Beluga Bible Translations - A Bit Fishy?
Alright we know a Beluga Whale is a mammal and not a fish. But what I am questioning is whether Beluga Bible Translations is a legitimate Christian Mission or whether it is fishy?
If you are reading this Daniel you will know of my concerns which you have acknowledged but not satisfactorily put at ease.
If you are earning your own living or have worked in the past you will know it takes quite a bit of effort to earn your Dollars, Pounds or whatever your local currency is to sustain yourself in living on this planet (Aliens need not concern themselves with this!). Therefore when you are solicited to do business with a company you have never heard of before or to financially support a Christian Mission organisation similarly you have never heard of before then it is in your own interests to do some form of due diligence or checking up before parting with any of your hard earned funds.
Beluga Bible Translations
"Out of the blue" presumably blue sea I received an e-mail from someone called Daniel asking me to support Croatian Bible translation by an organisation called Beluga Bible Translations.
E-Mail received:
Date: 01/11/2024, 17:57
From: Daniel Kapeleti
To: [Address Redacted]
Subject: Support request
Dear Christian friend,
I am writing to introduce our project and ask for your support. Please feel free to contribute or recommend us to your friends. We are raising money to create the audio version of the Bible that we have translated into Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian.
Thank you for your support.
Find out more about us and payment details here:
About Beluga Bible Translation
Beluga Bible Translation is a modern translation of the Holy Scriptures into Serbo-Croatian using the original language sources of Hebrew and Greek as well as localized weights and measures.
Vision and Mission
Our goal is to restore readers of our translation to righteousness. Our mission is to serve two groups of people: senior citizens and teenagers, who are most neglected when it comes to learning about the Bible and embracing the good news of God's plan for their lives.
Main objective
The main goal of the project is to fulfil the commandment from Matthew 28,19: "Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
This translation is intended to help many people read the Bible in their current modern language.
The importance of the project
Given that few Serbo-Croatian Bible translations are available, the new translation enables a quick acceptance of the Word of God and thus the fulfilment of Jesus' commandment to make disciples of all nations. A well-translated Bible is the basis for the creation, growth and development of disciples of Jesus in order for them to access, accept and practically use the Word of God.
Target Audience
The Beluga Bible translation is intended for readers regardless of their educational background to easily read the text. It was created using the translation approach of dynamic equivalence, or thought for thought. The Beluga Bible translation gives the opportunity to share the Gospel with 23 million Bosnians, Croats and Serbs who are waiting for the modern Bible translation to replace their outdated versions, which they find difficult to read.
The difference from other translations
In a user-friendly way, readers of the Beluga Bible translation can read the Bible text without obstacles: weight, time and money measurements have been translated into contemporary units such as kilograms and centimeters.
Bank account for donations:
IBAN: GR57 0140 6640 6640 0234 0043 000
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 664.00.2340.043000
SWIFT/BIC: CRBAGRAA
Name: Daniel Kapeleti
Get in touch
+30 698 729 9370
daniel@belugabible.org
Don't like these emails? Unsubscribe here
Comments on the e-mail received:
Mailing List
The "Dear Christian friend" greeting and the unsubscribe link at the foot of the e-mail suggested that the e-mail address at which this e-mail was received at had been added to a mailing list without the recipient's permission. Ever heard of GDPR and opting into receiving e-mails not having to try to opt-out from e-mails?
Also it was sent using an e-mail marketing service to send the same e-mail to many addresses in the hope of securing "support".
Red Flags:
- Being asked to make donations into a bank account in someone's name rather than the name of an organisation
- No postal address of Beluga Bible Translations
- No charitable status of Beluga Bible Translations being listed
- Lots of talk about Bible Translation in the e-mail but vagueness as to whether translation has not yet started, has been started or whether it has been completed
- The telphone dialling code +30 tends to suggest Daniel is located in Greece rather than Croatia or Bosnia Herzgovina.
- E-mail addresses of clients@maildelivery.pw and daniel@beluga.org being used by Daniel. The unsubscribe link included the domain name https://prodaja.ba/ which appeared to be a bosnian domain displaying a real estate website.
Website
Belugabible.org again gives very little information above what has been given in the e-mail.
There is a second related website at https://tbvtranslation.wordpress.com/
Red Flags:
- No contact details, no telephone number, no physical address, no charitable status
- Vague information, not sure what stage the translation project is at
- Photographs of two persons said to be Board members and one said to be support staff. The persons said to be Board members appear from further searches to be real persons but little information is available elsewhere of their involvement in the translation project.
- Emphasis on receiving donations without providing any evidence of the outcomes achieved
- The website claims that Beluga Bible Translations is a fiscally sponsored project of the Christian Ministry Alliance. I am doubtful from looking at the Christian Ministry Alliance website how much oversight they have over the use of funds which they collect and disburse.
My e-mail reply:
Date: 02/11/2024, 16:11
From: [Address Redacted]
To: Daniel Kapeleti
Subject: Re: Support request
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for your email telling us about the Beluga Bible project.
The church is unlikely to support you at this time as we normally support Christian charities where we know the persons involved personally and/or they have a UK Charity Commission registration.
Your email seems to us to have some transparency and accountability issues which we have to address as we do due diligence as to where the church's money goes.
Whilst you have given a beluga bible e-mail address within your e-mail and you have a beluga bible website you have sent your e-mail from a maildelivery.pw e-mail address.
In your e-mail you request donations be sent to a bank account that appears to be in your name and not the name of the charitable organisation Beluga Bible. Clicking on links from your website imply that you are a project of Christian Ministry Alliance of Arizona, USA which seems to be a non-profit organisation that performs the administrative functions for a number of christian organisations without having the management or trustee oversight over the organisations. We note that Christian Ministry Alliance also collects funds on your behalf.
Finally our Bank would be unlikely to permit us to transfer funds to an entity/individual in Bosnia-Herzegovina*.
We wish you well in your translation work. It may be that other churches/organisations you have contacted have similar reservations about your organisation but have not brought
them to your attention.
You may feel that you wish to address these concerns as you go forward.
Regards
[Details redacted]
*Note: at the time of sending the e-mail I had not ascertained that the bank account was in the ALPHA BANK, CORNAROU BRANCH, 18-20, MAVROLENIS STREET, IRAKLIO, 712 01, Greece (GR)
We received a further response from Daniel:
Date: 02/11/2024, 16:23
From: Daniel Kapeleti
To: [Address Redacted]
Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: Support request
Dear [Name redacted], Can we meet online ?
I am.mote than happy to explain important requirements you mentioned in an online meeting.
I am already working with UK institutional donors.
I fully understand your questions - something I would ask myself.
My number is +30 698 729 9370 or you can simply reply to this email.
Sincerely,
DK
And our final response:
Date: 04/11/2024, 11:16
From: [Address Redacted]
To: Daniel Kapeleti
Subject: Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Support request
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for your gracious email.
I am not sure it would be helpful to have an online meeting to discuss my concerns as I don't think there is anything you could say that would change my mind about making donations to Beluga.
[Portion redacted]
As you consider yourself a Bosnian organisation I would seek the charitable registration that is normal within your country. People can then assume that your organisation is reputable and being overseen to ensure proper management of funds and what is known as governance.
If you wish I would be happy to go into more detail reviewing your website as to how you might improve the perception a visitor gains when visiting the website.
I do have a real issue with your e-mail address as I do with any charitable organisation who uses gmail or other free e-mail addresses. I also have issues with the Christian Ministry Alliance.
One other thing I will bring up... I mention earlier that I weed out spammers and scammers. You might not be a scammer but you are a spammer in that you are sending out unsolicited e-mails to persons who have not requested to be e-mailed by you.
You even put a link at the bottom of your e-mails offering recipients the option of unsubscribing from future e-mails when they never subscribed in the first place. You need to build up a mailing list of opt-in permission given e-mail addresses. You do realise that the likely positive responses from "cold calling" emails is likely to be very low. If you were to send your e-mail to all the major churches in the major UK cities namely London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow say 200 - 400 e-mail addresses most probably the only responses you would get would be to request you not to e-mail them again.
Again as before I wish you well in your endeavours for the Lord.
Regards
[Details redacted]
Final Notes:
We hope that Beluga is a reputable Christian mission and we see the promised translation at some time in the future.
There appears to be the indication that Beluga are offering their translation under a subscription model (https://tbvtranslation.wordpress.com/web-subscription/) however the links from this page are broken (https://todaysbosnianversion.faith/?p=132). This appears against the idea of making the Bible available to all regardless of their means. (There are a number of free online Bibles available in a multitude of languages, the one I make use of is Biblegateway.com)
Further information is available online for Daniel:
- https://www.freelancermap.com/profile/daniel-kapeleti
- https://gr.linkedin.com/in/daniel-kapeleti-392a96221
- https://ba.linkedin.com/in/daniel-kapeleti-a493751
- https://gr.linkedin.com/in/daniel-kapeleti-18b0a319a
- https://www.idealist.org/es/ong/a1d3461fe6654117abd77611261996f1-beluga-bible-translations-iraklio
The last reference listed above gives Daniel's contact details as:
email: daniel@belugabible.org
street address: Patellarou 33, Iraklio 713 05, Greece (on the island of Crete)
tel number: +306987299370
His Bank branch can be determined from the IBAN number in his original email as being in Iraklio, Greece.
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