International Servants: Big Claims, Little Transparency

The group claims to have a big presence in Belize, but evidence is hard to come by.

International Servants (iServants) is a mission agency that claims to have a network of 54 churches, medical mission clinics, anti-trafficking operations, and a feeding program for children in the small Central American country of Belize.

Paul Whisnant is the founder of iServants. According to the group’s website, Whisnant first went to Belize in 1989 on a mission trip and said he felt called to return as a missionary — a calling he says he followed the next year.

Since 1990, Whisnant says he has built iServants into “one of the largest & most well-respected charities in Belize.”

Among his claims are that iServants feeds thousands of hungry children daily, treats sick children in its medical mission clinics, and rescues innocent children from sex trafficking.

MinistryWatch made numerous attempts to reach iServants by phone and email to get more information about these claims but received no reply.

MinistryWatch contacted other missionary organizations and government agencies in Belize who said they have no knowledge of the work of this group.

According to iServants, it can feed a hungry child for $12.50 per month. According to Cathleen Juan, who works with the National Healthy Start Feeding Program in Belize, it costs the government agency about the equivalent of $1.50 per day to feed a child. They feed the children only on school days, about 18 to 21 days per month.

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A conservative estimate for the National Healthy Start Feeding Program is $54 Belize each month, which converts to about $27 U.S., more than twice the amount Whisnant and iServants says it costs them to feed a child for a month.

Rose Chomik with Bold Hope, a missions organization that has been working in Belize and has staff on the ground there, said that neither her missionary director nor locals have heard of iServants nor Paul Whisnant.

She also questioned how iServants can feed a child for $12.50 per month given the inflation that has affected food prices.

She explained that Bold Hope is a registered nonprofit in Belize and since 2022, has been required to report how much it spends in each district. She believes if iServants is working in Belize, similar records should be available.

The Belize Companies and Corporate Affairs Registry has no record of iServants. Even though a search on their registry shows International Servants Incorporated, when MinistryWatch requested registration documents for the group, Sabrina Castro replied, “Kindly note that we are unable to provide any documents regarding the entity International Servants Incorporated. We have no records for this company.”

iServants also says that it operates medical clinics in the country and that Amanda Whisnant, Paul Whisnant’s wife, is a registered nurse practitioner who is the medical director of the clinics.

According to the Nurses and Midwives Council of Belize registrar E. Bennett, Amanda Whisnant’s license in Belize expired on December 31, 2021, and has not been renewed since. She is, however, a licensed nurse practitioner in Florida.

Whisnant claims to work with a network of 54 churches in Belize that follow the Southern Baptist Faith and Message. MinistryWatch reached out to the Baptist Association of Belize to confirm the relationship. We received no reply.

A search of the images used on the iServants website show several of them to be stock images. A reverse image search on Tineye of a photo of a young girl used to represent the feeding program shows that it was available on Shutterstock in 2023.

Another image search revealed that a photo promoting their feeding program is of a girl from Thailand, not Belize. And a third image appears to come from an ABC news report about climate change in Guatemala.

According to the Evangelical Press Association’s code of ethics, photographs “should not distort information, mislead readers, or make false claims.”

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) says something similar in its Seven Standards of Financial Stewardship: “[t]here must be no material omissions or exaggerations of fact, use of misleading photographs, or any other communication which would tend to create a false impression or misunderstanding.

ECFA Vice President Jake Lapp told MinistryWatch that its ethics don’t restrict the use of stock photos in fundraising appeals. However, “the stock photo should not mislead donors or create a false impression of the work being done. We further encourage members to disclose the fact that stock photos are being used to protect identit[ies] or to portray the work that is being done.”

Steve Stewart, listed on Candid (formerly Guidestar) as an iServants board member and its executive director of development, is the pastor of Bethesda Baptist Church in Ellerslie, Georgia.  According to church members, Bethesda takes up offerings to support iServants, including a special Christmas offering. MinistryWatch reached out to the church by email and left a voicemail at a phone number for Stewart, but received no reply.

Bill Stephenson, a member of Bethesda for seven years and a deacon, has questions about iServants. He told MinistryWatch that Whisnant comes to the church about once a year to give a very general update, but he doesn’t provide specifics about the work of the ministry.

He said the recent MinistryWatch spotlight article brought to light concerns about iServants’ lack of transparency, so he asked Stewart, whose biography page also lists him as a board member for the mission agency, about why iServants doesn’t file a Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service but only received what Stephenson called “defensive” answers.

In the MinistryWatch database, iServants earns a failing Donor Confidence Score of 13, meaning donors should withhold giving. The organization has not filed a Form 990 since 2002. According to Candid, iServants is not required to file Form 990s “because it is a church.” Nor is iServants a member of the ECFA.

Stephenson expressed discomfort with iServants’ and the church’s lack of transparency around donations to the ministry. Even though he is a deacon, he is not told how much the church gives to iServants each year.

Another Bethesda deacon, Michael Waites, is also concerned about the lack of transparency from iServants. He expressed concern about a condominium in Florida owned by the Whisnants, and how it might reflect upon the use of the ministry’s money.

Whisnant and his wife own a condo in Pompano Beach, Florida, that, according to the Broward County Appraisal District, has a market value of nearly $1.2 million.

Waites said there have been lots of comments and questions around Bethesda about iServants since MinistryWatch published its Donor Confidence Score.

Waites doesn’t plan to give to iServants this year, nor does he think many others will give to it the church offering for the missions group this month either.

In response to a list of questions from MinistryWatch to assess iServants’ Donor Confidence Score, MinistryWatch President Warren Smith received an email reply from a “David Johnson” who took issue with several of the answers determined by MinistryWatch, such as the independence of board members, the salary of the CEO, and the group’s revenue.

When Smith invited Johnson to phone or zoom call to discuss the various answers, he received no reply.

Whisnant continues to make visits to churches seeking support for iServants. According to the iServants Facebook page, Whisnant has been traveling to churches in Texas, Georgia, and Florida over the last couple of months to seek financial support for the group.

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