By Walid Shoebat
The most important question of aiding suffering Christians is this; why do you seek to help Christians, is it for Christ’s glory or yours?
I am reminded of a great scene from the movie Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade where stubborn Kazim from the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword tells Indiana: “Ask yourself, why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory, or for yours?”
Truth is that “money” “claiming credit” “name recognition” and plain “theft” is the name of the game when it comes to the majority of Christian aid organizations. The faster people sink this in their heads, the faster that they spend their money wisely.
Truth is that the high majority have a checkered past and it is usually not discovered until way later.
For example, one NGO had some uncorrected dirty laundry, “Farrukh Harrison have taken 45,568 Pounds during the illegal occupation of the YMCA property”. It was a lingering issue from 2007 and Farrukh was known to aid Pakistani Christians in Pakistan and Bangkok Thailand. The report was not easily noticed since it was sitting at the archives of the Daily News in Pakistan. The issue when it was first brought to our attention we thought was simply an accusation, a claim, slander or just controversy.
But it turned out to be true. Farrukh Harrison Saif has been an overseas international agent contracted by Rescue Christians since 2011. He had mentioned he had some issues prior to his claim he had a spiritual conversion to Christ in 2008 and we were unaware of the specifics until it came to our attention back in August 2015. The board of Rescue Christians then confronted Saif since it had contracted him to do snatch-and-rescue missions of Christian slaves living and working in brick-kilns and a record of taking kickbacks is some old-laundry is an issue of integrity, honesty and ethics, especially that the YMCA is a Christian organization. Saif admitted to taking $20,000 in kickbacks from God’s money that belonged to the YMCA in Karachi, Pakistan, which our board recorded his confession to solidify the evidence.
Saif initially resigned but then reconsidered and promised to rectify, he said that he repented of his deed long time ago, but we insisted repentance constitutes returning the monies back to the YMCA, and making mends of whom he had hurt. He promised to fix everything including writing a biography and making a public statement in his conversion testimony soon to be released.
In Pakistan it is difficult to find NGOs without any checkered past. That, plus sending victims out of Pakistan would require someone who is slick and knows the system and this would be Farrukh Harrison Saif.
But the culture of corruption is difficult to get rid of in Pakistan. We tried to bring him back to do the right thing and even continued to aid Pakistani Christians since our discovery in August doing our best to ensure that all cases were genuine and they were. On November 1, 2015, a ‘testimony‘ was finally publicized but did not include any detail of the sin, whom he sinned against or how he manages to rectify the sin paying back the stolen monies. The testimony never mentioned that it was Rescue Christians who funded all his rescue missions aiding the Pakistani Christian community.
In the testimony, Farrukh made the outlandish claim that he aided “hundreds of thousands” when fact is we have the tally, it was seven thousand slaves and several major blasphemy cases, nearly all, were funded by western donors of Rescue Christians. The testimony, as it turns out, was no confession at all and was rather tears of an alligator with more credit seeking, and shamefully even using ‘Christ’s name’.
We will not bore you with the hour filled excuses we recorded during our investigation, when the board confronted him, but here is the missing link Saif wanted to so badly sweep under the rug: the fact that Farrukh Harrison Saif took $20,000 in kickbacks from his embezzlement of the YMCA:
This week, Rescue Christians, again, confronted Farrukh Saif (aka Farrukh Harrison, Farrukh H. Harrison, World Vision In Progress, Farrukh Saif Foundation) informing him that the issue was not satisfactorily rectified and that such ‘testimony’ did not meet the standards, ethics and conduct of someone claiming to be an ambassador for Christ.
It was obvious since he stated the case is still pending in court and that a recorded confession would not only hurt his organization he’s been trying to build but would possibly land him in prison in Pakistan.
He simply gave the lame excuse that he is “currently suing UNHCR and such a confession would hurt the case and his reputation”.
It was rather strange since Farrukh Saif was hardly recognized internationally until Rescue Christians carried him under their wing and began to fund snatch and rescue missions of slaves in brick kilns in Pakistan. Mission after mission, slaves were being set free thanks to western donors who cared about his people.
But the issue of our confronting him in August 2015, simply triggered another last-ditch effort to avoid the issues after realizing that we knew of his past. Farrukh then attempted to completely sever what Rescue Christians did for his people and claimed all the credit for himself. The genuine cases Farrukh’s foundation did for us, while nearly all were funded by Rescue Christians, ended being re-posted on his website claiming full credit as if the monies came out of him. It was a shock to watch his newly developed Farrukh Saif Foundation website which used to be World Vision In Progress which changed names after a conflict with World Vision. Mind you, the website was developed right after he was confronted back in August 2015.
Alarmed at this new revelation, the board of Rescue Christians contacted him, again, and having been caught, again, it was only then that he immediately ‘rectified’ what he claimed was ‘a technical error’ claiming that his webmaster simply ‘screwed up’. Only then did he correct the fraudulent claim to reflect the truth:
Headline FSF and Rescue Christians Moves another persecuted family ….
FSF is virtually broke. How could someone copy stories where “Rescue Christians funded this” and “Rescue Christians funded that” to simply having it all scrubbed became obvious; Farrukh was more concerned about gaining name-recognition while riding on the backs of western Christian donors who prayed daily and scraped whatever monies they could donate to a worthy cause: Christian slaves dying at brick-kilns in Pakistan.
Even after informing him that the victims should be the highest priority and not credit seeking, Saif was simply interested in elevating his own name to start another organization called Rescue Christian Refugees. The newly constructed blog Farrukh Saif Foundation was trying to mimmic Rescue Christians regardless that all the funders were U.S., Canadian and European donors who made it all happen.
Such behavior is typical and is why Pakistan will remain a cursed third world country with its poor Christians left in squaly conditions since in Pakistan no one can trust no one and the ones who try, like Farrukh, simply cannot get out of the grip of their checkered past and their old habits how they do things.
After the callus display, the board then terminated him on the spot. The name recognition according to his own thinking was already established and the testimony with tears seeking self-glory was obviously not for the glory of Christ or Matthew 25 as claimed.
Action should always speak louder than words. Farrukh could not produce a shred of evidence to show he mended what he did to the poor Christians at the YMCA in Karachi, which after all, is a Christian organization founded by western missionaries in 1913. There is no excuse not to refund what he had siphoned way back in 2007.
Farrukh’s actions and his desire of name-recognition ends up hurting his own people since he now lost western funding from Rescue Christians.
We can’t control what people do. We simply cancel the service and move on. There are plenty of Christian victims to help. And while we continue to find another agent to cover Pakistan, we have opened doors in Mexico where so many Christians are becoming human sacrifices for the cults of Santa Muerte and the Templarios and have been funding some great work there. At times we cannot publish the victims details and serious donors are welcome to call, inquire and ask for evidence (877-832-7200), its your money, not ours.
The problem in Mexico is even more serious than Pakistan or Iraq. No one pays attention to what happens next door to the U.S. We are also looking at prospects in the Philippines with Christian suffering in Mindanao. We want to be were Christians suffer the most and have the money go long-ways.
Pakistani Christians are an unfortunate people and it is difficult to find honesty and integrity in international aid organizations, especially in such a culture as Pakistan where every other person is dishonest or has a checkered past, be it NGOs, pastors or whomever.
It is a continual challenge. People are eager to gain credit rather than solely focus on the victims who suffer the most. To Farrukh Saif, the slaves in Pakistan who daily make bricks out of mud, were a stepping stone to something bigger; relief agencies, international funders in Sweden, Germany while using the name Rescue Christians to sue UNHCR … and since the misery of refugees in Bangkok are on the daily media, there are the photo ops as well.
But the issue of integrity is not only in these parts of the world. This is a prevalent condition in the west as well.
For example, out of the thousands of Christians whom Rescue Christians saved, we initiated the rescue mission of Iraqi Christians who fled ISIS controlled Mosul to Erbil, Iraq. We opened the gates of Europe and publicized the human tragedy. The mission was finally a success where Rescue Christians after months of hard work sent them the first initial 13 victims of ISIS to a care facility held by Manuel Fernández García and Mila Rodríguez Pozo, both pastors of Agua Viva (Living Waters) Pentecostal Church in Paracuellos de Jarama, Madrid Spain.
Mila Rodríguez Pozo is the farthest on the left
Even doing due-dilligence at times does not yield everything one needs to know about people. Rescue Christians flew to Spain to ensure that the facility was legit. Mila and Manuel were cordial and had rooms arranged for victims. The facility used to care for reforming drug addicts where they were funded by contributions to later have some issues and have lost their status and their facility was empty with no occupants. That was a great set up for Iraqi Christians fleeing ISIS. At the time we even hit the Spanish media to twist some arms.
So what did Mila and Manuel do after we delivered the 13 fleeing Iraqi victims to them? They started their own organization called “Exodus Rescue and Care” and like Farrukh, claimed all the credit. Mind you, they never mentioned that it was Rescue Christians who funded them including paying and sending a private team to Iraq, then found the victims, processed them, and sent them to Spain. Rescue Christians did the ‘exodus’ while ‘Exodus’ took the credit posting:
“On November 16, a group of Christian Iraqi widows and their children arrived safely in Spain after a difficult operation carried out by Exodus, Rescue & Care.“
There was no mention that the mission was carried out by Rescue Christians, except of course, extra care was taken in the media were royal families were named with all the necessary photo ops with government officials were posted giving careful attention to all the panache and show:
“The Spanish Government Delegation in Madrid, the Spanish Royal Household, HRH Queen Sofía and HRH Princess Irene of Greece have all sent letters to show their support of Exodus, Rescue & Care’s work and to help achieve our objective.”
Members of Agua Viva magnetized for a photo op with the green tie, José Manuel García-Margallo y Marfil is Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs who spoke on the issue of Rescue Christian’s Iraqi refugees
Even their other “Greece mission” which was funded by Rescue Christians was simply ignored. Everything was funded by Rescue Christians while some funding was given by a wealthy Catholic politician named Victor Gonzales of the Vox political party. Regardless that Rescue Christians has always been pro Catholic and Victor was Catholic himself, all this triggered nasty messages from Agua Viva Pentecostal members condemning us for posting articles in support of the Eucharist.
The honorable Victor Gonzales of the Vox political party
The key is to always beware of Christian aid organizations that seem ‘spotless’ and loves to use photo ops with big names. Truth is that things always go wrong in any mission and it is usually swept under the rug.
Once the gig was up, that it was gaining name recognition, letters from royalty etc, we fired Agua Viva as well, and their operations went to a screeching halt. There is nothing more coming out of Exodus Rescue and Care and we refuse to aid any organization with self-seeking glory and we will make known to the donors of all the ‘dust’ hidden under the rug regardless of the outcome. We will still tell everyone to never give beyond your means and care for your household first since a non-provider is worse than an infidel.
The only positive note is the major one: Christians were rescued despite all of these sins.
The negative part is that so many do not do what they do for Christ’s glory, but for their own personal glory and as a result Christians suffer and these, in the long run, do more harm than good.
We run into so many (and believe me, all legitimate organizations do) whom we categorize into two: folks who are looking for name recognition, photo ops and fame while others are simply thieves who know that America is a land of charity.
Today charity and churches, and not the pubs or the strip clubs, that attract the most evil people.
I met one named Alan Goetsch, the man even memorized and knew how to belabor Scriptures like an expert, while claiming to be a decorated hero, a Green Beret and member of the US Army Special Forces unit. He said he was tired that nothing is being done to help and aid the suffering Christians in the Middle East. Goetsch who runs Gideon Group 300, a supposed elite force unit that claims to do special operations in the Middle East are over 600 strong that are ready to deploy, an A team, top of the line, the best in the east and the west …
Goetsch was so ‘honorable’ that he even claimed that he was not looking for money from Rescue Christians and that he simply wanted to use Rescue Christians’s 501c3 as a conduit for depositing money from his ‘major donors’ and in turn we pay for his supposed heroic daring operations.
Why can’t the man get his own 501c3 was a red flag. He needed a reputable conduit in order to generate trust from his followers whom he told that he is associated with Rescue Christians.
With over a thousand Christian followers on his twitter titled “I am the bold voice of truth …” Christians were being conned not to know that the man who runs “Gideon Group 300” as we began to investigate had a checkered past and his mugshot was available if you searched hard enough:
As it turns out, Goetsch is not only guilty of impersonating himself to be a Christian, a pastor and Green Beret decorated hero, but also impersonating a police officer and CIA agent whose “plan was to aid rebels fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and to recover missing servicemen from Southeast Asia.”
The Associated Press reported Goetsch bilking victims: “Late Wednesday, the Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs asked the FBI to review the committee files on Alan Everett Goetsch Jr., who allegedly bilked the family of a missing American in Southeast Asia.”
Pulling up old newspaper articles from 1985 up till now, Goetsch is no minor con-artist, he has brought the attention of Senator John McCain and even John Kerry.
A con-artist at youth and a con-artist in his old age, some just never change
Alan Everett Goetsch (from his Facebook)
In fact, the man was such a major embezzler that Senator John McCain and John Kerry have referred this top-notch con-artist to the FBI for prosecution:
Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Vietnam POW, blasted as misleading, if not an “outright lie,” a claim by one of several organizations that raised funds purportedly to locate American servicemen missing since the Vietnam War.
McCain is a member of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, which Wednesday released documents showing that the fund-raisers mailed millions of solicitation letters and made hundreds of thousands of telephone calls on behalf of clients who claimed they could help the missing servicemen. The committee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., referred the case of Alan Goetsch Jr. to the FBI for possible prosecution.
Goetsch even knew how to make acquaintances with senators. In the past he linked with Senator Jesse Helms and currently he linked with former state senator of Tennessee Stacey Campfield.
In an Associated Press article, George Amos, undersheriff in Sweetgrass County Montana described Goetsch as a “fast-talking con-man” who “could sell an Arab s sunlamp …”
The last story is even more ironically amazing, the Protestant Anglican cleric, a true hero, Richard Wurmbrand, after having left us to be with the Lord, his family are still being persecuted in the U.S. by none other than the organization he started, Voice of the Martyrs itself.
How could anyone imagine that an agency that claims to aid the persecuted Christians, itself persecutes Christians is hard to imagine.
Michael Wurmbrand explains how he suffered for righteousness’ sake as Christ did and was even thrown out of his own temple named after his father:
I was dismissed from a building named Richard Wurmbrand, my father, Center, having inside a museum on my parents displaying the Bible of my mother obtained from me ALSO with plain false promises.
Michael Wurmbrand
Michael Wurmbrand (child) and his parents, Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand
Again, charities are a magnet for con-artists, criminals, and people who seek name-recognition.
As to why this brave Wurmbrand was persecuted, he explains that it was for attempting to expose the pedophilia at VOM:
the mission Voice of the Martyrs of Bartlesville (VOM), Oklahoma, USA and its international affiliates, continue to use Richard Wurmbrand, Sabina Wurmbrand, my parents’ persona, pictures, writings and books, my persona also to obtain your donations! Tom White, the past Voice of the Martyrs Chairman for more than 20-years, committed suicide in April, 2012, only two to three hours after an accusation of child molestation (pedophilia) of a 10-years old girl was formally filed by her parents with the local police
His story even gets worse. His multi-million dollar family’s entire ministry was taken over by a pedophile and another who was a ‘money cartel’ and biblical gymnast named Stephen Lindquist through sheer trickery. He tells his story from a lonely website:
“A repeated offender 3rd degree felon, who as of 2013 was STILL UNDER A-10-YEARS CONVICTION SENTENCE AS AN EMBEZZLER was named the Voice of the Martyrs Vice President [Stephen Lindquist]. Tens of thousands of dollars out of your contributions for supposed missionary work were extended as a loan to him to pay back some of what he stole and eventually escape parole supervision.” (Caps his)
When Wurmband Jr. confronted the outfit to expose the pedophilia, he was thrown out of the temple and received the typical biblical gymnast responses that we usually get on Shoebat.com:
“Do not cast the first stone,” “king Solomon made mistakes ,” “we might also sin” or “promise to keep correspondence private only” displayed the hypocrisy to protect the flow of donations rather than any interest in protecting possible children victims! Some answers were outright sarcastic, as if my requesting a proper investigation regarding suspected pedophilia among “Christian missionaries” would be some joke.”
Always remember, that the Bible is a weapon, just like a gun, it can be used by criminals and it can be used in self-defense against the tyrant. If someone kills with it, the liberals will blame the weapon and if someone builds with it, God never gets the credit. Wurmbrand explains his entire heartache from his lonely website:
VOM published even how within months of our arrival in the United States, from 1967 on, I worked together with my parents Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, to start what is now Voice of the Martyrs. Recently released documents from the archives of the Romanian secret police prove the communists had issued an order to kill our entire family. See: http://michaelwurmbrand.com/killing-wurmbrands.htm. We started what is now Voice of the Martyrs under a communist sentence of death. When I was only a child, the communists forcefully took away my parents to communist prisons. I suffered plenty. My parents died with a good name. I do not want to allow VOM use my parents good name, to raise money under false pretenses. I wrote the VOM directors: “If you enjoy, for motivations of your own, to wallow in the mire of suspected pedophilia go ahead …. If you do not want to accept an independent investigation and complete transparency of your dealings, I begged you do not use my father’ long years of suffering in communist prisons and the intense suffering of his whole family to raise money from naive donors ….” I was written by VOM, when asking help for formerly persecuted Christians under communism, now in their 90s, “we are technically out of money!…there will be NO check requests approved for anything other than absolutely essential…” only to find out later that $9.5 million were available not for mission work, but for construction work in Oklahoma (see above link.) Christian parents please protect your children! Consider how grave it is to allow your children to trust and be reached by a missionary organization having had a case of suspected pedophilia and a suicide because of it in its midst, and then terminating me, its founder so as not to have to respond to a request for an independent investigation of possible sexual child molestation.
When I first was told about Wurmbarnd Jr., it was through one VOM activist, the Rick Warren loving photo opportunist you see below, Calvary Chapel pastor Wes Denham who had slandered Wurmbrand telling me he defected from the ways of his father. Denham, as his bio reveals, was mentored by and traveled extensively with Pastor Richard Wurmbrand.
People just love photo ops: Wes Denham standing on the far right with Rick Warren
But we are to be careful of slander. As I study Wurmbrand Jr., he is a chip of the old block, his father Richard Wurmbrand. To be a Christian it is as Wurmbrand Jr. says:
“[John the Baptist] put his life at risk to denounce the sin of Herod, the ruler of the day”.
And so did Wurmbrand Jr. who lost it all because he exposed VOM’s coverups. The very “voice” of the persecuted has become the very persecutor. Herod could care less about John’s preaching or his faith. He killed him because John exposed Herod’s immorality.
Wurmbrand’s story adds up. VOM’s own Tax records proves the case how “STEPHEN LINDQUIST” (see mugshot below) taking personal loans from the charity. As it seems VOM was hijacked by an embezzler and another who was a pedophile. If one examines VOM’s Tax Returns and sees 1.00 hour of service a week for regular board members and 40.00 hours of ‘service’ by only the two corrupt officers, it becomes obvious: the fox entered the henhouse.
The millions that Christians donated to Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) as Wurmbrand explains ended up to building real estate: a mega structure worth $28 million dollars. Anyone with a persecution case can call VOM and ask them for help, and they will see for themselves how fast they are turned away. Go ahead, try it.
Most do not understand that none-profit organizations are a mega magnet for embezzlers, con-artists and self-glorifying NGOs.
Rescue Christians runs into so many con men (whom we will always expose) and it wasn’t that we were immune in the past from being nabbed, but the days we live in, it is that serious, we live in a world of self-glory, corruption, con-artists and societal deterioration.
All I can say is Lord have mercy.