questioned why $108 million GFA-Canada reported to the CRA they had sent to India over an eight-year period was not reported to the Indian government that it was received, KP Yohannan responded by email and said:

In Canada, GFA India has a bank account owned and controlled by them. When all field donations come into our Canadian office, they are entered according to donor and designation preference by our staff at GFA Canada, and then deposited into the same bank account in Canada controlled by GFA-India.  So once the funds are deposited into that account, they are considered received on the mission field and available to the field immediately.

That money deposited in a Canadian bank was considered to be “on the field” was both surprising and alarming.  The full impact of this did not become apparent until the Murphy v. GFA court hearings took place and until GFA entities in India reported their 2015 and 2016 foreign incomes.

“Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) is wonderfully true.  It is also true that, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1Corinthians 4:6).

Essential to true love is a love of truth, and valid discernment cannot be devoid of truth.  The truth of GFA’s deceptive financial practices as evidenced by its use of Canadian donor money is but one example of a much greater picture that remains hidden from the view of many due to repeated denials of the truth.

I pray that someday soon this will end.

……………………………..

When the recent court settlement says that all moneys sent “to the field” were used on the field, it doesn’t mean much when “the field” is this loosely defined. Donors still need to be wary.

K.P. Yohannan Gives Himself a New Name

K.P. Yohannan has taken on a fancy new name in his role as head of Believers’ Eastern Church. The K.P. formerly known as Metropolitan will now be known as Moran Mor Athanasius Yohan Metropolitan. The reason for the change is described on the church Facebook page:

I wonder if they kept the same secret handshake and hand kissing ceremony.

Mor in Syriac is a title of Lordship or sainthood. Various eastern churches use Mor and/or Moran in titles of religious leaders and Believers’ Church has followed the pattern.

Whatever he is called, he will still have to face a class action RICO suit in federal court and perhaps more over the next year or so as various cases and investigations progress in the U.S. and perhaps in Canada.