Andrew S. - 2003 (former Waterloo UBF)

New Year's Testimony

2002 in Review and Philippians 3 for 2003


I've made it to the beginning of yet another year. As always, it's time to reflect on the previous 365 days, and more importantly, on the year to come. Thank God for new beginnings.

Last year around this time I wrote a New Year's testimony at the direction of my University Bible Fellowship (UBF) "shepherd." UBF is the organization in which I participated for about two years. Back in Summer 2000, God decided the time was right for me to be drawn closer to Him. He sought me out via a Korean man named Work Hard Yoon, who invited me to study the Bible. Mr. Yoon was a pretty good and patient teacher, but now I realize that it was the Holy Spirit who was really doing the teaching. "Seek and you will find," says Matthew 7:7, and when I opened the Bible and made a serious effort to seek God, I found Him. God used a UBF missionary to reach out to me initially, but He spoke to my heart through His Word. This immersion in the Bible eventually enabled God to use me to encourage my family during my grandmother's funeral in April.

Anyway, that was my situation at the beginning of 2002 - growing as a Christian, but also quite committed to an organization. That's where the trouble began. The longer I spent in UBF, the more responsibility I gained and the more was "asked" of me. Although I learned a lot from the Bible during this period, the increased demands on my time from UBF activities (early morning prayer, conferences, music practices, etc.) put a strain on my school work. In my last school term at Waterloo, taking courses such as Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, I really needed to study hard. This was it! I could not afford to blow it. But man, was I petrified of doing just that.

Other things occupied my time as well. My band, Phlak, was really taking off, and we were playing a lot of concerts, especially in March. These provided possibly the best experiences of the whole year, and certainly helped to keep me sane. Then, there was Chantelle, my girlfriend since November. To be honest, I adored her. I liked her so much I wrote a song for her, something I'd earlier sworn off doing (Drew and I know that women rarely appreciate such a thing). Chantelle appreciated it though. She bore with my constant need to write Bible testimonies and even came to church with me. I have many very wonderful memories from our time together, and have found myself thinking about them of late. Finally, my housemates filled the remainder of my free time with lots of games, beer, coke and just hanging out. I suppose I did some sleeping in there too.

Of course, this life could not hold itself together. I want to tell about what happened to my relationship with Chantelle, because it completely relates to where I am now in my faith. As I participated more in UBF, Work Hard wanted to give me more responsibilities, as I have said. I had also mentioned to him my desire to be baptized, in obedience to the Bible (Acts 2:38). One time, we met in his house to talk about these things, and he brought up my girlfriend situation. He was glad that Chantelle was starting to study the Bible, but said that our romantic relationship was inappropriate. UBF leaders (I had recently been made a "shepherd") do not normally have girlfriends, he told me. If I wanted to be baptized in front of other UBF leaders (and be welcomed into their circle), I could not have a girlfriend. If I cared about Chantelle's soul, he said, I should leave her in God's hands (and those of her own human UBF shepherd) and end the relationship. He had been planning to make me a leader for the UBF teenagers' youth group, something I really wanted to do, but in order to take this position, I had to set a better example and seek God instead of women.

What could I do? I had been trained by UBF to believe that anything my Bible teacher said came from God. I didn't really pray about it; I trusted my teacher and just assumed it was the right thing to do. I brought the situation up with Chantelle, and of course, she did not take it well. This brought a rather abrupt end to things, for which I cannot blame her. Too late, I realized that I had made a mistake, but the relationship was finished for good. And I won't lie: I was upset, confused, in tears. God did not seem very close, but I hung on to the hope the UBF people gave me: "God will bless your decision," they said.

Things did improve from there. I served the teenagers faithfully as a Bible study leader and enjoyed the things we did together. I studied like a crazed man for my final exams, and barely passed them. I got re-hired to my summer job from the previous year, ensuring I'd be staying in Waterloo, and accordingly arranged to move in with UBF people. I planned to bring my family to UBF's Summer Conference in Peterborough. The future seemed certain: all UBF, all the time.

Then, at just the right moment, God intervened again.

I see now that God was always watching over me. He let me go to UBF so that I could learn the Bible, and move to a new level in my relationship with Him. Now He saw that UBF was harming me, and getting in the way of further growth. I was too caught up in the organization, in the work I was doing, in obeying everything UBF said, in being "religious." He resolved to help me out of this situation, before it got any worse. One June weekend in Waterloo, as I was preparing to move in with my UBF friend Andy, I started reading a UBF newsletter. I read an article that mentioned the "R" group, which I had earlier learned stood for the "Reform" UBF (or "Rebellion" as the UBFers had informed me). My curiosity was piqued quite suddenly. "Who are these R Group people?" I wondered. I went off to a computer lab on campus and did a web search on Reform UBF.

For the next several hours, I read in complete disbelief the many Internet forums and testimonies about the real UBF. I read about spiritual abuse, deception, lies, coercion, false doctrine and financial impropriety. A whole history of corruption among the leadership. Arranged marriages (no wonder they wanted me to be single). I didn't want to believe it, but something spoke to my heart - my conscience, the Holy Spirit, I think - and I knew that at least some of it had to be true. Everything I had experienced in the previous months - pressure to terminate my relationship, UBF's insistence to have me baptized on their terms (quite unscriptural!), the focus on recruitment and numbers and leader-glorification in the prayers, confirmed what I was reading. I was devastated. I called Mom for her advice. She also confirmed the truth of the matter by revealing how uneasy she had been over the above-mentioned events, and how she had been praying for me. I raced back to UBF and read more of the newsletter, and suddenly the articles there seemed very strange. They came into focus. These articles were praising Samuel Lee, UBF's late chairman, instead of God.

Back in my room, I never prayed so intensely in my life. What should I do? My conscience was irrevocably seared. Even though I felt that my friends in the Waterloo chapter were probably genuine Christians caught up in a corrupt organization, there seemed no way to wholeheartedly serve UBF given what I'd learned. For the first time in a while, I prayed to God for help instead of relying on other people. As I prayed, I sensed that this was a turning point, and I listened to what my conscience was saying. My conscience told me I was not supposed to be "Shepherd Andrew," as they all named me. Jesus said "I am the good shepherd." (John 10:11). Only Jesus is the Shepherd. I decided to leave UBF.

The rest of the weekend was bizarre. It was hellish. The UBF people took me out to lunch and made me dinner, talking about what a great summer it would be, and all the while I was secretly planning to escape, drive home, and write an email detailing my decision to leave.

Not long after I left, I saw the fruit of God's plan. In my home church, I was baptized, as soon as I asked for it, under no terms except faith in Jesus Christ. My Pastor thought we should have the baptism done immediately. This happened on the same weekend as Convocation, which meant that my whole family (Dad, Mom, Sarah, stepfamilies) was there to hear my testimony and watch the baptism. This was not an accident. Without leaving UBF I would not have been baptized on that weekend, but God wanted to seize the opportunity to speak to the hearts of my family and the whole church through my testimony. He put the whole thing in motion. I never thought I would leave UBF like that, but God's plans are different from humanity's and are never thwarted. (Proverbs 19:21) Thank God for rescuing me at the right time!

If I thought spiritual life would be easier after my baptism, however, I was wrong. The teens I had worked with in UBF rejected me (of course), and I missed them. I spent the summer in Waterloo, trying to keep up Bible study on my own, but was not too successful. Instead, I started to become more afflicted with sin problems. This is hard to admit, but from July right up to the end of the year, I fought a desperate battle with lust, the downfall of many a man. This sin manifested itself in several ways, which I will not detail (it's probably not what you're thinking!). I think this problem developed as a kind of "hangover" from my suddenly-ended relationship. Anyway, at the same time, I was trying to work through a study called "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby, because I wanted to learn how to discern God's will and hear His voice. These competing desires almost tore my mind apart sometimes. Throughout the fall, having moved home to Peterborough to pursue a teaching degree, I often felt alone; I missed Waterloo. I missed my best friend Andrew, who was in Europe. Many times it was just me in my room, crying out for God to speak to me.

Here's how it went. I would be overwhelmed by my sinful nature, and feel a terrible sense of guilt. My conscience convicted me. My hands tore through my Bible, searching out those verses that condemned the sinful nature. "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires." (Romans 6:12); "Flee from sexual immorality." (1 Corinthians 6:18) Why was this happening? I wondered. I was supposed to have started a new, free, life after baptism. But I did not feel free. I repented humbly, I don't know how many times. Back and forth and back and forth. I knew that God would forgive me - God forgives anyone who comes to Him with a truly repentant heart, no matter what they have done, because of the work of Jesus Christ. But my repentance never lasted. I pleaded with God to help me, change my heart, heal me. But then do you know what I did? I went off and tried to do it on my own. I set goals for myself and did not meet them. I made promises to God and I broke them, which was devastating. Finally, nearing the end of the year, almost ready to give up, I realized: I can't do this on my own. I can't beat human nature. I was truly despairing.

However, the whole time I had been keeping up Bible study (irregularly, to be sure). And finally, with the help of the "Experiencing God" book, I understood: God was speaking to me. He had been, all through the crisis. His voice was in my conscience, writing those Scriptures on my heart and always calling me back, every time I drifted away. I learned that God speaks through the Holy Spirit, via the Bible. I learned that hearing God, talking to Him, forming a relationship with Jesus Christ is what Christian life is all about. Bible verses were jumping out at me in surprising ways. My conscience started to calmly say things to me like, "Pray, read the Bible now," to which I replied, "I don't feel like it...", and then my conscience said, "Do it anyway." So I did.

Hence, I decided the only way I was going to beat my sin problem was to replace it with something else. Replace idle daydreaming with time for prayer and getting to know God better. A new year was about to begin - what better time to start? I resolved to study the Bible every single day and keep a steady spiritual journal. I decided it - no one forced me. Christianity is not about rules and regulations. I made this decision because I wanted to know God better. I often hear people wonder, "How do I just let go of something and give it over to God?" Well, I think I just did it.

I vowed to spend the month of January 2003 replacing sin with daily prayer and meditation on the Bible. A few days into this journey, a miracle has happened. I am free. I feel different. That particular sin has lost its hold on me. I tried for months to concentrate on staying sin-free, and utterly failed. Now I've spent two weeks seriously talking with God every day, reading His beautiful Word, and almost immediately sin's power has been snapped like a twig. It tries to come back, of course, but if I keep focused on God, it goes away. Now my task is to keep up this newfound relationship. It's not easy, friends, but it's the only way. I tried it my way for a long time and that was a huge failure; but thank God for setting me free at last.

The purpose of this voluntary testimony should be clear. I am writing these things to bring glory to God. This is my honest account of events, which I hope will maybe reach one person and help them see that God is real. Obviously, I was in some trouble this year. Everything you read above should show you how great God is, and how weak I am. I was stumbling around in the dark, relying on men, women, myself, until I heard God, reached out and grabbed Him for dear life. And I've been a Christian for 12 years! Only now do I realize what it means to have a Saviour in Jesus. I am very thankful for the concerned people God has used to comfort me in troubled times, as well: Mom, Dad, Sarah, Shirley, Dave, Geoff (who always suspected UBF was a cult!), Pete, Chantelle, Steve, Andy, Monica, Leah, April, and my dearest friend Drew. They've been helping me along my path. It's a lifelong journey, and I'm only just beginning.

That's the theme of my New Year's meditation. Philippians chapter 3 is a wonderful exposition of the Christian life:


"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Phil. 3: 7-9)


Basically, Paul is saying that Jesus Christ is the prize. Forget religion. If religion got you anywhere, then Paul would be the best - he was, after all, a great Jew and a faultless and zealous Pharisee before his conversion (verses 5 & 6). But he just called all that stuff rubbish! Life is not about obeying rules, being good, doing good deeds, or whatever. It's about seeking Jesus, knowing Jesus, "gaining Christ." A relationship, an intimate friendship, with Christ is the only way to be made right before God, and it's completely by faith. Having spent two years in UBF, this is my lesson for this year! UBF preaches righteousness by faith from the pulpit, but they're really all about righteousness by recruiting large numbers. They emphasize a relationship with a human shepherd. They make rules like "you must not have a girlfriend." In UBF, obedience to your elders, sticking to a church, doing good work is the way to be holy. No way, says Paul in this chapter. Jesus is the prize, the goal, the ultimate end. There is no greater thing than knowing Him. Jesus said, "I am the Truth," (John 14:6). Knowing Him, not listening to men's advice, will convict me about what to do in my own life. I tried to "be good" this past year by focusing on my sins and trying to stop them. That failed miserably. It made me feel miserable, not righteous. No, this year I want to turn it around. Like Paul, I want to "know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow ['with intense concern and involvement'!], to attain the resurrection from the dead." (verses 10 & 11).

I'm not perfect - far, far from it. I'm only just starting out on the road to knowing Jesus as my daily, personal Lord. I will fall down, surely. Sin will knock at my door again, and I'll probably give in to it again. That's what makes Christianity unique, though. Gaining Christ is the ultimate ideal, but we are allowed to stumble along the way. It's not about following rules, it's about staying on the upward path. "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (verses 13 & 14) I'm going to "forget" the past - not wipe it from my memory, which is impossible, but I will stop worrying about it. God forgives me, and I will forgive myself. Christian life is not about yesterday, but tomorrow. It asks, Which way are you travelling, in the long run? Where does your true heart lie? God knows, and that's what He will judge by. I will make mistakes in 2003, but as long as I keep hold of the ideal, keep my eyes on Christ, the goal, my salvation is secure.

I thank God for delivering me from danger this year. I praise Jesus for saving me from sin and setting me free. I'm rejoicing right now and I know He will help me and my family all through the coming year, and use my new career as a math teacher for His purposes. I pray that this testimony may bring honour and glory to God by revealing the truth of what He was done. - A.J.S. January 2003


I'm pressing on the upward way,
New heights I'm gaining ev'ry day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground."

Lord, lift me up and let me stand,
By faith, on heaven's table land,
A higher plane than I have found;
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell where these abound,
My prayer, my aim is higher ground.

I want to live above the world,
Though Satan's darts at me are hurled;
For faith has caught the joyful sound,
The song of saints on higher ground.

I want to scale the utmost height
And catch a gleam of glory bright;
But still I'll pray till heav'n I've found,
"Lord, lead me on to higher ground."


- Johnson Oatman, Jr., 1856 - 1922

Robert J. P. (former Hamilton and Toledo UBF)

Re: Waterloo shepherd's exit -- RSQUBF discussion forum

Date Posted: 02:23:49 06/05/02 Wed
Author: Robert John P.
Subject: Re: Waterloo shepherd's exit
In reply to:
Andrew S.'s message, "Re: Waterloo shepherd's exit" on 02:23:49 06/05/02 Wed

"And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8)

Dear Andrew,

May God's grace and love be with you especially at this important time.

I remember you well from the 2000 UBF Spring Conference at the Five Oaks Christian Retreat outside of Brantfort, ON. I remember hearing your testimony which was refreshing to me.

Here, you testified as I can recall to God's work in your life from years past in the United Church (correct me if I am wrong). Sadly, I never had a chance to get to know you even though Hamilton and Waterloo are only 30 minutes apart by car. There always seemed to be relationship difficulties between the Directors of Hamilton and Waterloo which did not allow for relationships to be built between chapters or Canadian students or shepherds. Go figure. I often wondered about this. But I can discuss this at a later time.

My family left Hamilton UBF (at McMaster U.) on November 1, 2001 after I had been in UBF for over 10 years. The words of Micah scrolled onto the front of Erskine Church in Hamilton helped me to make the final decision. It was not easy to leave because of my attachments to UBF co-workers and friends. I had fond memories of many missionaries and was especially fond of co-workers in Montreal UBF even though I could only fellowship with them for a couple of days each year. I was very heavily involved in my chapter as a fellowship leader and a presider, a role which I carried out for 10 years. Through Bible study I met Jesus personally and confessed my faith publically. I learned to love the Bible and I experienced God's calling (Mk 10:45).

However, over time (5-6 years), I began to feel crushed by this same ministry in every aspect of my life. I witnessed so many Canadian students leave with out any explanation. Some of these were Philip Styles in 1995 (Hamilton), Sandor Szulc (1997), Ryan Collins and Steve Nagy in 1996 (Waterloo)and Dean Fleming (1997). In 1999, my personal Bible reading revealed to me many of the "internal contradictions" mentioned in other RSQUBF postings and my conscience was bothered by many wierd directions. When Missionary Tim Hwang (Montreal UBF) left UBF to become a Presbyterian minister I rejoiced that God had blessed him to serve the Lord. However, Hamilton missionaries to a man condemned him and said that he only became a minister because he loved money and wanted a salary. This stunk really bad to me. It stunk because I know that as an RN, I make more money than the minister in my mom's church (Knox Burlington)which has over 500 attendant. I valued Tim Hwang's decision as a godly one. They didn't think so.

The rubber really met the road when I saw that my marriage (UBF arranged) was sinking, my job and campus ministry were falling apart. From reading the Book of Acts, I could see that the early Christian Church was not campus mission. But that mission(s)actually came from the church (Read Acts 6).

God opened my eyes to see wonderful things in His word. I asked myself, "Is God's calling for me to be the `Abraham of Faith'[a UBF term] for McMaster for the rest of my life?"

I began to pray for God's leading and direction in my life, rather than somebody elses (my shepherd's) plan for my life. As a baptized and confirmed Presbyterian (PCC), I realized that God could use people in service in a variety of no less penetrating callings.

Today, my family worship at Park Bible Church, Burlington, (an Associated Gospel Church) which has bible studies, Christian outreaches to students, street people, families and the like. The sermons are refreshing. Every 2nd or 3rd Sunday, I attend the evening service at KNox Presbyterian Church (on Spadina) in Toronto which feed my soul with amazing sermons. This is an amazing church. This church has Bible studies, outreach to immigrants, street people, elderly, UofT students and more. It also has 10 full time missionaries in various mission agencies (such as Wycliffe Bible Translators)around the world. I believe that God will raise me to ministry through this church which looks at the full gospel and accepts that there various parts to the body of Christ.

And against my detractors and nay sayers, even though we have left UBF, we have not stopped teaching the Bible either, although now I use IVCF Bible study materials. My wife recently witnessed one of her Bible students get baptized at Phillpott Memorial Church (Hamilton - ASG Chruch) This brought much joy to us. Our marriage is getting healed now.

I have alot more to say, and it would even be great to meet you some time. But it is late at night, and I have to go to work at 0600 this am. I pray for God's blessing on your decision to leave. I pray that God may protect you from wolves. "In all your ways Acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight". (Proverbs 3:6)

God be with you brother,
Robert

>>Andy, my prayers are with you. I know how much you
>>love Christ and how much you served UBF. You and
>>all of us deserve to know the truth.
>>
>Just to clarify, my name is Andrew S.; I am the
>one who is leaving. Sh. Andy Stumpf is still in Korea
>at the WMR. Waterloo had two Andrews :)
>
>Andrew

Joe and Kathy C. (former Chicago UBF)

Testimony of Joe and Kathy C.

(Joe and Kathy C. were for many years members of Chicago UBF. Their testimony, written by Kathy, was published in the year 2000 on the RSQUBF web site.)

Our God is Sovereign

To those it may concern,

Joe and I both believe, like Israel, that the Lord has been our Shepherd all the days of our life. In Him, there are no mistakes and all things work together for good. Therefore, there is forgiveness from Jesus Christ for those who repent of their sins. Likewise, Joe and I have not kept a record of wrongs or lived in bitterness. On the contrary, we feel thankful to know we are saved by grace alone and to be in fellowship with wonderful Christians at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Chicago. We have a neat opportunity this summer to teach English in Mexico for one week, and we pray the Lord will bless this and help us to know more specifically how to serve Him.

There were three different aspects of our experience with University Bible Fellowship which we will share with you. We believe the leaders had taught us, in the beginning, that we are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ, and that they held firmly to the Trinity and teachings that are in keeping with the Bible. We are thankful that through studying the Word of God both of us became believers. I will outline three stages of our disagreement with the leadership: early conflicts, why we left, and things we have discovered since we left.

First, there were several early conflicts that made us aware that certain things were not biblical. One day Dr. Samuel Lee harshly rebuked me “for not being thankful for our third daughter,” so we should give her to Noah and Sweety Rhee for adoption. I realized that he wanted us to give more money in the thanksgiving offering. Also, when I spent one hour learning Chinese from one sweet missionary from Hong Kong, Dr. Samuel Lee told me, “you didn’t have my permission to meet this missionary.” When we wanted to buy a house in the Northeastern neighborhood [where the UBF center of Joe and Kathy was], he harshly rebuked me that “you have no right to own a house because Northeastern isn’t growing.” His point at that time was that I had to absolutely obey Maria Ahn, even though she was treating me very rudely. There were several occasions when we were blamed for things that happened at Northeastern that in no way were our fault. We felt that it was wrong for him to preach against African-American people and American people, since the gospel is held out to all people of all nations. At times, it was almost as if he were prejudice in favor of Korean people.

Second, why we left. In 1995, Joe’s Bible student Dromrac Wood was teaching the Bible to several people, and one of them was Yolanda. He asked Joe about proposing marriage to her, and we found she is a sincere Christian – but young spiritually. They were going to marry in Mexico, but Dr. Samuel Lee asked them to marry in UBF. He wrote the date September 9 down in his book. Later he said that we made up that date “secretly” while he was in Russia. He yelled and shouted at both of us for 3 hours, and Maria Ahn, and Dr. Joseph Chung. He obviously despised us. It was as if our years of service under his leadership were nothing. We realized he respected himself more than anyone else on earth, rather than having humility to consider others better than himself, as it says in Philippians. That day brought grief and pain to Joe, and he decided firmly that night to leave UBF., but I did not agree. I wanted to at least talk with Dr. Samuel Lee later when he wasn’t upset to see if he would apologize. But no, he did not apologize. Rather, he made us apologize. He accused us of being stingy “like lepers” because we didn’t give $1,000 thanksgiving offering for Dromrac’s wedding. He shouted out at several meetings how horrible we were. When my youngest daughter Elizabeth was born, she was 4 lbs. 4 oz. He said that she “destroyed God’s work at Northeastern” and that we had sinned against the Lord having 5 children. Of course, the Bible says children are a reward from the Lord, and we rest in that promise that we are blessed by God. That summer he forced the fellowship leaders to pay money for “sheep registration” for the summer conference, using the excuse that we have to set the example for other chapters. Unmercilessly, we spent over $1,000 of our own money to register for people who couldn’t even come to the conference. That was the worst conference we ever attended because we realized at that conference that actually Dr. Lee writes each person’s message and testimony and world mission report, giving glory to himself. We believe all the glory should be to God alone, which is one of the 5 tenets of the Reformation. Joe began to cry in the night, and to have stomach aches and headaches. That year Dr. Lee collected a Christmas offering for Russia [to buy a Bible house]. Because we love the Russian people, we offered money to Christ even though we didn’t respect this Bible ministry much any more. But Dr. Lee soon announced that he could not buy that Bible house because there was “political instability in Russia.” There was no accountability about how he spent that money. It was as if he handled the Lord’s offering money as a personal expense account. We believe offerings must be made voluntarily and be handled carefully to give glory to the Lord. Joe stepped down as fellowship leader, but we saw how other fellowship leaders still looked worn out and unhappy. We also felt there were no real friendships in the ministry since everyone was so competitive with one another. I felt that the message of grace alone was being clouded out by righteousness founded in man’s works.

I went to talk to Dr. Lee one Saturday morning, thinking that he would be open-minded to change anything that wasn’t in keeping with the Bible. We had always had a fairly good relationship, and I thought he would value this conversation. He was mad at Joe for not wanting to preside anymore at the Sunday service, which Joe had done faithfully for many years. But Dr. Lee began to attack me saying I was not a believer, that Joe was lazy, that my children are like prostitutes, that our ministry at Northeastern was in vain, that Joe’s parents act strange, that we are stingy, and that he made a mistake when he let us get married. I was shocked that he talked to me so disrespectfully, when I had been faithful in prayer for that ministry for over 12 years. He said that I should “not sleep with Joe” for a long time until “he came to his senses to obey Dr. Samuel Lee” like a school principal or a political leader.

When Dr. Lee asked me if I would obey Joe or him, I had so much pain in my heart. I had wanted to be a peacemaker, but Dr. Lee wanted us to divide into teams. I responded, “The Bible says a wife should submit to her husband.” He looked at me, with a devil in his eye, and responded, “You have spoken blasphemy. Now you will end up in hell.” He looked so ugly at that moment as if the devil was possessing his body. I believe that those who have salvation in Christ have freedom from sin, and that the salvation is eternal and cannot be lost. Gal. 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, do not be yoked again to a burden of slavery.” I also believe that the Bible does not give the definition of blasphemy as those who disobey their pastor. I thought I would get depressed that day, but as I walked away from the center that morning with joy in my heart, I knew Joe and I were now in agreement about leaving UBF and that we could be free of this horrible burden of serving a ministry based on man-made regulations and a tremendous amount of human effort. We have never stepped foot in the building again.

That afternoon we told Ron Ward [who in Chicago always delivers the messages of Samuel Lee] we would not come anymore. He said he recognized there are many faults with the ministry, and he shared that with us because he knew we were leaving and he would be safe. However, it was announced untruthfully that we had been kicked out of the church and that our marriage was falling apart and that we had too much financial burden because of having so many children. None of those things were true, but they were made to cover up the truth that we disagreed with Dr. Samuel Lee. In our eyes, he is a dictator who is not accountable to anyone.

After leaving the ministry, we also found out that Vinnay Duggal had been forced to give $3,000 on his credit card when his son Joseph was born. He often felt treated badly because he was Indian and his wife was Peruvian. We discovered that one Korean Missionary had been forced to have an abortion by Dr. Lee, and that Jonathan Reese had been beaten with a baseball bat to “help him lose weight.” We disagree about the way Jackie Lee’s daughters were turned against their mother, a widow who had clearly, faithfully served the Lord so many years. We disagree with the way Jerry McNally was accused of proposing to a girl “secretly” when he had deliberately followed Dr. Lee’s direction to ask her to get married. He attends Covenant church now, and looks bright and peaceful, and he is getting married this September to a lovely and pure Christian girl. Surely the Lord has blessed and rewarded him. Dr. Daniel Shin and Jimmy Rhee have become fruitful pastors. I disagree about the way they were thrown out of the ministry with 20 or more other missionaries. I consider it a privilege to ask their prayer support for our family. I did not agree that Amy Orlando was not allowed to talk to her father on her wedding day, and that there was a court order issued against him to try to talk to her. I also have seen the way those who leave UBF are said to “leave a life of mission.” I believe that our mission as Christians is to serve the Lord wherever we are, whether at work, at home, in our marriage, in our neighborhood, in our schools.

At Covenant, we experienced how wonderful it is to give an offering voluntarily and cheerfully, and discovered the children had never felt “loved” by their CBF teachers, as they do now at Sunday school [CBF is the UBF program for the children of members]. We have been able to buy a small, modest house, by the grace of God. Joe’s parents have been able to live with us. We believe in the tenets of the Reformation: Sola Scriptura, Sola Christi, Sola Gracia, Sola Fide, and Sola Dei Gloria. I have begun home schooling the children, which all of us are thankful about. We have a pastor who counsels us to work through things and to wait on the Lord for direction. We are praying about using our summers for short term missionary work. I thank the Lord every day that I can worship with my children on Sunday morning rather than bringing them to a babysitter. Dr. Lee also at first would not give me the money that he had been keeping for our family in a C.D. at Foster Bank. This was an expense compensation for 6 years of staff shepherd work. It amounted to over $20,000. He said that because we left, we were “too unstable to trust.” We needed to go to a lawyer downtown, who suggested that we use Foster Bank as a “buffer” to insure accountability. Dr. Lee did give us the money under pressure from Foster Bank, but this was costly to hire a lawyer and Dr. Lee said it was a gift, not a debt he owed me. Since Joe is a school teacher, the money was used to refinance our mortgage and pay off some debts. When he gave us the money, Dr. Lee called me, and spoke well of our family and asked us to come back to his ministry. From my point of view, our family was just beginning to learn the power of prayer and the joy of the Lord and the fruits of the Spirit. I would never go back, and my husband Joe feels the same way. We are thankful for our marriage. Joe is faithful in Bible memorization, but he would like to go to seminary someday. He loves the Puritan writers and has a heart for needy people. I ask you to pray for us that the Lord will lead and guide our future in the way we should go, knowing that before birth He had prepared good works which we should do. From what we understand, certain staff shepherds in Korea were tired of Dr. Lee’s way of handling money without financial accountability. They remind me of Martin Luther when he nailed 99 theses on the cathedral door against the Catholic church in the 15th century. Joe and I believe that those who study the Bible with a para-church organization should be a member of a separate local church. We believe a pastor must be held accountable by elders, deacons and a presbytery. We do not think there is any pastor who can manage a large international ministry well unless there is accountability. May the Lord bless your efforts to bring about reform.

Sincerely,
Joe & Kathy C.

James V. (former CSUN UBF)

Testimony of James V.

(James V. was a member of CSUN UBF from 1990 to 2000, a UBF chapter in California which later joined the reform movement. His testimony of October 2002 shows not only the well-known problems of UBF, but also points out that at least parts of “reform” UBF have difficulties to really change, get rid of the wrong teachings and practices, and impartially deal with arising problems.)

CSUN UBF

I first came into contact with UBF in 1990, I was a sophomore at CSUN [California State University in Northridge, the third-largest university in Los Angeles County]. I was studying for a test when I was approached by a Korean couple. The couple invited me to Bible study and to church. At first I thought they were Moonies [members of the Korean Moon cult], but after testing them, it seemed like their theology about Christ was correct. I agreed to attend the church because I was not going to church at that time and they agreed to drive me to church since I didn’t have a car.

The Korean couple’s name was Paul and Mary. They were missionaries from an organization called UBF (University Bible Fellowship), a Korean laymen organization led by Samuel Lee. The CSUN chapter was composed of ten people, Isaiah who was the head of the chapter and Humble his wife. Peter was Mary’s brother. Darren was the first Non-Korean student at the center (the so-called “Abraham of faith”). Abraham Tak was a Korean student who was studying for a master’s degree and a few first generation Korean students.

The Sunday message wasn’t very good, because it was very dry; however, the people there seem to caring and concern about me. I went there each Sunday. Once a week, I had a one-to-one session with Mary. A one to one meeting is a meeting where someone studies with a shepherd (a native born teacher) or a missionary (usually an immigrant that has arrived from Korea from a Korean UBF chapter or a first generation Korean immigrant who goes back to Korea to get a two week missionary certificate) a questionnaire of around ten questions on a single passage. The church was held in a small apartment, so it was very informal. I stayed there for another year. They tried to encourage me to attend Christmas worship with another chapter in Long Beach and attend a national conference in Chicago. However I didn’t attend. I stopped attending CSUN UBF after the first years. They tried to get me to give messages each Sunday. However, I felt very uncomfortable since I didn’t know what I was doing and had no idea how to deliver public speeches nevertheless messages. When I told one of the shepherds that I felt uncomfortable about delivering message each Sunday (I was doing a pretty crummy job), he sat down and asked me if I was saved because I didn’t want to deliver messages. I was furious and left. Several months later I met Humble Yoo who talked to me and said how much Mary missed me etc., and I decided to go back to UBF after the church that I was going to was having an internal power struggle between the head pastor on one side and assistant pastor and elder on the other.

I returned back to UBF and everyone seemed happy to see me. The church was starting to grow, and they moved out of the apartment into a house. During that time at that house, it was a golden age for CSUN UBF. The church had grown to 30 people from ten. Most of them were college student. 11 students (one of them being my wife, Christine) were being taught by Mary, which was hard because she was also working as a full-time nurse. There were table tennis tournaments and people generally stopped by to see each other. It reached its height of 45 people. Not only that but the center also bought a computer, and I taught Isaiah how to use the computer and taught him pronunciation. (I also learned how to deliver public speeches after attending CSUN public speaking class.) It was generally a friendly atmosphere. During this time, my mother became sick from cancer; several of the members who were registered nurses helped her with shots because of major side effects caused by cancer.

After certain amount of time, Isaiah got a job as a minister at a local Korean church (Montrose Presbyterian Church; later moved and renamed to Burbank Presbyterian Church). (It is very atypical for UBF that Isaiah Yoo was pastor in another church besides being leader of a UBF chapter, and seems strange that Samuel Lee did not oppose against it from the beginning. Normally, cooperating with or even visiting other churches or seminaries was strongly prohibited by Samuel Lee. But actually, Humble Yoo was the indirect leader of CSUN UBF in Northridge (the “hidden spiritual director” as Samuel Lee called such people). She was an ardent cheerleader of Samuel Lee. She also enjoyed some fame in Chicago UBF. She had been in UBF for 35 years and had a “strong character”. She had also overlooked Samuel Lee’s actions during the 1976 and 1989 reform attempts. Samuel Lee may have been willing to overlook her husband’s behavior because of her. I also think that since CSUN UBF was sending money to Chicago and was moderately big by USA UBF standards. It was also far away and overshadowed by Long Beach UBF, Samuel Lee may have been willing to let things slide.)

Isaiah moved us out of the house into an office building. He tried to merge both groups into his church. This caused a lot of friction between the missionaries and Isaiah over the direction of the church. Isaiah also began to implement mandatory “sogam sharing meetings” on Saturday (“sogam” meetings are testimony-sharing meetings based on the Sunday’s message). Many of Isaiah’s church college members initially attended the church but after two years they all left. The CSUN group was also told we should go with his church to their conferences. They had conferences each holiday. This wasn’t bad for them since they were immigrant group that went with their entire family; however, most of us couldn’t see our families. We often had the worse accommodations of the group. It seemed like the only reason why we were there was to take care of his church group children, so the adults could do what they wanted. Mary and Paul decided to leave and moved to Chicago UBF because escalating tension between them and Isaiah and Humble. Humble demanded that Mary come to all of the meetings for “co-working” despite the fact that Mary was working fulltime and teaching 11 people in one-to-one Bible studies. Humble Yoo and other missionary women didn’t work. Mary would complain to me that she couldn’t do all these things. Humble also started to complain about the way Mary dressed, how her hair was too long for a missionary, etc. After all of the berating by Humble, Mary and Paul decided to move to Chicago. A few of the people left the church afterwards, and to be truthful I felt leaving also. During this time, I went to the German and Russian conference, and met several people like Joseph Calabrese who was the presider at Chicago. (A presider was someone who was the announcer for the church worship, reading the Bible etc.; it was supposedly great honor to do this. I was doing this for 8 years at CSUN UBF).

Isaiah called me to have breakfast at a restaurant named Coco’s. He told me how Paul wanted to control the center. He told me how he wanted me to take over their fellowship (a fellowship group was Bible study organized around a family and the people that they taught). I was in shock, but I accepted. The next few years went quickly, I was working long hours at an insurance company. I continued to stay, despite my doubts. Even though we were a college group, most of the people were now getting old. Very few people were coming. Isaiah blamed our lack of prayer, and tried to set up meetings at 5:30 am Sunday; his wife also tried to fine us $25 for not showing up. They tried this and realized no one was going to do this. At this time, I really was starting to get disgusted. Despite the threat of penalty, the same amounts of people were going to the meeting. People who tried to go on date were considered “worldly.” Then one day, Christine told me that Darren was getting married in two weeks. This was completely shocking since no one knew about it. Christine told me that Humble wanted them to get married quickly because she didn’t want Satan to break them up. This news was surprising since Darren hasn’t graduated from college or had a job. They were married within a few days. (This was called a “marriage by faith” which is UBF terminology for marriage arranged by the chapter leader or wife, this could be in a local chapter or a chapter in foreign country usually Korea. The chapter leaders would tell the prospective couple that it is God’s will for them to get married despite the fact that they may not know each other. The chapter leaders would use a misinterpretation of Genesis story of Rebekah’s marriage to Isaac to back up this strange teaching.)

My chapter also engaged in the practices of changing people’s names. If the shepherd had a foreign name, his name was changed to Isaac or even non-foreign name like Linda to Pauline etc., this was one of the ways that leaders tried to change the personality of the people there by saying this is Biblical character that they wanted you to emulate.

In CSUN UBF, I met Christine, a Korean immigrant student (she was not a missionary sent out by Korea UBF). We decided to get married and set a date for June 1997. When Humble found out about it, she was livid. She demanded my wife get married within 2 weeks, or she would force us to leave the church (it was August 1996). Humble relented when she found out my wife’s father was a respected pastor of a Korean church in San Diego. My wife said Isaiah and Humble were afraid of losing face in the Korean community. [Normally UBF members are not allowed to decide to marry on their own; UBF marriages are nearly always arranged and proposed by UBF leaders. But in this case the leaders seemingly could not do too much against it, because they worried their reputation could be damaged when Christine’s father would tell it to the elders of Isaiah’s Korean church and a Korean newspaper he had connections to.] Humble still continued. After I and my bride’s family paid for the church sanctuary etc., about 1½ months before we got married, Humble demanded that we postpone our marriage because I didn’t have 2 sheep (Bible students) (I only had one). My fiancée told me that she couldn’t get married because of Humble. I told her that was it. I left UBF temporarily. Humble and my fiancé realized that they made a mistake. (Besides the trouble from Christine and her father they may also have been afraid to lose me because I was giving the largest tithing amount and the only non-Korean who graduated from a University.) We got married on the day that we wanted to get married, not on Humble’s date.

After getting married, I was very happy. I thought that I could make positive changes at my chapter, which was one of reasons that stayed for another three years. My wife was the second reason. I thought that I could lead by example, so I could make positive changes that people would see and imitate.

My first objective was to get a new center, so it would be a better environment for people. The Northridge earthquake had damaged our current center. There were large cracks to the infrastructure of the building. The center had deteriorated from years of neglect. People never bother to throw away food, old sneakers, and old gym clothes. I talked to everyone at the center; they all agreed that we should get a new center – even Humble agreed. I went with other people to look at other buildings and found some. When we came back, we asked Isaiah. Isaiah refused to spend more money on a new center. He didn’t want to spend money on air-conditioning. He said that we could only afford $800 a month for another center and that the current center was fine. (Isaiah never allowed us to look at how much money the center was receiving in tithing. After looking at the UBF “white book” in 2000, the CSUN UBF chapter in Northridge was pulling in between $35,000 to 52,0000 of tithing per year.) Isaiah wouldn’t allow you to put tithing directly to the building, so I decided to clean the center. Oscar, a CSUN UBF shepherd, and I spend 4 weeks cleaning and painting the center. We did this without cost. We threw away 4 huge waste containers pull of trash. (Isaiah wouldn’t allow us to throw away the bookcase. He went into the trash to retrieve, though it was in bad shape and we received it free.) The missionaries from Korea sat there and supervised. Many people at the center told Oscar and me, why do we bother, no one cares anyway. Eventually, they were right. Within a week, the missionaries at the center began to trash the place. They started to leave coffee cups and food all over the place. They let their children run around making messes. I told them that we should maintain the center for the glory of God. However, the missionaries who were making the mess refused to clean up after themselves. They expected the shepherds to do everything as serving servants including pickup after them. Oscar after a while got disgusted and left.

My second objective was to do a website for the center. I initially asked Roman, a CSUN UBF shepherd, if he could do it, because he was unemployed and said that he had all this experience working for dot-com-companies in designing web pages. He said that he would do it, but did nothing after 5 weeks. I took over the project and did it myself. After telling Isaiah about it, he didn’t have slightest interest. He only became interested when a Korean student arrived 4 months later and asked Isaiah about the web site, then Isaiah thought it was very important.

One year after getting married, I bought a house. I had a New Years day party for the CSUN UBF members at my house for two years. I stopped having it after Isaiah condemn me publicly during a “Martin Luther King Jr. conference” of UBF for owning a house. He said that people who own houses are too materialistic and don’t love God.

The next years became a living hell for me. Humble and Isaiah were giving endless guilt trips to the people at the center. Humble would openly condemn people in loud public prayer for not having enough sheep, not attending the “daily bread” meetings, and writing sogams 7 days a week. Isaiah would make the number of people that were in our fellowship seem like a matter of faith. Humble Yoo would use instant one-to-one (if you talk to someone, it was considered a Bible study) to increase the numbers. [All UBF chapters have to report the number of one-to-one Bible studies to the UBF headquarter, and many leaders try to let the numbers appear higher than they are in reality.] Isaiah would include his entire church as one-to-one Bible studies. (It is interesting that Isaiah has that many because he never stepped on a campus to talk to students unless he was there to direct meetings.) Some of the shepherdesses were in tears because they didn’t have a certain number of people [as their sheep]. When I said that numbers don’t matter, only our heart desire to serve God, they looked at me as if I was insane. Isaiah increased the number of meetings steadily. By end of 1999, we had four 6:30 am meetings, two 8:00 am daily bread sharing meetings, UCLA and other college bible study meetings, Tuesday leaders’ meeting, Friday’s night womens’ meeting, Saturday’s men meeting, Saturday students’ Bible meeting.

It didn’t stop there. Humble Yoo often humiliated fellowship leaders if they didn’t go fishing [i.e. invite students to UBF] at least four times a week. (Many of the people thought this humiliation was a matter of love, but many of them didn’t understand God wants us to encourage each other to do good, not to tear other people down.) Isaiah also increased the number of conferences. Before we had Easter and Christmas, now we had Labor Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Fall, Summer, Martin Luther King Jr. birthday. We also had additional meetings for shepherds at the end of January. Isaiah would have the women attend the men meetings. He said that women needed to attend the brother meeting to encourage the men because they were “weak.” For conference preparation, people were also expect to come to evenings at the center for “daily bread” share meeting, so you would have two meetings sharing the same material [the “daily bread” was already shared in the morning]. It was getting to the point that I would only see my wife for one hour per day. Even that hour Humble Yoo and others would call her on the phone to talk to her. Even if you had the flu or if you were sick, you were expected to come to meetings and conferences. When my wife only had a few hours sleep because she had to study for a exam for work, Humble told me that two hours a sleep was good enough. I told her that two hours of sleep wasn’t enough for a human being. People were put down for not attending worship. People were put down for not attending meetings. When one shepherd went with his wife to attend his grandfather’s funeral in Hawaii, Humble publically said in the leaders meeting that the shepherd was too “family centered.” People were encouraged to call in sick at work to attend conferences. (Often these conferences date were randomly chosen by Isaiah, no one could plan for them.)

Even though UBF put great emphasis on the Bible, the reality is that 80% of the Bible is ignored. During Isaiah messages he would only go over Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts, few passage of Isaiah and Psalms and 1 Corinthian 15. We would go over the same message 4 or 5 times in a year. Isaiah would go over it, give it to the shepherds the next week and have them deliver it for training. During the conference we would get a passage that he had written and go over it again. When I talked about this, I was told that I should look deeper into the passage.

There was also a lot emphasis put on attending the national and international conference. The UBF conference was usually held in Michigan State University (MSU). They usually had people from around the world. People were encouraged to pay for the airfare to attend these conferences. The speakers usually deliver the same message (passage) every two years. They also put great emphasis on mannerism. The messages were incredibly dry. The missionary would usually give testimony on surviving on potatoes in Uganda or struggling through great hardship as lay shepherds. (It is pretty sad that a lot of shepherds and missionaries were donating tens of thousands of dollars to their center. Isaiah told them that it was going to missionaries. However only $2000 ever went to these missionaries the rest was put into money markets and certificates of deposit.) Samuel Lee would usually boast about his spiritual power of curing people of their weight problems. I would like to note that often Chicago UBF would exaggerate the amount of people that attended this conference. A couple months after attending a conference in 98, they sent out calendars and annual reports. Chicago would do badly altered pictures of people by adding additional balconies and orchestra members into pictures. When people brought this up at the center, I threw them all away. (Many of the shepherdess and missionaries were mad at others and me for bringing it up.)

My wife and I were pioneering UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles]. Initially the group on that campus grew quickly. There were fifteen students and professors that were attending. However, Isaiah decided to take over the meeting. He started to implement a “Bible Academy” for people to give “sogams.” However, when Isaiah started his Academy, most of the people left. Isaiah wasn’t happy that I deal with UCLA, he also expected me to give messages at CSUN. I was expected to stay there till 11 pm even though I had to get up at 4:30 am the next morning for work. When I left at 10:30 pm, many people became angry with my wife and me. They said that I didn’t have the “co-working” spirit for leaving early.

In CSUN UBF we had four people from UCLA. There were James and Joon. James was a Christian, and Joon said he wasn’t a Christian. Humble and Isaiah had Joon deliver messages on the Bible to help him become a Christian. (Later both of them left). There were also Wilson and Roman. Isaiah and Humble tried to mold them into UBF material. My wife was told to monitor how much tithing both of them gave to the center. When Roman started to attend all of the meetings, Humble and Isaiah loved him because he was so faithful. Roman also loved to brag constantly about the school he attended and how many sheep that he had, etc. Roman was also a busy body who condemn other people for not having sheep while living off them because he didn’t work (this is contrary to Bible in 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). Humble would also have Roman call people at home at 5:30 am, so they could attend the morning prayer meetings.Humble decided that Roman was ready for a “marriage by faith.” For the privilege of doing this, Roman was told that he should take Humble’s children for music lessons, etc. (During this time, Humble and Isaiah had many shepherds driving their children around to lesson. It was considered a privilege of serving them because people consider them to be a great “man and woman of God.” Humble had convinced everyone except me that every good thing came from her. If you got a job, it was because of Humble’s prayer. If you got married, it was because you met them at the center that Humble and Isaiah founded. If you taught many people, it was because Humble was your spiritual grandmother, etc. People would praise Humble and Isaiah, and if you said that they did something bad, it was your problem.) Eventually, they made Roman the presider after I had done this for 8 years.

In the summer of 1999, I was chosen to be one of the speakers for the California UBF Conference. Isaiah instead of telling me that I was a conference speaker told my wife this information and she was told to keep it secret from me for 3 weeks. I asked Isaiah why he didn’t tell me directly. (If something affected me directly, they would go behind my back. When a Jeonju missionary had brain surgery at the USC hospital, she was recuperating at my house. Humble went behind my back and told her and her mother that she couldn’t stay at my house. Everything was in Korean, so I didn’t understand what was going on.) I delivered the message on Joseph and Potiphar’s wife for the summer conference. I made the message myself. When Isaac Kim and Isaiah read it, they proceeded to cut out the parts about personal responsibility to God and told me to tack on a personal testimony. I complied because at this moment I did not really care any more. Despite the editing, people liked it. Many people from Long Beach liked it. However, Humble told me I shouldn’t be proud and I should give a large thanks offering to God. (Thanks offering were another way of getting money from the shepherds. If something good happened to you or your students, you were expected to give money to the center.)

I tried to talk to Isaiah several times about the financials of the center. He said that it would take a few days. I waited a few days and asked him if I could help getting the financials ready, since I had a financial background working for a corporation. He said not to worry about it, since Linda was dealing with the accounting. (Linda was a shepherdess in CSUN UBF, initially she was taught by a missionary who later left to form San Diego UBF because of problems with Isaiah and his church. Later Linda was taught by Humble Yoo. Humble married her to a Korean shepherd in Jeonju UBF in a "marriage by faith". Her name was later changed to “Pauline” at CSUN UBF.) Isaiah gave me a big grin. For the next three months, I never received the financials. Two years after I left and CSUN became a “Reform” chapter, Isaiah admitted that they never kept any financial books. When I told Isaiah that we are required by law (according to IRS regulations) to give out yearly contribution letters for donations over $500 to the members of the congregation, Isaiah didn’t want to be bothered. His response was “we haven’t been caught by the IRS yet”. Seemingly, his idea was that as long as you aren’t caught, you do not have to follow Federal laws.

In November 1999 I did a search for web sites, I found RSQUBF and initially dismissed it.

At the same time around Thanksgiving, I was basically leading all of the morning meetings at 6:20 am since no one else was doing it because my wife insisted that we go. Humble Yoo came in after I delivered the message. She proceeded to pray loudly how I should repent for not writing down the message. [Extemporaneous preaching is almost considered a mortal sin in UBF. Every message has to be written down word for word before it may be delivered.] I was getting a little tired of her using prayer to pray loudly to condemn people to repent. I asked Humble to step outside to talk to her about her behavior. (Humble had prayed like this several times previously during leader meetings etc. with Isaiah praying besides her.) She proceeded to scream at me for asking to talk about her behavior. Humble was supposedly sorry, but she would alway use my wife to say for her, so she wouldn't lose face. This was the last morning meeting that I attended.

As time went by, Isaiah added more and more meetings and conferences because Paul Chen was making inroads at CSUN. (Paul Chen broke off from Long Beach UBF to found his own ministry at UCLA. When he didn’t succeed there, he went to CSUN. By this time the CSUN ministry was in decline and Isaiah had scattered us to pioneer College of the Canyons, Pierce College, UCLA, Valley College, etc., Paul Chen’s ministry grew because he concentrated on one campus and had his worship a few blocks away from CSUN whereas our worship was 20 miles away in Burbank.) Isaiah proceeded to talk about his vision of Northeast LA UBF. He added another meeting during the fall semester before student finals, so we could be in the right spirit. Isaiah’s reason was that West LA UBF is doing it. When somebody didn’t attend this meeting because of finals, Missionary Rebekah considered this person “weak.” (The missionary later recanted and said the individual was weak because he lacked faith; however, it seems like to me she was equating faith as attending conferences.) A couple of weeks later people were expected to attend daily bread sharing meetings three weeks before Christmas Worship at Long Beach. People were expected to attend morning meetings then the evening meetings despite the fact that the meetings were all based on the same passages. Isaiah also told us that we would have to pay $50 per family to subsidize sheep. He said the center could not afford to subsidize their dinner (though there were hardly any new people attending the church). Parents were told not to bring their children along. Some of the members of CSUN UBF were struggling because they had children and were barely surviving economically. The next week, I went with my wife to Jeonju, Korea, to attend a “marriage by faith” that was arranged for Hyun-Ja Lee from Korea and Roman from CSUN. The wedding was an epic disaster. Roman proceeded to show his true nature. He seemingly had lied about everything from his education to his job and financing the wedding, and when he returned home, he basically deserted his wife because he refused to answer her emails and phone calls from Korea concerning these things. The center removed him from the presider position and had him write 100 page testimonies. Humble told Hyun-Ja that Roman was being disciplined by the center and that he was too busy feeding sheep to return phone calls. (I would like to point out though the Bible says a teacher should have high moral character when teaching the Bible, CSUN UBF allowed someone who treated his wife in such a way to teach non-Christians the Bible.) The UBF leaders had Roman pray for an hour a day. When there was no change, Humble told him to pray “loudly.”

In January, Isaiah decided to have another meeting for shepherds. I didn’t want to attend because it was on my birthday, but my wife insisted that I attend. Isaiah was telling us that we should work harder, so the center should grow. Someone brought up the item about Isaiah buying a center next to his church in Burbank. Isaiah said this wasn’t the time to discuss these issues. (There was never any time to discuss these issues.) However, I told him this was important issue that should be talked about it. Isaiah tried to evade the issue. I asked him, why are you trying to buy a center 30 miles away from the nearest campus and church member when he knew it would take them an hour to get there because of the traffic. Isaiah’s reply was that I was selfish. (The house he wanted to buy was next to his Korean church. The houses in Burbank usually go for $350,000.) Isaiah proceeded to tell us that he had been saving money, that he had over $68,000 in the bank. This made me furious, that Isaiah had been hoarding money for years and was unwilling to subsidize his meetings or get a decent center but instead was playing poverty. I told Isaiah that church money should be spent for church purposes not for his church or personal benefits. Most of the shepherds didn’t say a word; a missionary was trying to deflect attention by attacking the shepherd who brought up the issue. I also brought up the issues that they were getting carried away with the endless meetings. The missionary said that I should follow my wife who attended all of them. I left the meeting.

I tried to talk to Isaiah several times about the financials of the center. He said that it would take a few days. I waited a few days and asked him if I could help getting the financials ready, since I had a financial background working for a corporation. He said not to worry about it, since Linda was dealing. He gave me a big grin. For the next three months, I never received the financials. Two years after I left and CSUN became a “Reform” chapter, Isaiah admitted that they never kept any financial books.

At the beginning of the year 2000, I wrote Samuel Lee a letter detailing what was going on in the center. At the same time, I was sending emails to various shepherds about removing the Yoo family for financial mismanagement and abusing their authority and form a church constitution with elders with financial accountability and transparency.

After informing Samuel Lee of Isaiah Yoo’s activities, I received email from anonymous source detailing the problems of Chicago UBF. I looked more closely at the Reform website. It listed the name of Matthew Pyun, one of the top chapter leaders that I had met in Korea, which gave it some credibility and a testimony of Joe Calabrese. It looked like my chapter and the chapters in CSUN, West LA, and Long Beach weren’t the only messed up leaders and chapters, but it was worldwide and a systematic problem.

My wife managed to get a hold of a UBF “white book” that was inside Isaiah’s office. (The “white book” was the summary of the financial statements of the US chapters that Chicago UBF sent out each year to the leaders. In the book, there was a breakdown according to the chapter. I read the section about CSUN UBF. The book also contained testimonies and reports of UBF leaders.) Only UBF chapter leaders were allowed to see it. Other chapter leaders had a better idea of the accounting then the member of their own chapters. I didn’t know about it until my wife brought it to me, and by then I had been at UBF for ten years. From this book, I saw a little bit what was on the minds of chapter leaders. I read the UBF financial from CSUN UBF and saw that the members had contributed $52,000 for year 2000. $5000 was allegedly used for maintenance expense – for a center where everyone did all the maintenance for free. There were also other fishy expenses. The testimonies in the white book were also shocking. Ben Toh, a leading chapter leader in Chicago, was talking about “junk sheep” – sheep that weren’t white. Samuel Lee telling a Philippino woman that she could have children only when she had 5 sheep.

I told Roman that I was thinking of leaving. Roman in the meeting after the Sunday worship proceeded to shout during prayer that I should repent for leaving the ministry in front of my wife and mother.

I emailed this information out to two other shepherds. The shepherds agreed that something had to be done. However, one of the shepherd’s wife was missionary Rebekah who got a hold of the email and notified Isaiah. Isaiah proceeded to deny everything and read my email out loud at the meeting. The missionary Rebekah called me demon possessed for mentioning these things at the center, and she complained that I had no loving heart. The other shepherds’ wife complained that I shouldn’t bother her husband about these matters because he was too busy.

That night I told my wife to call Matthew Pyun from Jeonju UBF who was one of the signers of the Korean Reform document. (Christine and I knew him because we went to two “marriages by faith” conducted by that chapter and my former chapter. Matthew Pyun would also on occasion visit CSUN UBF.) My wife didn’t believe the Reform and RSQUBF websites, so I thought I could permanently dismiss any doubts about the problems of UBF by having her talk to Matthew Pyun personally, a chapter leader that she respected. Matthew Pyun (interpreted by his wife Maria) confirmed that UBF had serious problems, and the details published on the Reform UBF website were correct [the web site was discontinued by the USA reformers in November 2002]. The next day, my wife talked to Humble Yoo. Humble confirmed that all these things were happening in Chicago because of her contacts in Chicago. She also knew about the events in the 1989 reform attempt because she was a good friend of Rebekah Kim, the wife of James Kim who tried to reform UBF and was forced out of UBF by Samuel Lee and his fellow missionaries. She also knew about the incident about Augustine Hope Song who was forced out of Russia UBF (see question 9 of the 15 public questions to Samuel Lee by Korean Reform UBF). One of Isaiah’s Burbank Presybterian church members had diplomatic privileges, she arranged for Augustine Hope Song to come to Chicago because he was suffering from a severe illness. [Samuel Lee exploited this to remove him as leader of Moscow UBF, sent the ill man to Korea and told him to never visit UBF again.] Giyeon Lee, the daughter of that church member and a shepherdess at CSUN UBF later left and denounced Isaiah and Humble at the Burbank Presybterian Church for trying to force her to marry a CSUN UBF member in a “marriage by faith”. Later some reformers have been putting out misinformation that Humble Yoo didn’t know anything about the problems in Chicago, which is obviously not true.

The next worship, Isaiah gave a big message about not condemning other. It was very interesting because he was using my names several times when referring to the person that shouldn’t judge.

The next Monday, Isaiah got a phone call from Samuel Lee rebuking for misusing UBF members for doing things like babysitting for members of his own Korean church and trying to commingle UBF funds with his church. Isaiah was mad because he lost face. My wife wanted to ask Isaiah for forgiveness. This is when Isaiah became interested in reform – before he said that we should reform ourselves first instead of the organization. [This was a typical excuse of UBF reform opponents. They proclaimed that reform had to go slowly and each member had to reform individually instead of reforming the church. According to their idea, as long as you yourself were imperfect in any regard (not even connected with the reform issues), you first had to reform yourself, and only then you might start speaking about reform of the church. But obviously, that meant in consequence that reform of the church could only be done by somebody who was already blameless, perfect and without sin. And who could be so presumptuous claiming to be like that? Quite to the contrary, UBF members are conditioned to always feel guilty for not performing well enough. So instead of answering the reform issues, the leaders only blamed the members again and put off reform forever.]

I met Isaiah at a Denny’s restaurant in Burbank and talked to him. I told him that I was sorry. Isaiah didn’t accept it and didn’t really think that he did anything wrong for the last ten years. Isaiah admitted that he didn’t like UBF and that the only reason that he was there was because of his wife. He said he didn’t like the training of Samuel Lee (though for years he bragged how great a trainer Samuel Lee was.) He also told me that UBF would be better when Samuel Lee was dead. When I told him that all these meeting were causing trouble for my family, he said not to bring your personal problems to the church. This was the last day that I attended UBF; however, my wife continued to attend it. I had enough, and I left. My mother went with me; the other shepherd that brought up the news of the Burbank house and his wife also left.

In the next few weeks, several members tried to get me to come back by trying to take me out to lunch and saying how much they missed me etc., but I didn’t care because I was finally free.

CSUN “Reform” UBF (“ECNI”)

I wrote Joshua Lee of Seattle UBF (now Good Shepherd Bible Study Ministry), one of the signers of USA Reform document. I also knew him personally because I met him when I went to Seattle for business trip.

Joshua was initially very happy to hear from me. He called me and asked me to go the Houston Reform UBF conference. However because of my wife’s opposition, I declined to go but wrote a long letter detailing the issues that should be changed, such as openness in financial matters, elders, personal time with family, etc.

The reformers were very happy to meet with me at the beginning. They wanted me to work with various other leaders in making Bible material etc. However, I begin to notice that the reformers were less than honest about making changes at the chapter level. I mentioned about making changes at the chapter level and I would help them set up financial statements. They said that they would get to it. I talked about setting up church government according to the Bible for the local chapters. Initially, I tried to work with the Reformers, they had a website, so you could have dialog. They said all the right things. They had published documents, etc. But after a while, the reformers began to ignore me. I wondered why, so I called Joshua Lee. Joshua Lee seemed pretty evasive. He asked me if I was working with Isaiah Yoo. I said no, then he said that he was in hurry. The next day CSUN UBF joined the reform movement. The people at the center wrote my name on the document without me knowing about it. The initial reasons that Isaiah joined the reform were because he was afraid of losing the money and the chapter. (The way that UBF works is that supposedly it is a non-profit incorporation. The chapters are more or less branches of Chicago. They are not separate churches. The tithing and property bought by the local chapter is considered to be property of Chicago UBF, since Chicago does not give independent status to these chapters.) After Isaiah had received a phone call from Samuel Lee about mixing UBF and his Korean church, Isaiah told my wife that he would get even by not attending the Summer Conference in Chicago. When Samuel Lee threatened to retaliate, Humble told my wife that she and Isaiah would join the reform to prevent Samuel Lee from taking CSUN UBF treasury (around $68,000). Humble changed her story a few month later and let the forced abortions at Chicago appear as Isaiah’s reason for joining reform. Even though CSUN UBF had become “reform,” little in reality changed. They still were attending numerous meetings and they were still encouraging my wife to remain with them despite the fact that I had left four months earlier.

In May, my wife was constantly receiving email from Hyun-Ja concerning Roman again. We were receiving phone calls at 3 and 4 am from Hyun-Ja, because Roman was not returning the phone calls or emails. I told my wife to have Humble and Isaiah to solve the problem. Humble said that it was okay for Hyun-Ja to suffer, because she only wanted to have a green card to the US. After another late night phone call, I sent an email to Hyun-Ja about the condition of her husband on how he had deceived her about his education and background. My wife was furious. I sent an email to Jacob Kim. He said that I did the right thing.

Rebekah Kim wrote a posting about UBF how they tried to steal men’s wives by using flattery and deceit. Isaiah Yoo had made my wife the head of my fellowship and a so-called “elder of student recruiting” (the title “fellowship leader” was politically incorrect since that dealt with the religious system of Chicago UBF). Humble and the rest of the center sent cards telling my wife what a wonderful shepherdess she was and how difficult the year must have been for her, etc. I sent an email to Jacob Kim about why is it wrong for UBF to set wives against their husband but okay for UBF Reform CSUN to turn my wife against me. Jacob Kim never responded to my email. (I later found out that Jacob Kim was planting lies about me in Chicago by saying that I was "pawn of Samuel Lee".

As far as I can see, the Reform UBF was not really interested in making changes. Though the Reform web site espoused sound Hermeneutics, they were still keep unsound teachings like “marriage by faith” (a UBF euphemism for “marriage by arrangement”). After debating with the Reformers, I saw that they really did not see that these practices were a problem, but thought that the only problem was the application by Samuel Lee. This was true of Peter Kim and Paul Laska who denied that marriage by faith was occurring in Pre-Reform and Reform Chapters.

(This fact is not too difficult to verify all you have to do is type in "marriage by faith" and "ubf" and you will get a lot of hits.

In terms of accounting, no reforms chapter has ever accepted their responsibility for giving proper accounting statements for the money that they received.

Many of them still were dictatorial chapters run by a single family that had total control of money.

I talked to Paul Laska of the reform movement who disputed that “marriages by faith” were occurring. When I gave him evidence to the contrary, he shrugged it off. When I told him about the problems at CSUN UBF, he told me that Mark Hong, chapter leader of Madison Reform UBF, said that it was okay because Isaiah changed because he joined the reformed movement. (Fruits of repentance are seemingly not considered part of change in Reform UBF.)

In summer of 2002, Isaiah tried to make cosmetic change to UBF. He said that all the money had to be approved by a committee. However as always, Isaiah did as he please by giving the reform leaders $6000 during the conference without the knowledge of this committee. The reformers praise Isaiah as a great man of God. When I brought up this issue at the forum on campuspraise site, Paul Laska vehemently denied it. When I told him to investigate it, he said that he would but never did. He later shut down the site and replace it with a page that the local chapter will have to tithe more positively to central reform UBF chapter.

Aftermath:

After two years, my wife has finally decided to leave CSUN “Reform” UBF (later also called “ECNI”). After listening to various pastors and elders like John MacArthur and reading various books by Charles Spurgeon etc., she began to understand that many of the practices of UBF were wrong. I believe the only way for people to get out of the environment of UBF is through the clear teaching of the Word of God.

In October 2002, Abraham Tak heard that the elders of Isaiah’s Korean church have decided to force Isaiah to make a decision between the churches. Apparently, the elders became angry with Isaiah because he was trying to merge CSUN UBF chapter with their church for several years. Therefore, Abraham tried to force a quorum to talk about a new leader of CSUN UBF. Humble initially said that what Abraham told was wrong. She said it was a “misunderstanding” and that Isaiah would still be leading CSUN UBF. She said that Isaiah would eventually leave, but it would be when he decided to leave. However, within three days the Yoo family admitted it was true, installed Anthony from Columbus Reform UBF as the new leader and left CSUN UBF. (It is kind of ironic that Isaiah didn’t install one person from UBF CSUN where he had tried to raise up spiritual leaders for so many years. Shortly after this, Russell, who had been part of CSUN UBF for 5 years, had been voted as temporary leader of CSUN UBF by the members. Anthony, Isaiah choice, wasn’t accepted as leader by the members.)

Isaiah and Humble also took all the money from the center by closing the bank account and taking the money. They refused to listen to CSUN members' request to return the money by ignoring them by saying that they were too busy. (It is also sad to see that James Kim of second reform effort has rationalize the Yoo behavior by comforting Humble when they lost the chapter. When I ask James Kim about this and how the Yoo family had abuse their authority at CSUN, he told me to forget about it.)

The CSUN UBF chapter changed it name to Mustard Seed fellowship, and they continue to have Anthony as their main speaker. The group has started to fall into heresies such as "health and wealth" movement of Paul Yongii Choi and liberalism by believing the Genesis is a book of myths. They still displayed the patterns of old UBF by confirming "spiritual authority" when I brought up the issue of Isaiah Yoo. After 12 years, Humble and Isaiah founded the ministry and basically destroyed it by their selfishness and self-righteousness.

Ki-Chul O. (former Seoul UBF)

Open Letter by Ki-Chul O. as of June 29th, 2002

(A serious allegation against the former UBF leader Samuel Lee, was his ordering some women missionaries to abort their children. This sounds unbelievable, but one should consider that the Korean cultural background and the UBF environment of spiritual abuse produce a perfect breeding ground for such malpractices. Samuel Lee constantly interfered in the private decisions of families, beginning with the choice of the marriage partner, and often deciding when a couple was allowed to have children, how many children they should have, and what their children’s names would be. If one partner in a marriage became critical of UBF or Samuel Lee, he would order divorces and re-marriages. To Samuel Lee and like-minded UBF leaders, if the responsibility to raise a child would interfere in a UBF family’s “mission,” it is then only a small step to order that child to be aborted. Add to that the fact that in South Korea abortions are widely tolerated and carried out secretly to “keep face.” Approximately two million children are aborted in South Korea every year (according to the DSW newsletter 6/2000), which is even more than are aborted in the United States. Christian ethics seem to be almost non-existent in UBF, since "the end (world mission) justifies the means" is the ruling motto. If there is any ethics in UBF, then it is closer to Confucianism than Christianity. Recently, a long-standing member of a Korean UBF chapter left UBF after learning that his chapter director’s wife had misused her authority to coerce his wife into having two abortions without his knowledge. After he had left the ministry because of this, he was also slandered by his former chapter leader in front of the assembly, as is the custom in UBF. Here is the translation of his open letter which was posted on the Internet on June 29th, 2002.)

This posting is addressed to S. Daniel Lee from the Nam-San UBF center [in Seoul, Korea].

Dear S. Daniel Lee and S. Mi-So Lee!

I am S. Ki-Chul O. I can attest with a good conscience to the fact that I served God wholeheartedly as a lay shepherd for the last 19 years, sacrificing all my material and my time. The reason why I left the Nam-San UBF center was because of my disappointment over you.

In the last Sunday message on John 8, titled “And the Truth Will Set You Free”, you wrote the following about me: “And the others cannot remain in the word of Jesus because they are rooted in worldly desire. One lay shepherd [in UBF messages they like to give such seemingly anonymous examples, although, of course, everybody knows and should know who is meant, in this case Ki-Chul O.] followed Jesus for 18 years and left Jesus last week. It is not important how long you follow Jesus but where you are rooted and where you are standing. Sooner or later you have to leave Jesus if you want to keep your desire and ambition for glory no matter how long you had already followed Jesus.” Now I ask you the following questions:

1. Does my leaving the ministry mean that I have left Jesus? Does the UBF center stand for Jesus? It is a fact that I am following Jesus whether I am attending the Nan-Sam center or not. I will continue to believe in Jesus. I have never heard of such a distorted theology in which a ministry is equated with Jesus. Please give me a good theological reason why you think that somebody has left Jesus if he leaves the ministry.

2. You say in your message that I have not remained in the word of Jesus because I was strongly rooted in addiction to glory and worldly blessing. How could I then have remained 19 years in UBF which requires more offerings and faithfulness than other ministries?

We had to move into a rented apartment so that the UBF center building could be financed. [Translator’s comment: Most Koreans live in an owner-occupied apartment or rented apartment for a one-time deposit which corresponds to two thirds of the selling price. This deposit is used as a retirement fund since there is not any proper pension system in Korea. Only the poor live in bad rented apartments where you have to pay monthly rent. Ki-Chul O. had to move into such a rented apartment to raise the deposit money for the center building.] As a result my wife got an allergic nasal cavity inflammation, and my children had to constantly go to the doctor because they often became ill because our apartment was very cold. I gladly bore these disadvantages which arose because I worked more eagerly for the center than for my job. We sacrificed more than 1.6 Million Won [about $1300] per month up to the year 2000 for the world mission. My salary amounted to about 3.5 Million Won [$2900], and last year we actually could not give more than 1.3 Million Won [$1100] per month even if we wanted to. So how can you condemn us as people who are rooted in worldly desire when we have sacrificed so much? I was set up as a fellowship leader and important tasks were entrusted to us. Was this not a sign that you had appreciated our dedication? Who could actually dare to exalt himself in our ministry against your will?

We once purchased a small office. [Translator’s comment: It was a tiny room in a so called “Officetel”, which Koreans like to purchase as a financial investment.] However, my wife had such a guilty conscience after doing this that she told shepherdess Mi-So [the wife of Daniel Lee] about it, and she [Mi-So Lee] told her to sell the office immediately. I knew nothing about this for a long time. I ask you, what kind of ministry teaches something like that, that the woman shall listen to the wife of the leader more than to her own husband? Why is an elderly man with 2 children not allowed to buy a house or save a little money? How could you accuse such a person of worldly desires? [Translator’s comment: Purchasing a house is almost the only possibility of having savings for retirement in Korea.] Why then do you have a car and a house of your own? [Translator’s comment: Though he is a vice-manager of a well-known worldwide American insurance company, Ki-Chul O. does not own a car like Daniel Lee.]

In your opinion, all shepherds, except the leaders, have to sacrifice their whole life to the ministry. It is time that UBF members deal with the bringing up of children, problems of housing and provisions for old age. How do you want to solve these problems? [Translator’s comment: Meanwhile, many older UBF coworkers are confronted with such problems after they had never thought about themselves in their younger years as UBF taught them. Now the leaders, who always brushed practical life problems aside, refuse to take responsibility for this and to help in solving these problems.] Make a clear statement about how you want to bear the responsibility for the coworkers! I fear, however, that you will merely say that Jesus will surely bless them.

You have been appointed as shepherds for the sheep. What is a shepherd? Is he not a guardian of the sheep? Is it not his task to wipe away their tears and ease their pains? However, have you not made use of their deep confessions of sin coming from their hearts, only to rebuke and condemn them? Is it the task of a shepherd to slander his sheep in front of uninformed coworkers after they have left him? Is it not the task of a sincere shepherd to think first about the pain of the deserted sheep, bearing their pain and repenting first?

...

Not even worldly people would slander somebody that way, who had worked together with them for 19 years.

...

I believe that Jesus is the Lord over this ministry. Please explain to me whether it is biblical that you make the people treat your words like the words of Jesus and, therefore, accept your directions as divine? You have the absolute authority and require the absolute obedience!

I know that you [being the chapter director] manage the offering money, and it is at your disposal. Is it not biblical that others care for the administration of the money?

Why do the coworkers have to obey the leaders absolutely when all are sinners in front of God? You are not God!

The most important task of a leader is proclaiming the word. Why do you interfere in private family matters? Why do you teach the women that they shall be more obedient to you than to their husbands so that marital problems constantly arise, caused by your teaching? Is this biblical?

Your most excellent wife gave my wife the direction [a “direction” or “orientation” is the same as an absolute command in UBF] to abort our third child since it was an obstacle for the evangelization ministry because she is already more than 37 years old. In this way, she had our children aborted twice. I was so shocked when I learned about that. My wife had concealed that from me [the fact of the abortions due to the direction given by the wife of the leader] and confessed it recently in front of me after she had so painfully kept this to herself for 4-5 years. I want you to make a clear and public statement, whether this action [ordering abortions] is criminal or biblical.

We have left the church after ministering for 19 years because the atmosphere was poisoned with authority and legalism and, therefore, was suffocating. But we have not left Jesus at all. By no means! Rather, we pray for wisdom to serve the evangelization ministry in the best way. We still pray for the coworkers and Bible students in the Nam-San center. Acts 5:29 says: “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men!’” You cannot obey someone blindly instead of God. It is wrong and distorted if the leader blames a coworker for not having understood or having forgotten the grace of God, because the coworker does not obey him. I believe that we should obey only God who alone is worthy of our adoration and our praise.

6/29/2002
Shepherd Ki-Chul O.

Becky C. (former Chicago UBF)

Date Posted: 02:50:07 05/27/02 Mon
Author: Voice of America
Subject: Richard and Becky C.

I came upon the following old posts from Becky C.. Does anyone know how
the C.s are doing and how I could reach them?

##################################################

Author: Becky C.
Subject: I married the prince of John Birds Fellowship

I've wanted to say something about my experience with UBF for a long time now. There are so many things to talk about that I will only mention a few at a time. I studied the bible for 3 years before I married Richard C. who was in John Birds fellowship. I was in Dr. Ban Tohs fellowship before this (I can talk about things there but that will be later). I will basically talk about my experience after I married for now. I really wanted to serve the Lord, so when I married I thought it would great to cowork with Richard. However little did I know what I was in store for because I really had no relationship with anyone in John Birds fellowship. I thought it would be a nice fellowship to join and would be new and exciting. I soon found out that not only did I acquire my mother-in-law and father-in-law but also all of John Birds fellowship became my in laws and I don't mean in a positive way. They never made me feel welcomed and it seemed as if I was intruding on Richards life. That was only the surface of the problems. It became deeper. When Richard sinned(supposedly sinned), I was blamed for that. John Bird began to blame me for whatever sin Richard committed. That is so unbiblical. We are responsible for our own sins and we must repent for them before Christ. Every person will stand before the judgement seat of Christ not the spouse in your place. It became increasingly difficult to stay in such a fellowship where I experienced no love from the leadership. John Bird tried on many occasions to seperate Richard and me. At first Richard listened to him, however I was praying that God would open his eyes. God did open his eyes. Thank God otherwise we both would have been in UBF in a miserable marriage or I would have left divorcing Richard. God has blessed our marriage despite all the difficulties and trials. He in fact has made us stronger and closer and we thank God. I disagree with the way they treat marriage in UBF. They usually want the spouse to be working with the fellowship leader closer than with their own family or spouse. God has said in His word that family should come first and then the work of God. UBF has it all messed up. We really pray Rich and I for the marriages in UBF that they really will be true models from the Bible. We thank God that we left and we hope that others in the same place as we were would not settle for less for their marriage and their life. When you accept Christ into your life you have become the child of the KING and you have grace and peace and love and real beautiful blessings for your marriage. Not legalism control and political games. I could write more probably later. God bless! Becky C.


Author: Becky C.
Subject: Re: I married the prince of John Birds Fellowship

Chicago Reform Thank You For your encouragement. I wanted to answer your questions as soon as I could. I really did not know Jim Rabchuk. He always was very cordial with me and also my husband Richard. The one thing that I did notice was that he really seemed to have his own fellowship within the John Bird fellowship. There seemed to be very little coworking between the leadership there. I also want to say something about my testimony that I left out. It was that the problems we had with John Bird were brought up to Samuel Lee and he didn't do anything about it instead he claimed that Richard was just bothering him while he (Samuel Lee) was writing his message. Doesn't the bible say that if you have a problem with another individual you should bring it to them and if they do not listen you involve another believer to help out. Well,we went directly to Samuel Lee and nothing was done. Also, missionary Sarah Barry didn't do anything when we went to her. She told me just to leave John Bird alone, but said nothing to him or even tried to meet with him to straighten things out. Richard and I were willing to do this but nothing was done. There is alot more to this story but I think whoever reads this gets the idea. If the Lord wants then maybe I'll share more. I hope I answered your questions. I also just want to thank and praise God for what He is doing in UBF. I pray that all the corruption will be driven out of there and that the leaders who do not really have a desire to be more like Christ will be driven out of there. I pray that they will be replaced by people who are humble and yearn to know Christ more. I pray that the full gospel will be preached and that souls will be saved. I pray that this ministry will not just produce an assembly line of robots but college students that will change the world. Amen!!