Gospel For Asia / GFA World

Gospel For Asia / GFA World

Gospel For Asia, recently renamed "GFA World," was founded in Texas in 1978 by K.P. Yohannan (photo), an Indian who had come to USA to attend Bible college. Gospel For Asia / GFA World solicits and collects donations for evangelizing primarily India, including its lowest caste's Dalits, but also Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Gospel For Asia claims that supporting its indigenous missionaries is more efficient and effective than sending cross-cultural missionaries, and pledges "100% of all donations preferenced for use on the mission field are sent to the mission field."

Strengths

1.  Gospel For Asia raises a lot of money. In 2013, for example, Gospel for Asia raised $115 million in USA ($93.8 million), UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

2.  K.P. Yohannan speaks with charisma and effectively contrasts the wealth and excesses of the Western church against the dire needs of the impoverished church in south Asia. He exhorts Western Christians to take up their cross and follow after Jesus, to stop wasting His money on building expensive buildings and other unbiblical expenditures, and to direct it to reaching the most unreached for Jesus (see missionary needs).

Weaknesses

1.  A bulk of the money Gospel For Asia collected in USA so far returned to USA or never left it.

For example, $45 million of the donations collected for the impoverished in south Asia was instead spent to build a gleaming 100,000-square-foot headquarters (below) and 80 suburban homes in Wills Point, Texas for the leaders and other officials of Gospel For Asia.

Gospel For Asia claimed that $19.8 million for the construction had come from an anonymous donor, who was later exposed to be K.P. Yohannan's own Believers Eastern Church in India (see below) that is financed by Gospel For Asia.

2.  Much of the money Gospel For Asia did transfer to south Asia wasn't used for their stated purposes.

Some of it was used to buy for-profit businesses, including a professional soccer team, a rubber plantation ($19 million), and an engineering college ($70 million); some of it was used to finance Believers Eastern Church (see below) and other K.P. Yohannan organizations; and some of it remains unaccounted for.

When pressed during a 2015 Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) inquiry, Gospel For Asia conceded that in June of 2015, $186 million of the donations collected ($259 million in 2014) were sitting in the bank accounts of its offices in Asia. ECFA revoked Gospel For Asia's membership later in 2015.

As its name became a liability, Gospel For Asia India changed its name to Ayala Charitable Trust in 2016, and Gospel For Asia Canada changed its name to GFA World in 2017.

3.  K.P. Yohannan used the donations to create his own cult and make himself its ruler.

In India, K.P. Yohannan, whose highest earned degree is a bachelors, has given himself the title, "His Eminence, Most Reverend Dr. K.P. Yohannan, the Metropolitan Bishop" and made himself the head of Believers Eastern Church, a pseudo-Christian cult he created. K.P. Yohannan (seated below) dresses like an Orthodox Patriarch or the Roman Catholic Pope, and wears a ring that the "bishops" he ordains must kiss.

K.P. Yohannan demands lifelong submission to him even from Americans who work for Gospel For Asia. As transcribed below, 2:25 to 2:51 of https://clyp.it/phc02ir4#, which is an audio recording of a 2011 Gospel For Asia staff ordination, serves as an example:

K.P. Yohannan: “Will you promise to submit to my leadership, my successors, and authorities of the church and the ministry set over you all the days of your life and ministry?”

Ordainee: “I firmly make this pledge and promise in the name of God and before this congregation that I will submit and always remain loyal and faithful to your leadership and to your successors and in all matters.”

Update

In 2018, 200,000 American donors sued Gospel for Asia for having sent only 13%, not the promised "100%," of their donations to the field, and sought the return of the $376 million they had donated to Gospel For Asia from January 2009 to September 2018. Gospel For Asia settled their class action lawsuit in 2019 for $37 million and kept 90% of their money.

In 2020, Canadian donors sued Gospel For Asia Canada / GFA World for $170 million. As of 2021, their class action lawsuit is still pending.

In November 2020, India's Income Tax Department raided K.P. Yohannan-related compounds suspected of money laundering and diverting for his personal use tax-exempt foreign donations intended for the poor, and discovered 5,700,000 Rupees ($77,000) of unexplained cash in the trunk of a car parked at the headquarters of his Believers Eastern Church (source), as well as more than 38,000,000 Rupees ($518,0000) of unexplained cash at one of its churches in Delhi, and summoned him to come to their office in December and explain. Instead of appearing, K.P. Yohannan disappeared and is believed to be hiding now in one of the 80 suburban homes at the Gospel For Asia compound in Texas (https://www.gfadiaspora.com/).

In 2021, K.P. Yohannan changed the name of Gospel For Asia to GFA World worldwide and hired InChrist Communications, a public relations firm, to whitewash Gospel For Asia and give it a new brand image with which to fleece another generation of Christian donors.

Solutions

1.  Arrest and prosecute K.P. Yohannan, as well as Danny Yohannan, David Carroll, John Beers, David Mains, Francis Chan, Chuck Zink, Bob Felder and all other leaders and board members of Gospel For Asia / GFA World who are accessories to his scam. 

2.  Sell the $45 million headquarters building and 80 suburban homes at the Gospel For Asia / GFA World compound in Texas, the $70 million engineering college, the $19 million rubber plantation, the professional soccer team in India and all other Gospel For Asia / GFA World assets in the world, and return the proceeds, as well as the money in all K.P. Yohannan-controlled bank accounts and car trunks, to their donors.

3.  Launch new missionary organizations to serve those whom Gospel For Asia / GFA World was supposed to serve, reach out to and teach the true Gospel to those who gather at Believers Eastern Church.

Visitor Emails

"Thank you for your website. This is a very important ministry you are doing. For several years, my husband and I supported both GFA and VOM. In fact we were even volunteers for Gospel for Asia. We have long since dropped both ministries as we became aware of their inconsistency and dishonesty. We deeply regret the large offerings we gave them which could have gone to missions that were truly ministering and reaching people with the true Gospel. Several years ago a friend introduced us to Heartcry and we have been supporting them since. We really appreciate Paul Washer and the biblical way Heartcry operates. God bless, Barbara"

"Hello, I was one of the 200,000+ donors that gave relatively faithfully to GFA for many years. Towards the end, and shortly before the US lawsuit was filed (around 2015-2016), I started to have major misgivings about continuing to donate to GFA. I felt uncomfortable choosing from the catalog, and I couldn't shake the feeling that "I bet nothing that I donate even goes to the mission field." I was also having a problem reading K.P.'s column in their newsletter. Most of what he said in "K.P.'s Corner" was pretty generic and sounded decent, but still, something inside me kept trying to buck it off. I tried to shake off the feeling, telling myself I was unspiritual and that I needed to have more faith. Why would they lie? It was SO important to serve the persecuted Christians in the 10/40 window, right? During this time, I read in one of the newsletters that they had built an enormous facility in Texas. I remember being confused by this. I didn't remember a capital campaign. On their site, they were always begging for money to cover office expenses too. Where'd they get the money? After not donating for a year or two due to financial constraints, I chose to look them up again. Lo and behold, they were under a lawsuit, which I subsequently joined. There were a few things your article did not mention. One was an open letter written by Yohannan, which is probably still available online. In it, he basically cried for six paragraphs, saying how they were being persecuted for doing Christ's work. Another was the media that GFA sent out with the checks (US donors got 2 eventually). Both instructed that the money be sent back to GFA so they could continue Christ's work. The second one in particular (which accompanied the larger check) was quite brazen, basically demanding that the money be returned. At this time I chose to write a letter of my own to the organization, with reprimands and an instruction to remove me from the mailing list. Some days later, I got a package in the mail with a copy of K.P.'s new book and a form letter thanking me for my kind words! They didn't even READ what I wrote! I proceeded to throw away the book and wrote a VERY angry email to them, threatening legal action if my name was not removed, which finally worked. I haven't heard from them since. I guess those weird feelings I was getting all those years ago were not my unfaithfulness after all. I'm learning to listen to them now. Thank you for reading! Daphne"