Speak Up for Children Crossroads/100 Huntley in Uganda at Bene Diction Blogs On

Speak Up for Children Crossroads/100 Huntley in Uganda

What do you think when you look at this website?

This website www.speakupforchildren.org is an arm of Victory Outreach Ministries, a registered, Non Governmental Organization (NGO – # 35914/2755) in Lira, northern Uganda”

The site is owned and administered by Paul Willoughby, host of Crossroads Christian Communications Nite Lite Live. The site was put up in 2006 and the pictures were taken by Reynold Mainse, former host of 100 Huntley Street who was taken off air and relieved of his duties as Crossroads VP of Missions in May 2009.

Speak Up For Children is not a registered Canadian charity. The featured person on this site is Charles Okwir, listed both at Crossroads Christian Communications Missions and for Victory Outreach Ministries in Lira Uganda. I could not find a listing for Uganda charities and ran the number through Revenue Canada and UK charities. I found VOM Lira, Uganda in Rick Warren’s Ministries Toolbox.

Johnson Ogema – senior pastor of Victory Outreach Ministries in Lira, Uganda, and Purpose Driven field champion for Uganda – encouraged pastors to maximize their members’ ministry gifts by reducing the number of meetings conducted in a week. People in every country are busy, and they don’t need to spend much time in meetings. “We make our most talented members into bureaucrats,” he said.

All links I found for Victory Outreach Ministries Lira Uganda, lead back to Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven Churches.

In 2004 Lira Uganda’s Victory Outreach Church successfully completed the 40 days of purpose and received a church health award and a check from Saddleback for 1 thousand dollars. 79 churches were given money for church health that year.

Victory Outreach Ministries Uganda has a You Tube video.
A US charity search gave:

Victory Outreach International	San Dimas	CA	USA	–
Victory Outreach Ministries	East Windsor	CT	USA	–
Victory Outreach Ministries	Sumner	WA	USA	–
Victory Outreach Ministries Inc.	Florence	SC	USA	–
Victory Outreach Ministries Inc.	Philadelphia	PA	USA	–
Victory Outreach Ministries Inc.	Scottsdale	AZ	USA	–
Victory Outreach Ministries Inc.

I didn’t go through them.

I did find a Canadian charity registered in Calgary January 1, 2009, named Victory Outreach Ministries Society. There is no return or website available yet.
Both Speak for Children and Victory Outreach Ministries Society are private foundations.

Crossroads Ministries missions 2008 cached pages give us a bit more information about Speak up for Children and Charles Okwir.

Pastor Charles Okwir, along with four other pastors, lead Victory Outreach Ministries with its 90-plus churches, some of which are located within IDP camps. The suffering is great in these camps, with more than 1.6 million Ugandans overcome with grief. In addition, Pastor Charles runs a boarding school where 500 of these children are provided a safe, Christ-centred environment in which to learn, rest and receive God’s love.

…”Crossroads Missions” has worked on water and food security projects since 1989. Food security and water remain core sectors of focus for Crossroads Missions, as these, more than ever, remain urgent Humanitarian needs.

In partnership with a local church organization overseen by Pastor Charles Okwircalled Victory Outreach Ministries (VOM), Crossroads is rapidly developing food security and water & sanitation projects for resettling Internally Displaced People (IDPs). In a country that has been affected by 20 years of rebel warfare, hope is being restored.

It appears Crossroads Missions began it’s work in Uganda in 2006, around the same time the CFTC documents identify the alleged Driver ponzi scheme getting underway.
Crossroads co-operates with C.I.D.A. and is recognized as an NGO by the Government of Canada.
The current Crossroads Mission page and Uganda information is here.
Crossroads Christian Communications Inc., is a registered US charity.


Crossroads Christian Communications Inc.	Tulsa	OK	USA

May not be the same Crossroads, the Canadian site lists their US mailing address as Niagara Falls NY. It’s easier for employees to pick up mail right across the border.

Victory Outreach is a group of charismatic churches with two listed in BC and a Victory retreat centre in Calgary.

According to the 2008 Crossroads Christian Communications Canadian charity return:

We donate funds to denomination headquarters for overseas missionary activities

which is C4:

under agency agreement, contract, joint-venture, or similar arrangements?

Where?

Africa
Ukraine
S.E. Asia

How much money went to missions?
Is a charity required to give a breakdown of who and where?
The 2008 return lists four seminaries and several ministries, VOM and SpeakUpforChildren are not listed.

According to Revenue Canada:

Registered charities can conduct charitable programs outside Canada if these are their own charitable programs. To carry on their programs abroad, registered charities can use employees or volunteers posted in other countries, or they can retain the services of an agent or contractor under an agency agreement, contract, joint-venture, or similar arrangements provided that the registered charities exercise control and direction over the programs. They can also make gifts to other qualified donees that conduct their charitable programs outside Canada.

Crossroads has listed giving to it’s denomination above: The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
I didn’t find VOM under Crossroads missions giving on the 2006, 2007, or 2008 Cdn return.

Does the question become; How much did Crossroads Missions take in for these mission projects and what has Uganda VOM received?
Readers, help out here and put your information in the comments section, I’ll put it into this post. Financial statements are not my strong suit.

Has giving to VOM Uganda been through Rick Warrens P.E.A.C.E. project by Crossroads Christian Communications US? The head of the US division was/is Jim Cantelon. His organization VisionLedd is registered in the US and Canada and one of Cantelons board members is current Crossroads Christian Communications CEO Doug McKenzie.
VisionLedd works with AIDS relief in Africa.

Here’s an odd aside for you. Former Crossroads Christian Communications employee/100 Huntley host Cal Bombay also worked in Africa buying back slaves. He was lambasted in media for being duped and now works his own ministry setting up farm co-operatives in the Sudan. espac.org (2002)

Rev. Cal Bombay, whose Crossroads Christian Communications organisation in Canada had been involved in “slave redemptions” revealed that SPLA leaders such as Dr Samson Kwaje, in candid comments about “slave redemption”, “doubted that even 5%” of the “slaves” had ever been abducted, and that “they were coached in how to act, and stories to tell.”

Back to Speak Up for Children, VOM, Charles Okwir, Paul Willoughby and Crossroads Christian Communications/100 Huntley Street/Nite Lite Live.

Click on the donate buttons on Speak Up for Children.
They don’t work.
Did you find ‘Donate’ directs you back to a not found page on the new Crossroads web platform?

I’ve written Paul Willoughby about Speak Up for Children.
I’ll let you know what the response is.

There are reputable transparent charities working in the fractured country of Uganda.
You can find a list at Charity Watch.

Update: 08/07/09 The links have been fixed to direct donors to Crossroads Christian Communications

Published 8 months, 1 week ago 6 comments

6 Responses to “Speak Up for Children Crossroads/100 Huntley in Uganda”

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1 Chris on Jul 6th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

“It appears Crossroads Missions began it’s work in Uganda in 2006, around the same time the CFTC documents identify the alleged Driver ponzi scheme getting underway.”

You know that’s so true. I was investigating a cache of crossroads.ca myself for April 2006, and it appears as if they were selling a 30th Anniversary Commemorative Print, around the same time the CFTC documents identify the alleged Driver ponzi scheme getting underway. I can just imagine where the windfall of money from that sale went

I know this new exposure has been exciting. When news agencies reference your blog, that’s great. But, remember that quality is better than quantity. Becoming the Huntley Inquirer may be juicy, but poeple start to not take you seriously – which hinders your effort. Do you know what I mean?
2 Bene D on Jul 6th, 2009 at 9:22 pm

The site isn’t functional.
Why not?

That isn’t a hard question, nor a threatening one.
Yes, I do know what you mean, thanks for that.

No, BDBO doesn’t need the traffic, I’ve turned all media approaches down, the story isn’t here.
This story is not exciting or juicy, this Crossroads/Driver story is depressing.

I was doing the Saturday air shift when the scanner burped out an accident on a local highway. Standard, until a call came in on the private line.

My boss, his wife and a police officers wife were the accident victims.

I taped a newscast, dashed over to the hospital. The wife had been flown to a trauma centre and my boss wanted to see me.

Normally a hospital wouldn’t let a none family member in, but he had asked.

He was so bashed up he was unrecognizable, shocky, deeply worried about his wife (the lady in the back seat was shaken but okay).
He gripped my hand and said,”Be fair. Cover this the way you would any other accident.”

I stayed with him, hospital staff had asked me to reassure him so he’d relax enough for the medications to kick in. Took awhile.

Finally station owners showed up, I left.
Called in a receptionist, divided up the staff calls.
Filed with the wire.
Not the first time I covered a story about a co-worker, but still incredibly hard.

“Be fair.”

Fair is a two way street when you are a media company.
I think Crossroads is shooting itself in the foot.

I think I can understand on some level what Crossroad employees and former employees are going through. I don’t pretend to know what investors are going though.

Some people need more answers than others.
While people understand financial investigations take time, I’m not going to pretend it’s my nature to clam up.
I have no need to apologize for blogging or for questions.

“Be fair.”

He had been in media all his life and he was asking me to do my job. He needed to know I’d do it ethically, whether he was found to be at fault or not.
He ran the station, he understood it’s high profile and the community responsibility. He needed to know his news staff did also, before he let go to begin travelling his long road of healing.

I’m not blogging to Crossroads management.

I’m not running a newsroom, this is a blog, and I realize people will stop by who are not used to the diversity of opinion, the corrections, and the back and forth of comments. What they see is what they get, and if it’s too Inquirer, other choices are finally becoming available until Crossroads steps up to the plate.

Crossroads is a company/ministry, they have resources at their disposal to be as fair and ethical to the community as they chose to.
The core families – even given the amount they’ve lost – will have support. We already know many people don’t.
3 cricket on Jul 7th, 2009 at 6:21 am

When I read an article like this or hear about such things my first response is one of anger – who is accountable????

While such questionable activity is certainly not limited to Christians why can’t these individuals be exposed and prosecuted to the full extent of the law? Is this kind of crime not important enough? Is it because it involves a third world country or a minority? We spend more time bashing the seal hunt and trying to save animals than we do tracking these criminals.

It is brazen disregard for the law. Where is the mainstream media? They are quick to show and condemn the GG for tasting seal meat – a main staple of indigenous northerners – but can’t spare a reporter to expose these crooks? Is it because it’s a “Christian” organization?

Oh please.====
4 Bene D on Jul 7th, 2009 at 11:49 am

There is one individual going through a legal process and that is Gordon Driver of Axcess Automation/Axcess Funds.

As for point people, it is up to OSC investigators, Rev Can, Canadian Council of Christian Charities and Crossroads to do their job.

If people are innocent (and leaders could have been scammed as any lesser known investor) expecting management to responsibly say so is appropriate. Give an accounting to investors, donors, viewers.
If the organization has been wounded, if things have been neglected, truth is better than pretense and silence.

When people find out how much the leadership personally lost, it’ll be a shock.
If Crossroads hasn’t been managed well, then it is their responsibility to say how and why.

Months into this we don’t know who has been caught up in what, or why.

Media has done part of a job, they’ve reported what facts are known. I don’t think blogs are equipped to do the rest of their job and Crossroads has chosen not to co-operate with media to date.

There will be a piece coming out later in the summer (probably after the next US hearing beginning of August) by Christian Week. Most media called Crossroads a ‘church’ and didn’t correct their copy.

We don’t know how many volunteers who were let go, former staff or viewers have asked questions.
We’ve been told there is an active investigation by Crossroads CEO, but that’s intentionally vague.

Affinity fraud is on the rise, and while I think this is an opportunity for Crossroads to send out a clear call, I don’t have any indication they see it that way.
The board of directors has had 2-3 months to govern through and beyond crisis mode.
Ask for an audit. Let investigators from the OSC and Rev Can know they get full co-operation if there are investigations. Interview employee investors, go through department financials, make decisions to update the ministry website, notify partners and organizations which have certified Crossroads, assess and address the issues a charity governing board is responsible for. Every board member is libel if financial irregularities or malpractice is uncovered.
They have insurance, but that’s a small part of the larger issue. Public and donor trust, effective internal communication, co-operation with regulatory agencies are also part of the boards responsibility.
There is no guarantee board members are on the same page, but they all have to sign off on whatever steps they take.

I’ve been critical of Crossroads public response while understanding this may be the largest crisis Crossroads has been through. They may not be equipped to handle it, and given outside factors such as the global economic downturn and donor fatigue, public perception (what there is of it) may be a nail in the proverbial coffin for the ministry. Time will tell.

This was once a very powerful Christian organization with ties into parliament and an ability to reach out to marginalized people. Perhaps rightfully those days are gone. I don’t know what it is anymore.
5 E on Jul 8th, 2009 at 9:07 am

I watched Huntley last night. Most of the show was about Uganda and asking for funds. Don’t know if this was/is the same thing.
6 Bene D on Jul 9th, 2009 at 5:56 am

Thanks E, went to watch it, couldn’t run video off the ISP.

David Shelley has done a mission report on air the last few years, I give someone credit, they finally directed the website contacts back to Crossroads.

I want to see what Shelley has to say, appreciate the heads up.