Dear Sir,
Many people have expressed both their concern and support of the expat congregation of Lakeside Presbyterian Church (LPC), which has been locked out of the church by the pastors of the Mexican congregation since January 8. In light of that, I’d like to give you an update.
The lawyer that LPC has hired set up a mediation meeting with the Mexican pastor Guillermo Banuet, who was originally made president of the Asociacion Religiosa (AR) that governs the church’s legal status, through the Institute of Alternative Justice. Two Mexican, bilingual members of our congregation and I met with him on February 21. We could not reach an agreement.
We went to mediation in good faith. We had two requests:
1. Guillermo and his wife Victoria are requested to resign from Lakeside Presbyterian’s AR and a new treasurer appointed (currently Marvin Golden) to establish a new board for the AR.
2. We request that Guillermo help us cancel a judicial seizure placed on the church property.
In return we would promise not to sue him as legal representative of the AR.
You may well ask, what “judicial seizure”?
While preparing for mediation, our lawyer needed to look at the deed and records for the church property to be certain that Guillermo did not own it. He found that the church’s AR owns the property and building, not Guillermo. But he also found that Guillermo had lost a lawsuit filed by his cousins in 2016. All of his properties were seized and a lien was placed against the church property because Guillermo is named as president. The amount of this judgment is in the tens of millions of pesos and because he has not paid the money he owes, the lien is still on the church.
We didn’t want to make this devastating information about Guillermo public. But now that he has refused to negotiate in good faith, I feel I have to.
Our next step is to file a criminal lawsuit against him. Which breaks my heart. This is the last thing we want to do.
The church’s board of directors is moving to remove the pastors of the Mexican congregation from the ministry of the church and revoking their ordination at Lakeside Presbyterian. At the same time, the leadership of the church is petitioning the Mexican government to remove Guillermo Banuet and his wife Victoria from the Asociación Religioso, for cause. We are optimistic that a judge would rule in our favor, order the separation of the church from Guillermo’s control, unencumber the church from the lien, and turn the building back over to us.
Carolyn Hansen,
Senior Pastor, Lakeside Presbyterian Church
Dear Sir,
Without a doubt you recognize, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ...” as being from the United States Declaration of Independence, the sacred document signed by 56 brave men 249 years ago.
You may even remember that these men closed the Declaration mutually pledging to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” With that pledge the men had officially become traitors to the King of Great Britain and would be executed by Royal Authority if captured.
What you might not know, is that far more than half of the Declaration is made up of a list of grievances against their monarch, King George III. The Signers (Patriots all) wrote that the King had established control over His Colonies in order to maintain absolute Tyranny over the now “united States.”
Our Declaration of Independence lists example after example of charges against the King. Read the Declaration with 21st century eyes. Pay particular attention to the paragraphs beginning with, “He ...” Those paragraphs give a perfect summation of how a tyrant maintains control over the masses.
Go ahead, read the 27 charges in the indictment against King George III. Do any of the charges against that tyrant echo throughout the United States today?
The United States of America (est. 1776) is in a state of utter chaos. The nation is led by a man who has earned the title of “King Chaos” in far fewer than 100 days.
Use your voice! Not the “inside voice” your mother taught you. It is time to SHOUT as loudly as you might at a football match: “Who are you for, Ukraine or Russia?” “Do you want a Republic or return to a Monarchy?”
Stop the Chaos now while you still have a voice and blood running in your veins.
Publius