Does God Need Your Car?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenna-gordon/does-god-need-your-car_b_49417.html
Posted: 05/26/07 01:20 PM ET
"Jangu!" called out the man translating the Bishop's sermon.
"Who can give 40,000?"
"Jangu!"
Who can give 30,000?"
"Jangu!"
The calls continued to ring out through $1.3 million church until each and every congregant had donated some shillings. Bishop Costa stood behind a cut out sign "Jesus Christ is the Lord," illuminated by blue neon, complimented by a large neon cross in a matching blue hue. The semicircle of hard wooden chairs surrounding the podium were filled with mainly women and some few men, dressed well, dressed poorly, but all willing to give. Their prayers rang out above the electric keyboard creating the sounds of a synthesized organ, as some spoke in tongues, some wave their arms, and all were moved.
"Pastor Gerald always said, 'Are you ready to give everything to God? Everything?' But Jesus shed his blood for us - there's no bigger sacrifice," says Frances Adroa, a former member of UCKG now in the middle of a media frenzy over an unusual case against the church.
Adroa is HIV positive. Last year, the leadership at UCKG promised her that if she made a "sacrifice" during their Mount Sinai campaign, her prayers would be delivered to the holy site and she would be cured of the disease wracking her body.
At the time, Adroa had no assets to give but her car.
"I put my car keys in the sacrifice envelope and the pastors took me home," Adroa explained during a recent interview.
"They said all of our problems would be over," says Adroa.
When her HIV status had not changed, Adroa decided she wanted her car back. She is now pursuing a lawsuit with the help of John Kaggwa and Associates.
"God owns everything in this world, so why does he need my car?" asks Adroa.
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The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God came to Uganda just two years ago, but has been operating worldwide since 1977. Not, however, without problems. Founder Bishop Edir Macedo, whose personal fortune is estimated to exceed $100 million, was arrested in 1992 for charges of fraud. He even brought almost $10,000 illegally across the border hidden, of all places, in the Bible. The church, which has over 8 million members worldwide, is said to bring in excesses of $1 billion annually through the aggregation of small contributions from mainly people too poor to be separated from their money.
In Uganda, the first pastor of UCKG was arrested on charges of sodomizing a young boy, and the second pastor for running a brothel out of a rented space on Entebbe road.
"Those pastors were here and they made mistakes, but they're no longer pastors," says Costa in defense of his church. A Brazilian man in Uganda, his salt and pepper hair and neat tie set him apart from his congregants but not from his Brazilian counterparts.
Investigations are being conducted world-wide against UCKG's activities, in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and the States, where branches are all operating with dubious conduct.
Costa says the $1.3 million to build the Kampala branch of UCKG came from the church in Braziel. "Our intention is not to show people that we are rich but that God is great. People here are so poor we can't just talk about God being great, they have to see it," says Costa, who defends the Church building amidst its congregants' struggles and poverty.
"People hide behind the bible when they are conning others," says Moses Solomon Malay, an evangelist and director of Arising for Christ, one of the organizations attempting to help Adroa in her battle.
Costa, however, when asked about Malay, responded with unfounded allegations: "He's been financed by Muslims to damage the name of Christian pastors. His problem is not against UCKG but against Christians."
Malay insists he is only out to help Adroa recover her rightful property.
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"A desperate person will not use rational judgment," says Malay. "Critical ability is minimal when hope is promised. The sick are giving everything they have for miracle healing."
"One day I was driving when I heard these people calling to me over the radio, to bring my problems, and they would solve them. It was late in the day and I was heading home so I told myself I'd go there the next day," says Adroa on how she joined the church.
She'd already been feeling ill and losing weight, and soon after, Adroa went for an HIV test. After the devastating news that she was positive, Adroa decided to go to church, the one place she's always found comfort.
"I came to church that very day and during prayers I broke down and cried so much. We were all praying and all standing and I was crying," she says, tears coming the surface of her almond shaped eyes but refusing to drip down her cheeks.
She's already cried about this too many times.
The campaign for Mount Sinai began a few weeks later. The pastors promised that if "sacrifices" were made, then prayers would be taken to Mount Sinai and promptly answered.
While she was at first reluctant to donate, Adroa says the pastors told her, "'The devil is going to try his level best to keep you from sacrificing.'" Adroa didn't tell her family of her plans to donate the car, or anyone for that matter, because the pastors at UCKG had so thoroughly convinced her they would act as the devil trying to stop her.
Additionally, within the congregation, there was great secrecy about who was donating what and why. One of the signs of a cult, a word often used in conjunction with UCKG, is the willingness to isolate its members from their families and each other - both things that fit UCKG perfectly.
Eventually, frustrated and still ill, Adroa decided to leave the church.
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Bishop Costa maintains that he and UCKG have never forced anyone to do anything and they are not in the wrong in Adroa's case.
"She was deceived by God and not by me, since the scripture says, 'I am the Lord who heals,'" says Costa.
Malay and Adroa's lawyer John Kaggwa insist that UCKG opportunistically took advantage of Adroa's illness to finagle a way into her assets.
It isn't surprising that Adroa was taken in by UCKG's promises. Their brochure promises that if you come to the "Prayer for the Sick" every Tuesday, "even if the doctor cannot help you, the Lord can."
Adroa insists that the pastors didn't care about her health - just her car. When she fell truly ill, they didn't even visit her. "If the pastors don't care for me, who was sick, dying, will they care about other people's problems?" she says.
Though Adroa has gotten her car back, it has incurred over Ush 2 million ($1,000) in damages under unclear circumstances while the church possessed it. She's now fighting to get them to pay the bills.
Adroa is now on ARVs and her health is improving.
Says Bishop Costa, "I'm worried about her salvation. She needs to stop lying."
Woman Accuses Church of Extortion
The Monitor, Uganda/April 26, 2007
By Rodney Muhumuza
Ms Frances Adroa, a self-confessed Aids patient, says senior pastors at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a Kampala church which she joined in June 2005, obtained possession of her car by pretending that they would reverse her health status if she invested in sacrifice.
In an affidavit she swore before the Chief Magistrate's Court of Buganda Road, Ms Adroa said the pastors took advantage of "my distress".
She claimed the car, Reg No. UCQ 676, was handed over to the church's leadership on July 11, 2005, less than a month after a pastor, Patrick Maselela, had persuaded her to give it up.
"I Frances Adroa ...do solemnly declare that with the full knowledge of my distress and broken heartedness, the pastors launched the campaign of Mount Sinai to which all members were required to give sacrifices and write prayer requests to God, which they claimed would be taken to Mount Sinai," the April 10 affidavit says.
"That to further coerce me to give, they showed us a documentary of their worldwide leadership on Mount Sinai [in Israel] performing rituals similar to what they had promised us."
Yesterday, at a Wandegeya garage where the church's leadership was to officially hand over the car to the claimant, Ms Adroa pointed to a battered car parked in line with others of its kind-crashed saloon vehicles that looked like relics from the past.
Although the handover did not happen, as the UCKG pastors never showed up, she spoke bitterly of how she had been taken for a fool.
It was still unclear how the car had been crashed in the front, but Ms Adroa and Mr Solomon Male, a Kampala pastor who acts as her adviser, said they did not rule out malice.
Documents seen by this reporter show that when Ms Adroa tried to get back her car mid last year, after her illness intensified, she was told by her pastors that she had no valid claim on it.
However, she was later given one condition. "The UCKG has nothing against giving you back your car, which you voluntarily gave as an offering to the church, since you are now claiming it back," UCKG's letter to Ms Adroa said. "However, note that the church has incurred a lot of expenses in trying to bring the car into good condition as it now is."
The letter, signed by Pastor Gerald Nyaki, said she would need to pay Shs2 million, a sum that had allegedly been invested in reconditioning the vehicle.
In a separate affidavit the church signed before the commissioner of oaths, Mr Nyaki said Ms Adroa had willingly signed documents transferring ownership of the vehicle, a claim not denied by Ms Adroa.
Mr Male, a tenacious cleric known for his controversial exposés on vices in the Church, said Ms Adroa had been "persuasively coerced" at "her hour of need". Ms Adroa said she has not lost faith in the church "because there are a few bad guys messing up God's name".
Efforts to reach UCKG pastors were futile.
Church sues HIV-positive ex-member
Publish Date: Aug 18,
2008
By Moses Mugalu
A CHURCH in Kampala has sued a woman living with HIV/AIDS and a pastor for defamation.
Last year, Frances Adroa and Pastor Solomon Male accused the Universal Church of The Kingdom of God of taking Adroa’s car with promises of healing her but her condition did not change.
Adroa was member of the church on George Steeet, while Male heads Arising for Christ Ministries.
Male, an outspoken pastor, has been critical of many of the mushrooming born-again churches.
He has blamed a number of pastors for engaging in ungodly practices and defrauding the faithful they lead.
Magistrate Jolly Nkore of Mengo Court yesterday set September 9-10 for the hearing.
The church’s leaders, Gilson Costa and Gerald Nkayi, were not in court but their lawyer Deepa Verma Jivram said Adroa and Male caused publication of defamatory statements which injured the status and character of her clients.
Jivram submitted some of the newspaper articles published last year in which Adroa claimed that her car, a Hyundai, was taken during faith healing sessions by the pastors, who said she would recover.
But Adroa’s status never changed and she demanded a return of her car, which she said had been damaged beyond repair.
Jivram said they would also produce television footages and radio recordings.
She also submitted a log-book and transfer form signed by Adroa
Adroa and Male are represented by David Kaggwa.
Male, who attended the court, later told The New Vision that he was approached by Adroa to investigate her case and presented the outcome to the media. He vowed to submit more evidence.
The case comes after several claims by followers, mainly in born-again churches, that their pastors had ripped them of cash with promises of being healed of AIDS or getting fortunes that never materialise.
Church loses libel case
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/13/723550
Publish Date: Jun 22, 2010
By Andante Okanya and Abou Kisige
THE Universal Church of the Kingdom of God last week lost a defamation and libel case against ex-member Frances Adroa and Pastor Solomon Male, who heads Arise for Christ Church.
THE Universal Church of the Kingdom of God last week lost a defamation and libel case against ex-member Frances Adroa and Pastor Solomon Male, who heads Arise for Christ Church.
The case arose after a story in the Daily Monitor of April 26, 2007.
Adroa, a self-confessed AIDS patient, claimed that senior pastors at the Kampala church, which she joined in June 2005, tricked her into giving them a car, with promises of healing her.
The implicated pastors were Gilson Costa, Gerald Nkayi, and Patrick Maserere.
Male was also sued following remarks he allegedly made about the entrenched fraud and false teachings within some churches after Adroa sought his guidance.
However, the Mengo Court grade one magistrate, Jolly Nkore, said: I accordingly found that the statement did not affect the plaintiff. The plaintiff was not affected by the article.
Nkore asked the parties to bear their own costs in the suit.
She dismissed the counter-claim by Adroa for the church to pay sh3.9m to enable her repair the damaged car, saying it was given out voluntarily.
Nkore said accepting the counter-claim would create a tricky precedent where people would start claiming for their donations from churches in the event that their prayers yield nothing.
Believer loses case of 'sowing' car to God
Written by Administrator Thursday, 24 June 2010 13:20
he Chief
Magistrates Court in Mengo has dismissed a case in
which a woman was claiming compensation for a car she earlier willingly gave to
a pastor as a seed.
Frances Adroa, the woman, had been sued along with Pastor Solomon Male, a religious activist, for defaming the leaders of The Universal Church for the Kingdom of God (UCKG) whom they accused of duping Frances to give her car to the church with a promise that they would then pray for her and have her healed of HIV/Aids.
Court heard that in 2005, after losing her husband to HIV/Aids, Frances Adroa went to the church (UCKG) to be healed through prayers. The pastors apparently told her to 'seed' or give her car to the church if she wanted to be healed in a programme which they referred to as 'the Sinai event'.
The pastors had reportedly told Adroa she had sacrificed the car to God. The pastors took the car, a Hyundai Accent Reg. No 676 UCQ but the woman didn't get healed as promised.
Frustrated, Adroa tried in vain to get her car back until she contacted the outspoken Pastor Solomon Male to help her.
The pastor's intervention eventually compelled the UCKG pastors to surrender the car to Adroa but it was in a bad mechanical condition making Male to describe it as "a dilapidated piece of iron mongery" hence the counter claim for compensation of Ushs 3million.
But magistrate Nkore dismissed Adroa's claim for compensation reasoning that she had given away the car at her own will. The judge said: "It's not practical for Ugandans to start claiming back gifts they have given to the church if their expectations are not met."
Meanwhile, the judge also ruled that UCKG pastors could not bring defamation charges against Adroa and Male since the story they quoted had been published in the Monitor Newspaper.
UCKG lawyer Deepa Verma had argued that Male had caused the publication of the story through his constant media involvement. But Justice Nkore argued that there was no evidence that the story published by the Monitor journalist Rodney Muhumuza in June 2005 was in any way influenced by Pastor Male and therefore the defamatory case against him could not stand.
Both parties were told to meet the costs they incurred in the court process.
But the ruling appeared to shock Adroa who had earlier had assurance she would receive compensation for her car. Represented by David Kaggwa of Kaggwa & co Advocates, Adroa was inconsolably in tears saying she had gone through a lot of financial difficulties and had been bed ridden for sometime.
On the contrary Pastor Male was in a jolly mood citing the fact that he had survived the defamation case against him.
Pastor male further claimed that the Mount Sinai programme used by UCKG was not anywhere in the bible. Male is one of the prominent campaigners against issues of immorality and values which some Christians allegedly follow or practice but are not so stipulated in the Bible.
By Brian Muhumuza
Alse see, Who is Pastor Solomon Male?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Male
Scandals of the Universal church for the Kingdom of God
