Updated March 15, 2002 (First published January 21, 2002) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Dear friends:

Some of you have written in recent days inquiring about why the articles have been so infrequent of late. One of the reasons is that I am now trying to carry on the new Bible college in Nepal by myself. About a year and a half ago, Bruce Smith began working with me in some of the various aspects of Way of Life Literature and he also committed himself to come to Nepal and help me start the Bible college in the Kathmandu Baptist Church that we founded in the 1980s. This church has started nine other churches in the convening years, and there are opportunities all over the country to plant more. Hearts are amazingly open to the gospel in Nepal these days, and new churches are being started throughout the country. Thus the need to train church leaders is great.

We left the States in late September, spent a week in Singapore where I conducted a Bible conference in the Maranatha Baptist Church, and we arrived in Nepal on October 5. The new Bible college started classes in November with 15 eager students.

Things went along fine until December, when I began to find out that Bruce had lied to me about the major experiences of his life and that I had invited him into the ministry based on false information. Though the years since I first met him, Bruce told me many stories about himself. He said he was with the Army rangers in Vietnam, that he was wounded there and had to be in a body cast for many months. He later worked as a smoke jumper with the forestry service for years. He took “advanced paramedic” training, and he had excellent knowledge of some foreign languages, including Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish.

It was quite by accident that I found that he was lying about all of this and more. One day, Bruce’s wife told us how old Bruce is. He was born in 1955 and thus did not graduate from high school until 1973. With this information, I realized that it was impossible for Bruce to have been in the military in Vietnam, because the U.S. military left there that same year, and the Army rangers left a year before that, when Bruce was only about 16 years old. I was in Vietnam myself in 1971 and 1972 at the tail end of things, so I know these matters very well. I had always thought Bruce was about my age (I was born in 1949), so when I learned that he was quite a bit younger, I knew that something was fishy. About a week before Christmas, I asked Bruce when he was in Vietnam. He refused to answer me. I asked him again two more times in the next several days. He simply refused to answer.

I began examining other parts of his story, and the more I dug into his background, the more I realized that he was lying about almost everything.

I had known Bruce casually and at a distance for some years (though I didn’t really know him, as it turned out). He had attempted for years to plant churches in Montana, and most recently he had pastored a church briefly in northeastern Kansas. His entire pastorate had been unsuccessful, but I thought all along that it was because he was a good man in the wrong ministry. As it turns out, that was not the case. He was a liar, and his lies have corrupted his ministry.

He lied about going to Vietnam and being in the rangers and being wounded and in a body cast for months. (We contacted the Army Record Center, and they have no record of military service by Bruce Cameron Smith, Social Security # 445-56-9397, date of birth June 20, 1955.)

He lied about going to Alaska for two years before he met his wife and living alone 150 miles out in the tundra. He told Evangelist Chuck Cofty and others that he walked in and out (150 miles each way!) three times during those two years, and that had he not met his wife he would have stayed out there as a hermit. The fact is that Bruce and Dawn Smith were high school sweethearts and married right out of high school in 1973.

He lied about being a smoke jumper. I submitted all of Bruce’s information to the National Smokejumpers Association (full name, Bruce Cameron Smith, social security number, and birth date). They maintain a complete database of all former smokejumpers, and they reported he was never a part of their organization. They did a thorough check of the records from 1975 to 2001. They also said that he did not even enter the smokejumper training. Many who enter the training do not pass, because it is so difficult; but Bruce didn’t even enter. Bruce told me the smokejumper story from the day I first met him in 1986 at a Bible conference in southern Arizona, and he told it to dozens of people that I introduced him to around the country and here in Asia. He even told it to my grown kids and to our friends in Oklahoma City. He further lied about once jumping out of a Lear jet, because allegedly when a fire call came, that was the only plane available. (The many real smoke jumpers I have been corresponding with have had a great laugh about that one.)

Bruce’s claim to be an advanced paramedic also turned out to be bogus. Living and working with Bruce in this backwards and unhealthy nation since October, we were quickly learning that he didn’t know even the ABCs of medical knowledge. One of the missionaries we are working with here is an R.N. and my wife is also a nurse; and every time she inquired about some medical issue in an attempt to benefit from Bruce’s alleged advanced knowledge, he just made up things to suit the moment, but all of it was bogus.

Bruce’s claim to be fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish was also bogus. He claimed to me and others that he reads the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures every day. He made that claim to Pastor Pradesh here in the Kathmandu Baptist Church. He told Pastor Pradesh that the Hebrew word for Holy Spirit is “bara,” which actually is one of the words for creation. Even a novice in Hebrew would know that. When Pradesh asked Bruce what edition of the Hebrew Old Testament he reads every day, Bruce couldn’t even come up with a name. That is because he doesn’t know Hebrew, Greek, and Spanish, except perhaps in the most rudimentary way. Bruce told a friend that the Spanish term “mui bien” means good morning!

This last set of lies had a direct bearing on Bruce’s work with me. He was claiming to be a real Bible scholar who can handle the difficult work of developing and teaching Bible college courses and who could join with me and maintain a high standard of teaching. Yet in reality he was completely misrepresenting himself to me, and I therefore did not have the proper knowledge by which to make a decision about him.

I am writing this public letter because I want people to know about Bruce. I tried to communicate directly with him and with his pastor, but they have completely ignored me. After I confronted Bruce about the Vietnam story, he and his wife simply disappeared. I mean that literally. They were living in the same multi-apartment house with us, but they left their apartment and got a hotel room for more than two weeks (during that time, we didn’t know where they were or what they were doing or planning), then they slipped out of the country on January 7 without so much as saying goodbye to anyone. He didn’t say anything to the church leaders here. He made no arrangements for anyone to take his place in the school. He even left before the final test was given for the last course, and he made no arrangements for the test to be administered by someone else. He didn’t ask me or the church leaders how all of this was going to affect us or the Bible school students. He simply turned his back on the many financial and other commitments he had made here and disappeared.

Bruce refuses to communicate with me in any fashion. Further, his pastor, John Nelson of Vandament Avenue Baptist Church in Yukon, Oklahoma, appears to be continuing his support of Bruce no matter what. I have given all of this information and much more to Brother Nelson, but except for a couple of very brief little notes telling me that I am “misunderstanding” the situation, he won’t even answer my questions about the matter; and now he, too, refuses even to acknowledge my e-mails. I have no idea what new lie Bruce has concocted to cover up for all of this and/or to make me somehow look like the culprit, but it must be a good one! 

Thus I have decided to make this matter public. I don’t want to see Bruce continue to lie to other unknowing preachers and to deceive his way into some other ministry. Bruce’s lies were not a private matter, anyway. He not only lied to me, but to everyone I introduced him to, and he further lied to the churches that we are working with in the States, Canada, Singapore, and Nepal. He also lied to many of the pastors who support him, because I found out recently that he was telling them that he was going to have an independent missionary ministry in Asia, whereas he was merely working with me.

I have written repeatedly to Bruce and have begged him to acknowledge his sin and to repent. He has completely ignored me and is simply building more lies, claiming that we merely had some type of misunderstanding. When after some days of being invisible here in Kathmandu he came by the house to pick up his suitcases, I almost missed him. By the time I learned that he was moving his things out and I dashed out to the front gate in an attempt to talk with him, he was already getting into a taxi. He merely said: “It didn’t work out” and he took off. That was his entire explanation to me about all of the lies and about leaving me in the lurch here.

We are going on with the Bible College. The second session started on January 17, but instead of two teachers, we have one. I am teaching a new course on “How to Study the Bible” and the Lord is blessing. Our friends Brian and Laura Snider of Birmingham, Alabama, arrived here on January 14 to spend a month recording the new course and also working on some evangelistic video projects for Nepal.

We covet your prayers for the school and for the ministry at large. This has been a great discouragement and has produced quite a bit of confusion, but the Lord has blessed in spite of it.

In Christ,

Brother Cloud