I’m glad you shared these things. More former and current members of UBF need to speak up about what they know, so that we can ascertain the facts correctly.

Even though the Catholic Church and Penn State organizations handled their abuse issues poorly initially by covering them up, both organizations have made some tough decisions and started holding people accountable.

It looks like that won’t ever happen in UBF. Length of service is held in such high regard, the longtime directors are free to do whatever they want. And as time passes, people who could hold such leaders accountable are growing old, dying and forgetting.

He was crushed when he discovered that Samuel Lee lied about giving him money to help begin a new chapter in Texas. Some time later, as an effort of reconsilliation, Samuel Lee may have sent him a small amount, but it was a one time amount and not worth the cost of the move, much less provisions for a new ministry setup.

Also…you can verify the next fact with Bob and Sarah Nolan…I recall when the Toledo Chapter was investing in a huge residence on Glenwood. Samuel Lee had directed James Kim to “have vision” to find a center and fill every room with1:1 Bible study. We moved from the Kingsgate residence to the huge victorian on Glenwood.

I recall we raised around $16,000.00 toward the purchase of that center, which was to be purchased by UBF in Chicago for a permanent Toledo Chapter. Samuel Lee took the funds and we ended up leasing the center. This was never told to most of the members. We believed the home was really purchased, so we made many basic rennovations to the structure decor (walls replastered, paint, wallpaper, wood refinishing and some wall teardowns). These rennovations should have never been done as the residence was not officially the property of UBF. It was owned by one family.

When the center was given up and a move was made to Kensington street, the initial owner of the Glenwood home was beyond furious over the changes we had made (rightfully so). Poor James Kim and all Toledo members had been royally screwed by Samuel Lee. Supposedly, he was jealous because even though the center was huge, it really was totally filled with students at that time. Some of us even stayed there overnight for various reasons.

I heard that Samuel Lee wanted to “pioneer Russia” and claimed to have sent our center money for Russian support instead of buying the Toledo center. This caused huge doubts in Toledo and several key American students resigned at that time as well as one American family unit (the Chandlers). Some months after we raised the $16,000.00, Sam requested two more fundraisers….one for his birthday; I think we raised almost $3,000.00 for that event and another $5-6k for another “Russian fund”.

When I lived with Sarah Barry, I was in her office during a conversation with Samuel Lee after a Sunday worship service. He wanted to know how much the collections were for the day. I want to say between 40-60k. He instructed Sarry Barry to convert $40k to gold and make a deposit……Sarah Barry used to tell me that regardless of Samuel Lee’s judgement, she would not challenge his decisions. She stated that when she could see his “mistakes”, it just made her pray harder for her. She told me this was the way God intended women to be as “silent prayer warriors”…perhaps if she would have opened her mouth, many atocites (I use that word in all seriousness) would have been prevented or at the very least exposed as abuse.

And so it goes…the UBF purse strings have never been used for specific charity work, except to donate to North Korea. All of the funds were intended to cover missionaries for their health or retirement (so I was told). It was not used for centers back in the day. Each chapter raised their own funds for those endevors…the question always was, did the money go where it was supposed to be applied. 9 times out of 10, the answer was no.

The issue of this was glaring obvious in the Canadian chapter. Way back in the 70’s a woman missionary was told by Sam that he would send funds to support her. His support ended up being airfare for other missionaries to join her, but they all tried to work (nursing) to pay their way. It was almost unbearable poverty as some did not have work visas and few spoke french or english enough to land and keep jobs. The women who did work shared their funds with those who could not work. They were also expected to tithe a persentage of their collected income to send every week to Chicago.

The same example was in Toledo. The Kim family had a very modest income and they supported the center with that money as well as the tithes from Toledo members. Still Sam expected his weekly cut, regardless of how poor we all were. If he did not recieve it, a phone call came to James or Hee Soon Kim. (She was the bookkeeper).

You are correct that the New Year always began with a zero balance. If money was left over by the end of December, it was sent to Chicago. Each year began with a zero balance, regardless of the chapter budget. Ah, the poor life. Samuel Lee boasted to me that “God had all the money in the world and I never worry about anything.” He would brag about how rich the UBF was and that each chapter was able to purchase their centers…later discovered this was so untrue. Samuel C. Lee was a fraud in so many ways. Mental health issues for him were never addressed. To bad for him.

thanks for listening.
In Christ;
Desiree S. Ray

Also note that the fact that at least we have some number now is a direct result of the reform movement of 2002 where financial (in)accountability of UBF was one of the issues. UBF tried to get a better image in that regard and published some numbers and joined the ECFA. Before, they did not even do that. Nobody except Samuel Lee had a clue how much had been collected, and the bookkepping was magically reset to zero every new year.

I also apologize for not speaking up when I could have and should have when you went through this…

The things we’re doing for the gospel’s sake: Mary and I both joined the Bible study groups at a local church (Grace Community). Our whole family attends their worship services so that the gospel may first be renewed in our hearts.

I have taken a vow to only learn and listen the rest of this year. So at the moment, we are “moving the gospel forward” by being close to Jesus and stopping religious activity. Hope that makes sense.

I have been through it too.
Abraham Nolan

I would estimate that UBF has approximately 2,000 members in the US and Canada combined. The average number of Sunday attendants in 2006 for US and Canada was 1,761, according to a rare report I have that lists attendance for every chapter in the US and Canada.

Since I was on registration committees, I know that the 2008 International Conference at Purdue had about 2,300 US and Canadian attendants (an additional 800 or so were invited from around the world to make the number more than 3,000).

I don’t have S. Korea numbers, or world-wide numbers, but there have been about 2,000 Korean missionaries sent in the past 50 years. I heard once that S.Korea had about 5,000 members.

At most, I would say UBF has about 10,000 members world-wide currently, concentrated in Korea. Certainly, there is no evidence to show UBF has more than 20,000 members world-wide.

Still, my questions are: What is UBF going to do with the money? Who in UBF gets to decide how to use this money? And by the way, what happened to the gold bars? How many were paid off when they left UBF to keep silent, as James Kim was? Does $12 million represent only the American offering, or the world-wide offering? How were all the new Bible houses in Korea paid for?

Even as a director in UBF, I didn’t have answers to these things. Nor did I even know who to ask. And I saw how those who did start asking were treated.

Once I sat on the railroad tracks in Toledo listening to a homeless man. When I brought him back to the center, people were very nervous and sent him away with just an apple. Helping the poor and needy is very low on the UBF agenda. It is only done as a fake demonstration that they do help the poor. The reality is they could do SO much more.