Urban Report

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Series Code: UBR

Program Code: UBR000254A


00:01 Stay tuned to meet a man
00:02 who is all about feeding the needs in his community.
00:05 My name is Jason Bradley,
00:06 and you are watching Urban Report.
00:32 Hello and welcome to Urban Report.
00:35 My guest today is Pastor Moses Brown.
00:37 And he is the CEO and Founder
00:39 of Feed Our Children Ministries.
00:42 Welcome to Urban Report.
00:43 It's so good to see you, Brother Bradley.
00:45 And it's good to see you too.
00:47 Now you have a powerful testimony,
00:50 and I'm looking forward to getting into that.
00:54 But I want to start with, like,
00:56 where you grew up and go back into that part,
01:00 the beginning years of your life.
01:02 Where I grew up...
01:03 I'm a country boy.
01:05 There in the city called Plant City,
01:08 and I presently live in Tampa.
01:10 I went to school there, Forest Lake Academy.
01:13 And I just kind of been around into natural environment,
01:17 but that was through a process that God ordained Himself
01:23 with the things I learned how to adjust to
01:27 as I was going through some of my crises in my lives.
01:31 What are some of those crises that you went through?
01:35 Well, when I look back at my crises,
01:38 I always say it was because of Christ.
01:41 And He delivered me
01:43 from some catastrophic situations
01:45 that have funneled me into where I'm today.
01:49 It started with a little girl by the name of Cherry,
01:52 beautiful young lady.
01:54 She was a twin.
01:55 She was born there in a city called Manning, South Carolina.
01:58 Okay.
02:00 She came in the late ages of her parents.
02:04 And they had already had some adult children,
02:07 but they had the twins later on.
02:09 And when they got about...
02:11 I guess about seven years old,
02:13 her parents had both been dead by that time.
02:16 So she had to move down
02:17 to where her oldest sister lived
02:20 there in Hallandale, Florida.
02:23 When she got there, it was a nice experience.
02:26 She was growing up in a good environment.
02:29 They were still poor.
02:31 But her sister was married to a gentleman
02:33 there in that area.
02:34 And that's how they ended up there.
02:37 Coming along, she remembered about going to church
02:42 'cause her daddy was a Baptist preacher.
02:44 Okay.
02:45 Old Baptist preacher would go...
02:47 He was a monitor there, they call into Baptist Church.
02:50 He would kind of oversee other churches.
02:52 Okay.
02:53 And she loved church even as a child.
02:56 That's why I tell people, "Keep your children in church,
03:01 church school if possible.
03:03 Keep them under that auspices
03:05 where they can always hear the name of Jesus proclaim."
03:07 Yes.
03:09 So even while she was growing up
03:10 into her teen years,
03:12 she was attending church even though she was a Baptist.
03:17 But one particular day
03:18 in August of her life, it was hot.
03:20 It's hot in Florida anyway.
03:22 But in August, if you ever go down
03:24 in August, it's hotter.
03:26 Okay.
03:28 And there she was walking home from church,
03:32 and one of the deacons that was there, pulled over.
03:37 She was walking on the sidewalk and said,
03:38 "Hey, let me give you a ride home."
03:42 And in that point, she was a little bit reluctant,
03:46 but she decided that,
03:48 you know, since he was a man with authority in the community
03:51 and in her church.
03:54 She was 13 at that time, and she said, "Okay, I'll do."
03:58 Come to think of it, when she was in that car,
04:02 she was really somewhat panicky because she felt uncomfortable.
04:08 You know, you can feel uncomfortable
04:10 around some people.
04:11 Yes.
04:13 And he, all of a sudden, said, "Let me take you to this house
04:15 I want you to see
04:17 'cause I'm building this beautiful home."
04:20 And she didn't really feel good about it,
04:22 but, you know, when you're young,
04:23 you just say, "Okay, let me go and see,"
04:25 'cause you want to amaze her.
04:27 And she got to this house,
04:28 when she went there walking through this house,
04:32 his whole demeanor changed.
04:34 Really?
04:36 I've learned that, a lot of people say
04:37 that he loved the Lord,
04:38 even though he was a deacon in the church.
04:40 Yes.
04:41 But when you are under the satanic power,
04:44 it will come out, and your motives will show up.
04:48 And so it was...
04:50 The sin didn't start in the house,
04:51 it started when he looked at her in lust
04:55 before he even spoke to her.
04:56 Wow.
04:57 A lot of sins start when you answer the phone.
05:01 And this was a situation that started,
05:03 that had already built up.
05:05 And so when he got to the house,
05:07 he knew that, you know, her parents were already dead,
05:08 and she was staying with her sister.
05:10 And some people take advantage of those vulnerable situations.
05:14 And there she was in that house,
05:16 and his whole demeanor changed,
05:18 and he violated that girl right there
05:20 in that house.
05:22 Wow!
05:23 It was so much for her to even digest at that time.
05:28 Yeah.
05:30 Few months later,
05:32 it was hard to even speak about it,
05:34 but her twin sister said,
05:36 "You know, you are pregnant, you're pregnant.
05:39 You're coming forth with a...
05:42 This is not beans and rice."
05:44 Yes. Yes. "This is something else."
05:48 And she revealed that experience
05:50 that she had at that house.
05:54 At that particular time,
05:56 she was trying to contemplate what to do.
05:58 She wouldn't know
06:00 how to even explain it to her older sister.
06:02 Yeah.
06:03 But at that time,
06:05 her older sister's husband got into gambling debts,
06:08 and he had to leave town quickly.
06:12 Okay. I mean, real quick.
06:14 He had people after him. Yeah, had them after him.
06:16 This was some stuff that you see on TV,
06:19 but they knew they had to get out and get out fast.
06:21 Yes.
06:23 They went from Hallandale to a place four hours away,
06:27 that place is called Plant City.
06:28 Okay.
06:30 And there's...
06:31 She had already turned 14, and she had to decide,
06:34 "Okay, it's time for me to have my baby."
06:38 Sister already realized that she was pregnant,
06:41 and she's due.
06:42 And she told them that,
06:44 "Listen, I know you're getting close
06:46 to having your baby, but you can't handle no child.
06:51 You can't, you can't...
06:53 You got about a couple months to go,
06:55 but you can't handle no child."
06:56 And they gave her the ultimatum, said,
06:58 "Listen, once you go down under ghetto out there..."
07:02 You know, they always have somebody
07:04 in the ghetto who can take care of everything.
07:05 And this person was known to take care of abortions.
07:10 Wow!
07:11 So as she was walking that particular day
07:16 to fulfill the needs of her sister...
07:20 That's why you got to be very careful
07:21 who you allow to influence in your life.
07:25 That's very, very true.
07:27 She was moving forward and fulfill their need,
07:31 but in her heart, she said, "I want my baby.
07:34 I want my baby."
07:36 But economically, it didn't add up.
07:41 The economy wasn't set up for her,
07:43 and everything was just going south for her.
07:46 And so even though she was violated,
07:48 she still wanted her baby?
07:50 She wanted her baby.
07:52 That's amazing too
07:54 'cause there's a lot of different routes
07:55 that she could have gone.
07:57 And she had every...
07:58 She could just check off each box,
08:00 and it will give her
08:01 that right to abort the child.
08:06 She had every right.
08:07 You know, even the church
08:09 would have gave her the right for...
08:10 Let's say, you know,
08:12 "You were in a rape situation and everything else is just..."
08:15 Everything she could think of was checked off,
08:18 the child shouldn't have born.
08:19 Wow.
08:21 But as she was walking towards
08:22 that house to dispense of this child that she wanted,
08:27 because there was no other options laid out,
08:30 she heard a voice speak to her, and that text came to her,
08:33 Proverbs 3:5 and 6.
08:38 "In all your ways, acknowledge Me,
08:39 and I'll direct your path.
08:41 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
08:42 and lean not upon your own understanding."
08:45 Being a girl that loved church,
08:48 she knew that that was coming from God.
08:51 But in that...
08:53 She knew that He was there, but she couldn't see
08:54 how He was going to work it out.
08:56 She hadn't had that much faith to pull it through,
09:00 to look beyond the barriers.
09:03 She couldn't see anything, but what she didn't have.
09:06 And many people today,
09:08 they're looking at what they don't have
09:10 instead of looking at what God can do.
09:13 She got trapped in that little wedge there.
09:15 And in that quagmire, she heard another voice,
09:19 "God will let you know exactly what He want,
09:22 so you won't have to have questions
09:23 about certain things."
09:25 And He said, "If you let Me have this child,
09:28 I'll be His father."
09:30 Right then, she knew
09:32 that it was God's will to keep that child.
09:34 Wow.
09:36 And that's why I tell people,
09:37 you know, "If it's God's will, it's God's bill."
09:41 He never backs out on His payments.
09:46 He got A class, beyond 700, 800 credit score.
09:52 Come on, now. You just check it out.
09:55 And she knew right then,
09:56 if God said it, it's going to come through.
10:00 She went back home, and she talked to her sisters.
10:05 And they expressed to her,
10:07 "Listen, we gave you the ultimatum
10:11 'cause we can't take care of baby.
10:13 You're just a child yourself.
10:15 How are you going to take care of another child?"
10:18 They said, "Now, if you want to keep your baby,
10:21 don't bring it back here, you and the baby stay away."
10:24 Wow!
10:26 Because we can't feed another child, diapers,
10:29 and then have all those systems in place.
10:32 Now when you have a child,
10:33 then you had to pay for everything.
10:35 Yes.
10:37 And so she knew that God had spoken to her.
10:40 And so she had to trust Him where she couldn't trace Him.
10:44 So she stepped into her faith realm.
10:46 It was something about, when you know God said it,
10:49 you could be bold enough to just move, move anyhow.
10:53 You may have...
10:54 Your whole parameters may be on fire,
10:57 but, you know, you can walk through that fire
11:00 if you know God is with you.
11:01 Ellen White says,
11:02 "You can go through the desert or the sea,
11:04 but as long as God is with you, you're going to be all right."
11:07 And she had a sea, and she had a desert,
11:09 and everything around and everything was telling her,
11:12 "You can't do it."
11:14 But I've learned something, Jason, that one thing if...
11:17 You can have a million people tell you you can't,
11:20 you can have 10 million people say you cannot,
11:22 but God would just give you that one can,
11:26 you can move on that.
11:27 Yes. She moves on that one "can".
11:30 Wow. And she moved forward.
11:31 She went to the hospital to have the child,
11:35 not knowing what God was going to do.
11:37 But while she was there, the baby came out.
11:40 She told to her doctor, she said,
11:41 "Do you know anybody who can take my baby?
11:45 Do you know anybody in this city who can...
11:48 I don't want my child to go anywhere...
11:50 Anybody that know Jesus."
11:52 That's the type of her she was.
11:54 And the doctor said,
11:56 "No, I don't want to get into this.
11:57 This is something for you all to handle."
11:59 He was a Caucasian doctor, nice person, Dr. Gatliff.
12:04 But something about, "When God speaks,
12:07 He can move the hearts of king,"
12:09 the Bible says.
12:11 And He stepped into the mind of that physician
12:15 and reminded of one of the patients
12:18 he had that used to bring kids to his practice
12:23 because she was a foster care person,
12:25 she never had no kids.
12:26 Wow.
12:27 And he said, "Let me check this out."
12:29 And he called Annette and Leroy Brown.
12:34 Leroy Brown? Leroy Brown.
12:36 And what was her name? Annette Brown.
12:38 Annette Brown? Okay.
12:40 And they came down
12:41 to the hospital on his invitation and said,
12:45 "This baby is here,
12:47 and the mother cannot take care of it,
12:50 and she wants to go into a home
12:52 with someone who's Christian, and you came into my mind."
12:55 And it was like an epiphany came over to them and said,
12:58 "This is your child."
13:00 And they took the baby up in their arms,
13:04 and there they named the baby Moses Samuel Brown.
13:09 Wow!
13:11 And here I am today because of that.
13:14 So I'm going to give you the name Moses
13:15 because I got you out of the bulrushes.
13:18 Yes.
13:19 And they put the story in the name.
13:23 I didn't know I was even adopted.
13:25 They made sure you had a biblical name too.
13:28 Oh, biblical names. Yes.
13:31 And for a while, they wanted...
13:33 You know, later on,
13:35 they wanted to change that name,
13:36 and I'll tell you about that also,
13:38 because life can give you
13:43 a twist.
13:45 As a teenager, I had a twist.
13:48 Twist that turned me around
13:49 because when I found out that where I was,
13:54 was not the route that I would have taken,
13:59 because I thought I was a Brown, B-R-O-W-N,
14:03 not coming from an adoption situation.
14:06 Okay.
14:07 So I grew up going through that.
14:09 So you had to imagine,
14:11 when I found out that I was not a Brown.
14:15 How did you find that out?
14:17 Well, you know, you're going
14:18 to have people drop little things.
14:20 When you're in the hood, you know, everybody will say,
14:22 "You know, I know your cousin.
14:25 I know, you know, a little thing."
14:26 That's where we talk about each other,
14:28 and it was coming around.
14:29 And then finally...
14:33 Well, I met someone who was actually my cousin,
14:36 and they were going to the same school I was.
14:38 Like your biological cousin? Biological, yes.
14:42 And I had a lady that used to come
14:43 by the house and give vegetables to us
14:46 'cause she would sell produce.
14:48 And she said, "Call me auntie,"
14:50 and she would give me stuff free.
14:52 And I would bring it back in.
14:53 And the mother I was living with,
14:55 she was Annette Brown, she was grateful for that.
14:58 I didn't understand, "Who gives stuff free?"
15:00 But she was actually my mother's sister.
15:03 Wow!
15:05 So the stuff was going around me.
15:07 But I was happy to be a Brown.
15:09 I had the most loving people.
15:12 Leroy and Annette Brown,
15:13 I couldn't ask for better set of parents.
15:16 I mean, they were handmade. I kind of look like my daddy.
15:20 My adopted daddy, so it all kind of fit in.
15:22 That's amazing how that happens.
15:24 I actually know some people who are adopted,
15:27 and they look like their parents
15:29 that adopted them.
15:30 Don't God know how to shape it.?
15:32 It's amazing. It's amazing.
15:34 Well, I've been in there,
15:35 you know, and I know a lot of people going
15:38 through the same situation.
15:41 You get in these quagmires of life,
15:44 and you wonder what you're going to do,
15:46 and I became very recalcitrant, I was indignant,
15:50 and I didn't know how to handle it.
15:52 How do you handle trying to figure out
15:55 that you're not who you are?
15:57 Yes. Yes.
16:00 And so I had...
16:02 You know, I met my birth mother,
16:06 you know, 'cause she concluded the fact that,
16:08 you know, in my head that she is my mother.
16:10 And I had to ask
16:12 'cause she didn't want to tell me
16:13 the story of what happened.
16:14 Wow!
16:16 And when I met her it was...
16:19 It was just kind of...
16:21 It did something to me,
16:22 you know, I'm trying to put all this together.
16:23 Yeah.
16:25 But it was so much...
16:26 You know, something about love, love is so strong,
16:28 and the love of my adopted people
16:32 helped me and check.
16:33 I mean, I learned to know that
16:36 there's something different, but it was something
16:39 that really kind of messed my mind up,
16:41 but I knew that their love was genuine.
16:44 Yes.
16:45 But in that, I begin to hate all of them.
16:48 Really? And why is that?
16:51 I hated them because I felt that they betrayed me.
16:54 Oh, by not telling you that you're adopted,
16:57 the way that you found out.
16:59 I hated them because they lied to me.
17:02 And I didn't look at it...
17:03 You know, my young mind,
17:05 I was around in my early teens at that point.
17:08 And I've realized that it's...
17:09 This didn't come together like it was supposed to be.
17:12 "And I thought you were to be a Christian.
17:14 How come you never told me
17:16 that you actually got me from the hospital?
17:18 It made it sound like
17:20 that you had me in the hospital."
17:22 Yes. So in that, I felt bad.
17:27 But then something about the way the Lord does.
17:33 He sometimes let silence takes place.
17:38 And one thing I had to learn, Jason,
17:40 never confuse God's silence
17:43 for His absence.
17:46 Unpack that a little bit,
17:47 because I get where you're going with that,
17:50 and I like that, and that's so true,
17:52 but unpack that a little bit.
17:54 You know, when I was running chaotically
17:57 and being angry at everybody,
18:00 I didn't hear God speak to me.
18:04 But the fact was He had me in that silent mode.
18:10 Okay.
18:11 You know, in the scriptures Moses,
18:12 before he went up to Mount Sinai,
18:16 upon the top of the mountain,
18:18 he laid there in silence for six days.
18:23 And the Bible says, "There was no interaction,"
18:27 but he knew that God's presence was there,
18:30 but God was not speaking to him.
18:32 But on the seventh day, God called him up.
18:36 And in my scenario, I was there in silence,
18:40 I was asking for answers.
18:42 And suddenly God just tuned me out.
18:47 I had learned very quickly that it was His silence,
18:51 but I had to learn that it wasn't His absence.
18:53 I was thinking God was not present
18:56 'cause He said, "I'll never leave you,
18:59 I'll never forsake you."
19:02 And so He allowed Himself to be there,
19:07 and He don't just move because I want Him to move,
19:10 He moves when He needs to move.
19:14 It's like a scenario to what I'm speaking about.
19:18 When I was in school
19:20 and raised my hand during the test,
19:22 the teacher refused to answer my question
19:26 because I didn't raise my hand properly
19:30 at the proper time.
19:32 And I came back and asked her, I said, "Why didn't you..."
19:35 After the test was over,
19:36 "Why didn't you answer me while I was doing the test?"
19:39 And she said,
19:41 "That's the reason why I didn't answer you
19:43 because it was during the test.
19:46 So I gave you everything
19:47 you need to get through the test,
19:49 and so when you take the test, I could not answer you,
19:51 you was on your own."
19:53 And sometimes God may not speak to you during that time
19:56 because you're in the test, because life is a set up
20:02 where you've got to go through a process
20:04 to get to God's purpose.
20:08 One thing I've learned
20:09 that He cannot get into your purpose
20:12 because God had preordained that,
20:14 but He can get into the process of you getting to your purpose.
20:18 Okay.
20:19 And so in that process,
20:21 we get discombobulated with distractions
20:24 and Satan feeds us.
20:26 He was feeding me,
20:27 saying that I was unworthy, I was nothing,
20:31 I was nobody, and I couldn't be anything.
20:34 How can you ever become anything
20:36 when you were a child that was given away?
20:40 You're not even supposed to be here.
20:43 And so that was processed in my head.
20:45 "Well, if I'm not supposed to be here,
20:46 how can I have a purpose in my life?"
20:48 So you had all these negative thoughts
20:50 that were just playing over and over in your mind?
20:53 And He was having a field day with it.
20:55 Wow! Satan loves pity parties.
20:58 Yes.
20:59 And if you give him one,
21:01 he'll roll on it and roll on it.
21:03 And then God stepped into the point
21:05 when I felt like I was at my very end.
21:07 He explained to me.
21:09 He said, "It was My hand that put you in that womb."
21:14 That threw me back. Yeah.
21:17 In a situation that's catastrophic
21:19 as that was because He says, "I'm the life giver."
21:25 So even in that rape situation, He gave the life.
21:28 Wow.
21:29 And He determines...
21:31 We may have ugly actions,
21:33 but He takes the mess and makes the miracle.
21:37 I like that. Yes.
21:39 So He took that mess and...
21:42 And we try to fix things that we cannot fix.
21:46 We try to do the possible and the impossible.
21:50 God said, "You take care of the possible
21:51 and let Me handle the impossible."
21:54 And so when God was working through this thing
21:57 and fixing my mind up,
21:59 He spoke to me and said, "You know, I'm with you,
22:03 I have a purpose for you, you're My child."
22:07 And He said, "If you can trust Me
22:09 where you cannot trace Me,
22:11 and you take what I've given you,
22:13 I've given you good parents and everything that happened,
22:17 even from the time
22:19 that they had to leave Hollandale
22:21 to move to Plant City."
22:22 He said, "That was My orchestration
22:24 because there was Annette Brown in Plant City to adopt you."
22:30 Wow.
22:32 And He put me
22:33 into a Seventh-day Adventist home.
22:35 Wow! So they were Adventists?
22:37 Seventh-day...
22:38 They started a church there.
22:40 And they were strong Seventh-day Adventists.
22:42 It's amazing
22:44 how when you look back at your life,
22:45 you can see how God
22:47 has had His hand on your life the entire time.
22:49 Yes. Wow.
22:50 And He never let up.
22:52 So you were in this Adventist home,
22:54 and so how did that play a part in your development
22:59 because you had those negative thoughts
23:01 going through your head and all of that?
23:04 How did you get out of that? Forgiveness.
23:09 The simplicity of forgiveness
23:11 is the complexity of people's lives,
23:14 because they have held on to something
23:18 that they can't fix, they can't understand,
23:22 and they can't move,
23:24 and they try to use a lot of keys,
23:27 like it's only one key that go to one door,
23:30 but you try to use all the other keys,
23:32 but the forgiveness key is the one that works.
23:36 And they try to avoid all those things,
23:38 getting around of and...
23:40 And they don't want to use forgiveness
23:41 because they know how much that person did to them,
23:45 and they lied on me, and they cheated on me,
23:48 and they walked away from me,
23:50 they're the reason why my finances so broke up,
23:52 and the reason I'm not at the stage
23:54 I should have been and all these excuses,
23:56 and they have never forgive them.
23:57 And some people are in their grave.
24:00 And those who are alive have not forgiven those
24:03 who are lying in their grave and the devil uses that.
24:06 And I had to break
24:08 that yoke that was holding me, choking me.
24:10 Yes. And I had to forgive.
24:13 First off, I had to forgive myself.
24:15 You know, there's a certain thing
24:16 you have to do
24:17 which is you have to forgive yourself,
24:20 and then you can forgive others.
24:22 If I forgive myself, I had to look at me and say,
24:25 "Lord, I'm not worthy
24:28 and because of Your blood that saved me,
24:31 I am where I am."
24:33 And then I look around me and when God can break me,
24:37 He can put me back together again.
24:41 And in my rejection, I found direction.
24:46 That's where I found it.
24:47 In my rejection, God gave me direction.
24:52 He said, "I didn't take this away from you
24:55 that so you could fail."
24:57 He said, "I wanted you to have..."
24:59 Like He said in Jeremiah, "I have great plans for you.
25:03 And for these plans to come to fruition,
25:05 I had to take you down this road."
25:07 I wouldn't be sitting here today
25:09 if He hadn't took me down that road.
25:10 If He had not taken me down that road,
25:12 I wouldn't be here today.
25:14 But He showed me that in that process, He was...
25:18 Even though the devil tried to get into it,
25:20 He said, "I still got a purpose
25:21 to all the setbacks and dropouts and all that,
25:25 what looks like failure was just a set up."
25:28 That's like, when you look at the story of Joseph,
25:30 and Joseph was taken
25:31 and sold into captivity by his brothers,
25:34 and then he ended up running Egypt.
25:38 That is amazing. Isn't God amazing?
25:41 Yes, continue. I'm thoroughly engaged in this.
25:46 I've seen God
25:48 how He works in situations
25:52 where people have dropped the bomb on...
25:57 I use that term
25:58 who have given up on their children.
26:01 And there might be
26:03 some out there today, just saying,
26:04 you know, your children using drugs,
26:06 and they're out there smoking,
26:11 sleeping in another people's sheets,
26:13 and you have decided not to pray for them no more.
26:16 I want you to know, pray for them.
26:19 God is not through with them yet.
26:20 And sometimes
26:22 He had to take you down that road,
26:23 for Him to get you where He you want you to be.
26:26 Yes.
26:27 And through my struggles, it gave me strength.
26:30 And I kept pushing, I kept pushing,
26:33 and I could see God right there in every movement
26:36 from my mother,
26:38 my adopted mother and my birth mother,
26:41 it was like two mothers working in sync for me
26:44 to be what I am today.
26:50 If one had to give me life,
26:53 and one had to produce that life to make it
26:56 where God could use me.
26:58 Wow! And I'm grateful.
27:00 I'm grateful for what I've been through.
27:04 When I look back over my life,
27:07 I said, "You know, God, I couldn't do this myself."
27:11 And this has brought me into other places
27:14 when I saw what God has done for me.
27:19 I said, "I can't just sit on my blessing."
27:20 No.
27:22 One thing about a blessing...
27:23 How you know it's a blessing?
27:25 If you cannot share
27:27 that blessing with somebody else,
27:29 it's not a blessing.
27:30 Okay.
27:31 If your blessing can't be a help
27:33 to help someone else
27:35 who's worst off than you is not a blessing.
27:38 Let me ask you this question.
27:39 Did you ever meet your biological father?
27:44 I went down to Hollandale,
27:45 I was going to Forest Lake Academy.
27:47 I was with the singing group.
27:49 And while I was down there, my mother had told me his name.
27:53 I went through the phone book,
27:55 trying to find this person's name.
27:58 And I was calling all the Scotts,
28:00 last name was Scotts.
28:01 And when I got to one number, they said,
28:03 "Well, that's Scott you're speaking about,
28:06 we had his funeral several weeks ago."
28:08 Wow. God blocked it.
28:12 Wow.
28:13 You see when God told my mother before she got to that door,
28:18 He said, "I will be his father."
28:22 That would have interrupted God's plan.
28:27 He has the sovereignty to know
28:33 when and when not.
28:35 And I was stunned.
28:36 I said, "How could it...
28:38 I'm just this close to seeing him.
28:41 I mean, what is it that...
28:42 Why would God do something like that?"
28:44 I said, God, but it was His providence
28:47 that would work out.
28:50 And so that was the closest I got.
28:53 Later on, down the road, just a few years back,
28:57 I met some family members of his.
29:01 Oh, how did that go? Beautiful.
29:04 Really? Beautiful.
29:05 I went back to that church where he used to go.
29:09 And Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church there...
29:11 In Atlanta?
29:13 No, Ebenezer in Hallandale. Oh, in Hallandale.
29:15 Okay, I was going to say, "Wait a minute,"
29:17 Oh, you never said you were in Atlanta.
29:19 Okay.
29:20 Now, this was the...
29:21 It's a big church down there, but he went there.
29:23 And I told the preacher, I said, "You know, anyone..."
29:26 'Cause he was head deacon of the church in that time.
29:30 And they said, "Well, I know this lady over here,
29:32 she knows everybody's business."
29:34 You know, there's got to be one person...
29:35 There's always one. That's right.
29:37 And thank God, for someone in there that knows.
29:39 That's right.
29:40 And he got with there, and she got with me,
29:42 and she said, "Yes, I know Deacon Scott.
29:46 And matter of fact,
29:49 one of his first cousin's wife is my beautician."
29:53 Wow!
29:54 They were living there in that area also.
29:57 Okay.
29:58 And that's when the connection was made
30:02 with that side of the family.
30:03 They had no clue that this was even existing,
30:08 a child from him.
30:10 Wow.
30:12 So I figured that God wanted that to be different,
30:13 but it had been an encounter
30:15 that has been really unforgettable experience
30:18 being with that side of the family.
30:21 And when I make the circles from all sides of the family,
30:23 because I have adopted side, I have my birth dad side,
30:28 I have my birth mom side, and every one of those sides,
30:33 God has surrounded me with people
30:36 who are lovers of God.
30:39 And so I'm safe in any environment.
30:43 Yes. Yes.
30:44 And so your mom never...
30:46 She never pressed charges or anything,
30:48 like your biological mother,
30:50 she never pressed charges, never pursued it?
30:52 Lot of the things like that never have happened
30:56 in people's situations,
30:58 and especially in those times...
30:59 Wow!
31:01 It was just kind of...
31:03 She just mentioned it to me, and she going on.
31:06 I mean, she was living...
31:08 I mean, she got...
31:09 To me, she was living in an abusive situation.
31:12 Well, you know, she was a teenager
31:14 trying to find security,
31:15 and when you're broke, you got nothing.
31:17 You always...
31:18 Some men and some women, they get together for finances
31:23 or someone secured and she did...
31:25 She made a decision
31:27 that really wasn't on principle but on need.
31:31 And she found...
31:32 She's got a man that was beating her
31:35 and her children.
31:37 And with that, it made
31:38 a whole environment of just chaos, chaos.
31:43 And she told me when I met her, she said,
31:45 "If you had came here, if you had came here,
31:50 he would have killed you."
31:52 Wow!
31:54 The father of my other brothers and sisters,
31:58 'cause she had three children from there.
31:59 Okay. And they went through a lot.
32:02 And, you know, there are some women today,
32:04 and I'm speaking to women that's in abusive situations.
32:08 And you wonder,
32:10 "Why I'm staying in this thing?"
32:12 My words to you, get out, get out.
32:16 It's not worth you
32:17 being humiliated day after day,
32:21 sometimes it's verbally and physically.
32:24 But it's hard.
32:26 And some Christian Adventists people live
32:29 in abusive situations.
32:31 I mean, and they get up in front of the people
32:33 in the congregation,
32:34 and they go home and beat the spouse.
32:38 That's not God. No.
32:39 That's not God.
32:41 And I want to be sure this audience understands
32:43 that's not God.
32:45 And if you need help, find some help,
32:47 because that's not an instrument of God.
32:49 God said, "The body is the temple of the Lord,"
32:52 and you should not allow anyone
32:53 to misuse it, beat it, or abuse it.
32:56 And if I said anything today, get that,
32:59 and you may have to pack up today and go.
33:02 But like I said earlier, if it's God's will,
33:04 it's God's bill.
33:05 He will take care of you
33:08 when you step out under His auspices.
33:11 But you got to make that step. Yeah, absolutely.
33:13 Where God leads, He provides. Yes, yes.
33:16 Definitely. Definitely.
33:17 Now shifting gears a little bit.
33:19 See that...
33:21 I like to get to know the man behind the mission.
33:25 You know, now shifting gears into what you're doing now
33:28 and what you started "Feed Our Children Ministries",
33:33 how did that come about?
33:35 And what are you guys doing?
33:36 Feed Our Children Ministries started in 1986,
33:39 a beautiful year for many people.
33:41 Absolutely.
33:43 I have to say that's a beautiful year for me.
33:47 And with that...
33:49 I started it when I was doing some radio.
33:54 Well, I'd say radio commentaries
33:57 for the community
33:58 because they were having an R&B station.
34:00 And the Lord said, "Don't just go down there
34:01 and just ask them about saying a few encouraging words."
34:05 And I was doing that, I got the little community.
34:08 At the same time
34:09 there was a shooting in the inner city
34:12 right in the parking lot, and the kids watched the lady,
34:15 who is the manager of the Davis Clinic,
34:18 get shot, begging for her life, trying to get in the car,
34:21 it was traumatic for everyone.
34:23 And these kinds of things happen
34:24 in the inner city.
34:26 And the police department actually would come out
34:29 and talk to the kids that had watched it,
34:31 'cause they were traumatized.
34:33 And so when I came out there,
34:35 we were trying to give them encouragement,
34:36 a lot of kids were coming out.
34:38 And one boy came to me and said,
34:40 "Hey listen, I like to have one of those."
34:42 'Cause we were giving snacks. Okay.
34:44 And it was near November, and he said,
34:46 "Can I have one of those meals that they have on television?"
34:50 I had never heard anyone asking me questions like that.
34:53 And I said, "What'd you mean?"
34:54 I never heard a phrase like that either,
34:56 a meal that they have on television.
34:57 Well, it's Thanksgiving meal,
34:59 you know, people sitting at the table.
35:00 People take for granted that...
35:02 People sit at a table,
35:03 and they have this long spread of...
35:04 It was during Thanksgiving.
35:06 He wanted a Thanksgiving meal.
35:07 Okay.
35:09 With the...
35:11 Well, I don't know what they all have on their,
35:13 you know.
35:14 Slashed ham, no ham,
35:17 but we would have gave him some wham.
35:19 Yes, we definitely don't swine and dine,
35:22 no swining and dinning, absolutely.
35:25 I said, "You know, what, we're going to do this."
35:26 I said, "You invite your friends,
35:28 and I'll invite the community to bring some food."
35:31 I thought he had about 100 or so friends,
35:33 so we set up for about 100 of them coming.
35:36 But he had more friends than I could count.
35:39 It was about 400 some people standing out there.
35:41 Four hundred and some.
35:43 Now if you go to inner city,
35:44 when they come out with stuff like that,
35:45 they bring their foil and Tupperware.
35:47 Oh, yeah, they are going.
35:48 They're leaving with the gold plates.
35:50 If you know our people. Yeah.
35:52 They are not coming just for that meal.
35:54 They are going to come for the meal
35:55 that they are going to have later on today
35:57 and the next day too.
35:58 Yeah.
36:00 And when the people I was standing over with,
36:02 "You might need to close this down
36:04 because you don't want...
36:05 You want no excitement in the hood out here,
36:07 because if they don't get all their food,
36:09 the people are standing in the line,
36:10 they came out here to eat.
36:12 And you got the media right here."
36:13 And they said,
36:14 "You don't want to embarrass yourself like this."
36:16 And, then I just think about this, I said,
36:17 "You know, I serve a God
36:20 that fed 5,000 or more than I got on this table."
36:24 Yes. Yes.
36:25 With fish and the loaves of bread.
36:27 And I said, "The same God that was there, He's here now."
36:31 And I stepped into that faith realm.
36:34 There's something about when you step into faith.
36:35 It's not like stepping in no other place.
36:38 You know that God's presence is there.
36:40 That's why I start...
36:41 I've learned one thing,
36:43 I start pursuing God's presence,
36:46 and I found that He will give you
36:48 His promise.
36:51 So when I started pursuing His presence,
36:53 I used to pursue the promise and not His presence.
36:58 But when I was feeling His presence,
37:00 that's when the promise that He promised me.
37:03 He said all His promises are yes from the scripture.
37:06 Yes.
37:07 And so I had to step in that realm,
37:08 that is a beautiful experience
37:10 when you are in that divine realm.
37:13 And I said, "I know
37:14 this is God's reputation, not mine."
37:16 Yes, that's on the line. It's on the line.
37:19 I said, "Lord, whichever way it come out is You."
37:21 Yes.
37:23 You'll learn that you have a lot less stress
37:27 when you just put it in God's hands.
37:29 And you truly, any program, anything that you're doing,
37:32 anything that you plan to do,
37:34 you put it in God's hands and say,
37:35 "Lord, this is Your reputation.
37:37 I did all I could, now it's You."
37:40 When they went through that line, Jason,
37:43 they came through and everybody was looking and wondering
37:46 how I was going to run out.
37:47 I was walking around just encouraging people,
37:49 talking to them,
37:50 because the media was out there,
37:52 and they want an interview with me.
37:53 And 'cause I wasn't,
37:55 you know, I had no fear at that particular time.
37:58 Love for Christ will eradicate all fear.
38:02 And when you know that He's spoken to you.
38:05 And, you know, He said, "Go left," even though
38:07 everybody telling you to go right,
38:09 but He said, "Go left," and you know it's God's word,
38:11 you can just drop everything
38:12 and just put a smile on your face
38:14 because, you know, God got it.
38:15 You don't know how it's going to end.
38:17 But you know He got it.
38:18 And you can take Him at His word.
38:20 You can't take many people at their word,
38:22 but you can take Him at His word for sure.
38:25 The scripture say, "Don't trust no man."
38:27 Yeah. Yeah.
38:29 But when He got...
38:30 When they got through,
38:32 He don't work things just to impress you,
38:38 He work things to amaze you.
38:41 That's the kind of God I serve. Okay.
38:43 And when they got through, there was...
38:45 With all their tableware,
38:46 and our black folks brought those foil
38:51 for that meal for the next day.
38:53 And I was thinking, they're going to be just...
38:54 I'm going to get a few people, and there was food left over.
38:59 Wow!
39:01 Food left over, and that's when I got on my knees and said,
39:04 "Lord, I thank You."
39:06 Because He authenticated my purpose,
39:09 and He was with me.
39:10 Yes.
39:13 Many times, some people are struggling
39:14 because He hasn't authenticated His word in your life.
39:19 But when God authenticate that word in your life,
39:22 you can move forward.
39:23 That had propelled me all the way to today
39:25 from that one experience,
39:27 because I know that God, He will show up,
39:30 and He will show out.
39:31 That's right.
39:33 And that was such a great witness
39:34 to all of those people that were telling you,
39:36 "Oh, you shouldn't do this.
39:38 You definitely don't want to get this excitement
39:40 going in the hood.
39:41 If you don't have enough food for,
39:43 you know, all these people," but God provided.
39:47 And a lot of programs
39:48 that people start in their church,
39:50 if even they don't go through it,
39:51 they have calculated on their calculator.
39:54 Your calculator,
39:55 I'm going to you something that you can do,
39:58 but God's calculator show you what He can do,
40:02 and something
40:04 that you should be doing in the community now,
40:06 so one of the things that Feed Our Children
40:08 is trying to do is to get a place for women
40:11 with their children who sleep in their cars,
40:14 and we're trying to get a place for them,
40:16 and we got it on our website.
40:19 I'm trusting God,
40:21 and I'm working from a zero budget.
40:23 You know, I don't know
40:25 if anybody worked from zero budget.
40:27 That's true. Stepping out on faith.
40:30 But God had already said, "This is what will take place."
40:33 I don't know how,
40:34 and I don't know when, I just...
40:37 I'm His instrument. I'm a conduit of His message.
40:40 And so I put it out there, but I know there's a need.
40:44 And I know that it's not just where I am, I said,
40:46 "There has to be other places."
40:48 Yes.
40:49 So I'm hoping today that those who are watching,
40:52 and God has you watching today
40:53 because He wanted to tell you something.
40:57 In your communities where you are,
40:59 you can't just have something in your church to satisfy
41:03 those around you.
41:05 What good is a flashlight in the sunlight?
41:07 What good...
41:09 And we come to our congregations
41:11 to bring our light,
41:13 and we just out blind
41:15 each other with our scriptures and this and that.
41:16 But God said, "Take that light out."
41:18 So there's a lot of...
41:19 Every church should have something going on
41:22 to reach the needs of their community.
41:26 I love that,
41:27 "What good is a flashlight in the sunlight?"
41:29 Yes.
41:31 You know, that's like,
41:32 you know, why just solely preach to the choir?
41:36 Exactly.
41:37 You have to get out
41:38 and do something in your community.
41:40 You know, if a church is missing,
41:42 like if a church has been there for 20, 30 years,
41:45 and then, all of a sudden, they close the doors,
41:47 and nobody in the community even notices that they're gone,
41:51 that's a problem.
41:53 And they open up with a shopping center,
41:55 and then you recognize that your church was there.
41:58 Yeah. Yeah. That's a problem.
42:00 We have some pictures...
42:02 From Feed Our Children,
42:06 and we want to take a look at those.
42:08 Will you describe what's going on in those?
42:10 Yes, this is one of the events that we have
42:13 where we give out the turkeys and stuff.
42:16 And we had just hundreds and hundreds of people coming.
42:19 And we have never ran out. Wow!
42:21 Ever since that day, I learned to trust in God.
42:22 We have our summer camps that we open up,
42:25 and they have the Vacation Bible School
42:27 for inner city...
42:29 It's all circling around, letting them know about Jesus.
42:32 Everything that we do
42:33 has given them that opportunity.
42:35 Even we spread it out to different countries.
42:36 This is over in Kenya...
42:38 Wow!
42:39 Where we have huge orphanages,
42:42 and that we're reaching those places where they are.
42:44 And God has transcended me from Plant City to that place.
42:48 That's nothing but God. Wow!
42:50 This is a family that someone
42:53 you know helped to contribute to help that family out.
42:57 And they made that happen.
42:58 A lot of people are sitting around
43:01 trying to figure out what to do.
43:02 This is on our Thanksgiving meal,
43:04 we opened it up.
43:05 And we have many of the migrant families
43:07 that come out there.
43:09 And we feed them, and we encouraged them.
43:12 Even the handicaps, they say, you know,
43:14 "I never had nothing like this in my life happen."
43:17 And they come white, black, blue, and yellow,
43:19 no matter which color they are.
43:20 We bring them where God would bring them.
43:24 We first meet the physical need
43:26 then we reach their spiritual need.
43:28 It took me out.
43:29 This is Curacao,
43:31 the country where they called me
43:32 the other year, last year,
43:33 and this ministry has reached out there
43:37 'cause I love evangelism.
43:38 So this is moving into the evangelism side.
43:40 This is moving into the evangelism side.
43:41 Okay. Okay.
43:42 Had a great baptism there,
43:44 over 20 some people there in one week
43:47 God just moved, and I love...
43:48 This is what I love to do. Yes.
43:50 I mean, take me to the water to be baptized.
43:53 Yes.
43:54 I mean, somewhere in there, I may not do it,
43:56 but I'm believing that everyone
43:58 that I come across that don't know Jesus,
44:00 but because they knew me, they get to know Jesus.
44:03 Yes. Yes. And so that was it.
44:05 We had a great interpreter that was pushing the gospel
44:08 as hard as I was.
44:11 We also...
44:13 That was in Kenya, that stadium,
44:15 thousands and thousands of people
44:17 coming out each day, and they preach the gospel.
44:20 And I told them my story,
44:22 and I met a lot of people in that area.
44:24 This is here in Panama where we were down there
44:27 and when Elder Falkenberg called me to this one
44:30 when he was there and he said,
44:32 "Hey, we need a black preacher down here."
44:34 And so that's when I went there to preach there,
44:36 and God won us those souls.
44:38 This was is in Guyana,
44:40 Linden in Guyana where we were serving there.
44:43 And just recently,
44:44 that was the second time I went there.
44:46 And that was a small group of baptisms that we had.
44:48 Wow.
44:49 And these are a lot of volunteers
44:50 that work with us, and thank God,
44:52 my ministry works through volunteers.
44:55 Yes. Yes. Wow.
44:57 I guess the better question is where haven't you been?
45:01 You've been all across the globe.
45:03 Where He leads me, I will follow.
45:06 I mean, I take engagements to preach every weekend.
45:12 And I fly out here, wherever the plane can get be,
45:15 I'm willing to be there.
45:17 Okay. Okay.
45:19 Now what made you so passionate about,
45:25 you know, getting active in the community?
45:28 I know where I was.
45:30 You know, sometimes we get in these comfort zones.
45:34 I think a lot of our Christians,
45:35 we're addicted to comfort,
45:39 we are addicted to convenience,
45:42 and if it's raining, we don't want to go out.
45:44 And there's always conditions we set for God
45:47 that we don't set for our job where they're paying us,
45:50 but getting down to work for God, we have...
45:53 I had to learn. I couldn't do that.
45:55 My passion had to push me into places
45:57 I didn't want to be
45:59 because I knew there was a need,
46:01 and God had assigned me
46:03 to that need to be taken care of.
46:06 When God assigned you to something, Jason,
46:09 you don't just unassign yourself.
46:12 I know that ain't even a word, but it sounds good.
46:16 You have to...
46:18 You have to stay there,
46:21 and I've stayed in places where I knew I was doing
46:24 what God called me to do, but I was ready to cut it off.
46:27 I had other things I wanted to do.
46:28 So I said, "Lord, I'm tired of this one,
46:30 don't you have something else?"
46:32 And I had to stay in it to win it.
46:35 Yes.
46:37 What it looked like was the...
46:38 Where I was putting a period, God had put a comma.
46:41 Okay.
46:43 And He said, "No, I need you to go on,
46:45 the sinners ain't over yet."
46:47 So you were trying to release yourself from...
46:49 Trying to release myself.
46:50 The assignment that God had assigned you to?
46:53 But the passion pushed me. You got to love what you do.
46:57 Absolutely.
46:58 First, we got to...
47:00 Let me put it back...
47:01 You have to love God first then you'll love whatever
47:04 He wants you to do.
47:06 You'll draw nearer to Him.
47:10 Otherwise, you have that Jonah experience.
47:13 I call it the Jonahsize. Unpack that.
47:16 Yes, Jonah once had an assignment,
47:19 but he wanted to make his own assignment.
47:24 And this assignment wasn't over till he went to Nineveh.
47:28 And sometimes you're feeling frustrated today and say,
47:32 "I just don't feel like...
47:34 I'm meeting what...
47:35 I want to do...
47:37 I fell unsatisfied."
47:38 Because you're probably in that place
47:41 where there is an assignment
47:45 that you're not fulfilling.
47:48 You have to fulfill your assignment,
47:50 otherwise there's always a whale.
47:53 That there's a whale, sometimes a whale of...
47:55 You wonder why you can't get your finance together,
47:58 that's a whale of finances.
48:00 You wonder why you can't get this relationship together.
48:02 And it's always something.
48:04 It won't work out until you allow God to fulfill
48:07 what He called you to do.
48:09 There's a scripture that I love to work
48:12 with that comes from Lamentations 3:37.
48:16 It says, "Who can speak into your life
48:19 and it comes to pass
48:20 unless God has not commanded it?"
48:23 Wow.
48:24 I take that back into,
48:26 you know, when people try to give you
48:29 what they want you to do,
48:31 and they tell you what you ought to do
48:33 or what you couldn't do or should've done.
48:35 You know, and a lot of times,
48:37 we have taken resonance in the can't doers.
48:42 But that text says,
48:43 "I can do all things through Christ."
48:46 So my passion to move even when it looks impossible,
48:50 you know, it says, "Who can say it come to pass
48:53 if God has not commanded it?"
48:55 Nobody told you, you were a failure.
48:57 Nobody told you can open up that new business.
48:59 Nobody told you
49:01 that that marriage could not work out.
49:03 Nobody told you that it wasn't going to be,
49:07 so you have drived into this stuff,
49:09 and you have let your life miss a lot of great opportunities
49:13 because you have looked into the door of failure
49:16 and stayed there, and you say, "It looks comfortable."
49:18 But God says, "I have not told you that."
49:20 That's why He asked you, "Who told you that?"
49:24 So my purpose and my passion has come together.
49:27 Yes.
49:28 And that's my drive because...
49:30 And when I hear people say, "Well, you know,
49:33 you're not going to really get this thing,
49:35 this project is too big."
49:37 And I looked at the scripture and said,
49:40 "Did God commanded it not to happen?"
49:45 If God said, "No, that's not yours."
49:48 One thing, let me tell you, Jason,
49:50 I don't want nothing that does not belong to me
49:53 'cause as the song say,
49:54 "What God has for you, it is for you."
49:57 Yes. I don't want your stuff.
49:59 I got enough stuff
50:01 that He has already prepared for me.
50:02 Abundantly, I mean, beyond what I can imagine.
50:06 So I say, "Lord, let me stay in my zone".
50:09 Don't be looking at everybody else,
50:11 I'm going to stay in my zone.
50:12 And where He takes me,
50:13 I don't have time for envy or jealousy.
50:15 Yeah.
50:16 Matter of fact, I want to see you do better
50:19 than I ever did.
50:20 As long as I know,
50:22 I'm fulfilling what God told me to do.
50:23 When I leave this place,
50:25 and they lay me down on my grave,
50:27 if He does not come before that time,
50:30 you will see the smile on my face
50:32 because I know I've done everything
50:34 that God has called me to do.
50:35 That's driving. That's living.
50:38 Not just going through, you know, careless of,
50:41 you know, just day-to-day...
50:43 I have a purpose when I get up in the morning
50:44 because I know
50:46 that I wasn't supposed to be here anyway.
50:47 Yes. Yes. I was supposed to be aborted.
50:51 So when I get up in the morning,
50:53 it's not like other people,
50:54 I know that I'm on borrowed time.
50:55 Oh, yeah.
50:57 So people are wondering,
50:58 "Why are you doing all this stuff?"
51:00 Because I have a drive in me because I know
51:01 that I wasn't supposed to be here
51:03 under all natural conditions of man.
51:06 I was supposed to be gone long time ago,
51:08 and the devil should have took me out when he could.
51:10 But now that I'm here, brother, I'm going to push for my Lord.
51:14 I'm gonna fight this fight till the very end.
51:16 I might get knocked back sometimes in a bout,
51:19 you may stumble, but I'm not going to fall.
51:21 Come on. My hands are in God's hands.
51:23 Wow!
51:25 It's so important to find your purpose,
51:27 your God-given purpose.
51:29 Yes.
51:30 And, like you said,
51:32 that passion comes about when you find that as well.
51:35 So, okay...
51:37 So Feed Our Children,
51:38 you're extremely passionate about that.
51:40 That's your purpose. You're fulfilling your purpose.
51:43 You're also a head chaplain as well.
51:47 Yes.
51:48 But before we talk about that, I'd like to talk about
51:51 some of the needs of Feed Our Children.
51:53 What are your current needs for the ministry?
51:56 We need prayer. Okay.
51:58 I think, wherever you are,
52:00 you can always just call that name,
52:03 Feed Our Children Ministry
52:04 that God's will will be done in it.
52:07 On our website, you can always go and...
52:10 What is your website? FeedOurChildren.org.
52:14 Okay. And you go in there.
52:16 If you want to give, donate, you're welcome to...
52:19 And we appreciate anything that you can provide.
52:23 If volunteers, we try to do some outreach places,
52:27 like we said we have different orphanages
52:30 in different places,
52:31 and even going to some of those places
52:33 and reaching out to some of those people there.
52:36 And they always tell us, "We need more rice and beans,"
52:40 and we try to send those funds there
52:42 that they can get it right there
52:43 in their country in Kenya.
52:45 And so it is a...
52:47 We're a small ministry, but we're doing big things.
52:50 Yes. Around the world.
52:52 Yeah. That's a God thing.
52:56 He's not limited by geographics.
52:58 He's not on the side of stop.
53:00 Hey, I like that.
53:05 Well, you've given me plenty today too.
53:07 So I'm going to have to watch this over and over again
53:10 so I can get some of those sayings.
53:13 Very powerful.
53:15 It's amazing what you have been able to do
53:19 by the grace of God to help people.
53:21 I mean, it's practical Christianity.
53:23 Yes.
53:24 And you're getting out in the community,
53:25 and you're feeding the community, literally,
53:28 feeding the community
53:30 and communities around the globe.
53:32 Well, what I'd like to see while I'm out there is...
53:35 We were down there in Parkdale
53:37 when the shooting took place, Parkland.
53:39 In Florida?
53:41 Yes, particularly I went over there,
53:42 and I saw all of those broken kids,
53:45 and being a chaplain,
53:47 it helped me to be in the place when I was needed.
53:51 I just preach at a church in that area,
53:52 and a grandmother came and told me
53:54 that she just buried her child a day before,
53:57 and that was one of the kids that got shot.
53:59 But I saw that in those places,
54:03 God needs those who are willing to serve
54:07 and that has pushed me in...
54:10 As part of my ministry, I appreciate...
54:12 I had been a chaplain at Florida hospital.
54:16 I have found people
54:17 that were in the most vulnerable situation.
54:21 If you have been in a hospital,
54:23 and, you know that it's one of those things
54:27 you look death in their eyes,
54:30 and you're wondering, "So, Lord, is this it?"
54:33 And then you're wondering
54:34 if doctor's going to pull you through this?
54:36 Or is this sickness going to take you out?
54:40 And as a chaplain, and I salute all the chaplains,
54:45 even from Chaplain Barry Black
54:47 who works now as the senate there to chaplains in the army,
54:51 and those who are working in the hospitals
54:54 and those who are working in the prisons.
54:56 The Adventist chaplaincy covers all those.
54:59 To be in the chaplaincy in the hospitals,
55:02 there you have to go through a lot more
55:04 than even a pastor.
55:06 You have to already be in the ministry,
55:08 but it take you through another year, so CPE.
55:11 And there you learn how to eradicate
55:14 some of your prejudices, because you're going in rooms
55:17 where there are people who are different ethnicities,
55:22 you have people who have different viewpoints,
55:25 you have the homosexuals,
55:27 you have everybody from all walks of life.
55:30 The Baptists, the Methodists,
55:32 and you are their pastor when they are there.
55:34 And they take you in.
55:36 So God had to...
55:37 I'm learning one thing about the ministry like that,
55:39 you had to disband your prejudices and minister.
55:42 Yes.
55:45 That's a level of ministry that,
55:46 "I can't look at you
55:48 'cause you got all tattoos on and earrings
55:51 and all the other things."
55:52 God says, "That's my child too."
55:53 And that's the time
55:55 when those people are so vulnerable
55:56 and they feel...
55:58 A lot of them will feel their need for God.
56:00 They're helpless at that point. Yes.
56:02 Helpless.
56:04 And that's when
56:07 some who never would even listen to you,
56:10 pray for them, asks you, "Will you pray for me?"
56:14 Yes. "Will you hold my hand?"
56:16 And I not only pray for them, but I sing.
56:19 I made a CD that you can actually get it
56:21 from the Adventist Book Center.
56:24 It's online, called Healings Hymns.
56:28 And those are the songs that I sing to my patients.
56:31 Nice.
56:32 And they find that there's healing
56:33 in those beautiful words that come from,
56:36 "Amazing grace,
56:38 how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me."
56:41 That was my story. Wow.
56:44 You have a very, very powerful testimony.
56:48 And I hope that our viewers at home have been inspired
56:52 by today's interview.
56:55 I want to thank you so much. Thank you.
56:57 It was a blessing to be here with you.
56:59 Yes, sir. And thank you.
57:00 Well, we've reached the end of another program.
57:03 Join us next time, and remember,
57:04 it just wouldn't be the same without you.


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Revised 2018-05-17