Apostle Dr. Lee Ann's Testimony

[Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino]

I was born the youngest of five girls in upstate, NY in 1981. My mom was what they call a "cradle Catholic;" she had been a part of the Roman Catholic Church since her literal birth. As a first-generation Italian, being Catholic was a very big part of her life. I came to learn as an adult that she was very uncomfortable with many experiences in the Catholic Church spanning decades and had explored different aspects of various religious movements for a number of years. She was one who had watched the church pass from the old Latin Mass to the new Vatican II church (she was 22 when Vatican II first convened), and witnessed many other changes over the years, including clergy abuses and mistreatments of parishoners. My father was a convert to Roman Catholicism. I am not sure what he was a convert from; my mom remembered him being baptized as a teenager into a Protestant denomination, but we are unsure of what denomination it was. As remains custom in Roman Catholicism, we (as in the children) were raised Catholic by agreement of my parents.

The Catholic Church had never been kind to my family. One story I was told involved my sister who inquired of our parish priest why girls couldn't serve as altar servers. He turned to her and addressing her by name told her, "If you want to serve the Lord, be a nun." This incident remains imbedded in my mind as patriarchy personified. He didn't just represent himself - he represented the Catholic, aka, patriarchial church. There was no room for a woman who wanted to serve alongside a man; only a subordinate place.

By the time I was born, my parents' marriage was already in trouble - about 25 years in. My father was (and is) a severe alcoholic who was physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive to both my mother and all of us kids. Somewhere inside he knew he had a drinking problem (which he still does not admit to to this day) and would go through short-term periods of time "dry," in which he was intolerable to live with. As an electric engineer for one of the largest power companies in New York State, he was very career ambitious and only around for show or convenience. I remember sitting at home, playing outside on our front stoop, and watching him come home, night after night, and my stomach would drop out of nervousness. We never knew what to expect with him. We learned many years later he was also courting a mistress - who he later married and divorced after my parents had divorced - who he was likewise unfaithful toward. This woman had personal knowledge of us in his life; of who we were, involved herself in financial matters, and was publically seen to the disgrace of my mother and our family by people we knew as he courted her around while still married. In hindsight, we spent much of those years humiliated without knowing it.

I remember my mom trying very hard to instill within us faith formation and values in these years, especially as two of my older sisters approached Confirmation age (around the junior year in high school, eleventh grade). By that time, she herself had so many personal disagreements with the Catholic Church that she did not push the church on us, and I remember one of the biggest stands she ever made supporting my older sister (the one in the story mentioned above) in her decision not to receive the rite of Confirmation. I would attend mass with my mom on Saturday nights (the "vigil," as they called it) while my father would attend with my older sisters on Sunday mornings. The parish priest would pat my father on the back, as he gave more money to the church than any one else in the small community. I wouldn't really describe my father as a man of faith; more of a religious man who did whatever he might have sought out of personal gain rather than for genuine good. On the surface, everyone thought we were the picture perfect Catholic family. As from the above, this was far from realistic.

By the time I went to school, I met other kids who went to something called "Sunday School" which I had never heard of before. In those days, we would go to Religious Education on Wednesday afternoons after school with a woman from the parish as our "faith formation." Quite honestly, it was boring. The woman who led it (whose son was in my grade) was very intolerant of us while at the same time having an attitude of frustration in the fact that we didn't seem to get the concepts. It is no surprise either to learn that the material was dry and presented in an uninteresting manner. At this young age, I decided I wanted to go to Sunday School - and to Sunday School I went. The local Presbyterian Church was more than welcoming, and the Catholics were less than thrilled. It was there that I learned about Jesus and the Bible, was able to sing songs and play games, and learned that there was more out there in the world than just the Catholic Church.

When I was about six years old, my mom discovered a group known as Al-Anon - a support group for families of alcoholics. This was a door opening to a long journey out of that world and into another. She found support and strength within herself to know exactly what needed to be done. When I was seven years old, my mom came and told me one day that we would be moving out. Three days before Halloween, when my father was away on a business trip, we literally left the house in the night and moved to a nearby town. It was just like one of those stories you see in movies on Lifetime.

My parents' divorce was a nightmare - also like you would see in the movies. One of the things my father did in his spare time was serve as the Town Justice for the small community where we had lived. It was hard, if not impossible, to get help. People did not believe the truth about the life we had lived for all those years. Everyone was talking. I remember going into school and discovering that some of my classmates knew of my family situation because their parents were involved in the legal system and they had overheard things. The two oldest sisters I had, by then in their early thirties, decided to split the family, and they sided with my father. Of their own choosing, I have not heard or seen either of them in over twenty years. One of my sisters made false accusations, further complicating things. The foster child we had had since he was four days old came after me with a knife, threatening to kill me, and was removed from our care. We only saw him a few times after that, the last time being by complete accident in Albany, NY about sixteen years ago. The house we rented had a dirt basement with raw sewage running through it, bad water, and dangers all around. Money was constantly a problem. Living close to a college campus, we had vandalization to the car my mom drove and someone tried to break in. One memorable incident when I was about nine came when some college students who lived behind the house were outside, playing with a gun. My best friend and I were outside playing in the backyard when they pointed it at us and told us to freeze.

I remember us going to church during this time and going through the motions of religious education. My mom and sister sang in the contemporary mass choir, which sometimes I would join in. One week I was yelled at by one of the women who was considered a "main" cantor of the group and I never returned to that again. In all honesty, I understood nothing of the Catholic Church. I knew the motions enough to get by, but I didn't really understand much about the church. I remember being curious about God, and wanting to know more about Him. I wanted to know about what made other people different from us in belief. My best friend was a Methodist, and when I would spend the night at her house, I would go to church with them. I couldn't help but contrast experiences: her Sunday school classes were fun: we would sing (I can still remember the songs!) and do projects and have snacks; and at Catholic religious education, things were boring and seemingly never-ending. One thing that got my attention was a girl who was going for altar server training when I was in fourth grade. It got her out of religious education early; and I knew that had to be a good thing, whatever it was!

When I was in fourth and fifth grade, I would gather all my Barbie dolls after church, dress them in their finest, and hold "church." I would play hymns on the piano and record them to sing in the service. I made a little altar out of an old Barbie Dreamhouse closet and covered it with a peice of cloth; found fake flowers to put on the altar; and would use crackers and water (dyed with red food coloring) for communion. It was a "Catholic" church idealized: the priests were married to nuns, women were able to serve in mass along with the men, and everyone was allowed to participate. Every week one of them would give a homily message, that I would make up (usually story telling as our parish priest was accustomed to; I doubt they followed the readings but anyway) and would spend hours preparing and having church with my Barbie dolls. It was something I loved to do.

In my fifth grade year I transferred from public to the parish's Catholic school. The transition was interesting in many ways, some of them good, but many of them bad. The teachers in the school were downright abusive to the students and very guilt-inducing. They also saw fit to include students in adult matters which we should have known nothing about. I could probably fill a book with the many incidents of battery committed on the part of instructors who were supposed to be there for our learning over the four years I spent at that school. While certain students could get away with anything because they had rich parents, other students were picked on by adults. We had one boy who was hit by one of the nuns, and on one occasion, a lunch aid grabbed me so hard that she left a bruise on my arm. One principal of the school made it a point to be particularly antagonizing to me as I got older and it seemed like my mother lived at the school, trying to resolve issues.

There were a few key things that stand out about this time in my life. It was when I was in fifth grade that three very monumental things happened in my life. The first was that I joined a group of girls who were the first to serve on the altar in the Catholic parish I attended. It was an exciting and interesting time to serve on the altar. What was a very monumental step for women was also very unwanted by many, and there were those in the parish who did not take any shame in letting us know they did not want us there. The second event was a religion class discussion that went very awry. In trying to explain to us about vocation, my teacher asked us all what we wanted to be. When she got to me, I told her I wanted to be a priest. When she realized I wasn't kidding, she told me that women couldn't become priests. So I thought about it for a minute and then told her I was going to be a Rabbi. That was too an unacceptable answer, and it wasn't helped much when one of the boys in my class also decided he wanted to be a Rabbi. The third event was when a friend of my mother's came over to tell us that she heard this woman preacher we just had to hear on Christian radio. This woman, we were told, had experienced much in her life and God had healed her from many of her problems. We would now know this woman preacher as Joyce Meyer - but back in those days, nobody had ever heard of her. Every chance we got, Joyce was on the dial, and we would tune in. And ever since, I knew I wanted to be a preacher like Joyce Meyer - when I wasn't even really sure what a preacher was or that a woman could be a preacher. When I was twelve, I had the opportunity to hear Joyce preach in person - and it was her who laid hands on me for reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost. I didn't understand what it was and did not receive it that night, but I will never forget that experience.

By junior high, I had my own disgusts with the Catholic Church and my own doubts about the religion. I stopped going to mass when I was thirteen and then again when I was fourteen. I got very interested in Judaism because I liked the idea of a people being "chosen" or special to God. In Catholicism, there is no individuality or room for a personal relationship with God; you are simply a part of the whole, and if God notices you, it is out of your devotion as a part of the church. My mom also developed interest in the New Age Movement and I experienced different offshoots of that mixed with Catholicism. We never totally left the church all together, at least not in our minds, even if we expressed strong disagreement with its precepts. We simply adapted other things along with it and stopped attending mass periodically. We didn't want to be Catholic; but at the same time, didn't know we could not be Catholic. We were confused.

After graduating from junior high, I attended a Christian school for a short period of time. The experience drove me back into the Catholic Church because of the extreme unwelcomeness I found among so-called "Christians." I also thought my mother wanted me to receive the rite of Confirmation and become an adult in the church. It turns out she didn't want to go back to the Catholic Church after we had left when I was fourteen. How I wish we had talked!

I spent the next year and a half committing myself to becoming a "good Catholic." I balanced my time between college work (I tested at a post high school level in ninth grade and started on college at fifteen), Confirmation preparation, and church service. I was selected out of all the kids in my parish to attend an exclusive leadership training for a week that was more brainwashing than it was training. I was detirmined to do this Catholic thing right. I tried endlessly to pray roasries, develop devotions to various saints, and to embrace the church's doctrine and teachings in a way I had not ever done in my life. I wound up becoming a living book of Catholic doctrine, knowing more than the other kids in Confirmation prep, and even many of the instructors. Everyone wanted me to be a nun. Yet the more I learned of the church and many key incidents in its history (which are too many to get into here), the more I became a silent dissident in the church. The parish I attended was severely divided between the old and the new, and I even bought into the lie for a short time that the problems which existed in the church could have been solved by reverting back to the "old ways" (i.e., pre Vatican II). As that passed, all that remained for me was a desire to serve God, but a total uncertainty as to how to do that.

With a strong feminist viewpoint, I adamantly rejected the church's uncompromising stance on abortion and birth control. I felt they were matters that a group of unmarried men, aka the church, had no right to impose upon women. Even though I disagreed with the church's position on these matters, I remained silent on them. I tried to go along with the church's position, at least on the surface. I also felt dismayed as I began to feel the pull toward ministry and the church's position on women in the priesthood became a strong conflict for me. Women's ordination was not a matter I was complacent to remain silent about, and paid dearly on more than one occasion for my outspokenness on the topic. I was politely (and also not so politely) told to sit down and shut up, and "keep my place."

The one thing I didn't know very well was the Bible. I had grown accustom to the Catholic addage that the Bible was impossible to be understood by laity and that reading it would only confuse me. What I did know of the Bible I knew through some college studies, and most of that was more doctrinal issue than actual Bible study. One day when I was looking for something I came across a worn paperback Bible that said "New International Version" on it. I had never heard of such a translation before and sat down to read it. I opened to Isaiah 2:20, which reads: "In that day men will throw away to the rodents and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold, which they made to worship." Something in this verse made me very uncomfortable with being a part of the Catholic Church because of the flagarant use of idols and worship of statues. I was intrigued. I have been studying the Scriptures ever since, and have stuck with the NIV all these years. Even though I do use other translations from time to time, I always return to the NIV.

When I was sixteen, I officially knew I wanted to serve God in ministry. I didn't understand how, but knew that God had called me for a purpose. I believed that purpose at the time to be interdenominational ministry and interfaith understanding, due to my strong interest in religion. In the Roman Catholic Church, lay ministries are overseen by diocesan bishops who must give their approval to your work. I had no idea as to how I would ever receive that stamp of approval because I and my family was on the forefront of advancing trouble in the parish. In September as I entered my final year before I was to be confirmed (1998), I attended a "Faith in the Media" class in which they showed Marilyn Manson's "The Dope Show" video. My mother pulled me from the Confirmation class and we started a long series of correspondences with the diocesan bishop. She sought for me to be confirmed by him directly and he refused, stating that if I wanted to be confirmed, I had to "cooperate" with the parish program. My refusal to do so caused an all out war which ended with my voluntary excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church in February of 1999. I also lost my teaching job through the parish because of my excommunication. My mother and sister walked from the church as well. This time, it was for keeps. The stress of the situation and the constant rejection of what I wanted to believe was God's institution on earth caused me to seriously contemplate suicide, as a part of me felt their rejection of me was God's rejection, too. This time was the start of spending many years on and off in serious states of depression.

Ever since I was sixteen years old, I had been working on a project for Apostolic University about religion. The project had taken me through a series of interviews with ministers of different belief systems. This project was one thing that contributed to my fall in Roman Catholicism: the parish was very uncomfortable with my desire to study the beliefs of different religions. One such interview came right before I left the church with a Charismatic woman who had formerly been Catholic. In an interesting coincidence, her daughter shared my name (spelled differently) and I was about the age her granddaughter would have been had she lived (she had died a few years earlier after being terminally ill). She invited me to go to church with her, and one week after leaving Catholicism - February 14, 1999 - I was born again in a small Charismatic church. In months that followed, I received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

I never stopped researching religion through this time, and believed I was to be in this small church for a purpose. I believed that they would be supportive of my desire to learn more about preaching the Word and of my heart for ministry. What I found instead were people that wanted to use and control me, who at every turn put down the work of God I sought to do. I was told that I was "unsuited" for Christianity and to go and be a Unitarian Universalist by the pastor of the church who accused me of having an unkind and ill-motived spirit. A few months after he resigned his position, I found myself called by God to attend another church for a period of time. God gave me specific instruction in this church to take note of the situation of this church, to write out the issues and make them plain, and to draft a letter which I was to give to the church pastor at the appointed time. I didn't realize I was doing the work of an apostle back then - because when the situation presented itself, I did as God told me to do, correcting severe theological and spiritual abuses I didn't even understand myself. The apostolic work was rejected, and God called me to move on to the next place, where the same happened. I found myself disillusioned, unsupported, and confused. I had learned from such that if you wanted to be in ministry, you were supposed to spend your time in the church; you were supposed to be of service in any way possible; and I had always been faithful to do that - every task, meniable job - and if you did this, they would promote you to support your ministry. Time after time, this did not happen. I wondered what I was doing wrong and questioned whether or not I was to be in ministry.

I found myself disgused with Christianity, just as I had been disgusted with Catholicism. I hated how people behaved, how they felt they could further their own personal bigotries through the Bible, and that they were downright unwelcoming to people who were different than they were. I hated that they felt they were so right about everything, and yet were so wrong all the time. Having a background in interfaith ministry, I wondered how they thought they could bring people into the church if they hated them as they did. Every church was praying for revival, and yet none of them ever received it. I decided Christians were a bunch of hypocrites, abandoned several core doctrines of Christianity (at least on the surface), and got interested in the New Age mindset, especially Buddhism, which was very in in New Age communities at the time. New Age theory intrigued me because it seemed, at least on the surface, accepting of everybody, whereas Christianity seemed like a snobbish country club.

I went through this phase for a period of time which culminated with the reading of some eighteenth-century Christian philosophical writing for curiosity's sake. Thanks to the writings of men like Soren Kierkegaard, I learned about a little thing called free will and how we work with God in our faith. I also carefully studied documents from early church history, such as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, that did not subordinate women. It made me rethink the position of female subordination I had always assumed to be Biblical. It changed my mind about some central things to Christianity, but I still hesitated to call myself a Christian. One day while I was wrestling with God about matters, the Lord spoke to me: "Lee Ann, be the change you want to see in Christianity." I have been a Christian in every way ever since.

Being serious about my faith led me to pursue my ministry in a more serious manner, this time with work outside of pre-established institutions. In 2002 I began my work unsuccessfully as a pastor. I was not a good pastor because I wasn't called to be a pastor. We never had more than a simple home church with a few assorted members. They were demanding and uncooperative, and extremely opinionated about what a church should be like. One man in particular was very opinionated, and always complaining. One week we used Ron Kenoly's music in service and he complained about its usage because he was racist. I turned around, looked him square in the face, and said, "Well we're not singing to you, are we?!" He never returned to the church and the other members all dropped off within a few weeks. Even though none of these people had a bad thing to say about the church - they emphasized that they loved the preaching and the ministry - they did not stick around. I tried to keep the church afloat for two years - with no people - before I finally decided to call it quits.

I tried hard to save the failing ministerial work. I started a newsletter (you would know it today as Power For Today Magazine) which I couldn't give away for free. People who claimed to be interested in the ministry and supportive of it would call me on the phone, yelling and screaming irate, that they wanted to be removed from the mailing list. Nasty emails flooded in from people who insisted that they were not "comfortable" supporting the ministry. In one year we dropped from over one hundred recipients to under thirty. The two remaining sisters that I had who were speaking to me both dropped out, indicating that if I wanted to pursue this "ministry thing" that they weren't going to speak to me. They have kept their word hard and fast. Three people emerged out of the ruins who stood supportive. One was my mom - whose faith in God has stood behind us all these years. She encouraged me to pursue ministry even in these very dark years when I had no idea what to do or what was going on. Another was a Muslim woman who was the first (aside from my mom) to support the ministry financially. The third was a woman who became our second financial contributor who we had known from the Catholic Church who herself was deeply disillusioned by what she saw in the church and was severely rejected by the community for what she knew about behind the scenes conduct. I am still blessed by these three to this day.

When I was 21, I began to desire a deeper walk in my faith and became an apostolic Christian, seeking to walk in the faith and practice of the apostles in my ministry. We changed the name of the ministry to Apostolic Fellowship International Ministries to bring it into conformation with the teaching of the apostles as found in the New Testament. Little did I know that God was planning to birth a great apostolic ministry through me that I could have never fathomed. One of the first things that came out of this desire was to be water baptized, as I had never had water baptism as an adult. More churches than I can count denied me baptism, telling me that in order to be baptized, I would have to "give up" my ministry and follow theirs. (It wasn't until 2005 that I was able to have the experience of water baptism.) I was, to put it lightly, confused. Door after door was closed ministerially, and I was repeatedly told that a woman had no place ministering in church. I was even told that if I thought I was a woman preacher, I had a demon! By this point not only was I a minister, I was serving as a university chancellor; and people thought they could speak to me in this way just because I was a woman!

Then one night I had a powerful dream in which I saw a series of published books in which I was referred to as "apostle" on them. In this dream, I saw myself in ministry; preaching and teaching, in more than one location around the world. Many were touched by the work and some were even healed. I then heard Christ say to me in the dream, "Come, blessed apostle of God, for all things are now ready." I had no idea what to make of this experience as I had never considered to be an apostle. Nobody in the church was an apostle at that time; the thing to be was a pastor. I wasn't even sure I knew what an apostle was, at least not in a modern context. I was partially excited and partially terrified, all at the same time.

Any excitement I might have had was quickly squelched by those around me, especially the man I was then engaged to (we broke up a few months later). He was terribly abusive toward me and was less than impressed that I was now going to call myself "apostle." His response to me was, "You can't call yourself an apostle. People aren't even sure if Paul was one. People will think you're full of yourself. Pick another title." I spent several years going by the title of evangelist - even though I never served in the office of evangelist and never, ever in all those years was called "evangelist" by anyone.

For many years that followed, I continued to battle with opposition. One of the biggest problems came in the form of churches which did not accept the ministry and made it personal against me. I tried very hard to conform to concepts the church had about women and about ministry, but often did so unsuccessfully. Breaking off my engagement with the individual I mentioned above led to another abusive relationship which ended so severely that it called me to confront the reason why I seemed to try so hard to conform myself and my ministry to concepts that were so anti-women. Another big problem was trying to maintain personal relationships with people who were unsupportive of the calling. Over and over again I encountered the same obstacles in relationships: the men were too interested in my ministry (so much so that they wanted to take it over), were opposed to my being interested in ministry, did not want to be with a feminist so they thought they would just change me instead, or felt I needed to meet conformities to their own religious doctrines. I had too many times when I was just ready to give up on life, ministry, and everything that followed with it. I cannot count the number of tantrums, fights I would have with God (yes, they were rather one-sided), and angry about the call on my life because it was more of a burden than a blessing. It seemed impossible to advance in ministry and to have any semblance of a normal life personally. I was frustrated but something kept me going on, even beyond my mother's encouragement, which never failed.

One thing I started to do was reach out ministerially online. I was hesitant about it at first but grew to work with many people one-on-one and work in counseling, studies, and encouragement through the internet. People often mistook the relationship for friendship, no matter how professional I might have been, because it was over the internet. They used this as an excuse to falter on ministerial support, and thus often left on less than cordial terms. One thing which came out of this was the establishment of a correspondence Bible study. Popular with students overseas, we found many who just wanted something for free but a few that went on to study with us seriously through Apostolic University. One such student was a Kenyan refugee who came out of the Catholic Church because of our study. We had sent him a Bible as he was unable to obtain one - and read it every night, taking it everywhere he went. He truly believed the faith we taught him was the reason that he alone, while in a tent with five other people all of whom had malaria, remained healthy. After he was moved on again we never heard from him after awhile, but his story still speaks to me as a testament that God is real and at work in our ministry.

Another thing which came out of internet work was interest in church covrering. In 2005 churches began to seek me out to cover their ministries and I began to do so. Most of them were overseas and some were quite difficult. Most of these original churches left when we did not give them money - and though many have come and gone over the past few years, many have been replaced by these older churches as well. I continued to write and preach a little here and there, and also do an occasional audio recording. While the ministry wasn't where I desired it to be and was not measuring up to the vision God had given me, it seemed like for the first time that ministry might be possible.

In November of 2005, I met my husband while doing ministry work on the internet. I had resolved myself earlier that year that whether or not I was ever to be married would be in God's hands as I had never had a successful relationship and was unsure about the issue for myself. I knew as soon as I met him that I would marry him. He has proven to be a great blessing in my life despite our earlier differences and I am pleased to say that we were married in July of 2007.

In September of 2007 I received a bulletin on MySpace from a woman many on here would know as Minister Dr. Rebecca Michael. I had been on MySpace about four months and had few friends on there, but remembered coming across her profile because at the time she said she was an apostle. She sent out an announcement that Kingdom Women Ministry was taking new members and invited all of us on there to join. I was very hesitant initially to join anything because I had such a poor track record with other ministries. Between 2005 and 2007, I had been involved with two ministries in a large way that were very damaging to my perspective of working with others as they tried very hard to stop the ministry work and discourage me as a minister. I talked to my mom about it and she advised me to give KWM a try, reminding me that if I did not have a good experience, I always had the option to leave. Hesitant, I joined Kingdom Women Ministry at kingdomwomen.ning.com.

Needless to say, over a year later, I did not have a bad experience on KWM! It was here at KWM that I was finally able to become comfortable with my calling as an apostle. Through the awesome teachings of Apostle Dr. Yenan about the apostolic office (and in fact the offices of the five-fold ministry in general), I was able to understand things about being an apostle that I hadn't prior. It's a blessed and honorable thing to have a ministry as an apostle, and to reject that or to try and make the calling into something else undermines its importance. The most notable thing in my story is that for years I sought for a place to belong, a place where I would fit. I tried to fit in among my own family and that wasn't my place. I tried to fit in in the Catholic Church. I tried to fit in as a congregation member of various churches and serve in offices and places that were not what I was called to do. I tried to fit in by compromising myself, my values, my perspectives, and even my calling. For years I compromised to try and "fit in" thinking that being a part of was the way to success. And I spent years compromising my calling and ministry and watching it not grow at all. The struggle was in vain because I was not following God's full will for my ministry and, in a greater sense, my life. Once I stopped the struggle - my ministry started to change and grow and, thankfully, it continues on that course.

Today, Apostolic Fellowship International Ministries runs Apostolic University (hear our programming at www.blogtalkradio.com/apostolicuniversity), Apostolic Churches and Ministries in Christ (with a number of churches worldwide), the Power For Today Magazine and radio program (heard in North and South Carolina and online at www.blogtalkradio.com/powerfortoday), the Apocalypse Watch radio program (heard online), the Women's History Hour for Kingdom Women Ministry (www.blogtalkradio.com/kingdomwomenministry), and an extensive catalog of items with over 200 titles of books, tracts, DVDs, and CDs. 2009 poses an ambitious schedule of traveling and preaching - and all I can say in looking back is, "Look what the Lord has done!"