John Shrader 13: Is the End Near? (In Kafue?)

[Palimpsest]

Thanks @Milly-Molly-Mandy.  That is interesting.  I'm glad someone had the guts.

John is a lily-livered coward for taking it down.

[Howl]

This is getting more interesting by the minute.  We see John as histrionic, with crazy mood swings driving projects that never amount to anything--a hilariously ineffective, bumbling missionary.  But this is showing a side of John I hadn't considered: scheming, manipulative and just mean as hell.

Has he talked his followers into tithing/giving him money/"investing" in his projects and didn't come through? I really want to know, because I sense that it is much more than a disappointment in him as a pastor, as in "I thought he was a man of god but now I see he has regular feet of clay is a compete dick." It seems he has really screwed some people over, especially Handia, who has referred to John as manipulative more than once. 

Plus, on Handia's FB page, John has thrown some passive-aggressive shade at Handia by throwing some bible fu back in Handia's face: 

July 28th,  Handia posted a little video about performing a song.  This was John's response: 

So not only is John FB stalking, Handia, he's probably been steaming over a pretty accurate Bible quote that Handia posted about John almost two months ago. 

[nokidsmom]

5 hours ago, KnittingOwl said:

I have a hard time with this idea that David Waller is somehow the "best" of the Keller husbands.  Am I misremembering that the same thing was said of Josh a few years ago?  And we really have no idea how any of the Keller daughters feel about their husbands and living situations.  They might not even know themselves given how they were brought up. 

I hear what you are saying, but so far there have no scandals with PT unlike Josh, plus he supports his family like a responsible husband and father unlike John.   PT may be many things and his traisping his family and wife when she's seriously pregnant all over the place makes me side eye him big time, but (in public at least) compared to Josh and John, he's been pretty decent.

I agree we don't know how the wives feel and the way they have been raised makes it tough for them to even know themselves.  I agree with other posters we project our feelings on Esther, she may be just fine with her loser husband and Anna seemed happy until she learned (or maybe couldn't ignore?) some things about her husband but Pris does seem happy with her lot in life.  At least, to date she has not been embarrassed by scandals nor has she had to live in a camper.

 

[Palimpsest]

6 minutes ago, Howl said:

 We see John as histrionic, with crazy mood swings driving projects that never amount to anything--a hilariously ineffective, bumbling missionary.  But this is showing a side of John I hadn't considered: scheming, manipulative and just mean as hell.

Oh, I've considered John's scheming, manipulative, and mean as hell side many times.  We try to armchair diagnose him because we really can't believe that anyone without serious mental health issues could behave so destructively towards other people.  John is a terrible person.

Sometimes his bungling is funny, and I laugh rather than rage or cry, but most of the time I am just plain furious with him.  He's a parasite, a con-man, and a predator, not a missionary and not a man of God.

I abhor "church planters" like John who have nothing to provide people in developing countries except their version of God.  However, many of them are far less destructive than Shrader.  Some of them may even help a few people.

John's shenanigans reflect badly on real missionaries who are doing some good.   Even some IFB missionaries are digging wells, and running orphanages, clinics, and schools.  They are not preying on the local population to make themselves feel good.

As a former MK, whose parents were for more interested in providing medical care than converting people, I am serious when I say John gives all missionaries a bad name.  

He has no respect for the people he wants to convert.  He has no respect for the laws of his host country.  He has no respect for the people who give him money.  He lies to them all the time.

He makes me really ragey.  What he is doing to his former converts now is despicable.  He seriously reported Roderick to the police!  He really screwed over Arcade.  And he is still going after poor Handia.

Perhaps we should start a list of John's worst moments for newcomers to Shrader and any donors reading here.  

[Darwinesque]

13 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

Perhaps we should start a list of John's worst moments for newcomers to Shrader and any donors reading here.  

Please, please do. 

I find John fascinating, but I'm afraid a lot of what does on goes over the top of my head due to religious terms, a complete lack of knowledge on missionary work, not a huge amount of knowledge about Africa and really not being very facebook savvy (I only got it to snark on JRod). I think I need to go back reread from the start. I guess John Shrader threads are a bit like a book that you know will be challenging but worth it in the end, so you need to give it a few attempts before you really get into it (that's in no way an insult to FJ'ers postings, more John's very chaotic life).

[Palimpsest]

31 minutes ago, Darwinesque said:

Please, please do. 

I'll give it a shot.  I don't go all the way back to the beginning of the John saga (I only started following properly around the fiasco of the Burundi trip) but these are some of the early low points I remember:

• John wailing that his back hurt, complaining that he had to look after his own children, and going on a juice diet when Esther was in protracted labor (over 48 hours) with Sophia.
• John, who has never ever supported his family all by himself, boasting that he had swiped been given a teenage girl's entire savings from her babysitting jobs.
• John (who has never kept a paying job for more than a few months) boasting that a follower had taken on a second job so that he could donate reams of paper to John.
• John conning someone into buying a plane (that turned out to be a pile of junk parts) that he didn't even know how to fly sight unseen.  The con-man got conned on that one.
• John leaving Esther alone with the kids in the basement of Valley Baptist Church for weeks while he got a (useless in Zambia) pilot's license.
• John dangerously rigging up a fan in the family van and driving around with his children unsecured by seat belts.  We have photographic evidence of that somewhere.

There are plenty more.  I need some help here.

If you do go back to read the old threads you will probably notice my very steep learning curve on the idiosyncrasies of IFB missionaries.  I still can't believe the way the Johns and JRods of this world go about "missioning."  And I still shake my head at the fact people actually give these bone-idle parasitic idiots money!

 

[Howl]

Palimsest, thank you for sharing your unique perspective.  It's easy to forget that John is doing real damage, both to Zambians and his followers at home. 

A few more bungled scams:

• The Well
• The Chicken Fiasco
• The Bible College
• Library for The Bible College (Books!)
• "Outreach" in the Bush (no follow through -- maybe he wasn't invited back?)
• The Printing Ministry/Pamphlets No One Can Read Because Wrong Language
• Alienated Followers

Tens of thousands of dollars wasted on John (shipping container, thousands of bibles, plane, flying lessons, cars, Troopie, appliances, reams of paper) that could have actually been used to help Zambians.  In this short period of time, he's increased his family size by three. 

[clearingthingsup]

3 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Similarly, Esther may be blissfully happy with her visionary "missionary" husband.   We project a lot of our feelings on to her. Esther may not care that she has to treat John like another child whenever he has a tantrum.  She's still perhaps living the dream of the submissive quiverfull wife and gets admiration for being a missionary as well.

Having known Esther personally, you hit the nail on the head. She fully supports John every step of the way. If she has ant doubts, she keeps them completely to herself. 

2 hours ago, Howl said:

This is getting more interesting by the minute.  We see John as histrionic, with crazy mood swings driving projects that never amount to anything--a hilariously ineffective, bumbling missionary.  But this is showing a side of John I hadn't considered: scheming, manipulative and just mean as hell.

I really feel that the second description is the more accurate one, unfortunately. 

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

Perhaps we should start a list of John's worst moments for newcomers to Shrader and any donors reading here.  

At one point I had started a Brief History of the World's Worst Missionary, which started at his failed pastor position.  I had dug through old threads and saved FB posts along with an old blog he had. Life got in the way, our computer crashed and I lost it, but putting it out by date really showed how much of a corrupt con-man John is and how he has never, ever supported his family. 

One of these days maybe I'll do it again. 

[Gobsmacked]

Clearingthingsup, I'm presuming you knew the Shraders before the Zambian Odessy? Do you keep in touch/ hear about them still? 

Esther has had a lot to deal with since 2014. May be she is beginning to see the light about John and doubting him. Even a submissive wife must surely see that things are not all fine and dandy?

[Closed Womb]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

John, who has never ever supported his family all by himself, boasting that he had swiped been given a teenage girl's entire savings from her babysitting jobs.

Wait, WHAT???????

[Lurky]

The thing that makes me really angry about him is all the money that's wasted, that could have done real good - but then John gets round that with his rejection of works doctrinal stuff, that I don't quite understand, but seems to be along the lines of "good works won't get you into Heaven, therefore don't bother doing any".  Which is pretty much the opposite of What Would Jesus Do, no?

I'm not a seasoned John-follower, so I'm hazy on the details, but the well, the chickens, getting the follower to give up a good job to follow him, persuading the young men to labour for him, and the whole weirdness with trying to prevent a parishioner's divorce because reasons - and co-signing @Howl, the tracts that no one can read because he can't even be bothered to learn the right language.  Oh, and messing up his Burundian followers' visas, was there something about that?  And falling out with absolutely everyone...

(I was trying to think if there had been any positives, and came up with "he's not Steve Anderson"...)

[Palimpsest]

@formergothardite, is it possible that the list of John's iniquities crashed your computer.

He's also managed to do away with some of the evidence by wiping his facebook although we do have quite a lot preserved on FJ.

4 minutes ago, Lurky said:

getting the follower to give up a good job to follow him

That was Roderick.  He was offered a good job in Lusaka.  Roderick was also tasked with taking care of the chickens.

5 minutes ago, Lurky said:

Oh, and messing up his Burundian followers' visas,

This is Arcade (and possibly Jolis too.)  He picked up Arcade (orphaned in the genocide) in Burundi and promised that Arcade would be part of his family.  He persuaded Arcade to get discipled by him in Kafue but treated him as an unpaid babysitter and laborer.  And probably promised him a student visa because of his fake Bible College.  Poor Arcade.

John boasted about sending Arcade back to Burundi to plant new churches as recently as last December.  Then he suddenly started denouncing poor Arcade as a sinner and a thief.  Go figure.

It's probably easier to list John's successes.  The list is shorter.

So far John has succeeded in:

• Living off other people's donations full time since 2012 with no pretense of having a job.
• Grifting more luxury material goods, housing, vehicles, and printing equipment than JRod (he leaves her in the water).
• Producing 11.5 children.  Some of whom have spent far too much time living in a pop-up camper.
• Alienating his fellow team member, David Rea, and his Sending Church.
• Killing a few snakes  (at least one of them harmless).
• Teaching his sons to kill rats.  (If he'd left the harmless snake alone it would have helped control the rats).
• Alienating every single member of his fake Bible College and probably half the population of Kafue.

Carry on.

[clearingthingsup]

31 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

Clearingthingsup, I'm presuming you knew the Shraders before the Zambian Odessy? Do you keep in touch/ hear about them still? 

Esther has had a lot to deal with since 2014. May be she is beginning to see the light about John and doubting him. Even a submissive wife must surely see that things are not all fine and dandy?

Yes I've known them a long time. I used to be a supporter, but then I saw just how crazy John really was and noped right off that train. 

[KnittingOwl]

@Palimpsest, can you please add the video John made by rigging up a camera on the outside of his vehicle so that there was footage of him driving? I think the video never ended up getting shown. 

[DinglyDoll]

On 8/5/2017 at 7:30 AM, Gobsmacked said:

Mr Keller deserves horsewhipping for the life he has ordained for at least two of his daughters. 

Amen and amen!

[Palimpsest]

15 minutes ago, KnittingOwl said:

I think the video never ended up getting shown. 

I haven't found the video of him rigging up the camera yet.  Perhaps it was still photos.  It took him at least 2 days "work" though.

Here's the video:  Fruit to Your Account.   The footage with the rigged up camera starts at 2:00 minutes.  All 20 seconds of it.  Note that every single Zambian and Burundian talking head is now alienated from John.  Jacqueline is Roderick's wife, BTW.

Also note the comments under the video!

 

[Lurky]

My favourite John-failure was that video in the weird fake-Zambian accent, which he now can't use, because he's fallen out with all the people featured in it, except his family (and that's only a matter of time....)

ETA @Palimpsest posted at the same time as you re the talking heads!

[DinglyDoll]

22 hours ago, Howl said:

Not even the love child of What Color is Your Parachute and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People could make John a viable candidate in the work force. 

You are hereby awarded a golden rescue ferret statue for this brilliantly witty insight!

[BobJonesBabe]

I've been offline for a while, and am shocked. More so for his Zambian "friends" who have to go through this. 

This is what Handia posted on Roderick's wall earlier today:

Quote

My brother. Stay strong through all this; it is not at all right that your own pastor took you to the police over something so silly. The fact that he even pretended to be surprised and in disagreement with the cops when they wanted to lock you up makes me want to throw up. What did he expect them to do there? Give you cake? God be with you, Roderick

 

[Gobsmacked]

John is even shittier than we thought.

[Gobsmacked]

Handia is a very bright, well educated young man who works hard. How did John think, even for one moment, that talking down to Handia et al and playing the big white missionary was going to last forever? ( just lurked on Handia's facebook. He can certainly sing!)

[DinglyDoll]

On 8/5/2017 at 5:48 AM, Palimpsest said:

...enough obstetrical equipment to stock a small hospital. 

???

[KnittingOwl]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

I haven't found the video of him rigging up the camera yet.  Perhaps it was still photos.  It took him at least 2 days "work" though.

Here's the video:  Fruit to Your Account.   The footage with the rigged up camera starts at 2:00 minutes.  All 20 seconds of it.  Note that every single Zambian and Burundian talking head is now alienated from John.  Jacqueline is Roderick's wife, BTW.

Also note the comments under the video!

 

I don't know if there was video of the rigging. I was referring to the video you linked. Rigging up the camera was the hardest John worked in Zambia. 

[Gobsmacked]

There were some stills of John rigging the camera onto the bully mobile. Not sure if they were directly from his face book. I'm blocked so can't go searching. The whole contraption looked as though John had driven into a pile of wood!!