USA 2002-2004
I came on staff a week before my 25th birthday, after spending a year and a half raising all of my own support. I had been volunteering for the ministry from my hometown for years and felt like GFA was where I was supposed to spend the rest of my life. Two months after arriving at Gospel for Asia, things began to get weird.
In a friendly conversation with David C., I told him I was interested in a girl who was on staff (we were just friends at the time). I was called into K.P.’s office and told that I was not allowed to continue to like this girl, and that I was not even allowed to pray about getting married for at least 2 years. I was surprised that I was being told not to pray, but my heart and intention was to do all that I could to comply with the wishes of the leadership. Shortly thereafter, all of the newer young single people on staff were called into a meeting where we were told that we had entered the ministry single, and so that is how we should remain.
From that point on, it was obvious that I was on leadership’s black list and I began experience what I later found out was a common practice at GFA: verbal and emotional abuse with the purpose of isolating and instilling a fear of being sent home.
The 3 leaders (K.P. Yohannan, John B., and David C.) would call me into K.P.’s office, and KP would proceed to tell me all sorts of terrible things about myself. He told me that I probably wouldn’t be a Christian in 10 years. He called me a mad man and said that he was glad that there was no one else like me at GFA, because he couldn’t imagine what I might go out and do. I loved the children at GFA, and would always volunteer in the kids ministry. Knowing this, K.P. said “There are 72 children here at the ministry, and you are going to ruin the lives of every one of them.” (That is a direct quote. I will never forget those words.) He also told me things that were outright lies. I had two close friends at the ministry who were female, and he told me that both of them were in his office in tears because of the inappropriate way I had acted toward them. I knew that this couldn’t be true, since I had always treated these girls as sisters in Christ and had never done anything even remotely inappropriate, but at the time it still crushed me and caused me to doubt myself. The leadership does a very good job at making you feel isolated and of letting you know in subtle ways that they are keeping a very close eye on you. I was a skinny guy when I went to GFA, but I lost 15 pounds that I didn’t have to lose over the next few months because of the emotional turmoil. In all of this I was trying to do what the leadership asked of me, but the abuse never relented.
One evening after a prayer meeting the girl I liked asked me if I had feelings for her. I was not pursuing her at all, and had no intention to do so because I wanted to stay at GFA. I answered her question honestly, and I told her that I did. In passing, not thinking it a big deal and having no idea that I was on leaderships bad list, she told K.P. that she had asked me and what my response was. The next day I was called into K.P.s office and told that I was being fired and kicked out of the ministry. The girl was then told that she was not allowed to communicate with me ever again in any way.
I flew home devastated a few days later on a trip that had been planned for weeks. When I flew back to Texas, I was expecting to be met by some friends who had planned a going away party for me. Instead, I was met by David C. who told me that the leadership heard about the party and canceled it. He told me that if I ever wanted to come back (at this point I still felt like this was my life’s calling) that I had to speak to no one and leave town the next morning.
I later found out that they had no intention of having me back, this was just a way to keep me quiet. The next morning, I packed what I could of my belongings into my car and started the long drive home. I had asked John B. if I could have some money for gas to get me from TX to WA. Even though I had over $8000 that I had raised in my staff account, they didn’t give me a cent. I later found out that when they made the announcement that I had left GFA, they told the staff that it was because I had psychological problems, but that GFA was going to help pay for my treatment. Both of these statements were completely false. It took me years to get over my terrible experience at GFA and the emotional and psychological abuse that I received, and I know that my story is only one of many.