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World Magazine Exposes Randall Terry Below is email communication between Brenda Spurlock and Randall concerning the World Magazine article. The article exposing Randall's fundraising ploy is included with a response from Flip. Our heart has always been that Randall repent and return to loving the Lord wholeheartedly. The sacrifices he made in the founding days of Rescue were instrumental in spurring so many of us on to fight the battle. We followed his example to willingly give everything for the Lord. It is as you lose your life that you truly find it. Randall, please lose yourself in Jesus and allow Him to be the lifter of your head. This is Brenda's question to Randall: Don't you feel guilty asking pro-life Christians, many of whom have large families and are barely covering expenses as it is, to sacrifice in order to buy you and your child-bride a new $432,000 home? You should. Randall's first response was: "Grace and peace." An hour later he wrote: "You have believed a false report. (They lied to you.) Check out the 9th commandment. Blessings" Brenda writes: I'm not sure Randall knows about the article. I can't fathom what motive World Mag. would have to lie about such a thing. The only one I can see with a motive for lying is Randall Terry. This is World's Article: Appalling appeal? Pro-life activists question colleague's latest fundraising drive; Randall Terry's former wife says she doesn't want to see "donors misled" By Lynn Vincent A man once attacked largely by abortionists is now being criticized by some of his former colleagues for what they call an unethical fundraising campaign over the past half year. "The purveyors of abortion on demand have stripped Randall Terry of everything he owned," said the Operation Rescue founder's website, randallterry.com, as of June 5. "The home was sold, and Randall's equity and assets were given to pro-abortion activists." The site then asks visitors to "help our brother.... Please give as generously as you can to restore what the enemy took," with donations to be sent to the Terry Family Trust. Hard-copy letters and e-mail solicitations with similar appeals have since November arrived in mailboxes around the country. (WORLD agreed to rent its mailing list for a Terry Family Trust solicitation in December 2002 and then a larger chunk of the list in February 2003; the proceeds from the rentals were donated to a pro-life charity this month.) But neither the fundraising letters nor the website disclose that Mr. Terry is set to close on a new $432,000 home near St. Augustine, Fla., in South Ponte Vedra Beach. (Mr. Terry told WORLD he plans to close this month.) Nor do they reveal that Mr. Terry contracted to purchase the home eight months before he sent donors letters saying he'd lost everything to pro-abortion forces. Donations to the Terry Family Trust will go to pay for the house, Mr. Terry told WORLD in a February 2003 telephone interview. Some of Mr. Terry's former allies say the fundraising appeal is unbiblical and disingenuous. "I don't think you should ask people to sort of 'pay you back' to cover your losses," Pro-life Action League President Joe Scheidler told WORLD. Minister and pro-life activist Pat Mahoney says Mr. Terry's lifestyle since filing for bankruptcy in 1998 has not been that of a man who lacks money. Mr. Terry's critics also say many donors who receive the fundraising letters are likely to assume that the proceeds of the Terry Family Trust benefit Mr. Terry's four oldest children, along with Cindy Terry, his wife of 19 years. Instead, the Terry Family Trust is to help Mr. Terry get back into ministry and to benefit his infant son and his second wife, the former Andrea Kollmorgan. She was 22 and served as Mr. Terry's personal assistant during his failed 1998 New York congressional campaign. In August 1999, Mr. Terry left Cindy Terry, and obtained a divorce in November 2000. He married Miss Kollmorgan seven months later. Mr. Terry told WORLD that he wanted a home where his family will be safe and where "we could entertain people of stature, people of importance. I have a lot of important people that come through my home. And I will have more important people come through my home." Mr. Terry gained stature himself after he founded Operation Rescue in 1986. Cindy Terry told WORLD that her husband took only a $30,000 annual salary and sold used cars on the side: "Randall was a sacrificial person, the kind who would lift up the unlovely person. Money went where it was supposed to go. We lived normally, had used furniture, lived on a careful budget." By 1988, pro-abortion groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) began striking back at Mr. Terry in court, piling up judgments against him that ultimately totaled more than $1.6 million. For 10 years pro-aborts were unable to collect any money from Mr. Terry because Cindy Terry held title to the family's property, including their home. In 1998, though, NOW began aggressive legal maneuvers in an attempt to get at Cindy Terry's assets. In November of that year, Mr. Terry filed for bankruptcy, and the Terry home was soon gone. In March 2002, Mr. Terry and wife Andrea, speaking in churches, visited the Jacksonville/St. Augustine area, where the median home price was about $120,000. The couple had been looking to buy a house in a "homestead state," where creditors cannot seize a family's home, Mr. Terry said. (In varying degrees, such rights are recognized in several states, including Texas and Florida.) They considered the $432,000 house and "said, what the heck, let's do this," Mr. Terry explained. To secure the purchase, they needed $20,000 by April 30, 2002. Mr. Terry began calling potential donors, offering in exchange for cash gifts quantities of a country music CD he had recorded in Nashville. His plan worked. By April 30, "We had $20,017.... We made the deposit." But earlier that same month, Mr. Terry had submitted an affidavit to a New York State family court on his financial condition. The court had ordered him to account for his finances in response to a petition Cindy Terry had filed earlier, saying that Mr. Terry was not paying a fair share of child support. In the affidavit, Mr. Terry wrote, "The past two years have been difficult financially for me.... I am three months behind in my rent, in addition to my numerous other debts. Since June, in order to pay necessities, we have been selling many items...." In a May 7, 2002, order, the court noted that "Mr. Terry is possessed of actual or income-producing ability significantly greater than that which is set forth in his financial disclosure affidavits or [2001] Income Tax Returns," and ordered him to pay $75 more each week in child support. Mr. Terry sees no problems asking donors for money to buy the Florida house. He said Outlook Farm, the New York home he lost in bankruptcy, was worth more than the one he's purchasing now. Cindy Terry, who sold Outlook Farm in December 2001 to settle part of Mr. Terry's bankruptcy debts, said equity in the $307,000 property totaled only $201,000-at least $100,000 of which came directly from donors. Until recently, Cindy Terry had not spoken with any journalist about the Terrys' divorce, or the financial straits in which the divorce left her. She spoke to WORLD, she said, because "I don't want to see any more donors misled." This is Flip's response: Dear Brenda, Lynn Vincent's article, "Appalling Appeal," that appeared in World Magazine, June 14, 2003, is a Reader's Digest version (the original was over 3,000 words) of the sorry and sordid demise of a man that was greatly used by God to call many of us to the battle for the lives of little baby boys and girls. Randall Terry's story is not a new one. A man's gift and calling can get him anywhere, but it is only character that will keep him there. Yes, character counts in God's economy. I have found it to be the single most important thing in walking with God. We are, all of us, prone to give way here. Do you remember these words in 2 Samuel 11:1? "In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab ... but David remained in Jerusalem." David had fought and won many battles for our Lord. He had suffered incredible hardships running from King Saul and God had placed in his hands the Kingdom of Israel. God had lifted the little shepherd boy up! When the shepherd boy grew into a man and then an older man, he began to lose his fire for God. Things were easier now that he was king, so instead of going out to battle, as he should have, he sent Joab! David stayed home, and while he was there - you know the rest of the story. One need only read about the lives of the kings of Judah, even the good ones, to find that men who were greatly used by God can also fail miserably in their later years. Their names became a blight on the land. Why? They had taken their eyes off of the King of Kings. They felt that, because of the past great victories given by God, they could pretty much determine for themselves what was right and what was wrong, when to go to war and when to refrain. Though it wasn't intentional, they placed themselves above God's Law. Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Uzziah, Hezekiah, all began well, serving the Lord with great fervor. In their later years, however, they began living their lives for themselves. It is a sinful tendency that resides in all of us. "Godly" King Hezekiah responded to the prophet Isaiah's warning that his very own children would become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon by saying, "The word of the Lord you have spoken is good...For he thought 'Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?'" 2 Kings 20:19. King Hezekiah no longer cared about the message he was sending to future generations. As a matter of fact, he didn't care about future generations at all, including his own son Manasseh (who, when he took over the kingdom for his father, shed so much innocent blood in Jerusalem that the Lord was not willing to forgive 2 Kings 24:4). Hezekiah cared only for himself. This is how Godly men go bad. When one begins to live under the philosophy of Hakunna Mattata (check The Lion King), it isn't long before the ugly results of that lifestyle manifest. Randall Terry's brilliant mind has found a way to justify everything that his wicked heart conceives. It is too bad! He does not know himself well enough yet. He cannot fathom that he has violated Scripture, broken faith with the wife of his youth, broken faith with those he led into battle, broken faith with the voiceless children he was called to defend, and broken faith with God Himself. He has robbed Almighty God of the glory He could have received as a result of the multitudinous gifts God deposited in Randall's very person. Instead of using his gifts to feed our Lord's lambs, Randall Terry is using God's gifts to fleece them. In Christian love, Flip
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