Tom Fosler was a member of Chicago UBF from 1995 to 1998. His testimony was published in the year 2000 on the RSQUBF web site.
I became a Christian in June of 1993, around my 19th birthday. Shortly after that, I had come to know another person by the name of John Cahoon who had wanted to study the Bible with me. He used to belong to UBF and left it 10 years earlier. Even though he left, he never knew that what they were doing was wrong. As we studied together, he used the materials from UBF. As months went by, he had introduced me to this ministry and encouraged me to go to the 1995 summer conference in Lansing, which I did. Being a new Christian, I was intrigued by this radical ministry and decided to move to Chicago from Nebraska to check it out.
When I arrived, I was treated like a king. Everyone there fed me and loved me like I was their favorite son. I was the “sheep” of the pastor at the church, Ron Ward, and he studied the Bible with me weekly. In response, I would write a testimony (“sogam”) based on the weekly manuscripts of the sermon. We would then meet weekly in a “fellowship meeting,” where eventually I became the meeting’s presider.
When I began to write “good” testimonies (testimonies that were approved by my “shepherd”) I started to share on Friday nights at the leaders’ meeting. I would write testimonies every week in regards to the manuscripts without ever really thinking about what the scripture actually said or how it really affected me.
I only did what I was told, just so I could get some positive attention and feel like I belonged. Like most college students in UBF, I had a low self-esteem and wanted very much to be liked and appreciated. However, this appreciation was just a means of building up my self-absorbed ego and believing that I could do everything by my own power rather than surrendering my motives and my life to God. I was involved in a race to climb the theological ladder of bureaucracy to please my shepherd and Samuel Lee. I wanted so much to be loved that I blindly obeyed anything they told me, not questioning their motives or their reason behind it.
I had become so enamored with UBF that I had forgotten my roots as a Christian and even as a member of my own family. I had met some other college students in UBF and became good friends with them. Some of them left, and some of them are still there, even though it pains my heart to see them there. I thought that I had everything all figured out, that I was living God’s way and that I was doing what God wanted.
Then things started to go all wrong – according to what I thought I wanted at the time. Really, it was God working in my life and leading me out of this abusive church. I had a particular friend at church, Cathie Henkins, who was interested in me and who wanted to pursue our friendship. Believing that God was in this, which he was, I responded positively and our shepherds arranged for us to meet together. We started dating and seeing each other, having lots of fun getting to know each other and just being together.
I got to meet Cathie’s family and started going over to her house and hanging out there, more than our shepherds would have liked. I guess they never thought that we would actually like each other. Usually, the church leaders pick two people and place them together in marriage as a means of locking them down in the church. These people hardly know each other – to the benefit of the church leaders – keeping them from having a deeper relationship with themselves than with their church leaders. However, Cathie and I were building a deep relationship since the year before.
Through talking together, we found lots of discrepancies and red flags in UBF that really made us think about leaving UBF. When our shepherds started pressuring us to marry in a matter of a few months, our families rallied together to help us get out. My family in Nebraska challenged me to return briefly to talk to them. Trying to be a good Christian by honoring my Mother and Father, I went home and talked to my family and some respected Christians who I knew were solid in the faith. They challenged me to step out of my UBF mind and think like myself, to get a second perspective on things.
That time that I went home was between Wednesday and Thursday of the third week in March of 1998. When we had the leaders’ meeting on Friday, they expected me to share a testimony. I had been gone all week and I did not want to write one. Because of that, the next evening on Saturday I was called in to Ron Ward’s office. Ron “Mental” Ward and Joe Horvath were there, and Ron decided to get on his high horse and try to “train” me. He asked me why I didn’t have a testimony prepared and why I didn’t try to share, and I tried to explain to them that I did not have the time. Ron started to raise his voice and yell at me, trying to get me to subdue to his power posturing. When he saw that that wasn’t working, he then threatened to stop my engagement to Cathie and put the both of us on three years probation. He said that if I left that “I won’t get her.” Joe remained quiet for the whole time, to his credit.
When I saw the controlling manipulation and fear tactics Ron tried to use on me, I realized that what and who they were following were not the truth. The next day, I went to UBF so I could play in the orchestra (the only thing that I liked to do there). That night, I went to see Cathie’s family again. Her brother Bob, who is still in UBF, came down and told me that Ron Ward wanted me to leave.
The next day on Monday, I had a Bible study with Ron Ward. We studied the book of John. He used this passage to try and show me that I should be absolutely obedient to him and to UBF and not listen to my heart or to my family or to other Christians. All that day, I dwelled within the scriptures and tried to find the answers as to whether I should leave or stick it out. That afternoon, I couldn’t find any answers on my own. So I asked God. When I asked Him if I should stay, I felt a dark and awful pull on my gut, and I had some trouble breathing. When I asked God if I should go, I felt a warmth and a security that surpassed everything I knew. I didn’t receive any visions or prophecies. I just knew that it was God talking to the deepest parts of my soul, showing me how He would feel in both situations. That was the end of it.
When I knew the answer, I picked myself up from the park I was reading in, walked back to my apartment, and I packed up my things that evening and left the next morning without even saying goodbye, fearful that they would try and use their sweet talk to keep me there. The next morning, I stopped at Cathie’s house. I told her that I loved her and that I would wait for her if she decided to leave. What I didn’t know at the time was that Ron Ward, Elena Lomahan, and even Samuel Lee were calling her throughout the previous day and that day Tuesday as well. They lied to her, telling her that I would try to hurt her and that she should leave the house or call the police. Ron Ward asked her what would happen if I left UBF. She told him that she would leave too, having enough after 7 years of nonsense. When I spoke to Ron after his discussion with her, he gave me a boldfaced lie and told me that she would stay if I left. He has been trained to be a boldfaced liar just like Ben Toh and the other loyalists there. Needless to say, she was very guarded when I saw her last because she felt she couldn’t trust anybody.
After seeing her, I left and drove all the way back to Nebraska, thinking that my then fiancée Cathie would not leave UBF (thanks to Ron’s boldfaced lying and deceit), which would put me back to square one upon my arrival to Nebraska. However, when I arrived at my sister’s house, she called and said that she left too. One year later, in May of 1999, we got married and moved back to Chicago. This March of 2000 we had our first baby, Jonathyn Isaiah, our beautiful son. I graduated from Grace University out of Omaha, Nebraska, with a Bachelor’s in Counseling and biblical Studies.
God had blessed us in every dimension of our lives and continues to bless us more than we can possibly imagine. God wants his children to follow him through both the peaks and valleys. If we can see past the lies and follow God rather than men, God will richly bless us and bring us ever closer to him. I testify and certify as a ministry leader that UBF is in danger of becoming a cult and that anyone who blindly follows Samuel C. Lee is following someone who is leading them away from God’s purpose for their lives, as well as from His grace and even the salvation He offers. God loves us unconditionally; may we exemplify this love to everyone we connect with in our lives.
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