AGAIN!!!

     One of the greatest feelings in the world is something that just happened to me....AGAIN! About a year ago, or a little less, HMA Tulsa started picking up a woman from the homeless shelter that just showed up there one night. She came to church off and on and it became very obvious that she was on drugs pretty bad. She prayed a few times but didn't seem to get the help that she needed. One nig

ht she really got through and it seemed that the Lord touched her greatly. After a few more services we never saw her again. The only contact that we ever had with her was through the shelter and they didn't know where she went.
I stopped at Wal-Mart this evening and walked right into her. She hugged me and introduced me to her three daughters. "This is Brother Todd that I told you about." She explained to me that she left her home and three daughters for the drugs and just lived on the streets and in the shelters but THAT NIGHT, she got healed and delivered. Her three daughters had kept the home as best they could for over a year and after her conversion the lady went back to her home and daughters and re-took the responsibility of raising them and helping them. The girls looked to be between the ages of about 14 and 20. She told me that they go to church where they live and she has been clean for 5 months straight. She was over here visiting friends and was so glad to run into me......Not as glad as I was to run into her!!!!!! This is the fourth time in the last few months that something like that has happened to me at that Wal-Mart. I gotta go to Wal-Mart more often. :))
     By the way, do stories like this just "blow your mind"? Obviously, you need to re-think your ministries.....or get some.
Your humble servant,
Rev. D. Todd Sloggett

Evangelizing the world from Lower Alabama

Here is a note from our HMA evangelist:

     God is so Good. For those of you that recall. We have had a visitor at the Church for the last couple of weeks from the country of Denmark. Due to her place of residence and upbringing, she has very limited knowledge of the God of the Bible. She understood a fair deal of English. God in all His mercy had been dealing with her heart since her arrival.  She attended some of the regular scheduled services at Fretwell. At the youth service at Dean's (This is where we host all of the youth services) Friday night she prayed and said she wanted to be saved! Praise God!!!!! She did not feel comfortable praying in English because she could not express herself. It was the first time that we ever had the opportunity to pray with someone while they were praying in a native Danish language. She was concerned that she could not pray in english. I told her that God could understand her language to prayer however she felt best. :) She prayed in Danish and asked God to save her. I am so Glad that we serve a God who is not limited, and can reach anybody at anytime and in anyplace.

Please see her Testimony that she text as she was flying out back to the county of Denmark listed below:

"I have a prayer request so please tell them that I first of all would like to thank the Lord for forgiving me for my sins, I can't make it without him. I need him and I'm grateful for His mercy.. I love The Lord and give him my all.. Second thank everyone at church for their hospitality. I've loved every minute of my stay.. Tell'em im sorry i had to rush out, but its been a blessing meeting them. I love all of them and I'm gonna miss them a lot when I leave- I wish I didn't have to leave, but hope they pray for me to have a safe trip today when i fly out..""



Thank God for his power. Pray for her that God will keep and strengthen her, as well as allow her to share Christ in her home country. Remember "It's all about souls".  

Love In Christ,
Larry W. Davis, Sr.

The Davis Family,

Spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

One day, one step, one soul at a time.

     A little over a month ago I had been mildly looking around for something to replace my old car with. I drive all over the country working for the different ministry groups and my car is getting very high miles and high maintenance. My wife told me that she had seen a nice used Cadillac or something over by our bank at a residence so I went and looked at it. Very nice car, way out of my range. The man that showed it to me is about 70 yrs old and is the elder of a very predominant business family in the Tulsa area. He recently got married and we were talking bout this and that when he asked if I was the guy from The Saving Place. I said that I was and gave him one of my personal cards and left. He gave that card to his new wife because she had a grandson that had been strung out on drugs and causing a lot of problems for quite some time. The next time that she saw her grandson she gave him my card. He admits that he had no intention of ever using it. What he didn't know is everything that was about to happen. His grandmother got in contact with me and I began to advice the family on what to do about the young man and how to handle him. It drove him to the bottom very quickly and he ran out of options before he knew what hit him. He finally did contact me just expecting some sort of "church, charity" type handout. Some money or a motel room. Instead I told him that he needed to enter the shelter so that we could monitor him and get him to church and prepare him for some sort of program. He blew me off and tried all kinds of games and schemes for a week or so and it only made things worse for him. Then he finally came around and we put him in the shelter and began to help him work things out. After he got some rest and some food for a couple days he started working with us at the thrift store. He went to church while he was in the shelter and we got his I.D. and his Indian Registration Card. We pulled a few strings and got him put on a short list for a thirty day sobriety program and my son Justin ran him all around getting all of his ducks in a row. He was different than most, a little more beat down and a pretty tough nut to crack, but we just kept loving him and being straight and stern with him. And finally today came. He has been clean this time for 20 days and he has a spot in the program. He is going in today at 2:00pm for a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 60 days. He feels like he needs this or he won't stay clean. This is a picture of him and I in my office as he came to part ways with me for a little while. He asked for a hug. I gave him one. Then Justin and I prayed for him. He began to cry. He wept for a minute and then he had to go. Pray for him. God probably just saved his life.

Your life is too precious to waste on yourself!

     A young lady that we worked with a couple of years ago was one of the worst drug addicts that I had seen in a long time. She caused us all kinds of grief, ran circles around us and made a mockery at times of us trying to help her. She attempte

d multiple suicides by overdose. We fought elements of resistance from hell, demons, doctors, family members and churches over trying to just keep her alive long enough to get her some help. It was ugly, it was stressful and it got very complicated. I am not going to call her perfect by any stretch but she is better. Much better. Her life was ruined, destroyed and over, just a couple short years ago. But today she lives a very normal life for someone who was where she was. Now I want you to know that all of her accomplishments are because of a loving, caring, merciful God and I know that. But my little part in it all was finally paid back last night. This young lady has been clean for a long time now and she has since not only revived her own life but has gone so far as to produce another life. I was blessed to see him, hold him and take him to the altar last night so that he and I could have a little prayer and thanksgiving time back to the One that created him and that spared his mother. I love you Jesus!!! I am still willing to work for you.

November and December Newsletter for HMA

                                                                                                                                       Nov/Dec 2012

Greeting from HMA,

     I want to share with you several things that have been going on with us lately and invite you to help bare the burden of sharing the Lord’s gospel to the masses.

     First of all we have gotten very involved lately in reaching for “high risk” children.  Children of alcoholic, addicted, imprisoned or nonexistent parents.  Here is a picture of about sixty bus kids from Pastor Lamb’s in Richmond, KY.  All brought in out of ghetto housing and ultra-low income government projects.  Kids that if not reached now will be our next, drug addicts, pimps and gangsters.  Two of our ministers, (Myself and Pastor Rowland), have been invited to speak in public schools starting next week.  Myself in Oklahoma and Pastor Rowland in Kentucky.  I have spoke, taught and counseled before in the Tulsa public high school system.  

     Next I want to show you some more pictures from the homeless, addiction and street ministries that we have been working on for over 6 years now.  One is a visiting minister, (Rev. Don Rich), preaching the unadulterated gospel to a group of about 50 mesmerized homeless people in one of our morning services.  Many prayed for salvation that day.  Then we have a very large group of homeless people.  Probably about 200 in total that are being fed at our Christmas for the homeless program last year.  If you notice there are several small children in the picture.  Yes, many of them are homeless.  Most of the children that we work with are what is referred to as “part time homeless”.  They go to school and live in shelters or friends houses but by all real standards they are homeless.  This last picture is of four young men praying in our altars.  All four of them go to the mission.  They are or were homeless and at least three of them have an addiction problem.  The one at the bottom in the light colored shirt actually worked his way up through our jobs program by volunteering at our thrift store and we eventually helped him and his wife get jobs and an apartment. 

     Now that it is already November I need to plead with you about funding.  The holiday season is the most expensive time of the year for us to do American missions.  Many of you have been so good to give extra during the run up to the holidays over the last few years.  Thank you and God bless you richly for that.  Please consider these last few lines carefully and prayerfully.  Our missions to the streets of America are growing by leaps and bounds.  We have homeless, addiction, battered women, high-risk teen, high-risk child ministries and three traditional churches all going at one time.  We still need the big bumps in giving that so many of you have been able to do during this time of year and at our major fundraisers etc.  But what HMA needs most, is even more consistent giving.  The more that churches, families and individuals can give regularly, the better.  Weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or even annually supporting on ANY level will help us plan and spend more efficiently.  God bless you for all that you do for us and please pray for us here at HMA as we strive to do all that we can to expand the reaching of the Least, the Last and the Lost!!!  Merry CHRIST-mas and have a very Christ like holiday season.

HMA CHILDREN

To all of our readers,

     We hear at HMA have been blessed beyond measure.  God has allowed us to use our platform of working with American Homeless people to reach way out into so many areas.  One down fall of it all has been that it confuses some people.  I have been questioned over and over...”Are you working with the homeless or drug addicts or teens or just outreach in general or...?”  The answer is simpler that you realize.  We are setup to do biblical new testament outreach.  We teach it, preach it, share it, establish it and encourage it.  It takes two very important things to do new testament outreach correctly.  A basic and real understanding of outreach and a basic and real understanding of Christian standards.  Many church groups have moderate to radical doctrines on one or the other but in order for it to work correctly it takes a good structure of both.  

     With this in mind, you must have a “target” audience.  A ministry without a target audience is a ministry in jeopardy of eventually going by the wayside without ever doing much of anything.  I know, everybody likes to say that their target audience is EVERYBODY, and while that makes a good preaching point, you still need some regular reasoning behind what you do everyday.  For example:  HMA’s original target was “every body that nobody else wants”.  That lead us to the homeless and the drug addicts and the prostitutes and the mental patients and eventually we were able to come up with a more clarified target audience...THE ULTRA POOR!  Everyone that we have been able to target to work with in the United States has fit into that category.  Sadly enough, it then becomes fairly obvious as to why the “church” isn’t targeting them.  They cost money instead of being a way to make money.  Oops, I wasn’t supposed to say that.  To be fair, they are also often left out because people don’t understand HOW to reach them.  

     Well, through our efforts of preaching to drunks, druggies, homeless, minorities, inmates, etc.  Many of our rapidly growing group of ministers have tried to convince me to reach specifically for children.  To my shame, I have deflected and dodged the whole children’s ministry thing for a long time and the reason is even more shameful.  I don’t personally “like” it, mainly because I am not “good at it”, like I am with the other types of ministries that we do.  I enjoy the fact that I am very knowledgeable and experience rich when it comes to dealing with homeless, addicts, gang members, inmates, etc.  Then again my calling isn’t to what I enjoy but to what lifts up Christ.  

     The children fall into the target group that we are already shooting for and they come with one HUGE bonus.  If we reach them now, then they will not have to suffer through all the hurt, heart ache and destruction before we reach them later.  

     Because the Lord has called and blessed those of us at HMA that are reaching the really hardcore on the streets of America, we shall continue.  This letter is to show that many of our affiliates have also begun to steadily turn some of their focus and efforts on the youth of America.  Believe me, the streets of America and the youth of America definitely overlap.  

     We have two affiliate churches in Kentucky, one that has been doing mass children's outreach for a while now and the other that has just begun.  We have an evangelist in Alabama that has been doing some great work with at risk teens and runaways for a long time.  We have an affiliate church in Alabama that literally brings as many as 100 children to church on a single Sunday and feeds and teaches them about the Lord.  Many of these are ultra poor and at risk children living in deep poverty.  So I am letting you know that this other area of outreach that you may not have known me to talk that much about is out there and being worked just as aggressively as the rest of what we do.  

     Who knows what we will get into next.  I know how humans, especially religious humans, feel the need to categorize everything and I realize that we are kind of hard to categorize but that is because we operate just a little different here at HMA.  We have the motto:  Think Outside the Box but Inside the Bible!  Let that sit on your brain for a minute until it starts tingling.  HAHA.  I have a banner up in my office that I look at 100 times a day because it is right in front of my desk.  It says: There Is No Box.  For example: We here at Holiness Missions to America are known all over America for homeless and addiction work.  In fact, some people still think that our name is HOMELESS Missions to America.  We actually get checks made out to that, and of course we cash them.  :)  But when we put out our first seminar, the topic was “Affair Proofing Your Marriage”.  Now to be fair we have seminars coming out on American Homelessness, Dealing with Addicts, Church and Politics and so on.  But the idea that a homeless mission guy was releasing a seminar on Affair Proofing Your Marriage???  I have learned that the Christian church world as a whole is struggling with two major categories and losing terribly to both of them.  Adultery and addictions.  So I decided to attack the adultery thing first with the seminars, partly because we were already doing so much boots on the ground work on addictions and partly because if we don’t stop the bleeding in the marriage and in the home then we will probably never catch up on the streets. 

     The truth is that we at HMA don’t really care who someone is, we just want to help them.  We don’t care when we help them, we just want it to be soon. We don’t care how we help them, we just want it to be biblical.  

     With all of this in mind, I was asked last week in Texas, “Brother Todd, you guys have sooooo many irons in the fire and you seem to be helping so many people and so many ministries...how do you do it?  I mean, we barely pay our little church bills.”  Here is the answer.  We LIVE ministry.  It is not our hobby or our career, it is EVERYTHING to us.  We think of ways to spend less at home so that we can do more at the mission.  We work very hard to be as debt free as possible to keep from burdening the work.  Even that is not enough.  We have found that there are many many wonderful people around the country that have a tender heart and a desire to see souls saved and hurts healed and people of all kinds helped.  We have been blessed by God to continually tap into those resources on a regular basis.  Yes we have some big donors and sponsors and thank God for them.  I don’t know what we would do without them.  But our main supply is the young couple, the little country church, the elderly individual that sends in there regular monthly donation of $20.00, 40.00, $100.00.  The college student that mails a check for $10.00 six times a year.  When we know what we can count on, we can make it go a long way toward reaching the least, the last and the lost.  God bless you for reading this and please, help us help the children too.

     

     

     

Dear friends of HMA,
     I want to share with you a very special time that I recently had.  Just last week I was in one of my very favorite places to minister.  I was blessed beyond measure to preach the back to school revival in Neosho, Missouri for the group that includes the Ozark Bible Institute (four year college), thier local K-12 christian school and the Bible Holiness Assembly of God Church.  Brother Taylor and his associates, church, school and students were wonderful and ready to have church. 
     I preached Tuesday through Friday nights and taught classes at the college during the days.  I also preached a combined school chapel service during one of the days.  While I was there I was able to get re-aquainted with several old friends and meet many new ones.  I was especially thrilled to meet all of the students and have them in service, in chapel and in classes.  I met the sons and daughters of many great Godly people that I have known around the country.  To see and be a part of the lives of the next generation of Holiness preachers and workers shook me to my very core.  I literaly went back to my room at night and wept.
    To have the amazing priveledge to preach sermon after sermon and watch 150 or so young adults, (plus many others), respond to the altar call over and over again and pray and weep and seek the face of thier Master, gave me fresh hope and zeal for the work ahead. 
     The first picture that I have here is of the Chapel service during a school day where I was allowed to minister to both entire school systems representing a combined 17 years of education, (kindergarden through seniors in college).  The second picture is of the young ladies side of the altar during a night revival service at the church. I would estimate that more than 100 young people were praying in the altar every night.  And the last picture is from the balcony of Bible Holiness and it is also a night service of the back to school revival. It is an estimate, but I assume that there were about 300 people or so a night in attendance.  
     I know that it is not all about fun but I must admit that this is one of the most enjoyable revivals I have ever preached.  Meeting pastors and missionaries, fielding questions from the students and so much more.  I was especially blessed on the last night when my wife Niki, daughter Tirzah, pastor Darrel Toliver and two HMA staffers, (Rev. Early Wayne Krumsiek and Sister Atalie Hamil), were able to be in service with us.  I was glad that I was there to challenge these young folks to get back to the call and cause of Christ and I look forward to helping them and watching them as they grow in God until thier ministries exceed mine and many others.  Remember OBI students: OUTSIDE THE BOX BUT INSIDE THE BIBLE!!! God bless HMA and God bless Ozark Bible Institute!!!

     I want to take a few moments and share a little about a wonderful group of people.  My home church!  Over the last fews months they have been striving to updrage buses and vans, completely remodel the K-12 school system, (building, curriculum and all), turn the old homeless facility and outreach center into a new Pre-K daycare and add on to the gymnasium with a new outreach center.  All at the same time, while trying to coordinate it between the Pastor, the deacon board, the Principal, the teachers, the outreach leaders, the congregation, the workers and staffers and all schedules involved.  Never have I seen a grimmaced face, heard a cross word or felt a bad spirit.  Praise God for a Holy, functioning, modern day outreach church!!!  When it is all about souls and everyone is prayed through, it can be done.
     These first few pictures are of what once was the old gym.  It has been the outreach center for the past few years and here it is being troansformed into "Tiny Hearts", our new Pre-K center.  I could not begin to tell you who all was involved in bringing this thing together because I personally had nothing to do with it, but I can say this:  #1-It was a HUGE undertaking, and #2-I sure am proud of them.
      These last couple of pictures are of the rooms as they were being finished up.  I know for a fact that every time I peeked in there for several weeks, there was Sister Katrina Vic with her sister or her sons, working away.  Praise God for her.
     After this comes pictures of our state of the art Christian School: Bethany Christian Acadamy.  Under the competent direction of Principal Dustin.  It is amazing how may people and how much effort went into this new school and how daunting the task really was of transforming it over from the old A.C.E pace school to the new video Abeka program.  But what amazes me even more is how smoothly it has all been done.  Now I know a little bit about the struggles and the bumps because two of my children attend there and my wife teaches there, but all in all, it is incrdebible how well the transition has worked thus far.  Again, I am so very proud of our church, our school and the great spirit of the people that work at both.
     As if it wouldn't be enough that they just finished remodeling the school completely and they were in the process of creating a Pre-K daycare center, they are building a new outreach center at the same time.  I have spent over 16years in ministry.  Almost all of it directly in outreach ministry and I am in awe everyday of how well all the different ministries out of this one local church communicate, work together and get along.  No, I am not saying that it is perfect.  But I will say this:  I have seen people go through things at our church that would have completely destroyed people in most other places and some how God has always given us the grace to work through these most difficult of situations and not just "maintain", BUT GROW!  Praise the Lord!!!
     As someone who does these things for a living I will tell you something:  If you can't get your act together good enough to have any kind of programs going on at your church without having fighting and bickering, murmuring and complaining amongst yourselves....It's probably a good thing that you aren't bringing people into that mess! 
     OK, where was I.  Haha.  Oh yes!  Here are some pictures of the kitchen staff that are working through all of the shifting around and back and forth of still trying to have all of thier scheduled outreach services and feed thier meals to the ultra poor and homeless while all of this is going on.  A picture of the new outreach center as it is still being put together and a shot of the make shift outreach service until thier new facility is finished.
      I would also like to say that I appreciate all of the people that have come and gone and done thier part over the years for the HMA Tulsa service that is now firmly and confidently in the hands of Brother Earl Wayne and Bethany Holiness Church but let me say a VERY special thank you to those that have been with us from the very beginning and never waivered.  Sister Christen, Brother Art, Sister Betty Jo, Brother Justin, Sister Jo Ann and of course my wife and the rest of my family, and all the new staff as well....this is truly your work for the kingdom of heaven.  God bless you and God bless Bethany Holiness Church for being that great and Godly example!

Georgia/Florida Summer 2012

     I apologize for taking so long to get back to sharing about all of my ministry trips this summer.  I have already shared about Virginia, California and Alabama.  Now it is on to Georgia. 
     After driving back to Oklahom from Alabama, spending four nights at home and leaving my wife home with the kids, I drove to Georgia.  I went to a new church that I had never been to before in Nashville, GA and met some great folks.  The new pastor there is Rev. Paul Guthrie.  Brother Paul is a dear friend of mine and had asked me to come by and meet his congregation.  I preached a Sunday morning service for them and we had a potluck dinner.  They were very kind to let me live in thier evangelist's quarters while I was there as well.  That night I preached for Pastor Rob Merit, another close friend of mine, at Chatterton Holiness Baptist Church near Douglas, GA.  Chatterton has been a monthly sponsor of HMA as long as I can remember.  That night our service got out a little early so I slipped into Douglas and went to church at Westside Holiness church where Bro. Steve Gentery is pastor and was able to see many of my old friends.  Westside has been one of the strongest supporting churches of HMA since I met them.  While I was there Pastor Steve asked me if I could swing back by in a couple of weeks and preach for them.
     The next day Bro. Robbie Guthrie took me to lunch with the Sheriff of thier county and then the Sheriff took us out to the county jail.  While in the jail the three of us had a long and deep discussion and bible study about salvation, sanctification and the works of the spirit.  If was a fruitful day.  One of my biggest plans for being in Georgia had already fallen through so I drove down into south Florida and preached around for Pastor Rufus Caraway and his organization while I was closer to them than I had been in years.  We had a wonderful time preaching and having church with the saints at the Upper Room Church of God in Arcadia, FL, God's Miracle Mission where Bro. Scott Hostetler pastors in Tampa, FL, New Life Holiness Church in Lake Placid, FL where Bro. Travis Matney pastors and with Pastor Timmy Baggett and his church in Lakeland, FL.  While in Florida we had the tremendous priveledge of stopping by our HMA affiliate in Center Hill.  HMA Pastor J. R. Smith recently re-organized and re-opened Covenant Holiness Church and we were thrilled to be in service with them.
     After hitting all of the churches that I could in south Florida I drove up to Pensacola and preached at Beams of Light Holiness Church for Pastor Phillip Deane, one of the HMA board members because....well, because he is one of my board members.  :)).  The very next night I drove back into Alabama and preached again at Fretwell Tabernacle in Perdido, Alabama where I had just been with my wife about three weeks earlier.  While I was there our newest HMA ministers, The Davis Family, (see our website at www.holinessmissionstoamerica.com), asked me if I would go with them to Samantha Church just outside of Birmingham.  I went and I was so glad that I did.  The Lord moved so sweetly in that service and I was able to get re-aquainted with several old friends.
     Lastly, I drove back to Douglas, GA and spent the night with some great and special freinds of ours, Bro. Tommy and Sis. Mary Guthrie.  The next morning I went to the Annual Holiness Baptist Campmeeting to hear Brother Phillip Deane preach.....(because he's my board member.  Haha).  He is going to kill me.  Anyway, he truly did preach a powerful and wonderful message.  I rarely get to hear much preaching in person anymore but that morning I was awestruck and inspired.  I was supposed to preach that night at West Side Holiness Church in Douglas and then leave out for Oklahoma after service but Pastor Steve Willingham of the Holiness Baptist Campmeeting asked me if I could possibly stay over and preach the next morning during the campmeeting.  So I did preach for Pastor Gentry that night at Westside and we had a great service, as we always do at Westside, and then I spent the night again with Bro. Tommy and Sis. Mary, went back to the campmeeting and Brother Deane and I both preached and then I left for Oklahoma. 
     As you can tell, this summer I have traveled and preached probably more than I ever have since I got off the field "full time".  Most of the churches that I preached at this summer were churches that have sponsored HMA monthly without me ever getting to visit them for years at a time.  I felt a tremendous pull to get back and see these blessed saints and thank them again to thier faces.  The other churches were new aquaintances that were interested in our work and our message or churches that were just on our regular schedule.
     This was the end of our 'big trips" that were scheduled this summer and these last few blogs about Virginia, California, Alabama and this one about Georgia and Florida, span a period of time where I was home for 6 nights out of 7 and 1/2 weeks.  We have taken some "smaller" trips since then and I will try to blog about them as well.  During all of this traveling and preaching out, we, (with the trememdous help of our staff and families), were able to maintain all of our other mission works and the furniture thrift store while continuing to build on our part of the kingdom of heaven.  Also I would like to add that 100% of all of the funds raised on each of these trips were used in the direct work of reaching the least, the last and the lost!  God bless each and every one of you. 

     Here is a comment from a friend on face book about this anti-abortion picture that I put up.  First her comment, then my response.  This is all part of a campaign to de-fund Planned Parenthood.   Remember this is face book.

      Friend wrote: "Planned Parenthood isn't just about abortion; people need to stop and think. It gives out birth control more than anything. And if a woman was raped or a victim of incest, abortion isn't wrong!!"

      I responded: “Thank you Tracy for your input and thank you sooooo much to all of my face book friends for honoring my wishes and not starting an ugly and ridiculous back and forth name calling session on my page.  You all know that I don’t believe in that.  You also know that I hardly ever answer a comment like this because I don’t generally think it my place to butt into everybody’s personal business.  BUT….this happens to be on my page and it was my business to start with.  Friend, please know that this is a topic that I study, preach and teach about all the time and have for years.  In other words, this is what I do for a living.  Your comment is going to help me in my teaching but you probably aren’t going to like it.  J   I have no axe to grind with you personally and most of these comments won’t even be directed to you but your comment just gave me an opening to further my point with others.  Here goes.

     You made two very false statements and you made them sound like they were facts.  Here are the facts.  THESE ARE PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S NUMBERS, NOT MINE!  94% of all Planned Parenthood financing goes for abortions.  You said that “it gives birth control more than anything else”.  Not according to Planned Parenthood.  Also, rape and incest abortions make up……..are u ready for this……    .008% of all abortions in America today.  That means that some believe that we should fund all abortions just because they think that the .008% of them that are “not wrong” can be taken care of.  This means that according to Planned Parenthood and the federal government statistics that one out of every 12,500 abortions performed in America have anything to do with the two scenarios that you are defending.  So we will terminate (kill) 12,499 babies so that we can be sure to be able to get rid of the “right one”?

     Now I must remind all of my “readers” that if you have heard me preach the sermon titled “The Master’s Soup” somewhere then you may remember me saying that almost all liberal thinking, pro-abortion or pro-choice minded people have been pre-programmed to defend abortion using the “rape or incest” clause.  It is one of the only “decent” arguments that they have left.  (Friend, your comments played right into my teachings from the past few weeks is the only reason why I am taking this opportunity.  It is not so much that I am hoping to change your mind; I probably won’t, as it is to use your comments to reinforce the ones that I am already reaching.  No dis-respect intended).

     The only other thing that I must say for now is about the statement that “in the case of incest or rape, abortion isn’t wrong”.  This is literally WORD FOR WORD the same argument I hear all over the country.  All I can say is if you do not believe in the God of the bible, I can see why you would think that.  If you do believe in the God of the bible, as hard as it is, I don’t know how you can pretend like life was brought forth, even in such a disgusting and cruel way, without God being involved.  And if God was involved, I don’t know how you could pretend to be “His judge” and try to destroy something that He helped created.  I understand that this is very complicated and difficult, but just because we don’t understand a situation doesn’t mean that we can pretend like God doesn’t exist for a few moments while we try to undo nature.  I would be afraid to face God someday with that on my sheet.

     Probably the most unique thing that I have encountered while studying and debating this issue across the country is whenever I answer the rape or incest clause the way I just did, the other side always goes off on how disgusting and horrible and insane of an act rape or incest is and they always try to emotionalize and personalize it by asking me what I would do if that happened to my wife or my daughter.  That’s when I ask this question:  “Do you, dear liberal pro-choice friend, believe in capital punishment?................oops!  Long silence.  No, they don’t.  I am sure there is one out there somewhere, but I have yet to meet a pro-choice person that isn’t also against the death penalty. Do you know what this means?????  It means that they believe that the baby should be killed because of how horrible an act that was committed in conceiving it but that the man that performed the horrible act should NOT be killed.  HELLO????  Is anybody home???????? 

     Anyway, now there are a few more FACTS out there.  Not my facts either.  Read, get mad, contemplate, pray, respectfully disagree, whatever.   God bless each and every one of you.  Love and prayers to all.

     One last thing to all of my friends.  If you agree with me, just hit like.  Don’t type a five line note that says that you agree with me and then leave a couple of cheap shots, bad names or personal opinions against people that may disagree.  I’m not trying to intentionally offend people, hurt people or start a war.  But when I do respond, it is with FACTS and sincerity and tough love, not flippant meanness or self righteous arrogance.  BIG DIFFERENCE.  We Love Everyone.  Pray for us.”

Your humble servant,

Rev. D. Todd Sloggett

    

    

Alabama Summer 2012

     My wife and I recently had the time of our lives on a trip to Alabama.  We drove down from Tulsa to be a with some of the most wonderful people in the world.  It has become practically our home and family away from our home and family.  The place is Perdido, AL just a few miles east of Bayminette, a few more mile east of Mobile, just North of Gulf Shores and just west of Pensacola, FL.  Brother Jerry and Sister Helen are the Pastors of the church.  I have always heard the church reffered to as Fretwell Tabernacle but the offical sign says "Free Pentecostal Holiness Church".  The people are very country and many of them live out in the "woods".  They are some of the hardest trying, hardest working, lovingest, best people that we have ever come across.  They work with drug addicts, trouble teens, broken homes, you name it and are doing a great job of building a church.  Brother and Sister Stewart are some of the workingest, runningest, lovingest people that anyone ever knew, and they run a church "wide open".

     This second photo is of Brother Danny Ray and Sister Flossie, they are assistant Pastors at Fretwell Tabernacle. He runs the services and preaches a lot of times etc.  This is an extremely blessed couple of people.  Out of this one little church there are all kinds of ministries at any given time.  They run feeding programs, transporting children back and forth, community welfare to help pay bills, counselling and so forth.  Not to metion all of the church services, singings, etc. etc.  One of these singings is exactly the reason why my wife and I went down this particular time.

     The Fretwell church sponsored a singing and benefit supper to raise money for HMA.  The money is specifically to go toward our newest project called "The Disciple House".  The Disciple House will be an overnight stay facility where young men can come and be engulfed in 24 hours a day worth of work, teaching, training, church, question and answer time, prayer and many other things to help them get delivered from addictions, bad behavior and sometimes just themselves.  We are currenlty in an ongoing fundraiser for this project and this concert was part of that fundraising.

     The singing was amazing.  Sister Grace Church and her family and band from Birmingham, came and donated thier time and talents and just blew me away with thier singing and sweet spirit.  I was able to purchase a couple of thier CD's and I love them.  We appreciate so much what they did to help out the cause.  Besides just Sister Grace and thier group we had local singers.  The Baggett Family and the The Davis Family sang in turn and as always they blessed us tremendously.  These local groups were born and raised as best I know in this deep south, gulf area and they have always been associated with Fretwell Tabernacle.  They each have thier own special sound and they all interchange and work together so well. 

     People came from all around the region that night to eat, donate, play, sing, listen and fellowship.  We had the priveledge of meeting many new friends and re-aquainting with old ones.  I have great hopes of this becoming one of several annual events for HMA and the cause of reaching the least, the last and the lost.  By the end of the night, $5,000.00 had been raised for the help of the homeless/rehabilitation facility.  God bless everyone and all that you have done.  Only God knows who all helped and just how much you really did.  I pray that He rewards you openly and abundantly.

     Before leaving the area we were priveledged to preach a couple of services at Fretwell and oh how the glory did roll.  If you have never been to one of these services then you have no idea what I am talking about.  Imagine a little country church off in the woods that can seat about 200 people that ends up holding about 3 or 4 hundred instead.  Opening prayer, wonderful congregational singinging ringing throughout the area.  Special songs by sweet spirited people.  Tear filled testimonies of physical healings, hearts, homes and husbands being touched and helped.  Very small children standing up and saying "I love Jesus" and quickly sitting back down with big smiles and blushed faces, troubled teenagers asking for prayer and guidance, a message from an elder, a word from The Word........then an invitation given either by God or man and then.........then.........alcoholics, addicts, the broken, the bitter, the hurting, the helpless and everyone else with a need or a praise begin to make thier way around the front for a time of refreshing, healing, forgiveness and stregth.  GLORY!!! 

     For the record, these other pictures I just could not help but put in.  These are pictures of families: preachers, teachers, singers, from the Fretwell church that, along with many, many others, helped put on the singing and the supper and help with all the day to day activities of the church.  I also included one of the banners that was put up in the community to advertise the benefit.  Each time that the church has an event they have several of these big banners made up and they put them out all around the greater Bay Minette, Alabama area.  This church is "famous" in that part of the country for thier giving, thier love and thier moral standards thier ability to pull together and help people in need.  I know that it sounds like I am really building this one group up and I know that we have a lot of good Godly people in this world but believe me, this is a special bunch. 

     My wife and I were only able to be there for four day but we were blessed beyond measure and enjoyed every minute of it.  Before we left I was able to take my wife to Gulf Shores for a little shooping and a nice dinner on the beach.  We then drove back to Oklahoma where I needed to get some book work and ground game done for the mission.  I was in Oklahoma for four days and then my wife finally stayed home with the kids while I left agian to go to Georgia and Florida.  Next stop...Georgia.