>>8136257

http://cbuhaiti.org/about-us/

About Us

We are a small Christian fellowship based in Pennsylvania (also NY, FL, & CA), united by our mutual faith and our hope in Christ. Our primary goal is to spread the Gospel to any and all who will receive it, and to find others who are of the same mind and hope as we are.

It has been almost 40 years now since we started our first orphanage in Haiti, then with only 6 children. Since then, through the grace of God, our work has prospered and grown, and we now have around 150 children in 2 houses. In addition to this, we also support many smaller Haitian orphanages through weekly food deliveries and more. In this way we are able to provide aid to hundreds of needy orphans in addition to the ones we ourselves our raising.

We finance this work through various business operations, in addition to the support we receive from our donors. We send missionaries in groups of different sizes, usually rotating every few months. We have also recently been able to get visas for some of our older children to have the opportunity to come to the U.S. for further Christian fellowship, training, and education. We are still in the process of getting this going, but some of them are now free to travel back and forth regularly, and are a really big help in the orphanages.

We also have always had an interest in expanding our work to begin a "City of Children" in the very barren Northwest region of Haiti. Water, food, medical care - everything is difficult to obtain in this desert-like area of Haiti, but there are thousands of children who need it desperately. This obviously requires A LOT of planning, funds, and manpower to even begin, but the need for this is even more urgent since the Jan.12, 2010 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince as well as the October 2016 Hurricane Matthew. Your ideas and support (and prayers) concerning this project are much appreciated.

If you are interested in contributing to this work in any way, or even if you would like to hear more about the Gospel, feel free to contact us and we will be more than glad to talk to you!

Church of Bible Understanding

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Church of Bible Understanding (first known as the Forever Family) was founded in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1971 by Stewart Traill.[1][2] It is a communal organization, teaching a form of evangelical Christianity.[3]

In the 1970s, with its headquarters in New York, it developed into a controversial network of churches with 10,000 members and 110 communes at its peak, but only a few hundred members in later years.[3][4]

Traill underwent a conversion experience in the early 1970s in Allentown, joined a Pentecostal church from which he was expelled, and began teaching Bible and developing a following.[3][5] He changed the name of the "Forever Family" to the "Church of Bible Understanding" in 1976. Ex-members complained that they worked for very low wages, with all the money going to the church. The group had a communal lifestyle, with Traill maintaining that only he can understand the true meaning of the words of God. Traill encourages his group members to break off contact with their families. Over time, the members decreased in number.[6]

With a carpet cleaning business, "Christian Brothers Carpet Cleaning," they were the inspiration for Seinfeld's "Sunshine Carpet Cleaning Cult".[5][7] They also started a used van business as a commercial venture.[5][8]

The group has been accused of being a cult, and it has been estimated that Traill became a millionaire from it.[5] Rev. Bruce Ritter of Covenant House accused it of enticing 17 youth out of the shelter with promises of salvation, and a state court enjoined them from housing or transporting youth under age 18 without parental permission.[5]

In November 2013, the AP investigated claims that the church was at fault for running sub-standard housing for orphans in Haiti after the two homes the church runs received a failing grade from the Haitian agency that monitors orphanages. "…Even though they claim in IRS filings to be spending around $2.5 million annually, the home for boys and girls was so dirty and overcrowded during recent inspections that the government said it shouldn't remain open."[9]

>>8136353

Published December 18, 2013

Last Update December 5, 2015

US church that funds Haiti orphanage with high-end antiques store runs afoul of government

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – At the Olde Good Things antique store on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a French crystal chandelier can go for tens of thousands of dollars. A marble mantel sells for more than $20,000 and hand-carved dinner tables are priced even higher.

The store's Christian missionary owners offer their well-heeled customers a heart-warming story: Part of the proceeds pay for the group's orphanage in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. What they don't say is that even though they claim in IRS filings to be spending around $2.5 million annually, the home for boys and girls was so dirty and overcrowded during recent inspections that the government said it shouldn't remain open.

The Associated Press made an unannounced visit to the orphanage's two homes, currently holding a total of 120 kids, in November and found conditions a world away from the opulent Manhattan apartments decorated with the store's antiques. Bunk beds with faded and worn mattresses were crowded into dirty rooms. Sour air wafted through the bathrooms and stairwells. Rooms were dark and spartan, lacking comforts or decoration.

While many other orphanages also failed the Caribbean country's new national standards, and conditions are far worse in some, the group's three-story building on the hilly outskirts of Port-au-Prince stands out because it's run by an organization with such an unusual, and successful fundraising operation. The failure to meet the standards would seem to contradict their financial position.

Wealthy people patronize Olde Good Things, which has five stores in New York, two in Los Angeles and a warehouse in Scranton, Pennsylvania, searching for unusual items for home renovations, much of it salvaged from old buildings. There are antique entryways and doors, porcelain sinks, cast iron bathtubs, stained glass windows, glass and brass doorknobs, and rare pieces of wooden furniture.

Haiti's Social Welfare Institute, meanwhile, says the orphanage run by Olde Good Things' owner, U.S.-based Church of Bible Understanding, did not meet minimum national standards during a series of inspections dating to November 2012. It found sanitary conditions were "terrible," and there were too many kids for the amount of space, said Vanel Benjamin, a senior inspector with the agency. They also found not all kids were going to school and the staff lacked adequate training.

"We made a number of visits to the orphanage to tell them that they needed to make progress, but there hasn't been any progress," Benjamin said.

The result is that the orphanage was placed on a warning list, allowed to remain open only because impoverished Haiti lacks the resources to close the facility and find new homes for the children.

A church official disputed the allegation that children weren't attending school and said he doesn't believe conditions were so bad that they warranted a failing grade, but he said they are addressing the complaints nonetheless.

"There are ways we are lacking but we try to do the very best we can in God's name," said Paul Szostak, part of a rotating staff of church workers who currently manages Haiti operations. "We are trying to improve things and make things better."

>>8136546

cont

The AP's November visit appeared to bear out Szostak's claim that improvements were underway. Although the organization says it employs 60 Haitians at the orphanage, journalists found volunteers from another orphanage scrubbing floors, painting walls and giving advice on infant care to the one church member and several Haitian workers on the premises. Some children attended Haitian Creole classes on the terrace.

Justin Fair, a 32-year-old from New Jersey and the sole church member living on site, explained the group's mission: "Our goal is to raise them as Christians and bring them up to be productive Haitian citizens."

The orphanage is two homes, with about 60 children in each, located a few minutes apart in Kenscoff in the mountains above Port-au-Prince where steep, windy roads offer panoramic views of the sprawl and misery characterizing much of the capital. The report from the social welfare agency specifically faults only one of the homes, though both appeared similar during the recent visit.

"It's not horrible. I have seen orphanages way, way worse … it just needs a lot of work," said Dixie Bickel, director of a nearby orphanage, God's Littlest Angels, operated by an organization in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bickel, who praised the Church of Bible Understanding for sharing food with needier groups, has been helping the church address the problems, supplying volunteers to paint and clean, training the Haitian staff and recently taking in several sick infants.

That the orphanage struggles is a surprise, given that it has a seemingly well-funded operation.

In its Form 990 for 2011, the most recent version available of the document the Church of Bible Understanding must file with the Internal Revenue Service, the church reported spending about $2.5 million annually on its orphanage, according to an analysis by Chuck McClean, vice president of research at Guidestar, the leading source of information on nonprofit groups.

McClean reviewed three years of returns and said it was difficult to determine from the explanations on the forms how much of what the church provided the orphanage was cash and how much was in-kind support such as food.

Church members gave conflicting information. Senior church official Kevin Browne said in an interview that the organization spends about $1 million a year in Haiti. Fair, one of two church members working in Haiti, said: "Basically, a third of all the profits go to our orphanages."

Asked about the discrepancy, Browne said the group also distributes food in other parts of Haiti, but he said only the church's pastor, Stewart Traill, was aware of the details of their finances. "I'm not a money guy."