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Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast, where our mission is to encourage as well as highlight

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God's goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelly Hankins.

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Today we have with us a very special guest from church. His name is Jeff Nucles. He has

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an amazing story and where the Lord has brought him from and where he is now. Everyone needs

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to hear about the details because they're just amazing. So we're going to have him start us

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off with a little bit of prayer first. Alright, thank you. Lord, we just thank you and praise

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you for who you are. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And Lord, I just thank you for Shelly

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and Josh, Father God for this podcast where we can share what you've done in our lives and through

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our lives. God, that we could reach out to those that might be saying right now, is there a God?

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And can you help me, God? We're here to let you know that God is here for you. So we thank you,

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and praise you Jesus for dying on a cross, for the remission of our sins. And we thank you,

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Lord, that we are able to be extensions, Father God, of the goodness that you have. We thank you

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for your grace and mercy and that your mercies that are new every morning. So I thank you, God,

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for what you're about to do innocent through us. We give you the praise, the glory, and the honor,

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and Jesus' name. We pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. So I'm asking all my guests to share

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like what the Holy Spirit has led them to. So I'll let you take it from here.

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All right. Well, we just, first of all, I said I do thank God that I'm here. I thank God for both

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of you that you're having this broadcast because there are so many lost and hurting people. I

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thank God for my wife that's next to me here who's always been by my side. We've been married for

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almost 30 years now. And we thank God for that. And it was funny, Josh was talking about, what was

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that word you guys use when you guys have a little bit of a argument of thing or something going on?

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I says, well, we have a little intense fellowships, you know, but we thank God, you know, for what

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he's taken us from and where we're at right now. And I thank God for what he's done in my life.

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When I was growing up, the only time I saw or went to church was on Easter, you know, we went to a

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dawn nomination that basically my dad just says, we'll go on Easter and we're good to go basically.

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And I was up to, I was about eight or nine years old. And then there was really nothing

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of God after that. And I'm going to speed it up a little bit to a point where my father passed

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away. I was 28 years old. My dad was only 50 years old. He had a heart attack and he passed away.

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And so I was basically the head of the house at the time. And it was just my mom and there was no

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insurance and anything like that. So I lived with her to help take care of the means at a house, so

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to speak. And I remember I was working a job and I was just by myself on this job up in

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Swickley. And I was going through a lot of things and I just happened to remember someone saying one

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time about, you know, you just need to cast your cares upon God, which is actually the scripture

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1 Peter 5-7. So I'm alone in this house. And I just said, basically what my mom said in the

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podcast, you God, if you're real, you know, I need your help right now. I'm casting all my cares on

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you. I'm going through things in life and, you know, I'm really struggling. And here this was

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back in when they had the beeper days. I wasn't cell phones. It was a beeper. And just when I

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just got done praying up, my beeper goes off and there's a number on there. And I believe the

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number was 412-835-4040. And so I called the number and here, hello, she said, is this Jack? And I

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said, no, my name's Jeff. And I says, well, who is this? She says, well, this is Barb Cicero from

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Hill Christian School, South Hills Assembly of God. I had no ties to the church. I wasn't going to

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any church or anything like that. And the number comes across my beeper at a time when I just said,

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God, if you're real, I need, you know, help. So not knowing that that's a confirmation from God,

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but I thought, maybe I'm going to show up this Sunday at South Hills Assembly. So to speed up a

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little bit more, I go and I'm just blessed by what's going on there. And I have to be sitting next to

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a fellow and he liked the golf and we started golfing and as guys talk, he said to me, he says,

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are there any women at church that, you know, kind of catch your eye, you know, guy talk? And I said,

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there's this one lady, she's all the way up in the front and I understand there's over 500 people

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in the church. I'm all the way in the back with this gentleman. And I just said, there's this one

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lady up front, her hands are always up there praising the Lord, her hands are up there. I said,

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I don't know what it is, but I'm just like attracted to her hands because I never really

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seen her, you know, but that's the anointing of God. The Bible says our steps are order of the

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Lord and God strategically placed this man in my pathway to, you know, and so anyhow,

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he goes, I drive her home on the van every Sunday. So long story short, we started dating. We dated

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11 months and let me say this, there was no foreign to Kate and before we got married and we got

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married and God just did some amazing things. I mean, on our honeymoon, we went on a cruise and

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we're on a cruise. This is a 1994 and we get on a cruise and of course we, you know, we turn on a

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TV and they're chasing OJ and the Bronco. But anyhow, we get on a cruise and we just got the

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regular flight. They gave us first class out of blue. We get on and we're supposed to be on a

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cruise ship. We're supposed to be have a little porthole on the second thing. Basically, all she

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sees is water and waves. But here they upgrade us all the way to the top floor of state room.

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And this was all God. It was all extra, you know, and God, because we, he honored that we wouldn't

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fornicate and that before marriage and those types of things. I just thank God for that. And the job

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I've now, I've had for over 30 years, you know, you open the door up. And if you look at my Bible,

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1995, I need a new job. And here God opened the door the next day for a new job. So if you just

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walk in obedience to God, and this isn't to say that I haven't fallen, you know, all of sin and

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fallen short of the glory of God. But I thank God for a scripture says, and John one night says,

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if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to cleanse this from all unrighteousness. So I'm

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here to let anybody know that if you're going through a struggle and you feel that God isn't

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there, he's there. He said, I'll stick to you closer than a brother, you know, I'll never leave

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you no forsake you. And I thank God for holding on to those scriptures, because I know that he's

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there no matter what I've done. No matter how many times I've fallen, the thing is to get back up and

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know that God is there for you. You know, and I thank God for my, my lovely wife. I said, we've

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almost been married over 30 years. And God has just done some great, great things, you know.

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But I work construction in 2013. I had some pains. I woke up with some pains and I

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told the wife, I said, I'm not going to make church today, but I'm going to drive you to church.

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So I drove her and to church and I dropped her off. My son had already come to church another way.

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This was down in Hazelwood. And I said, I'm going to go home. I don't feel good. Well, on the way home,

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there was a ride aid. And I thought, you know what, I'm really haven't gone to the restroom. I'll say

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restroom or bathroom for like four days. And I thought, I'll take this, you know, get something

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to help me. And so I go home. That's a Sunday. Right after I dropped off, I try to go bathroom

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and nothing but blood come out. So, and it was red blood. I was bleeding. And so I called my son

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to get hold of my wife at church and I says, Hey, tell mom, I'm driving myself to the hospital.

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So I drove to the hospital and long story short, I had diverticulitis and it had perforated.

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And I had gone septic. And my time, my wife and pastor and everybody got there. They basically said

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that I had an hour to live. And I was jaundice and they had to do emergency surgery. I was on a table

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for seven hours. I had to take all my organs out. I ended up having to wear a colostomy bag

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for seven months. It was difficult. I've never been that way. I was always a healthy person.

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And here I was so frail and, you know, I worked out all the time and I'm skinny and frail and all

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those types of things. And but God, you know, it was able to be reversed, you know, it's just

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like anything in life, you know, there might be some dirt and things going on your life. And you

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just feel dirty. But no, this God can clean you up. It was something when I wore that colostomy bag,

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I thought of, you know, all the junk that's in my body, but it comes out. Some people hold onto

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that bag of dirt or whatever. But realize that God has already cleansed you. He's made you whole.

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When you get saved, you're saved, you know. And the thing is just go through sanctification and

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know that God's still working on you. But every time I would fill that bag up, you know, and I get

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rid of it. And then but I knew I was funny. I kind of done. He told me I had to wear at least six,

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seven months, you know, I kind of how many times I'd have to change that bag, you know. And when

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it kept going down, I kept realizing that I'm going to be really clean, you know, everything that

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has been hanging on the outside. And I'll never forget, I was working one time and we were putting

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in racking and one of the decks caught the bag and ripped it off my body. And my buddies just

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like were like, saw me take off. And I said, and I come back a half hour later and I explained to

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what happened, you know, but that's how sin is. It causes a stench. It causes a smell and things.

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But know that God has cleaned you up and whatever you're going through, God is there to clean you

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up. And finally, when I knew it was the last time that bag was going to hang on my body and like the

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weight that's on your body and all the same, give it over to Jesus, you know, he does care for you,

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the weight of the world, the things that I think God has already taken care of that. So when it was

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the last one and they could do the operation and do what they called the reversal, just like God

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does in anybody's life that's been in all types of sin and caught up in all kinds of mess, God,

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by his Son through Jesus through the blood that he shed on the cross, is a reversal in your life.

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Today's the day where you can reverse things through the blood of Jesus Christ. So what they

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did, they reversed it and they sewed me back up and I was starting to feel great and all those

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types of things. And then forward to 2018, I fell 12 feet off of a ladder. Actually, I was pulled off

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a ladder and they had to rush me to trauma. My body, I was working with thought I died because

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he said, you weren't breathing, you turn blue, then all of a sudden you gasped. Well, it turned out

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that I had broken my back. I fractured all the transverse process in my spine. I had broken four

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ribs and from the fall, my intestines started to come through my belly button. I had a previous

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hernia that now turned into a grapefruit. So I had a broken back. I had four broken ribs. I had to

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get double hernery surgery. So what they had to do is they split my stomach back open again. I said,

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you know, I'll just put a zipper there because you guys are just, you know, keep going. You take

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my organs out, you put them back in. Now, you know, you're doing it again. So they had to put what

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they call a pore sign in my stomach, which is like pigskin because I had ruptured all the

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intestinal wall and all that type of thing. And then they had to put mesh all in my groin. So now

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here's a fellow here who is ready to give God all the glory for what he's done in my life. I went

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from diverticulitis, closomy bag. I had four broken ribs. I had broken my back. I had broken all the

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transverse process. I have arthritis in my L1 to L5. I have a dispertusion in my neck. I had

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double hernia surgery. Yet God laid on my heart to go back into the sport of long drive. Now,

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for you golfers out there, you know what that is. It's on ESPN and that. I hadn't done that in over

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10 years because of all the affliction I had. And my only goal was that if God was going to use me,

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I would be able to have the platform where I could share what God did for me. And so I went

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it back into the sport three years ago and took a glory of God with all those things. He healed my

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body. See, where workers caught wanted me to take a settlement, go on disability and all those

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types of things. A lot of kids, anybody that had to go on disability, understand that. But God laid

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them a heart to go back to work, not sue my company or the other company where I fell because I had

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a right that I could have done that and I didn't do that. I chose to just trust God. So I went back

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into this sport and I remember the first year my wife said, because it costs money, you got to enter

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these events. And my wife said, if he doesn't win or get any money, she basically said to me, you need

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to hang it up. Well, she wasn't able to come. We traveled to South Carolina. She wasn't able to

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come because she was sick and I come back and I actually finished second and I want some money.

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And she says, well, that was God. So for the last two years to make a long story short, and let me

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reiterate, this is a broken back. This is diverticulitis. This is a claustomy bag. This is septicism.

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This is four broken ribs. This is broken back, double hernia surgery and other issues. And but to

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the glory of God, I am now a two time world champion. I'm a three time runner up. I just won two weeks

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ago and I actually won by over 40 yards. And I give God all the glory. And of course, as soon as

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they put the mic, they want to talk about the grid and the wind and all those types of things. I

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said, look, I said, let me tell you something. I said, first of all, I says, I want to give Jesus

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Christ, my Lord and Savior, all the glory. And I said, I want to thank my sponsor,

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DeMarco Restorations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I said, thank you, Dominic. And then I said,

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I just want to thank the other workers and I just kept on. And I shared what God did in my life.

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And I'm telling you out there right now, if you are going through and you need a healing, trust

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God because he is Jehovah Jire. He's our provider. He's Jehovah Nisi. He's a healer. It says,

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by your stripes, we are made whole. And so I just encourage anybody out there, know that God

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is in your life. And no matter what you're going through, no matter what affliction is, if you

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turn it over to God, he might not make you a world champion. That was my goal to get to the

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platform that I could share the gospel. Thousands of people got to hear me say, I want to thank my

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Where I go from now, I don't know, but I know one thing. I am not

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afraid to share the gospel with Jesus Christ. And I thank God for you two here that allow me to

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share this just part of my testimony of what God's done. I thank God for Sattel's assembly of God,

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like my wife said. I thank God for my wife who's been in every one of these events. She was filming

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me at this one. I could hear out there all the fans you could ever hear. I could always hear my

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wife's voice. All you men out there go, amen. I could hear my wife's voice.

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No doubt. I've heard her too. I have no doubt.

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Amen. So, I just do once again thank God for both of you. Allow me to share. There's so many other

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testimonies, but I just want to just say that if you need healing, God's there. If you need salvation,

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God's there. Just ask God to comment here. Like I said, God, I ask for forgiveness of my sins.

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Change of things in me that I can't change. And he will. He will come because he is a friend,

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a six cruiser, and a brother. Yeah, you know, when you were talking about your

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analogy with the Colostomy Bag of cleaning out all the garbage that's in you and you were counting

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down the days of all the junk that was in you and all you had to do is change that bag and you were

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counting down the days that you didn't have it anymore. It reminds me that a lot of people run

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back to the Colostomy Bag because it's familiar. Yes. It's a safe place for them. And so, you get

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these people that are in addiction, you get these people that are in ruts, these people that are in

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dire straits that cry for freedom. And at the minute they have it, they feel free, they feel happy,

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they feel loved. And the moment adversity hits, instead of running to God who gave them that

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freedom, they run right back to the safety of the Colostomy Bag, to the safety of the cage,

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to the safety of the drugs, to the safety of whatever it is that they're afflicted with.

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And they forget because they're not mature in the faith yet. And I think a lot of people have that

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struggle. And I'm so glad that you referenced it as, you know, just dumping that out.

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And so I would encourage the listeners that don't hold on to your Colostomy Bag.

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Oh, wow. It is something you don't want to hold on to. Don't hold on to that cage.

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No matter how comfortable it is, no matter how good you had the bedding in that cage,

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no matter how familiar the walls are, that's not the place where we're supposed to be. That Jesus

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died for more than just us to stay in the cage with the door unlocked. That there's a whole world

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he wants us to go out to explore. He wants us to go to his kingdom. He wants us to be right where he

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is. He wants to adopt us as his sons and daughters. He wants us to go forth and tell other people

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that are in their cages about who he is and who his goodness is. And I just love that. I love that

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a lot of people, they even know the gospel, right? They think they do it. Jesus loves you. Yes,

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he does, but that's not the gospel, right? The gospel is, as you are a rebel against the most

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high God and you deserve death. Yes. But God in his love, infinite wisdom, his manifold wisdom,

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has decided that he is going to choose love for you and send his only begotten son to die for

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you, that you do not have to suffer that fate, that he has died for you, that you may take on his

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mantle of righteousness. That is the very essence of the beginning of the gospel. And then Jesus

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loves you. And then Jesus will do that, right? It's not just about what Jesus will do for you.

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It's about what Jesus has already done for you. That's right. That's right. That's right. He said,

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it's finished on a cross. He said, it's finished. And we have to have to believe that the finished

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work in you has already happened. It's just the process of God using you and you allowing God to

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continuously cleanse you from the inside out. I take the mental image of a car that you see

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on the side of the road with the weeds growing through the engine. It's like three different

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colors rusted, ragging a gas cap, no windows, a beehive in the glove box, you know, and God sees

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that and he pulls it aside into his garage and he doesn't look at it as the work that it's going to

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take to restore it. He already sees it in his mind as the restored work. Like, you know, when you

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have a vision or a goal, you see the end of it, you see what you're looking for so you can, you

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know what to aim for. And so he sees this whatever fancy guy 1963 Shelby, you know, he sees this car

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with this V8 engine in it and he sees it polished chrome. He doesn't see any oil drips,

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he doesn't see any crud, he doesn't see any rust. He sees it fully restored in better shape than when

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they first created it. Right. And our problem is, is we have a hard time seeing it from his

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perspective. And so I'm thinking, Lord, how are you going to get in that glove box? Then bees are

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going to get you. Right. You know, and how are you going to work on this frame? This frame is bent.

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You need a new frame. You can't just work with this frame. You can't just make this and we're

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trying to limit God based off of our understanding. I was like, Oh, are you kidding me? I made this

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frame. Right. It's nothing for me to fix it. It's nothing for me to buff that hood. You just have to

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let me. And when I die, I'm not going to be that fully restored car. The moment of my death,

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I'm not that restored car that God sees. But the moment right after I am, right, that moment right

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after that, I am fully restored because now I have no longer have the burden of this flesh.

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But until then he is faithful to finish what he has started. That doesn't mean in this exact

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lifetime, but I will be a complete car. I will be that complete. You know, that'll be that wonderful

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vehicle. And we need not to get hung up on the process that if I find out that I have cancer

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tomorrow and I have like two days to live, I can't be hung up on the fact that I'm not a solid color.

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I can't be hung up that I have no windows or that are spring coming through the sea. I can't be hung

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up on that because I know that I am in God's garage. Right. I know that I am His and that I

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am destined to be more than what I am. And it's okay. Those two days are going to be great because

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I know where I'm going. I know who I have now. Exactly. Exactly. Like you were talking about

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the car, a lot of people when they see a car that's restored and they love it and they look at it,

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it says, wow, that's awesome. And sometimes people are newly saved. They see like pastors or

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whatever and they think, wow, you know, look at how like God has blessed them and he's a pastor

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and all those things. And that you're like, wow, I don't know if I'll ever get there. But you don't

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know the process it took for that car to be restored. You don't know the process of what it took

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for a pastor to go from a layman to a pastor. You know, you're always looking at, it's like

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everybody wants this microwave Christianity. I'm saved. I'm free. I'm delivered. All those types

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of things. But you don't realize what, you know, what's better, a microwaved roast beef or one that's

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been simmering in a stove and you could smell the Lipton Onion Soup and all that. You open up the

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door of your somebody's house. It's like, I can remember my mom. She used to put Lipton Onion

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Soup in a roast beef with water and then she put it in the oven and it would just marinate and it

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would just cook all day for hours and hours. And when you opened the door, it permeated the whole

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house. That's like the anointing of God. When you go through the process, you know, and it takes time,

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but it's worth it. And then everybody will say, look at you. You might, you know,

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like somebody said to Peter one time, it says, it's just a shadow was able to heal people.

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Yeah. When people know, they don't know the process that you went through, but know this,

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Christianity is not a microwave thing. And I would love to just have someone say, I don't know what

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you went through, but I just love the smile that you have. I could just tell that you're different.

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How are you different? Well, let me tell you why. Because my, remember my mom with the pot roast

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thing. And I says, when I love that smell, I says, all you're seeing is the love of Jesus.

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And I went through the process of many things. And I just know that God's delivered me. God set me

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free. And if he can do it for me, as I per take of any persons, he can do it for you. Amen. Amen.

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And made my mouth water on that. Yeah. I know. I was just thinking about my, unfortunately, my, yeah.

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Yeah. Unfortunately, my mom passed away at the age of 57. I'm starting that. Yeah. My dad was 50.

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My mom was 57. I'll be 62 in April. So I've lived them all through the grace of God, you know,

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in the mercies of God. And it's something. Yeah. I brought that up with her pot roast was just

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something else, you know, but I just, like I said, in life, it's not an overnight thing. Yes,

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you can be delivered over. And God could say, you know, touch you with the cigarettes or the alcohol

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or, or the pornography or all those other things. God can do it. But no, don't give up. Don't give

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up. A righteous man falls many times, but he gets back up. And that's what God works with. Those

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that can get back up. Absolutely. Thank you for that. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. I think

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they, you should have been interviewed today. I just have my little anecdotes, things that

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remind me of it. My girlfriend. I thank God for both you and allow on me to share just a little

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bit of what God's done. I hope out there that you're encouraged by this. And like I said,

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I didn't grow up in a church or anything. I really didn't get saved. I was 30 years old.

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Somebody stuck a gospel track in my toolbox. And when I was working on a city county building,

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the room is locked and we all go to lunch because we have all our tools and everything.

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And we come back from lunch and there was a gospel track in my toolbox. None of the people I worked

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with were saved. I looked at it and understand it on the back. I had a sinner's prayer and I just

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read the little thing in there and I didn't really understand it. And I'll forget two weeks later,

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I go out to a job out in Swickley. I go to a pay phone. That's back when I had pay phones.

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And I go to the pay phone. There's the exact same gospel track at this pay phone. And at this time,

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I took it, I read it and I did the sinner's prayer. And I could go on to where he went

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for me from there. But I know we're going to shorten this broadcast. That'll be part two,

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Diner Road. So praise God. Amen. Thank you. I praise God for him. From a gospel track to a world

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champion. Yeah. Oh, and a lot of obstacles in the way with health. You know, your parents died

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very young, relatively speaking, in my opinion, that's in the 50s, very young. And how old were

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you when you had the sepsis from the diverty? I was 51. So by all rights, you should have been

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dead in your 50s as well. And by all rights, I should be dead at two years old. I was hit by a

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dump truck on my tricycle at two years old. Oh my goodness. And fortunately, it was tall enough

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the dump truck that it went over me when it knocked me off the bike. God has been with you

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from so like since the womb. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. He said he formed us. You know, he knew

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his son when I was in my mother's womb. Praise God. I love that. Amen. Me too. I got some, God is

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just, and everybody understands everybody has a story. Yes. Everybody has a testimony. Yeah. We

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have unlimited content at our church. I was just needing to book everybody. Yeah. Technically,

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we have like eight billion people we could interview. So I don't think we'll ever run out.

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I'm not limiting it to the church people, but the relationships, I get to know them. I said,

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oh, you have to share that. And people need to hear that. And God's just lining everything up.

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We don't have our own studio yet. So I kept booking every, all the scheduling, all the recordings.

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And I knew that God would work out the howl. Because sometimes we can't always go to people's

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houses. And you know, nobody can come to our house because we have noisy dogs. So I kept scheduling

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everything as if I had a place. And now we got permission from two separate churches that are

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letting us, you know, use spaces there. And it's just such a blessing that it's just cool to see

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God show up, you know, just you got to be faithful and take those steps. I think you're just waiting

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to listen to a podcast to make sure we weren't speaking nonsense before they would say, yeah,

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they can use our space. You know, playing it safe, if you're going to attach our name, our

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building, and you're going to interview people here that you're not going to make sacrificing

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chickens, right? And that's like, we might make food and use chickens, but no, no sacrificing.

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Jesus is all the sacrifice we need. I've been to many churches. I even, I then even talk about,

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I, my wife and I passed her to church at one time and we did, we did prison ministry for over 20

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years. I said, there's so much to our story. I didn't want to, I just want to give you a little

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nugget, you know, you have to come back. Like a drug dealer, the first taste is free. I got it.

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See, we learned in construction. Exactly, right. But taste and see, it is good. Yes. And it's such

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an adventure with God because you don't know what's going to come ahead, but you know it's going to

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be good. And now he works all the details together and intertwines people's lives. Yes. You know,

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knowing the same people and getting connected. Right. I can't wait to hear more. Yeah.

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Thank God. I thank God for my wife. I just, she was sharing about Pastor Rick. You know, it was

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funny. I just shared this quick thing when we were dating. She wasn't in a great neighborhood at the

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time we were dating and I went to visit her and they come out and they threw snowballs at us and

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stuff like that. And one night I come out and they stole my truck. They stole my tools and

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I couldn't even go home. You know, a lot of times when I left her apartment, I was afraid because I

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had to go around the corner to get to my truck. You never knew what was waiting around the corner.

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But with God, you don't have to worry about the corner. And when they stole my truck and I sold

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my tools and I had to stay overnight. And I'll forget Pastor Rick came in the church van the next

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day to pick me up. And the first thing Pastor Rick said to me, did you pass the test? You know,

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so, I mean, there's just so much things that God has done in our life. And I do once again,

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I want to thank both of you. I want to thank, first of all, the Lord and the Holy Spirit because

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without him, I wouldn't be here. And I want to also thank my lovely wife because she's been beside

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me in every step of the way through all the long drive tournaments, through all the driving and

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all those types of things and, you know, not having any money. And I mean, I could tell you

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things that you would not believe, you know, being wheeled out of churches and wheelchairs under

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the Spirit of God. I mean, it's unbelievable. I can't wait to hear more. That's part two.

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Come back next time. Oh, this is great. If you'll have me back. Absolutely. Yeah, we would love to.

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Yeah, I'll bring her along. Yeah, we'll have another microphone and then we can have you both

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on at the same time. It seems like we can't actually keep you apart. So she's going to have to come.

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Yeah, two shall become one flesh. Yeah, that's what I just thank God for. Amen.

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Thank you so much for coming and recording with us and sharing your authentic self and your

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experiences so it can be a blessing to others. I appreciate you guys. And if this episode or any

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of these episodes have been a blessing to you, we encourage you to share them with others so they

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can continue the blessings. And then also if you'd want to help us with our little ministry,

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we have a fundraising campaign in the give send go.com account called God's goodness podcast.

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And if you'd like to help us out with the cost of editing the audio for the podcast,

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that would be amazing. And we would love the help and prayers also are welcome.

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So thank you so much for taking the time out and listening and we'll talk to you next time.