Investigation
Tithes and a ranch in Texas
Donations to the Faithful and True Church have been transferred to a Texas foundation that owns Nathan Isabekov's ranch. He says the ranch was bought with his book royalties.
From the Irad Times of 9 March 2012.
Members of the Faithful and True Church give a tenth of their income to the church. Many of them, on the western outskirts of Talas, do not earn much. Documents seen by the Times show that between 2008 and 2011 at least $1.4 million of the church's donations were transferred to a foundation registered in Texas, which owns a 2,000-acre ranch near San Antonio where the church's founder, the televangelist Nathan Isabekov, spends his summers.
The church, which Mr. Isabekov founded in Talas in 1999, built a 6,000-seat auditorium on the road to Kara-Bulak in 2006 with money from American donors and its members' tithes, and claims about 12,000 members. It runs a satellite channel, Faithful and True TV. It does not publish accounts in Irad.
The foundation
The Texas foundation's filings, which are public in the United States, list Mr. Isabekov and two American associates as its directors and the ranch as its main asset. They describe its purpose as “the support of Christian ministry in Central Asia”. Transfers from the church in Talas appear in the filings as “ministry partner contributions”.
“Audited in America”
Mr. Isabekov told the Times that the ranch had been bought with the royalties of his book and that the church's accounts were “audited every year in the United States by a reputable firm”. He said the transfers paid for “ministry work, broadcasting and training”. He did not say why that work was done from a ranch.
Members we spoke to outside the auditorium on Sunday did not want to talk about money. “What I give, I give to God,” said one woman. “What he does with it is between him and God.”
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