Liberia: 3 brothers, all ‘pastors & teachers’ of Gospel fired over fraudulent acts at top Bible college funded by a U.S. church mission   

By James Kokulo Fasuekoi|Editor-Publisher

First, the jaw-dropping news started like murmurings in the church’s corridors in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Not long later, it became obvious to many parishioners that a “fraud” of some sort was taking place at Spiritual Life Church’s overseas mission in Liberia, West Africa.

Initially, no one knew the scale of the theft and some wondered who might have defrauded a church group which erected a Bible college, raised fundings and conducted numerous pastoral conferences and evangelism works in Liberia, beginning 1991, when the nation was still engulfed in a bitter civil war.   

But as it happened, the more Spiritual Life Church/Bible College founder, Dr. Judy Fonara tried to keep news of the alleged scandals confidential-at least from spreading out of control while administration worked hard to fix things-the more unmanageable it became. 

Finally fed up, after being troubled for nearly two years by the disturbing acts of her hired overseas “pastors,” Judy opened up recently in Minnesota, speaking for the first time about the massive fraud that she said, three-male Liberian siblings allegedly carried out over several years that involved money and building items meant for the local college. 

Before a packed congregation, on February 11, 2024, Pastor Judy began her sermon this way: “About two years ago, we began to find out that three different brothers who we’ve worked with on those projects [in Liberia] were stealing and taking money from us.” She was beamed live on her church’s U.S. television network and social media as she spoke.  

The project, construction of her church’s Bible college, was expected to consist of a modest chapel, with fairly looking four classrooms. The land had been purchased by another pastor and given to the church. It’s a few miles west of the defunct rebel INPFL based in Caldwell, where Pres. Doe was hacked to death by Gen. Johnson’s forces in 1990.

Pastor Judy, hastened to make it clear that it’s only the three siblings involved in the theft that involved properties and finances, and no one else. The alleged stealing was so massive that the church temporarily shut down college, fired all three-brothers and withheld support to it. 

Dr. Judy is an honored Oral Robert University grad who has traveled to over 120 nations, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ (with the exception of forty-one trips to Israel, alone). Her church has also planted churches in the U.S. and overseas. 

The church first hired a local pastor, placed him in charge of running its Bible school that had operated from a rented one-story building, adjacent to Bong Mines Bridge, Bushrod Island. He then brought in his two siblings to work: together, all three taught there, and by 2018, the church started to build her own college to move out of the rented building. 

Fundings, plus supplies associated with the construction of the new college, were then entrusted to the trio, according to our investigation. 

But the “new” college they erected and turned over to the U.S. Church Mission, reportedly failed to meet standard or the expectations of the sponsors: it has been something that founder, Dr. Judy had struggled to deal with over the past years.

She didn’t give details of structural conditions of the four-year-old college, nor the financing involved but a Global Ekklesia source who visited the campus said the college is without water, electricity (including wall outlets), while its chapel looks tiny and can barely hold forty-five seats or people.

In some classrooms, our source indicated, the ceilings seem to be falling off, while a few doors seem to be in makeshift conditions. Floors of the chapel and classrooms remain terribly awful, and without tiles, which prompted the church’s U.S. Mission to raise additional funds here recently, to be used to pay for labor plus purchase tiles to do the entire flooring.   

Yet, to the dismay of Dr. Judy, a large crowd cheered on in February, she said, as one of the men she’d accused of stealing from her church, gleefully walked into the hall during the last SLC/BC Liberia graduation ceremony, of which she together with Rev. Dr. Joe Fornara, (husband and co-pastor, president of Spiritual Life Bible College), had gone to Liberia to participate.   

“He had been a teacher there…but I knew he had taken some of our building supplies,” she said of the youngman as the congregation listened in awe. “He greeted me and I said, Hi…that was it!”  

A second sibling accused of being a part of the swindling, also attended the graduation exercises and ironically the event organizers had the man seated right behind Dr. Judy.  

“He invited me to his new church and when I got there, the Holy Ghost said to me, I hope you like this church [because] you helped build some of it,” Judy said amid heavy laughter from worshippers. 

A third brother, she explained, had previously worked at the school when it had “276 students” of which he helped graduate “120 students.” She praised him as “the best teacher” the college ever had at the time. The guy later “quit [his teaching job] so he could go and start his own school,” and at this event, he asked her for a job “because he’s broke,” according to her.  

“I just thought to myself; I just got to smile and do this graduation, I can’t just get into anything!”

While visiting Liberia, both Judy and Joe had a meeting with Pastor Claudius Cooper following which they agreed to resume support for the college; that is, if Cooper could oversee the school’s affairs, to which he has agreed. Pastor Cooper, a native of Liberia, runs his own churches here and in Liberia. After the trio got fired and the school shutdown due to theft, he’s praised for transporting volunteer-teachers to continue with teaching there.    

Apart from the alleged properties and financial frauds, Global Ekklesia learned last year of other malpractices taking place at the school related to textbooks shipped to the college and meant to be distributed freely among the students. Those textbooks are said to have been sold to students for “personal gains” according to rumors. 

During probe, SLC is said to have also uncovered acts of “quid pro quo” earlier on among senior staff whereby students who couldn’t allegedly “defend” their graduation “Thesis” or had failed to meet the college’s academic requirement for a “pass,” were made to pay an “unspecified sum of U.S. dollars” and given greenlight to graduate.

Since civil wars ended in 2003, and academic activities resumed in the African nation, academic fraud has increased in most of Liberia’s colleges and universities unprecedentedly such as never witnessed before, with the U.L., (‘nation’s highest learning center’) topping the list.   

This grave situation has even prompted the emergence of organizations like the Campaigners for Academic Crimes (CAC), formed and led by a young U.L. Economics grad, Martin K.N. Kollie. For the past years, the group has devoted much time to investigating, unearthing academic frauds, from lower to the highest level of power in the country. 

What seems so odd is that neither the nation’s Department of Education nor the University of Liberia itself has taken stringent measures to curb these academic frauds whenever they are uncovered and published in the local mass media or via social media. 

As for Dr. Judy, she had anticipated exposing the brothers’ alleged “ungodly acts” the moment she walked on stage to give her speech but maintained the Holy Ghost had told her to “behave” because, hundreds of people including students and the UL faculty, were all watching the event live.   

Back in the U.S. Judy, titled her Valentine’s Day message, FORGIVENESS, and disclosed she was moved by the Holy Ghost to forgive the trio who had trespassed her church’s finances. In the same way, she asked Christians worldwide to equally forgive those who trespass against them. Her text came from Mark 11:25-26.

“Pastor Joe and I are very honest [but] one thing I can’t stand is when people touch God’s money,” she lamented as she praised the congregation for providing “ninety to ninety-five percent” of funds used to run the school in Liberia and the building of the college there. 

She believes the LORD may have answered her prayers about her local college being granted license by the University of Liberia so they could run degree programs because she of her act of forgiving the three brothers but that she won’t ever employ them again.

Since the accusations and the February 11th telecast, this magazine has sought to speak to all three accused but remains unsuccessful. About a half dozen calls placed to a phone number belonging to one “William Jones,” the new “caretaker” at the college in Point-4, received one text during past two months, promising to “call back after teaching” but hadn’t up till press time.  

God strongly condemns cheating, especially “stealing!” In fact, God’s warning against theft can be found in more than two dozen Bible verses, including The Ten Commandments. He also states in 1 Corinthians 6:10, “Nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.” 

It is therefore unfathomable how Christians who had been ordained as Gospel Ministers can engage in alleged swindling such as property-theft and financial frauds while yet operating under a church mission.

Spiritual Life Bible College & Seminary is among highly rated Bible Colleges in the U.S. and will soon graduate its first batch of doctorate candidates next May, in Minnesota, USA. Liberia’s outstanding Gospel Minister Rev. Dr. Christian Dagadu who has planted twenty-five churches in Liberia alone, received a master’s in Biblical Theological studies from SLC-USA many years ago, and is expected to be among candidates graduating with doctorate in Biblical Theology this Spring at the college in Minnesota. Pastor Claudius Cooper and Pastor Precious JL Dagadu are also graduates of the seminary.

Editor’s Note: Author is a 2024 graduate of Spiritual Life Bible College. He had previously worked for the college. This story is published because of our vows to serve God and report the truth as we know it to be! It should thus serve as a “clear warning” to “would-be pastors” coming into the field for Global Ekklesia, an independent publication, will continue to report the “good” and the “bad” irrespective of who may be involved for the sake of the Gospel!  

James Kokulo Fasuekoi is an award-winning journalist, author, documentary writer and news photographer. He previously covered civil wars in West Africa for both local and international news media, including The Associated Press. Listed on his college’s Dean’s List for academic excellence, he holds an AA Degree in Biblical Theology and became a Bush Foundation Scholar twice in 2017. His works as a civil war journalist in Africa have also brought him face-to-face with the law in his native Liberia and in the U.S. where the Fed subpoenaed him twice to give testimonies as state-witness in two major international war crimes trials of 2017 & 2018 in Philadelphia. Once an African national ballet dancer, he now writes, photographs and dances for Christ. Read profile @ https://globalekklesia.com/profile/